Reminds me of when I tried to fix my fried amplifier last Christmas. The amp was around 20 years old and had mysteriously stopped working in the night. Being cheap I enlisted an electrical engineering friend and together we stripped the amp down. However, the problem turned out to be 2 diodes failing hot. The short fried the micro-controller and associated eeprom thus making the fix more trouble than it was worth. Still, process of diagnosing the issue was a great learning experience for me. I almost exclusively work in software so it is always a pleasure to learn about the electrical engineering side of things.
I almost exclusively work in software so it is always a pleasure to learn about the electrical engineering side of things.
So true.
I was poking around inside a small headphone amplifier to see what was causing a crackling noise (I assumed a loose wire some place) when I tugged a bit too hard and popped off some otherwise healthy wires. I was crushed.
Then I realized I have a soldering iron. I did a crap job (I too am way more CS than EE) but I reattached the wires and got it working again.
Later I learned that the crackling was coming from the cable being plugged into the amp, which was basically fine.
A had a similar problem with a 20 year old amplifier that came for free when I got a pair of speakers at a yard sale. I ended up reusing half of the power supply and case to power a modern chip based amplifier that I built (PCB toner transfer and all):
There was another time when I fixed a big old CRT TV by just replacing a shorted capacitor (€1 part) on the high voltage transformer circuit.
The brand representative at the store where my parents took the TV said that it would be too costly to repair and to throw it into the trash, so they kept the TV until I went there for holidays break.
Last year a friend had her laptop showing just half of the screen image. I opened it, saw that it was a flat wire connection problem and installed ubuntu, replacing XP in the process. She would need to buy a new laptop, so instead she used the money "saved" and bought herself a nice digital camera.
And this goes on an on...My point is that some things are easier to fix than others and if you enjoy electronics and tinkering, it's a fun way of spending time, learn new things and to keep (working) stuff away from the dumpster.
