On 06/02/12 19:01, Tony Duell wrote:
Is that _all_ you hurled at him? I would have thought
a medium-sized
mains transformer would be a suitable missile here :-). Even more so if
it has exposed connections and is plugged in at the time...
He was extremely lucky. And I haven't seen him since :)
Take the keyboard apart, clean the membeane pads and
the LED leads with a
Q-tip and propan-2-ol. For obvisou reasons don't try to solder to the
membrane sheet...
Well that's a given. The melting point of solder is, after all, much
higher than that of plastic...
I'd be tempted to try the PCB cleaning block (one of those brown rubber
things from Maplins, but Rapid and Farnell sell them too) if I had a
suitable support for the LED legs.
And surely you know how to test LEDs... (analogue
ohmmeter, some DMM
diode test ranges, battery and resistor, etc)
... Peak Atlas DCA05 Semiconductor Analyser? :)
(As in, the little blue box which IDs the pinout and basic parameters of
transistors, diodes, FETs and so on)
The multimeter works too, but only just -- the DCA will drive the LED at
a decent brightness, the DMM requires that the bench light be turned off
in order to see the LED...
One of the
many alternative uses for a roll of 'rainbow' IDC cable :)
I often use an offcut of stripboard or a DIL socket/IC for this....
I guess you meant "to ID the pin spacing" -- I meant "to work around the
issue of mismatched pin spacing".
IDC cable has a pitch of 0.05in (1.27mm) as standard, and can be cut and
formed to match most pin spacings greater than or equal to that.
I have a small metalwork vice on my electronics bench
for criming IDC
sockets, holdign things when soldering, etc.
I've got a small ball-head hobby vice for some of that, a Panavise with
PCB holder, and the obligatory set of Helping Hands. The Panavise gets
the most use.
(I also have a set of hand-crimpers for IDC plugs... somewhere...)
I've never needed the
helping hands, I cna normally hold the cable by hand when soldering to a
DIN plug. Even if I do end up with burnt fingers...
I prefer to avoid burned fingers wherever possible. Makes it a bit of a
pig to type... :)
*tap* "Oww." *tappatappa* "Oww, dammit." .....
Indeed... There are some phono plubs with a sliding
sleeve on the
outside so that the ground makes first, but they are not common...
I was wondering if anyone had done that...
I can't rememebr where I saw them, but it was one of the well-known
connector manufacturers who made them.
Sounds like something Neutrik would do.
Probably
rather pointless too -- most of the time, phono plugs go in
when the stereo is set up, and are left until a house-move or whatever.
You don't live in my workshop... ;-0
I also don't hook experimental gear up to my office sound system.
I have an LM386-based bench amplifier for that. Even has a built in
speaker, and a volume control labelled from 0 to 11 :)
Cheers,
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/