Category: Uncategorized

My Panasonic Plasma TV didn’t turn on.  Instead, it just flashed the power light 10 times over and over.  A quick Googling gave me THIS VIDEO that indicated which boards inside the TV were causing the fault, and what to do about it (two chips and a two 1uF capacitors).  A few other sites suggested it is only the caps causing the problem.

Since it didn’t work anyway, and since the extended warranty expired just last summer, I really had nothing to lose.  I happened to have a couple 1uF caps and a good soldering pencil.  I followed the video and took the thing apart, changed the capacitors, and lo and behold!  It worked!  Yay!

The offending capacitors, from unavailable boards MC201 and MC301

The feeling is mutual.

Only because it’s the first tool tip I’ve given.

When you’re heading out to the wreckers, keeping your wrenches clipped together like this keeps them tidy, together, and in order.

Yup!  It’s a 1970 Toyota Celica GT.

If only I could fit in it.

I bought one of these.  First time ever.  Why?  Because of this:

Jody “Shnitzel” Willcock is a good friend I met way back in my BCIT days.  I had to buy one.

Fabricated for a friend’s lathe.

With yet another Technology upgrade at school, there is a new link to access the School Server from off-campus.  Use your regular user name and password:

http://remote.sd23.bc.ca/

I got the (possibly real?) Manx dune buggy running today.  We ordered a new computer – I still don’t have the old computer running yet.

Now that it runs, I can tune it!  Or…. we don’t have any O2 happening – lo and behold, it’s not even connected to the computer!  Interesting.  It runs ~ok~, and can be driven ~gently~, but it cannot be tuned without a working O2 sensor.  The connector is unplugged, and the computer end of the connector is missing.  Weird.

Lots of really nice work done putting it together, and some other “interesting” touches as well.

I got a call from a friend who runs a shop in town, to see if I can help him out with a customer’s MegaSquirted Myers Manx dune buggy.  Really cool buggy – lots of attention to detail on it!

I took the ECU home and have run a bunch of tests and am now stumped.  I’m fairly certain there is something wrong with the crank trigger circuitry or the chip itself.  I have borrowed a MegaStim board to test the ECU (I have since ordered a JimStim for myself), and I can follow the rpm signal into the board, through the opto-isolator chip, and into the main chip of the ECU, but the ECU just isn’t seeing it.  I can fake “trigger” the injectors, but the ECU isn’t recognizing a “running” engine.

I’m confident I can solve it, but I’ve been at it now for about 6 hours of research and testing.  The customer is just better off ordering a new ECU.  I, on the other hand, I am very stubborn.

I will not be dominated by an electronic circuit.

For my eldest son’s birthday, I bought him a small tool kit.  One of those snap-the-tool-into-the-plastic-case jobbies.  I figured I would get him a basic kit as one of those “Let us see what Squirt does” kind of gifts.

He loved it!  He would show it to everybody who came to visit, he would tell complete strangers that he got the kit for his birthday.

He also started taking toys apart with it.  Which is fine, although risky.  Today I gave him an old printer to take apart – learn how things are assembled, without any risk.

He would get me to help him when he got stuck, and I’d help him a bit and let him continue.  At one point, the printer case just needed some bigger muscle to “unsnap” it.  In doing so, I snapped one of the screwdrivers in half.

My son was devastated.

He wept and wept and wept, and I felt terrible.  The screw driver is unique, and it fits the case specifically.  I had no idea where I could find a replacement.  As he calmed down a bit, I took him out to the garage, sat him on a stool, and started making a new handle.

And here it is.  And it fits the case, too.

Not the way I wanted to spend my evening, but a good opportunity to show how to deal with adversity.  Plus, my son hates mistakes and craves perfection (as I do; go figure), so he got to see how I dealt with mistakes (and there were a few in the reproduction of the screwdriver).