75 Cent Surge Protector

I bought this surge protector/power strip at a yard sale for 75 cents. You can never have too many…unless you do. Unfortunately when plugged in, the two switched outlets didn’t work, nor did the little green light come on.

I opened it up and checked the fuses on the phone jacks, they were fine.

Checked the plug/buss (?) bars. They were fine.

Checked continuity between the middle pad with the black wire and the lower pad with the black wire. These are connected by the power switch. No continuity in either switch position!

Looked at the switch.

It wiggles. I don’t think it’s supposed to do that.

Ah, the leads from the switch are loose and the solder around them has cracked.

I just pulled the switch out (from the other side), leaving gaping holes.

I cleaned and tinned the switch leads, flowed some new solder around and mixed with the old. Got the switch leads hot from the other side as well in hopes of drawing solder up the via a bit. Wiped off a lot of the nasty flux mess.

Easiest way to test, and the switched outlets, switch.

Off…

On!

Get A Hobby, Hit The Yard Sales

Since I started up with hobby #32516, Electronics, I’ve been slowly accumulating parts that I may or may not need for projects in the near or far future. The usual assortments have been bought from Ebay, Amazon and Jameco, special bits bought from Mouser and Newark. But I have a definite lack of random crap stored up for use. In the past my usual remedy has been to rely on luck. Several years ago when I started the airgun blog I hit a yard sale that had a large collection of broken pellet guns. Last year I hit a yard sale with a pile of extremely inexpensive and relatively modern computer parts. Yesterday I hit a sale that took partial care of my electronics spare parts problem.

At first glance there was nothing at the sale of interest. I had flagged it on my list (yes, I make a list of yard sales to hit in order of importance and location) as it said “electronic kits”. I was about to leave but started talking to the young guy having the sale. It turned out that he had put away all of the electronic parts and books because of a perceived lack of interest. So he dragged them out again and I bought what he had. “Make offer”, so I gave him a $20 bill and loaded up the van. He had received them from the estate of an old friend/neighbor (?) and wanted them to go to someone who would use them. Well, I’ll use a lot of what I got.

Now those of you with no interest can turn away as there will be a number of incredibly boring pictures of objects. Those who like looking up datasheets will have fun.

A pile of stuff from one box.

Retail packages of components. Before the internet you would go into Radio Shack or your other friendly electronic store and buy a couple of caps, etc.

I can always use more transistors.

Yes it is.

Pots, you need lots of pots for experiments.

Switches.

Dip switches.

Jacks and plugs!

I like this one, it illustrates how a phone connector works. I can bore many people with this.

Contact!

Some numerical displays.

Some unassembled LCD displays.

Bulbs and LEDs.

ICs! Lots of them. Some useless and some useful.

I can use these.

I don’t think I’ll use these.

Nor these.

Lovely packages.

Some are not in anti-static foam, so I don’t know if they are good or not.

LEDs and resistor arrays.

Op amps, etc. That isn’t anti-static either.

Old chips. I may frame the Z-80 and hang it on the wall.

I don’t know why this socket has a chip.

More chips. Feel free to disparage them.

ZIF sockets.

More sockets.

Perfboard!

A pile of random loose components. That’ll be fun to sort out some evening.

I got two of these, one looked like the guy was fixing it. They’ll go to a friend who does DC power stuff.

Two more power supplies/chargers of some sort.

Old CB radios.

A nice gauge.

Now I have two Timex Sinclairs…

And the printer! Oh how I wanted one way back when. It cost as much as the computer and we never bought one.

Anyway, a good haul.