«
Expand/Collapse
84 items tagged "repair"
Related tags:
hacks [+],
todd harrison [+],
battery [+],
simple [+],
todd [+],
robot [+],
tutorial [+],
router [+],
repairing [+],
rechargeable batteries [+],
rechargeable aa [+],
radio [+],
quinn [+],
problem [+],
pick and place machine [+],
pick [+],
pcb [+],
oscilloscope [+],
motor [+],
machine [+],
home [+],
dave [+],
camera [+],
cable [+],
asus [+],
andrew [+],
water chamber [+],
water [+],
warranty period [+],
wall unit [+],
wall transformer [+],
wall [+],
vortex [+],
vfd display [+],
vfd [+],
vacuum fluorescent display [+],
underwater robot [+],
underwater [+],
unbricking [+],
tube radio [+],
trash bin [+],
transformers [+],
transformer based [+],
toyota prius [+],
tool battery [+],
tool [+],
ton [+],
thrift store [+],
thrift [+],
thinkpad [+],
thing [+],
thice [+],
thermal imaging camera [+],
thermal fuse [+],
televisions [+],
tektronix 2236 [+],
teardown [+],
tablet [+],
tab [+],
system [+],
swing [+],
strauss [+],
straightforward affair [+],
steve diraddo [+],
stereo [+],
stepdown converter [+],
step [+],
spinner [+],
space labs [+],
sony cybershot camera [+],
someone [+],
solder [+],
small appliance [+],
sixth generation ipod [+],
silk screen [+],
signal generator [+],
signal [+],
shure e4c earphones [+],
shure e4c [+],
servicing [+],
series [+],
sega dreamcast [+],
seagate hdd [+],
seagate [+],
screen [+],
scratch [+],
scotland [+],
sangean [+],
san jose city [+],
salvatore ventura [+],
salad [+],
s.h [+],
rupert [+],
rrod [+],
rovio [+],
robot operator [+],
roberto barrios [+],
rj45 connector [+],
ring of death [+],
rigol [+],
ribbon cable [+],
ribbon [+],
reverse engineering [+],
resurrecting [+],
rescuers [+],
replacement parts [+],
repairman [+],
repair job [+],
remotes [+],
relighting [+],
reconditioner [+],
rbz [+],
razor [+],
radio guy [+],
radio components [+],
quite some time [+],
quinn dunki [+],
quarry [+],
psu [+],
projector [+],
prius [+],
printing calculator [+],
printing [+],
practice [+],
power brick [+],
power [+],
pop up [+],
polymorph [+],
polisher [+],
plastic tab [+],
plastic knobs [+],
plastic enclosures [+],
pete [+],
permanent damage [+],
pellets [+],
part [+],
packbot [+],
pack [+],
oscilloscope probe [+],
oscillating tower fan [+],
original nintendo [+],
nothing [+],
nintendo entertainment system [+],
nintendo [+],
nickel cadmium [+],
nes [+],
nano [+],
motor controller board [+],
motherboard [+],
monitor [+],
modem [+],
mini lathe [+],
mike [+],
microwaves [+],
microwave ovens [+],
matter of fact [+],
matt [+],
makerbot [+],
maker [+],
machining process [+],
machining [+],
lou [+],
lot [+],
look [+],
lockouts [+],
lithium battery [+],
light timers [+],
light timer [+],
light bulbs [+],
life [+],
lettuce [+],
leesam [+],
lcd tv [+],
lcd [+],
krasnow [+],
koebel [+],
knob [+],
knack [+],
jump [+],
job interview [+],
jim [+],
jerry pommer [+],
jeep grand cherokee [+],
jay [+],
j.w. koebel [+],
ipod nano [+],
ipod [+],
inverter [+],
introductory tutorial [+],
interesting tidbits [+],
imaging [+],
ifixit [+],
iclickers [+],
iclicker [+],
ice [+],
hsdpa [+],
hp laserjet [+],
hp laser printer [+],
heavy smoke [+],
heat conductivity [+],
heat [+],
hd radio [+],
hardware repairs [+],
hackers [+],
grand cherokee [+],
gpu [+],
glytch [+],
gleep [+],
generator [+],
gauge cluster [+],
garrett [+],
game consoles [+],
future [+],
functional unit [+],
fukushima [+],
friend [+],
francisco [+],
ford ranger [+],
fix [+],
firmware bug [+],
firmware [+],
fanbase [+],
fan motor [+],
fan [+],
exhibit [+],
everything [+],
ethernet cable [+],
ethernet [+],
equipment [+],
epson projector [+],
epson powerlite 5500c [+],
epson [+],
entertainment [+],
engineering [+],
encoder [+],
electric razor [+],
electric clothes dryer [+],
electric [+],
elbow [+],
earphone [+],
dvd [+],
dumpsters [+],
dumpster diving [+],
drive firmware [+],
drier [+],
dremel [+],
dreamcast [+],
diy [+],
dishwasher repair [+],
dishwasher [+],
diode [+],
digital calipers [+],
diaries [+],
device [+],
design mistakes [+],
dell streak [+],
defective capacitor [+],
day forum [+],
cruise control system [+],
cruise [+],
cpu clock [+],
cordless shaver [+],
coral reefs [+],
cool stuff [+],
controller [+],
control [+],
consumer electronics [+],
construction technique [+],
connection [+],
computer monitor [+],
computer [+],
color calibration [+],
college [+],
cleanup efforts [+],
cleanup [+],
circuit [+],
christmas lights [+],
christmas light [+],
chris [+],
charliex [+],
charger repair [+],
charger [+],
cellphones [+],
car stereo [+],
car [+],
capacitors [+],
calculator [+],
cable connection [+],
c synthesized [+],
bypassing [+],
business cards [+],
bug [+],
broken lcd [+],
borked [+],
bork [+],
bootloader [+],
board [+],
blown fuse [+],
bill [+],
benefit [+],
ben krasnow [+],
battery reconditioner [+],
battery performance [+],
barret [+],
baking [+],
backups [+],
backlight [+],
baby swing [+],
baby [+],
automatic ice maker [+],
attending college [+],
asus computer [+],
antique radio repair [+],
ancient [+],
amplifier [+],
airport express [+],
airplay [+],
aa rechargeable batteries [+],
Hardware [+]
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
We’ve all encountered the odd plastic part that is broken and unobtainable. Sure, 3D printers can print big replacement parts, but sometimes you just need to rebuild a very specific piece. [AkBkukU] shows off a technique for doing just that using a process you could almost call manual 3D printing. We’ve seen baking soda used to cure cyanoacrylate glue before, but this technique uses it to build layers of glue that are apparently quite solid.
There’s quite a bit of nuance in the video below, but the basic idea is to put a pile of soda on one side of a piece of tin foil and a glob of glue. You dip the part in glue and then into the soda. Each time you get a little thicker layer of glue.
Afterward, you’ll have to file and otherwise shape the new part, but the fact that it can survive being filed should tell you something. We were reminded of how some people use epoxy to form repair parts and then machine them to the exact shape needed. At the very end of the video he builds up layers on a part he can’t dip. Did it work? Watch it and see.
In addition to the manual 3D printing technique, he demonstrates using baking soda to cure repairs on a knurled knob from an old clock radio. That’s a bit more conventional, but if you haven’t seen it done before, it is nearly miraculous.
Glue is amazing. We’ve seen hot glue do injection molding. There are many more types out there, too.
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
While those of us in the hacking community usually focus on making new things, there’s plenty to be said for restoring old stuff. Finding a piece of hardware and making it look and work like new can be immensely satisfying, and dozens of YouTube channels and blogs exist merely to feed the need for more restoration content.
The aptly named [Switch and Lever] has been riding the retro wave for a while, and his video on restoring and repairing vintage toggle switches shows that he has picked up a trick or two worth sharing. The switches are all flea market finds, chunky beasts that have all seen better days. But old parts were built to last, and they proved sturdy enough to withstand the first step in any restoration: disassembly. Most of the switches were easily pried open, but a couple needed rivets drilled out first. The ensuing cleaning and polishing steps were pretty basic, although we liked the tips about the micromesh abrasives and the polishing compound. Another great tip was using phenolic resin PCBs as repair material for broken Bakelite bodies; they’re chemically similar, and while they may not match the original exactly, they make for a great repair when teamed up with CA glue and baking soda as a filler.
3D-printed repairs would work too, but there’s something satisfying about keeping things historically consistent. Celebrating engineering history is really what restorations like these are all about, after all. And even if you’re building something new, you can make it look retro cool with these acid-etched brass plaques that [Switch and Lever] also makes.
-
-
10:00
»
Hack a Day
A dead refrigerator is an occurrence determined to frustrate any homeowner. First there’s the discovery of hundreds of dollars in spoiled food, and then the cost of a repair call and the delay of the inevitable wait for parts. It’s clear to see why a hacker like [Mr. Carlson] would seek another way.
Now, normally a fridge repair video would by unlikely fodder for a Hackaday article. After all, there’s generally not much to a fridge, and even with the newer microprocessor-controlled units, diagnosis and repair are usually at the board-level. But [Mr. Carlson] has had this fridge since 2007, and he’s got some history with it. An earlier failure was caused by the incandescent interior lights welding relay contacts closed thanks to huge inrush currents when starting the cold filaments. That left the light on all the time, heating the interior. His fix was a custom solid-state relay using zero-crossing opto-isolators to turn the bulbs on or off only when the AC power was at a minimum.
That repair kept things going for years, but when the latest issue occurred, [Mr. Carlson] took a different tack. He assumed that a board that has been powered 24-7 for the last twelve years is likely to have a bad capacitor or two. He replaced all the caps, threw in a few new relays to be on the safe side, and powered the fridge back up. It whirred back to life, ready for another decade or so of service.
Kudos to [Mr. Carlson] for his great repair tips and his refusal to surrender. The same thing happened when his solder sucker started to give up the ghost and he fixed it by adding a variable-frequency drive.
-
-
16:00
»
Hack a Day
This story started all the way back in September 12, 1981, when an F-15C aircraft’s landing attempt at Soesterberg Airbase during an airshow went completely FUBAR and the airframe was scrapped. The forward fuselage section was sold and eventually ended up with [Gene Buckle] who began work on creating a fully accurate F-15C simulator using these parts. He has blogged about his progress since 2009 over at the project website.
The F-15C was number 80-0007, which at the time of the crash had flown only 9.5 hours total, making it a very early retirement for an incredible fighter jet. But now the Eagle is back, or at least part of it: [Gene] managed to get the whole system into a state where the instrumentation and controls work again, using the original computer systems and instruments where they were still usable. You can find the YouTube video embedded after the break as well.
Detailed technical information on the F-15 series and this simulator build can be found on the project site, which is awesome both for F-15 fans and those who are into really accurate simulators.
Video of the poor plane meeting its end:
Props to [spacedog] for submitting this tip!
-
-
4:00
»
Hack a Day
Military headphones, at least the older ones, are like few other sound reproducers. They are an expression of function over form, with an emphasis on robustness over operator comfort. Electrically they most often have high-impedance drivers and annoyingly proprietary connectors for whichever obscure radio system they were a part of.
[John Floren] has a HS-16A headset, the type used by the US military during the Vietnam war. It’s an antiquated design with a dual spring steel headband and on-the-ear ‘phones with no muff for comfort, and a quick bit of research finds that they can be had brand new in their 1960s packaging for somewhere around $20. Their connector is a pair of odd metal pins, and rather than doing what most of us would do and snipping the wire to fit something more useful, he hunted high and low for a TE Connectivity receptacle that would fit them. A short extension and a jack plug allowed him to use these slightly unusual cans.
This isn’t a special hack, but it’s still an interesting read because it sheds a bit of light upon these old-style headphones and reveals that they’re still available for anyone who wants their radio operating to have a retro feel. If you buy a set, you’ll probably still have them decades after more modern pairs have bitten the dust.
-
-
10:00
»
Hack a Day
There’s something magical about a laser light show. Watching that intense beam of light flit back and forth to make shapes and patterns, some of them even animated, is pretty neat. It leaves those of us with a technical bent wondering just exactly how the beam is manipulated that fast.
Wonder no more as [Zenodilodon], a working concert laser tech with a deep junk bin, dives into the innards of closed-loop galvanometers, which lie at the heart of laser light shows. Galvos are closely related to moving-coil analog meters, which use the magnetic field of a coil to deflect a needle against spring force to measure current. Laser galvos, on the other hand, are optimized to move a lightweight mirror back and forth, by tiny amounts but very rapidly, to achieve the deflection needed to trace out shapes.
As [Zeno] explains in his teardown of some galvos that have seen better days, this means using a very low-mass permanent magnet armature surrounded by coils. The armature is connected to the mirror on one end, and a sensor on the other to provide positional feedback. We found this part fascinating; it hadn’t occurred to us that laser galvos would benefit from closed-loop control. And the fact that a tiny wiggling vane can modulate light from an IR LED enough to generate a control signal is pretty cool too.
The video below may be a bit long, but it’s an interesting glimpse into the day-to-day life of a lighting tech. It puts a little perspective on some of the laser projection projects we’ve seen, like this giant Asteroids game.
Thanks to [Alan Green] for the tip. He found it while researching his own laser galvo clock project, which you should definitely check out.
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
What do you do when you’re working with some vintage ICs and one of the tiny legs pops off? That’s what happened to [Kotomi] when working with an old Super Nintendo. A single lead for the sound chip just snapped off, leaving [Kotomi] one pin short of a working system …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
There’s an old joke that all you need to fix TVs is a cheater, a heater, and a meter. If you don’t remember, a cheater was a cord to override the interlock on TVs so you could turn them on with the back removed. Of course, in real life, pro repair techs always had better equipment. In 1939 that might have meant the Supreme Vedolyzer which combined a meter, a ‘scope, and a wavemeter all in one device. [Mr Carlson] acquired one that was in fair shape and made a few videos (see below) of the teardown and restoration.
[Mr …read more
-
-
10:00
»
Hack a Day
If you grew up in the latter part of the 20th century, you didn’t have the Internet we have today — or maybe not at all. What you did have, though, was Radio Shack within an hour’s drive. They sold consumer electronics, of course, but they also sold parts and kits. In addition to specific kits, they always had some versions of a universal kit where lots of components were mounted on a board and you could easily connect and disconnect them to build different things. [RetoSpector78] found a 200-in-1 kit at a thrift store that was exactly like the …read more
-
-
19:00
»
Hack a Day
We all have that friend who brings us their sad busted electronics. In [Leo’s] case, he had a MIDI sequencer from a musician friend. It had a dead display and the manufacturer advised that a driver IC was probably bad, even sending a replacement surface mount part.
[Leo] wasn’t convinced though. He knew that people were always pushing on the switches that were mounted on the board and he speculated that it might just be a bad solder joint. As you can see in the video below, that didn’t prove out.
The next step was to fire up a hot …read more
-
-
19:00
»
Hack a Day
The lengths the retrocomputing devotee must go to in order to breathe new life into old gear can border on the heroic. Tracing down long-discontinued parts, buying multiple copies of the same unit to act as organ donors for the one good machine, and when all else fails, improvising with current productions parts to get that vintage look and feel.
This LCD display backlighting fix for a vintage audio sampler falls into that last category, which was pulled off by [Inkoo Vintage Computer]. The unit in question is an Akai S1100 sampler, a classic from the late 1980s that had …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View has two operational IBM 1401 mainframes, which use IBM 1403 high-speed printers. They aren’t some decades-old notion of “high speed” that barely looks sluggish today, either. These monsters slam out ten lines per second thanks to a rotating chain of type slugs and an array of electromagnetic hammers. Every 11.1 microseconds, a character in the chain would be lined up with a hammer, and if the control circuitry identified it as a character that needed to be printed, the hammer behind the paper would drive the paper into the print ribbon and the …read more
-
-
10:00
»
Hack a Day
The Tektronix 2000 series of oscilloscopes are a mainstay for any electronics lab. They work, they’re relatively cheap, they’re good, and they’re available in just about any surplus electronics store. [Mr.RC-Cam] has been hoarding one of these for twenty years, and like any classic piece of equipment, it needs a little refurbishment every now and again. Now, it’s time. Here’s how you repair one of the best values in analog oscilloscopes.
This repair adventure began when the scope died. There were no lights, no screen trace, and a brief hiss sound when it was powered on. (Ten points if you …read more
-
-
19:00
»
Hack a Day
[TheSignalPath] wanted to repair a broken Instek PSW80-40.5 because it has a lot of output for a programmable power supply — 1,080 watts, to be exact. This isn’t a cheap supply — it looks like it costs about $2,200 new. The unit wasn’t working and when he took it apart, he found a nasty surprise. There is a base PCB and three identical power supply modules, and virtually no access without disconnecting the boards. He continued the teardown, and you can see the results in the video below.
Each of the power supply modules are two separate PCBs and the …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
It used to be a spectrum analyzer was an exotic piece of gear. However, these days it is pretty common for a scope to have some ability to do the job — that is, plot amplitude versus frequency. However, a dedicated commercial product will usually have a lot more bandwidth and other features. [Signal Path] picked up an Anrtitsu 7.1 GHz portable spectrum analyzer. An expensive bit of kit — anywhere from around $4,000 to $8,000 on eBay — if it is working, but this one was not. It needed power, but it was also missing the internal flash card …read more
-
-
16:00
»
Hack a Day
You should probably hope you haven’t seen [Techmoan’s] cassette recorder before. That’s because it is a Neal interview recorder that was mainly used by police to tape interrogations. This one was apparently used by the Royal Navy and was sold for parts. Turns out, the repair was simple, but the teardown and the analysis of the machine — you can see it in the video below — is pretty interesting if you’ve never seen one of these before.
The unit looks like a heavy-duty piece of industrial electronics from the 1980s. Unlike a commercial tape deck, this one is made …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
On of the challenges of keeping a vintage computer up and running is the limited availability of spare parts. While not everything has hit dire levels of availability (not yet, anyway), it goes without saying that getting a replacement part for a 30+ year old computer is a bit harder than hitting up the local electronics store. So the ability to rebuild original hardware with modern components is an excellent skill to cultivate for anyone looking to keep these pieces of computing history alive in the 21st century.
This is in ample evidence over at [Inkoo Vintage Computing], where repairs …read more
-
-
1:00
»
Hack a Day
[Uri Shaked] accidentally touched a GPIO pin on his 3.3 V board with a 12 V alligator clip, frying the board. Sound familiar? A replacement would have cost $60, which for him wasn’t cheap. Also, he needed it for an upcoming conference so time was of the essence. His only option was to try to fix it, which in the end involved a delicate chip transplant.
The board was the Pixl.js, an LCD board with the nRF52832 SoC with its ARM Cortex M4, RAM, flash, and Bluetooth LE. It also has a pre-installed Espruino JavaScript interpreter and of course the …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
When the Magic Smoke is released, chances are pretty good that you’ve got some component-level diagnosis to do. It’s usually not that hard to find the faulty part, charred and crusty as it likely appears. In that case, some snips, a new non-crusty part, and a little solder are usually enough to get you back in business.
But what if the smoke came not from a component but from the PCB itself? [Happymacer] chanced upon this sorry situation in a power supply for an electric gate opener. Basking in the Australian sunshine for a few years, the opener started acting …read more
-
-
16:00
»
Hack a Day
We’ve likely all seen a power tool with a less-than-functional strain relief at one end of the power cord or the other. Fixing the plug end is easy, but at the tool end things are a little harder and often not worth the effort compared to the price of just replacing the tool. There’s no obsolescence like built-in obsolescence.
But in the land of Festo, that high-quality but exorbitantly priced brand of premium tools, the normal cost-benefit relationship of repairs is skewed. That’s what led [Mark Presling] to custom mold a new strain relief for a broken Festool cord. The …read more
-
-
1:01
»
Hack a Day
Returning a piece of retro hardware to factory condition is generally a labor of love for the restorationist. A repair, on the other hand, is more about getting a piece of equipment back into service. But the line between repair and restoration is sometimes a fine one, with the goals of one bleeding over into the other, like in this effort to save an otherwise like-new Amiga 2000 with a leaky backup battery.
Having previously effected emergency repairs to staunch the flow of electrolyte from the old batteries and prevent further damage, [Retromat] entered the restoration phase of the project. …read more
-
-
1:00
»
Hack a Day
We always enjoy watching [Mr. Carlson’s] videos because he looks like he is taping in a rocket ship set from a 1950s drive-in movie. In a recent video, he identified an old oscilloscope that had a transformer assembly that is potted with a pair of capacitor inside. The capacitor failed so [Carlson] decided he would repair it. The problem? The transformer and capacitor are potted together with some sort of tar compound. You can see the result in the video below.
He actually didn’t know for sure the capacitor was really in the transformer, but they were in the schematic …read more
-
-
13:00
»
Hack a Day
[CuriousMarc] was restoring an old Model 19 TeleType. The design for these dates back to the 1930s, and they are built like tanks (well, except for the ones built during the war with parts using cheaper metals like zinc). Along the way, he restored a hefty tube-based power supply that had two very large electrolytic capacitors. These dated from the 1950s, and common wisdom says you should always replace old electrolytics because they don’t age well and could damage the assembly if powered up. [Marc] didn’t agree with common wisdom, and he made a video to defend his assertion which …read more
-
-
22:00
»
Hack a Day
If you’ve been hanging around Hackaday for a while, you know that a large portion of the stuff we publish goes above and beyond what most people would consider a reasonable level of time and effort. One could argue that’s sort of the point: the easy way out is rarely the most exciting and interesting route you can take. We, and by extension our readers, are drawn to the projects that someone has really put their heart and soul into. If the person who created the thing wasn’t passionate about it, why should we be?
That being said, on occasion, …read more
-
-
10:00
»
Hack a Day
Big companies spend small fortunes on making sure their computers stay running and that they can be repaired quickly in an emergency. You wouldn’t expect an emergency repair on an Amiga 2000, though. [RETR-O-MAT] bought an Amiga 2000 that did boot, but was known to have a leaky battery on the motherboard. He wanted to rush to replace the battery before the leakage caused serious damage. You can see all this in the video below.
The computer looked lightly used over its 32-year lifespan, even when the case came off. The battery corrosion was evident, though. Even the bolt holding …read more
-
-
8:30
»
Hack a Day
Sure, we all love fixing stuff, but there’s often a fine line between something that’s worth repairing and something that’s cheaper in the long run to just replace. That line gets blurred, though, when there’s something to be learned from a repair.
This wonky temperature-compensated crystal oscillator is a good example of leaning toward repair just for the opportunity to peek inside. [Kerry Wong] identified it as the problem behind a programmable frequency counter reading significantly low. A TCXO is supposed to output a fixed frequency signal that stays stable over a range of temperatures by using a temperature sensor …read more
-
-
13:00
»
Hack a Day
We’ve all done it: after happening across a vintage piece of equipment and bounding to the test bench, eager to see if it works, it gets plugged in, the power switch flipped, but… nothing. [Mr Carlson] explains why this is such a bad idea, and accompanies it with more key knowledge for a successful restoration – this time revitalising a tiny oscilloscope from the 1930s.
Resisting the temptation to immediately power on old equipment is often essential to any hope of seeing it work again. [Mr Carlson] explains why you should ensure any degraded components are fixed or replaced before …read more
-
-
10:01
»
Hack a Day
[How To Lou] sure has shown us how to do quite a few things. This time he’s dealing with an electric clothes dryer that won’t heat. We’ve been elbow deep in our own appliances and we think [Lou's] matter-of-fact demonstration will help you gain the confidence to investigate problems before deciding if it’s a job [...]
-
-
11:01
»
Hack a Day
There are a number of things that can go wrong with an automatic ice maker. But one of the more common problems is that the motor which scoops the ice out of the integrated trays can burn out after years of use. [Dave] recently repaired a common ice maker motor and shows us how cheap [...]
-
-
11:19
»
Hack a Day
We must be walking past the wrong dumpsters because we certainly haven’t encountered equipment like this just waiting to be salvaged. [Shahriar] found an HP 8648C Synthesized Signal Generator while he was ‘dumpster diving’ and set out to fix the malfunctioning lab equipment. He posted a 1-hour video on the project, which you can find embedded after the break. [...]
-
-
14:06
»
Hack a Day
[Jerry Pommer] has an old Tektronix 2236 that is having some issues. Just to the right of the top corner of the screen is a VFD display that is used to show various numerical measurements. Unfortunately this has stopped working, so he made the oscilloscope probe itself in order to trouble-shoot the situation. The entire [...]
-
-
12:01
»
Hack a Day
We love seeing repairs and always marvel at the ability to track down the problem. [Todd] seems to have a knack for this. He was met with a lot of adversity when trying to get the Vacuum Fluorescent Display working on his car stereo. A lot of persistence, and a little bit of taking the [...]
-
-
16:01
»
Hack a Day
It’s not uncommon in cheaper devices to find a ribbon cable soldered directly to the circuit board like the one pictured above. Using a connector would have been a much more resilient approach, but adding parts adds cost. If you take a close look you’ll see things aren’t looking so great anymore. [Chaotic and Random] [...]
-
-
10:01
»
Hack a Day
[Quinn Dunki] is adding wireless audio to all of the rooms in her home. She’s going with Airplay, snatching up used or refurbished Airport Express units because of their ability to work with both her existing WiFi and the Airplay protocol. The last piece in the puzzle is to get an Amp and she chose [...]
-
-
9:01
»
Hack a Day
Hard drive firmware is about the last place you want to find a bug. But that turned out to be the problem with [BBfoto's] Seagate HDD which he was using in a RAID array. It stopped working completely, and he later found out the firmware has a bug that makes the drive think it’s permanently [...]
-
-
6:09
»
Hack a Day
This printing calculator is a thrift store find. [Todd Harrison] picked it up for a measly $3, and it still works! But the device is about twenty years old and he thinks it’s time to clean up the aging hardware. After cracking open the case he digs out some of the stuff that has made [...]
-
-
13:01
»
Hack a Day
[Todd Harrison] took a look inside the business end of the cruise control system from his 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee. We were a bit surprised at how the system operates. The parts seen in the image above make up the throttle control, using a trio of solenoids to vary the level of vacuum inside the device. We [...]
-
-
7:01
»
Hack a Day
They sure don’t build them like that anymore. [J.W. Koebel] managed to take this 1934 Simplex Model P radio and bring it back to life. So where do you start with a repair job like this one? Being a ham radio guy he has a good idea of what he’s doing, and started by replacing [...]
-
-
7:01
»
Hack a Day
CD and DVD payers can often keep the music or movie going despite a small scratch. But occasionally you’ll have to skip to the next chapter/track or the player will just give up. But with data back-ups, a scratch can bork a whole set of files. We think that most of the time these headaches can be [...]
-
-
13:01
»
Hack a Day
[Mike] got his hands on this thermal imaging camera which is designed for use by Firefighters. As he’s demonstrating in the image above, it clips to a helmet and has a display what will let rescuers see through heavy smoke. But this one isn’t working right so he cracked it open and repaired the damaged [...]
-
-
15:01
»
Hack a Day
The fan motor on [Pete's] oscillating tower fan conked out on him. It’s a shame to throw away the whole thing, but it’s near impossible to source parts for a small appliance like this one. So he set out to rebuilt the motor and get the thing working like new. The motor in question is [...]
-
-
9:01
»
Hack a Day
Engineers trying to be memorable at a job interview would be wise to pull one of these pop-up robots out of a wallet. This marvel of engineering uses a laminate construction technique to build a robot as a pop-up assembly. You can see the base used during the process, it’s a hexagon that serves as [...]
-
-
11:07
»
Hack a Day
[Rupert’s] friend cracked the screen on his beloved Dell Streak 5 phone and handed it off to see if [Rupert] could repair it. He says that the glass replacement was a relatively straightforward affair – a process he documented in thorough detail worthy of iFixit. He did come across a few interesting tidbits along the [...]
-
-
6:23
»
Hack a Day
Transformers certainly have a tendency to increase the cost of any project, especially if you need a large transformer to get the job done. Microwave ovens are great sources of free transformers, though they are not always in the shape required for your next build. [Matt] put together three great tutorial videos covering the basics [...]
-
-
13:39
»
Hack a Day
It can be a real drag to fix a circuit board which has stopped working as intended, especially if you don’t have any reference material for the product. That’s the position that [Todd Harrison] found himself in when the controller for his mini-lathe gave up the ghost. He undertook and hefty repair process and eventually [...]
-
-
13:40
»
Hack a Day
After the terrible tragedy in Fukushima, the cleanup and damage assessment has begun. A robot operator, known only as [S.H.] has decided to write a blog about their efforts. As pictured above, they are using [iRobot] models, including the [510 Packbot], and the [710 Warrior]. Since cleanup efforts started, [S.H.] was posting on his or [...]
-
-
10:01
»
Hack a Day
[Francisco] is helping his mother with a repair to the headlight knob on her Ford Ranger. Above you can see the broken knob on the left, and what it is supposed to look like on the right (taken from [Francisco's] own vehicle for reference). We’ve encountered split shafts on plastic knobs before and decided it [...]
-
-
10:01
»
Hack a Day
One of the perks of writing for Hackaday is that we often find hacks that we’ve been meaning to do ourselves. Here’s one that will let us fix our borked ASUS computer monitor buttons. [Silviu] has the same monitor we do, an ASUS VW202, and had the same problem of stuck buttons. We already cracked [...]
-
-
10:40
»
Hack a Day
[glytch] sent in a tutorial on replacing dying capacitors on a motherboard, and we honestly can’t think of a better subject for an introductory tutorial. There’s nothing like having your friends think you’re a wizard for bringing broken electronics back from the grave. For the repair a dead motherboard was [glytch]‘s quarry. After taking a [...]
-
-
11:01
»
Hack a Day
[Dave] has an ASUS tablet PC with a little problem. The device is charged via the docking connector’s USB cable when plugged into a special wall transformer. The problem is that the wall unit tends to overheat, and is shut down by a thermister inside to avoid permanent damage. The word on the Internet is to [...]
-
-
6:04
»
Hack a Day
When a few lights in the dashboard of [Garrett]‘s truck burned out, he was looking at a hefty repair bill. The repair shop would have to replace the huge PCB to change a few soldered light bulbs, so he was looking at a $500 repair bill. Lighting up a LED is everyone’s first project, so [...]
-
-
11:14
»
Hack a Day
It looks like Null Space Labs has a new pick and place machine. This immense repair job began when [Charliex] and [Gleep] found a JukiPlacemat 360 pick and place machine. The idea of having their very own pick and place machine proved intoxicating, possibly too much so because the didn’t return the machine when they found out [...]
-
-
12:33
»
Hack a Day
When [Todd Harrison’s] Christmas lights stayed on well past the pre-defined shut off time, he knew there was something wrong with the timer. He took the device into his workshop and spent some time diagnosing and repairing the device, a process he recorded for all to see. After busting the screw-less timer open with a [...]
-
-
10:36
»
Hack a Day
There’s a ton of devices out there that have batteries in them but most people never think about it. That’s because they use rechargeables that are sealed inside and topped off with external chargers. [Todd Harrison] has a couple of them, including a cordless shaver and a Christmas light timer. He’s had these for years [...]
-
-
15:00
»
Hack a Day
[Spode] has been rocking out with a pair of Shure E4C earphones for about six years now, and he has no intentions of buying another set any time soon. The earphones cost him £200, so when the right channel started acting up, he decided to fix them rather than toss them in the trash bin. [...]
-
-
10:01
»
Hack a Day
[Andrew] has an ASUS wl520-gU router that he is pretty fond of, despite its numerous problems. CPU clock bug aside, the router only has 16MB or memory like many others on the market. While tooling around with the bootloader he bricked the device, so he decided it was time for an overhaul. After some searching [...]
-
8:01
»
Hack a Day
[Thice] had himself a problem. As luck would have it his HP laser printer died shortly after the warranty period expired, and HP was ready to charge him €350 to repair it. Since that would pretty much buy [Thice] a new one, he decided to try fixing the problem himself. He scoured the Internet for [...]
-
-
15:01
»
Hack a Day
Repairing someone else’s design mistakes is much more difficult than starting from scratch. So whenever we come across someone who’s good at this type of trouble-shooting we pay attention. [Jim] had a Sangean HDR-1 in his home. It’s a tabletop HD radio that stopped powering up for some reason. He cracked it open and got [...]
-
-
9:05
»
Hack a Day
If you are currently attending college, the odds are that you are familiar with iclicker classroom remotes. If you have one of these, you might also be aware that they tend to be flaky at times, particularly when it comes to powering on. [Todd] received a few “broken” iclickers lately and has found an easy to [...]
-
-
9:01
»
Hack a Day
Why build a pick and place machine from the ground up when you can start with a full featured, but non-functional unit, and bring it back to life. That’s exactly what [Charliex] is doing with this Juki 360 rebuild. A bit of background is in order here. [Charliex] is working alongside other hackers at Null [...]
-
-
9:07
»
Hack a Day
[Ben Krasnow's] water vortex machine has been an exhibit in the lobby of the San Jose City Hall for quite some time now. Unfortuantely he recently had to perform some repair work on it due to the parts inside the water chamber rusting. This is the same water vortex that we saw about a year ago. [...]
-
-
13:01
»
Hack a Day
[Salvatore Ventura] likes a close shave from an electric razor, and nothing shaves closer than a new set of blades. After shelling out for some sharp ones, the rechargeable batteries died so he set out to replace them with a couple of double A’s (not the ones pictured above as those are alkaline). This fix [...]
-
-
15:01
»
Hack a Day
Lithium battery packs reaching the end of their life usually have a lot of kick left in them. That’s because they’re made up of multiple cells and it only takes the failure of one to bork the entire battery. One of the most interesting examples we’ve heard of this is in the Toyota Prius, but [...]
-
-
15:01
»
Hack a Day
[Webby] inherited a cordless drill from his dad and when he finally got around to using it, found that the charger was dead in the water. He disassembled it and narrowed the issue down to the charger’s primary transformer, but didn’t know where to go from there. A friend suggested that the coil’s thermal fuse [...]
-
9:01
»
Hack a Day
When [Barret] went to use his camera the other day it kept shutting down on him, and upon inspecting the battery, he found that it was a bit swollen. Knowing that he needed a replacement, he turned to an aftermarket battery he had sitting around, but grew pretty annoyed when his Sony Cybershot camera would [...]
-
-
5:00
»
Hack a Day
Behold [Quinn's] broken salad spinner, and just when lettuce and other garden produce are hitting their peak. We were surprised to find out that she was able to get the mechanism apart to fix the broken cord. We’re sick and tired of ultrasonically welded plastic enclosures that lock out the most well-intentioned repairman. But in [Quinn's] case [...]
-
-
10:08
»
Hack a Day
Instructables user [msuzuki777] had amassed quite a collection of batteries over the years, but was finding that some of his rechargeable AA and AAA cells seemed to be at the end of their useful life. After reading some information at the Battery University regarding the restoration process for nickel-based batteries, he figured he might as [...]
-
-
12:01
»
Hack a Day
Hack-a-Day forum member [Necromant] was recently working on a router when he made a terrible mistake. He connected the wrong power brick to the router, causing a 2.5v over-voltage. The router itself was just fine, as it contained a good stepdown converter, but the HSDPA modem connected to the router’s USB port was not so [...]
-
-
12:40
»
Hack a Day
[Hotsolder] encountered a bad encoder in his Rigol Oscilloscope, so he opened it up in order to replace the damaged part. According to him, it was quite an adventure, so he documented the disassembly and component swap for the benefit of anyone else out there that might have to do the same. The teardown is in [...]
-
-
9:01
»
Hack a Day
While the Sega Dreamcast has long been out of production, there is an avid fanbase that loves the console dearly. As with many CD/DVD-based consoles, the Dreamcast can sometimes run into issues reading discs, at which point all games are unplayable. Instructables user [Andrew] got his hands on a pair of the consoles and found [...]
-
-
12:20
»
Hack a Day
[Jay] sent us some details of a quick fix for a baby swing he owns, along with the unlikely place where he found replacement parts. We showed you a pair of his creations earlier this week, which you might recall. As luck would have it, the motor on the baby swing he modified burned out [...]
-
-
14:03
»
Hack a Day
A system is only as strong as its weakest link and [Roberto Barrios] found that on the sixth generation iPod nano the buttons are the problem. It makes sense that the buttons would be exposed to wear since they’re movable parts. The issue isn’t one of contacts or springs wearing out, but how the buttons [...]
-
-
7:46
»
Hack a Day
It turns out there’s nothing more than six Nickel Cadmium AA rechargeable batteries inside of that cordless Dremel battery pack. Yep, standard rechargeable AA’s that you can buy most anywhere, and now you can revive that aging battery pack by following [Stuuf's] guide. Since you’re already at it, a few more bucks will yield a [...]
-
-
9:17
»
Hack a Day
Occasionally when a device breaks, the defect is obvious. Whether it is a blown fuse or a defective capacitor, generally the easy to see stuff is easy to fix. When a problem is more subtle, or when doing some more advanced tasks like adding functionality to a device, greater knowledge about a circuit board is [...]
-
-
8:21
»
Hack a Day
[Chris] was unhappy with the battery performance of his Rovio. It seems that he’s not alone, so he set out to reverse engineer the battery charging circuit to see if there was a fix. Boy is there, what he found is the diode above, apparently installed backwards when compared to the silk screen diode symbol. [...]
-
-
8:00
»
Hack a Day
[M3talhead] takes us through a very informative repair of an old tube radio. In this case, his radio was from the late 30s. He was able to find the original data from Radiomuseum.org. He painstakingly dismantles the radio components and the cabinet. Instead of completely modernizing the internals, he replaces the bad parts and brings [...]
-
-
12:00
»
Hack a Day
[Socket7] got his hands on a projector that had some color calibration problems. Of course the servicing manual says that there are no technician serviceable parts inside, but he cracked it open and fixed it anyway. This is an Epson PowerLite 5500c which was showing blue and yellow bands around the outside of the projected image. He [...]
-
-
11:00
»
Hack a Day
[Daryll Strauss'] dishwasher had some problems that he traced to a worn out part on the upper spinning arm. The hackerspace he belongs to has a Makerbot and he though this would be the perfect opportunity to print his own replacement part. He picked up some inexpensive digital calipers and set to work mapping out the dimensions [...]
-
-
11:20
»
Hack a Day
Chances are you’ve come across an Ethernet cable where the small plastic tab that holds the plug in place has broken off. We have a crimper on hand and usually just throw on a new RJ45 connector but [Laxap] found a simple alternative to fix Ethernet plugs. By using a couple of correctly sized cable [...]
-
-
11:00
»
Hack a Day
[Rbz] fixed his friend’s Red Ring of Death stricken Xbox 360 by improving the GPU cooling. Because an overheating GPU is a common cause of the failure, he first tried to replace the thermal compound for better heat conductivity between the chip and the heat sink. This helped a bit but within two hours the [...]
-
-
11:27
»
Hack a Day
There’s a warm place in our hearts for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s too bad we don’t have that hardware sitting around anymore. But if you do there’s a chance it needs some TLC and there’s always room for a blue LED mod. [Raph] has a wonderful collection of NES hardware repairs and hacks [...]
-
-
13:14
»
Hack a Day
Another broken LCD TV came [Steve DiRaddo's] way. This one had a broken backlight that he wanted to fix. He scrapped his LCD light table in order use the inverter. The two televisions were not the same size, nor made by the main manufacturer, but backlights all operate under the same principles. Using an inverter [...]
-
-
6:15
»
Hack a Day
[Leesam] tipped us off to this cool tutorial for shaping Polymorph. For those who haven’t, it is pretty cool stuff. It is a plastic that comes in little pellets. You can melt it down at relatively low temperatures and mold it to the shape you need. We’ve seen it used on several projects, most notably [...]
