Posts Tagged ‘ HowTo ’
You probably have seen some of theses around offices and such! Yes, they are Electronic Calculator (not the pocket version btw). So let’s start our disassembling process…
Review & Rating:
Easiness to get opened: 9/10
Amount of parts: 4/10
Usefulness of parts: 3/10
Number of boards: 2 + mecanical + transfo
Disassembling After the Jump ! (Click ‘Read more’)
If you’re the lucky owner of a Dell laptop & that you travel, you might have noticed that their Power brick is made to handle any kind of input as long as you have the proper ‘connector’. Recently, I got my hand on a power brick that had one of the European (I think) plug but I didn’t had the US plug for it.. so, guess what happen ? Indeed, it got butchered up to fit on US plugs 😛
So here’s a quick ‘info-tutorial’ on how to convert the cord for European to US plug.
NOTE: this could probably have been done WAY easily with a ‘repair’ plug but I didn’t had any on hand at that time so…
1-Chop the head & skin it !
ok, that sound horribly creepy but that’s what it is, Chop the poor useless head, skin the beast & Expose it flesh .
2-Prepare the replacement head
Simply get a repair plug or scavenge through your old wires to find a US AC cord.
In my case, I used an old plug so I prepared the connection with heat shrink tubing & then solder it up.
Note that in my particular case, the Yellow/Green wire on the European plug was the Ground and the 2 others (brown & Blue) were the hot wires. never assume anything about the pinout, Always validate it with a multimeter or a continuity tester.
3- Wrap up
Simply put the cover on the plug or wrap your soldered connection & enjoy !
Disclaimer: This technique only works with Power Adapter that are able to dynamically able to accept 110-220v power input. PLEASE, don’t try this with a Power Adapter that only can accept 220v or 110v. you would ruin the power adapter and this could lead to issues and harms.
As promised, I did work on this fabulous project !
I haven’t progressed a lot but at least, I know what to expect from the build. Don’t get me wrong, ” It Is NOT An Easy Project”. It will require patience, time and dexterity (a lot) but the end result will be stunning !
part 1: Get some templates
I start by drawing a “to Scale” Hex polygon and a rectangle that will be my Styrene cutting templates for the base ( not cut yet and please, do not consider the star pattern, it was just easier to make an Hex from the star and links the points 🙂 ). I also cut into a piece a cardboard (from the recycling bin) a 3.75″ x 7.5″ piece for my panels. Please note that the sizing is really your own preference and how much leftover PCBs you have at home.
Part 2: Get some supply
You’ll then want to gather your components/tools. The PCBs, the “stitch” (simple metal wire), the dremel & bits, the electric components (wire, lamp, switch) & the pliers (2 pairs works best). (( Yes, I am aware that I have “WAY TOO MANY” PCBs 🙂 ))
Part 3: Tiling your PCBs & Marking them( Optional )
Only if you’re going the hard route (like I am doing), you’ll want to find the perfect tiling for your PCBs. Start by grabbing your template and put some pieces on it. Don’t worry if some are too big or have stuff getting out (notice the 1st picture? the ‘PCI card’ PCB stick out) because we’ll cut them later. If you encounter PCBs that have holes in them, you can either leave them open (if they’re not too big) or you can find a smaller board (or piece of board) to stitch in there! Once the tiling is done, you’ll have to figure out where you’ll want to put stitches. As a general rule I used, I wanted to have at least 2 stitches per side so that way, the PCBs does stick together more easily. Remember, it’s not because you have more stitches that the boards will hold better (in fact, you have more chances of breaking the board with many holes) but it’s how tight your stitches are that does the difference.
Part 4: Cutting, Drilling & Stitching
If you’re doing the hard way, you’ll have more stitches before attempting to stitch the assembled boards together but don’t worry, we’ll get there… eventually… 🙂 Now, Cut your board to make sure everything fit together. (Simple version will want to have a steady size for the cut. Use your template to draw and then cut the pieces with the saw. Harder version will want to have everything tiled but not overlapping, so make sure you cut pieces where it’s overlapping. ) Then, if you guys don’t mind, I’ll focus on the tiling/stitching part and get back to the simpler version a bit later. So, drill your holes with the dremel (Wear Eyes protection !!) and start to cut some pieces of wire to link them together. Bend one ‘leg’ of the wire, take a quick measure of the length and then, bend the other ‘leg’ and put them in the holes. Flip your board & bend both ‘legs’ down trying to keep them as tight as possible. Careful to not crack the board while doing this (Too tight is no good neither!). Once the stitch is in place, Solder up the 2 legs and cut the extra length of wire. Work your way through the entire board and be gentle with it because it can crack (and you don’t want this to happen!). Once you have a full panel assembled, give it a look in front of a light to see how great it looks and get ready for your other panels…
To Be Continued…
(( Honestly, I was fairly tired last night when I started this and that’s not the easiest project I’ve tried so, please, understand that It might take a few days for me to do it but for sure, it’s easily doable as a weekend project ))
Let’s take this… ‘fictive’ …. situation where you’re 1 week before the holidays and you forgot to get presents for your beloved friends/family & others… Yes, very fictive… anyways, I have a project that will solve your issue! Plus, it’s super ecological since it’s using Recycled material !
Here’s a ‘design prototype’ for the lamp 🙂 The real assembly will follow up shortly in the upcoming days/weeks (as soon as I can find time to enjoy a good ‘building’ time).
So, the design by itself is very straight forward.
Gather the pieces:
-A scavenged light bulb : I got mine from an old Microwave I dismantled, 20w – ish ?
-A toggle switch : Should be able to handle the proper wattage ( remember, W = P * I , which is in my case: 20w = 110v * ?A, then my ? is about 200mA ). ( Optional, this could be integrated with the power cord if you have one ) )
-A Power cord ( Classic… )
-Some old PCB with all the components desoldered (I got tons of theses that I wanted to recycle 🙂 ).
-Either a container of some sort ( Plastic,Metal, Other ) or some leftover Styrene ( If you’re like me and have Plenty of it laying around… )
-Imagination ( Optional, but could lead to the best pieces of arts with it 🙂 )
Tools you will need ( or might need ):
-a Saw ( to cut the PCBs )
-a Dremel (to cut holes in PCBs to link them together and to carve holes in your container/Styrene )
-a Screwdriver ( depending on your lightbuld & socket & switch )
-a pair of Plier ( again, depending on your parts )
Make it:
… To be Continued with pictures and a very detailed ‘How-To’ 😀
This weekend, somebody handed me a “Ericsson Rocket Hub 3G modem” which the PSU had been beaten up (the power wires were cut from the PSU).
Instead of wasting priceless money on a new PSU (which would have cost over 50$), I took a look at the little box. Good thing I did 🙂 !
Cracking the box open:
Probably the hardest part of the whole experience. When they built that PSU, It was on purpose meant ‘There is no serviceable parts inside.” but… since when that stopped me ? 🙂 So, first, if you need to open one, you’ll need a flat screwdriver (somewhat big) to pry on the little edge. Be warned, the case is sealed shut by pressure fit & some kind of glue… It will not come off easily. Once you have the top piece removed, you will have to pry (Again!) to remove the bottom part. This one will come off more easily than the previous one but you will still have a good fight with it. I’d suggest using the same screwdriver and pry where the heatsink is (on the side). Be careful to not break the board and FYI, there is a little ‘somewhat fragile’ floating PCB under the main one so be gentle.
Finding the issue:
This one was quite easy to find… the Output power wires were cut off so, I’ve noticed the issue right away. Now, let’s clean up that mess to be able to fix it… This mean, heat up the iron, arm the solder pump and enjoy! Careful to torn apart the ‘floating’ board (you can see it pretty well in the following pictures). In fact, I’m warning you against it since it did happen to me. The ‘floating’ board came off really quick after I unsoldered one side. I’m guessing the 2nd side didn’t liked the visit so I had to solder a new pin to make the ground connection.
Fixing it:
Then, you will want to test if the PSU is still good (Nothing beat fixing everything, putting it back in the case, getting the case sealed shut properly… and realize that the PSU doesn’t is no good at all…). Grab some alligator clamps and check the voltage; should fire the proper voltage. Take note, once you unplug the PSU, be sure to leave it alone for a few minutes ! the capacitor charge up and it require TIME to bleed up all the current it got stored (If you want to verify by yourself, plug in your multimeter on the 2 clamps and unplug the box… you will see the voltage drop slowly). So, once you know it is working for sure, find out your pinout on ‘which wire should have what’. Once done, solder it up and retest the voltage on your pins in the socket. Should be properly giving the right current.
The finishing touch:
Then, close up the box, put some seal or retainer on your wire so it doesn’t get cut again and enjoy a fully working appliance without spending a bunch of bucks !
In the optic to show how to disassemble a Sanyo Wireless telephone and it base (the 2 bases in fact). The process is fairly easy and straight forward and most of it is unscrewing with a small Philips screwdriver.
So, here’s the model we’ll be working with:
–Disassembled after the jump (Click Read More)–
Continue reading
I thought it could be interesting to show how to dismantle or scavenge parts from Lexmark printers. It’s not a very detailed and general tutorial but IF you’re going to dismantle one, it *Might* look like that. So, I had this Lexmark Z33 and Z517 laying before to be ‘cut open’ so, they are my test subject. In the particular case, the Z33 and Z517 printer architecture is very likely with minor difference (see in step #3).
More After the jump! Continue reading
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