30 May
2012
30 May
'12
2:16 p.m.
Myu first
thoguht would be to use the conenctor from the faulty PSU.
It's probalby one of those things that's painful to extrac the pins from
and recrimp them without a special tool, so I'd eiterh desolder the wires
at the PSU board and (and solder them to the right points on the new PSU
board) or cut the wires are couple of inches from the connector ans join
them to the wwires from the new PSU.
You're right about the connector. Someone responded on the Sun rescue list
suggesting that also, but from what I saw trying to remove the pins from
what was left of the connector on the "new" PSU they're the
self-destructing
pins with fish hooks built in, to make sure they never come out. I'm glad I All my tools are in storage and I can't get to
them, or your next idea was
How on earth do you survive? Seriously, I'd not want to be spearated from
my 'portable toolkit' for more than a day or so (that kit contains
screwdrivers (including (real) watchmaker's ones), nutdrives, allen hex
keys, torx drivers, bristol spline keys, pliers, cutters, strippers,
soldering iron, sucker and solder, multimeter, LogicDart, etc).
what I would do. If I don't come up with a
connector and pins (just thought
about where I might order one now that I am typing this, from the same shop
that sold me a db9<->rj45 cable) I'll have to buy another soldering iron
I think you mean a DE9 to 8p8c cable :-). The 'B' or 'E' is the conenctor
chell size (there is no official thing called a DB9, although at least
one person here uses it for a nominally 25 pin D conenctor with only 9
pins fitted), and RJ45 implies a particualr telephone wiring.
and solder, if I can even get it into the country.
Where one earth are you that it's difficult to import a soldering iron?
> As I was doing all this I spilled a nice
full cup of coffee (that I had
> deliberately moved out of the way, or so I thought) all over a Filco
Filco?
Yes, they're Taiwanese keyboards from Diatec (I think the owning company is
in Japan) with your choice of Cherry switches. I chose browns for the
feedback and less noise than the Cherry blues. They were being imported by
a guy in California but he has since switched over to Leupold. Anyway the
Filcos are very nice keyboards, solidly built, heavy, and the Cherry
mechanical switches are excellent and very fast. The only thing is the
keycap printing doesn't hold up and the finish on the keyboard is subpar for what you pay. They've been my daily drivers
for a few years now and
overall I'm satisfied. I have a few Model Ms and they're great but I'm not
as fast on those, although I find I type more accurately using them.
I did that after I sent this post. At first I couldn't figure out how to
get the unit apart but I asked on geekhack (a keyboard forum, believe it or
not) and they pointed me to posts explaining it. It takes one screw hidden
under a Do Not Remove label and then some prying with a Leatherman tool.
That's an old trick. Also look for scres under stick-on feet, etc.
moving
stuff around so I could work on this machine. At least now I get
to test the "wash the keyboard in the shower" theory. So far it's dead
but maybe it will start working again when it dries out. If not that
was an expensive cup of coffee.
Befoe you give up, I'd take the keyboard as far aspart as you can (even
desolder bits if necessary) and clean all the bits separately. I doubt if
you've done any permanent damage. The thing is built pretty nicely, it didn't crack
or fall apart when I
disassembled it. All it is is a mainboard with the switches set in, a back
cover, and a trim piece that goes all around. I rinsed it again in the
shower because it looked pretty bad. Now it's all clean and drying in front
of a big fan. I'll try again towards the end of the week.
When cleaing up tyhe keyboards on some of my old HP desktop machines, I
actually desoldered all the swtiches from the keyboard PCB and took them
out of the supporting frame. And then took the PCB off said frame. It
took an eveneing or so to take them all out, cleanthe parts and put them
back, but I think it was worth it.
Anther thing that I do at the same time it so weed out marginal switches
(ones that have a high ocntact reisstance, for example), If I can't get
replacements or can't improve matters, those go in little-used postions
on the keyboard (for eeample on the numeric keypad, which I can manage
without).
-tony