Why do I fix things? First, building and fixing things has always been a hobby. I remember opening up my completely working Sinclair ZX (that's ZED-X, not ZEE-X :) Spectrum just a month or so after I bought it. Just a fun thing to do - poke around and see how things work and how they're made. Second, I dislike the idea of throwing things away. We live in a "disposable society" - we tend to buy new instead of fixing broken appliances. However, many things can be fixed easily. Here are some things I've worked on recently. If you have the same equipment and/or similar problems, it might help you. At the end of the page there's a listing of stores around Tampa where you might find parts that you need.
Symptom: Broken touch screen.
Solution: A coworker had an older E-100 who's battery did not charge any more, and he had moved up to a DELL Axim, so he gave me his E-100 to salvage it for the touchscreen. First thing I did was check if his touchscreen was still working by testing his E-100 with my battery and it worked. So I opened it up to see how difficult it was to remove it and install it into mine. Turns out that just a few screws were needed to be loosened, and the case was hooked at two points.
The touchscreen was screwed in place over the LCD (which wasn't broken in mine), so I decided to remove his touchscreen and put it in mine. I removed the screws, the sticky plastic sheet on the left side covering the LCD connectors, and the 4-wire connector (actually it's conductive wiring on plastic) out and placed it into mine. Closed everything up optimistically and fired it up. Guess what...no response from the touchscreen! Argh. Opened it up again and I noticed that the connector from the touchscreen to the "motherboard" was facing one way in my unit and the opposite way in the "donor." So I twisted the cable around (this is very dangerous with conductive wiring, by the way, but at this point I wasn't expecting this to work...) and plugged it in, and turned the unit on. There was response from the touchscreen this time, but since the wires were actually reversed, the responses weren't as expected. So then I decide to simply put his unit back together with my case (which looked a bit better) and my battery. By this I had plugged and unplugged the touchscreen connector so many times (it was bent badly) that I had no hope it would work again, but it did! So now I have a working unit again.
So CAUTION to anyone attempting a touchscreen replacement - check the connector type on the motherboard when replacing the touchscreen and make sure the donor and recipient are the same!
Symptom: Unit would not turn on.
Solution: A few months after the previous transplant, there seems to be a problem with the on/off switch that requires me to open the case to enable contact to turn on again. I can't see what's wrong really and it's getting to be a pain to do this all the time, so lately I've just put this PDA away.
Symptoms: Erratic behavior - it would accept the cassette, and sometimes not; it would play, and then sometimes not; it would shutdown if I kept pressing play/rew/ff etc.
Solution: The "mode switch" is infamous for becoming dirty on these older Sharp VCRs. It needed to be cleaned (detailed instructions). It is now working almost normally - it doesn't spit out tapes or refuse to play, but it still misbehaves just a little bit - it doesn't rewind every time; sometimes I have to press rewind a few times, and still shuts down on it's own when I'm trying that.
Symptoms: All tuning functions work, except that there is no sound output from the speakers on from the headphones...not even hiss or a crackle.
Solution: I've been told that either one or both of the output channels are blown, and that I need to look for shorts and blown components. Darndest thing - the screws on the case are so tightly screwed in, I can't get them off...I've almost worn off the head off of one of them and I don't want to destroy it. Any ideas on how to loosen tight screws?
Symptoms: FF and REWIND seem to work (somewhat) but play doesn't. Broken belt.
Solution: One of the two belts was almost melting! It was hard to get the correct size, but luckily it was the same size as the second one, so I got one of that size and now the deck is functioning again. The PLAY and FF micro-switches seem to have bad contacts, and I need new ones; do you have a part number for those switches?
More information from another owner is available here.
Symptom: On/Off switch is broken;
Solution: Have a part# for on/off switch, need to buy and install it.
Symptom: Sometimes picture goes away for a while and returns later, audio is unaffected; sometimes the red color component takes over, but normal color returns after a while. These days when I switch it on, it's all red for about 5 minutes, then it switches to the normal colors. When it's red, I can see diagonal stripes across the screen about 1in. apart.
Solution:A couple of replies from my post on the USENET:
From: Dave Dingley: Sounds like a heater / cathode problem .. Put the monitor face down on a cushion and give a firm thump or two on the back ..not too hard .. to try and shift any foreign matter lodged between the heater and red cathode . Turn the monitor off before you do this! The diagonal lines are usually caused by 50/60 hz heater voltage leaking to the offending cathode (commonly the red in these monitors ) and *modulating * it. This has worked for me on several occasions with 1084's your mileage may vary. Another cure may be to take a charged capacitor , say 100uf 70 - 100 volts and discharge it across the heater and red cathode pins on the tube (socket removed) but be VERY careful ... not recommended if you are uncertain about working with higher voltages !!!! From: Tom MacIntyre: Red heater to cathode leakage, it sounds like. A filament isolation transformer can help in these cases.
Symptoms: Seems like something is stuck...doesn't play, rewind, for forward.
Solution: Belts as usual - they had actually melted! Talk about Florida heat! Do you happen to know the exact belt sizes for this model? There are three (including one that runs the tape counter). I need this info to make the unit work at the correct speed!
Symptoms: The switch would activate the first time; motor would start and shutdown. The second time around it would stick and work. Finally it stopped working completely.
Solution: The switch had gone bad. To get to the switch the whole unit had to be opened and disassembled, there seemed to be no other way. It was hard to get the switch out of it's place holder, and if I hadn't damaged it while doing so, I believe I might even have been able to salvage it, only the contacts were bad I think. Anyway, after damaging it, I replaced it with a new switch which cost me $12.95 from specialty store (A and A Vacuum and Janitorial Supplies on Hillsborough)
Symptoms: Missing, needed replacement.
Solution:Received a response from Dan McNeely via email:
Almost all of them use a power-pak type power supply that is in-line with the power cord. Some of the printers have the voltage and amperage marked next to the power connector on the printer, molded into the plastic. Typical cost is about $25 to $35 for a new one from HP. Seems like they were mostly around 30VDC.
Doesn't really seem worth it to spend so much for a power cable on an outdated printer, when I can buy new color printers for close to that amount!
Vance-Baldwin: 870-2606; 1007 N Himes Blvd., Tampa
Dow Electronics: 626-2900 (1 for parts); 8603 Adamo Dr. E, Brandon
D K Electronics: 653-3393; 108 Windhorst Rd. W, Brandon
Radio Shack stores in University Sq. Mall, and Brandon Town Center (bigger!)
Posey Batteries: 621-6402 @ 4319 40th St.