Got lazy and took the dogs out in the Dodge, instead of the Jeep. Dodge stereo is low, right down by the stick-shift. Went to let the Crew out, and they all jumped out the driver door as soon as I got out. Didn’t want that. Doxie, being somewhat crippled and FUBAR muscled his way from the floorpan of the passenger side across to the driver side, but in the process, knocking the USB stick jutting out of the stereo into 4 pieces.
Totally Cock-blocked the Saga of Gallo Del Whoever (Joe Ely, look it up. Awesome!)
I put The Dox out and picked up the wrekage… Humm…
The, I don’t know… “Head” broke off the little green board, and the other 2 pieces where the plastic case. I kinda fit the head back to the board and saw 6 tiny little solder joints that were busted. Well, why not give it a shot? Not like I’m meeting with Putin or anything…
A little superglue to secure the board, a little shakey-handed pointed soldeing iron work and … WOO HOO!
I have a device (actually a pair) called a sequencer. Made by the Brother (the typewriter people) company back in the early '90s, it records performance information onto 3.5 inch floppy disks. The info can be re-called later and, in effect, the seq plays the MIDI instrument it’s hooked into. I use them for performing music live. So after 25 years of flawless service, the drive belts gave up the ghost. Easily replaced, no biggie. A few months ago, Seq #1 blew a gasket – the worm screw of the disk reader cracked and a chunk of important plastic fell off, never to function again. Mild panic sets in; I need a back-up. I call the Brother people, who quit making seqs in the mid-'90s, and ask for options. Replacement parts for a 30+ year old device? No chance. Possibly a different disk drive could be cannibalized and installed in Seq #1. The fellow at Brother was a joy to talk with and we could have gabbed all day about vintage musical equipment. Everyone else at Brother was stunned that those seqs were still working.
So I start scanning websites for disk drives. Stroke of luck: a nice guy on eBay had a disk drive from a Brother word processor and, even better, he posted pix of the innards of the DD and the motor/worm screw assembly was the exact same doo-hickey. An easy purchase, a short wait for delivery, a little finesse with the screw driver and a few small solderings and WOO HOO (to quote a certain, wise fish), Seq #1 is back in action.
Oh, forgot to mention, between the time Seq #1 cashed in its chips and I found the eBay DD, I bought Seq #3 as a back-up in case #1 was totes kaput. So now I have THREE! I was going to sell #3 but my wife advised me to keep it and every time I haven’t followed her opinions, I have rued the day. THE END!
Feels more like I used up all the good luck I’m going to have for the next two decades. Generalizing here: the toughest part of DIY electronic repairs is getting the sucker apart and keeping all the screws separate and situated so they go back where they belong. Can I get an AMEN?
A workshop should be feline-free – good luck getting the cats to go along with it! >purr< This table is MINE! >mew< This spot is WHERE I NEED TO LAY DOWN! (bats screws all over the joint) PET ME! NOW!! >claws come out<
Am I getting the gist?
The one use I have for the modern phones is videoing all the steps to dismantling, fixing and re-assembling a futzed-up thingie, but even that’s problematic occasionally.
That’s a common failure, but it sounds like the factory solder joints sacrificed themselves to save the circuit board this time.
The other thing that happens in this kind of situation is that the solder joints hold and strip the solder pad off the surface of the board. I hate when that happens.
Hey, Gato, it’s quite possible your soldering made your device stronger than when you bought it. I wish I had a dime for every cold solder joint I’ve had to re-do (when possible – most have been in remotes which are shit to get open and shittier to get back together.).
And don’t get me started on those push button silicon contact pad dealies inside said remotes.
By any chance is this the device that you would use to play rhythm guitar (if you were the only guitarist in the show) if you were playing a lead part in a song, to fill things in?
You could if you had the right “patch” (synthesized sound). Rhythm guitar has been tough for me to sequence, but finger picking works really well. Here’s a For Sale ad for one of the ones I have. Now if you’re talking about that process that Ed Sheeran (?) guy uses, it’s over my head – something to do with “looping” and I don’t mean tape looping.
I just taught an old dog a new trick! Had a bag of stale popcorn, and instead of dumping it on the floor and starting a feeding frenzy, I tossed each dog a kernel one by one. They would always bounce of the snouts of Dixie, Ted and Hickory, but Doxie caught on fast and would catch them!
Argh! I wish you luck having it repaired far more quickly than I did. 5 days for the repairman to get the part in February, and I lost half my tropical fish the first night after having not noticed that a shelf collapse earlier in the week unplugged their in-tank heater
