Sunday, August 11, 2013

Grandpa Al’s Panasonic JE-1603U Calculator

DSC03773
My in-laws brought us some items that belonged to Felice’s Grandpa Al. He was a great guy. This lovely calculator was probably used for all of his book keeping and such. Unfortunately it didn’t turn on anymore and the battery compartment had crusty deposits.

DSC03774
Removing 4 screws.

DSC03776
Pretty self-explanatory.

DSC03777
That’s a vacuum fluorescent display.

DSC03778
Crusty power jack.

DSC03779
I don’t know what the wet/varnish looking deposits on the PC board are.

DSC03781
Close-up of the display.

DSC03783
More crust on the battery terminals. Vinegar cleaned it up.

DSC03784
So many screws holding the keypad PCB on.

DSC03785
The main IC, interestingly enough it’s a TI chip.

DSC03786
The board was held on with two rubber mounts.

DSC03787
PCB layout was such an artform back then.

DSC03789
Almost done with those screws.

DSC03790
Slider switches and rubber dome switches with carbon contacts.

DSC03794
That’s a thing of beauty.

DSC03796
Those damn contacts kept jumping off. I lost one and glued the other to the slider.

DSC03802
Keys. I’m really glad I took pictures of the thing before I inadvertently dumped all of the keys out of the housing.

DSC03806
A quick contact clean and de-crustifying and it works.


The refresh of the VFD is captured by the camera at different distances oddly.

Sunday, August 04, 2013

BK Precision Dynascan Corporation 2806 Multimeter Repair.

DSC03745
I picked up this latest addition to my collection yesterday, a BK Precision Dynascan Corporation 2806 multimeter. It did not function. Neither the display nor the continuity beep. There is nothing about this particular model on the internet, I found one picture from Ebay and that was it.

DSC03746
The batteries were good (swapped them out anyway) and the fuse was good.

DSC03747
So I opened it up. At some point it had solvent of some sort spilled on it(?) or it was glued shut so prying took a bit of effort and was slightly destructive.

DSC03750
One side. Notice the input jacks are on their own PCB. Spoiler – you can see the problem in this picture, but it isn’t obvious.

DSC03752
The other side. The big input fuse was ok as well.

DSC03753
The switch solder points were corroded so I cleaned them up. I also doused the all the various switches contacts in contact cleaner.

DSC03754
Success? Sort of but no. It comes on but no matter what setting the large switch is set to, it only functions as a voltmeter. Hmmm…

DSC03758
I spied this little ding on the PCB. The trace is broken.

DSC03761
DSC03762
A quick and dirty repair (scrape the solder mask off and solder on a strand of copper wire)…

DSC03764DSC03766
  
Each setting now works.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Stuff I Did And Am Doing, Places I Was.

I’m in the middle of a few projects right now, here are some interesting bits of things I’ve played with and stuff I’ve done in the past weeks. If I don’t post it now it’ll just sit and get all moldy.

DSC03476   
Some rocks off of Yaquina Head.

DSC03479
My Cousin Jennifer and Cousin Saro visited from Boston.

DSC03520
Felice and Jennifer being all contemplative.

DSC03506
Yaquina Head lighthouse.

DSC03517
Max was lost in thought.

DSC03557
Sandstorm at Agate Beach.

apple2
I scored this Apple IIe computer at a yard sale for $5.00. This is bad as it’s the sort of thing I can get obsessed with. I have a reputation for hating Apple Products, but this retina display is awesome.

apple3
Well how the heck am I going to do that? Much learning ensued. I’ll have a separate post or two about it, but let me say that ADTPro is very cool.

js1
This is the latest bit of research…

wp951
This was free at a yard sale. Felice said she doesn’t mind me opening the Philomath Vintage computer museum. It’s a word processor but I think it counts as a computer.

wp952
Ron wasn’t that bad looking. This was the only file on the floppy disk.

ogre2
Oh…I discovered that the Internet Archive has a vast software archive. I always wanted to play Ogre on a computer running DOS. If you run it in Dosbox, use D-Fend. I have.

ogrea1
It’s there for the Apple IIe as well.

DSC03624
We missed the Steam-Up last year, but went this year. Gregg made us tee shirts from our logo (nonsequitur).

DSC03655
This is your hair on a giant squirrel cage fan.

DSC03630
Riding the rails.

DSC03601DSC03607DSC03605
Some really cool home made treadle woodworking tools.

DSC03608
And an antique one.

DSC03704
I told you I collect VOMs. Picked this up at the Steam-up swap meet for $1.00.

DSC03719DSC03720DSC03721DSC03723
Ok, what is this thing? Found it at the OSU surplus sale. It’s a great argument starter, toss it into a room of engineers and they’ll rip each other apart.

DSC03706
A box for $3.00 at a yard sale.

DSC03707DSC03710DSC03711DSC03712
More components…I’m getting lucky or nobody wants this stuff. The crimp pins are going to be handy and are surprisingly expensive.

DSC03718
Speaking of things I don’t know about, what are these?