[NA]Good news/Bad news[NA]

[Let'sgoflying!]

The P on this keyboard is fine now.
The oven, I have cobbled together a reasonable repair.

The new Harddrive did not fix the other laptop. It arrived today and after installing per instructions, the Dell laptop still does not recognize a harddrive.
If I had a tech available to work on it around here.... So should I spend more $ and buy a new motherboard?
Thanks

 

[SCCutler]

Sh*t can it and send it to #%@#@%erland.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I can't Spike. You see, I have this.... condition.
I have some silly ingrained thing in me that says "Everything Can Be Fixed....Somehow"! Growing up, we never trashed anything until it was on its last...toes. Repair, reroute, cobble together, somehow someway get it going again. I was the king of patched clothing, my car was actually two wrecked cars, the good parts welded together. If a broken item was comprised of many parts... then find the thing that is busted and fix or repair only that! I just have not gotten onto the Disposable Society thing very well!

 

[fgcason]

You see, I have this.... condition.
I have some silly ingrained thing in me that says "Everything Can Be Fixed....Somehow"! Growing up, we never trashed anything until it was on its last...toes. Repair, reroute, cobble together, somehow someway get it going again. I was the king of patched clothing, my car was actually two wrecked cars, the good parts welded together. If a broken item was comprised of many parts... then find the thing that is busted and fix or repair only that! I just have not gotten onto the Disposable Society thing very well!

Dave,
I often think I'm a complete weirdo. At least in this one category I am not completely alone thanks to you.

Frank.

 

[Keith Lane]

I can't Spike. You see, I have this.... condition.
I have some silly ingrained thing in me that says "Everything Can Be Fixed....Somehow"! Growing up, we never trashed anything until it was on its last...toes. Repair, reroute, cobble together, somehow someway get it going again. I was the king of patched clothing, my car was actually two wrecked cars, the good parts welded together. If a broken item was comprised of many parts... then find the thing that is busted and fix or repair only that! I just have not gotten onto the Disposable Society thing very well!

I, too suffer like you and Frank.
Now, instead of helping to cure my addiction, my family, friends and ESPECIALLY coworkers bring me all sorts of stuff to fix. Weedeaters, food processors, cars this year a 283 Chevy engine from a 1960 Chris Craft. the list is ENDLESS. So much broke stuff so little time after work and on weekends.
Hi, I'm Keith and I wanna be you Mr. Fixit.

 

[Don Jones]

I can't Spike. You see, I have this.... condition.
I have some silly ingrained thing in me that says "Everything Can Be Fixed....Somehow"! Growing up, we never trashed anything until it was on its last...toes. Repair, reroute, cobble together, somehow someway get it going again. I was the king of patched clothing, my car was actually two wrecked cars, the good parts welded together. If a broken item was comprised of many parts... then find the thing that is busted and fix or repair only that! I just have not gotten onto the Disposable Society thing very well!

I feel your pain Dave, I did exactly what you are doing for almost 2 years with the shop computer network. (Read really old stuff here---Lantastic Network, all dos based software) I finally got so sick of working on them I bought all new computers, completely rewired the net, new router, etc. Ahhhh, relief, haven't had to work on one now in over a year.
You too may have to bite the bullet. (Think of all the time you will have to fly!)

Don

 

[ejensen]

I, too suffer like you and Frank.
Now, instead of helping to cure my addiction, my family, friends and ESPECIALLY coworkers bring me all sorts of stuff to fix. Weedeaters, food processors, cars this year a 283 Chevy engine from a 1960 Chris Craft. the list is ENDLESS. So much broke stuff so little time after work and on weekends.
Hi, I'm Keith and I wanna be you Mr. Fixit.

We should start a movement.

 

[gismo]

I feel your pain Dave, I did exactly what you are doing for almost 2 years with the shop computer network. (Read really old stuff here---Lantastic Network, all dos based software) I finally got so sick of working on them I bought all new computers, completely rewired the net, new router, etc. Ahhhh, relief, haven't had to work on one now in over a year.
You too may have to bite the bullet. (Think of all the time you will have to fly!)

Geez, Lantastic. I think I still have a few adapters lying around somewhere. I remember they had the cable driver/receiver chip in a socket so you could change it when it inevitably failed in a thunderstorm. As you might guess I have the same addiction, making it difficult for me to part with broken/obsolete parts but I'm learning how to get over it somewhat. Just the other day I actually bought a new thermostat for home to replace the 20 year old one that fried a diode for the third time. And my basement is chock full of old computers dating back to the 70's and 80's. I'm pretty sure there are still some 8" floppy drives and certainly some media plus a bunch of software and manuals for DOS, CPM, and ISIS. My wife complains about the "junk" I have in the basement often, but she seems to forget that she has a similar disease. I think we have virtually every toy and piece of clothing my daughter (now 13) ever owned including some the daughter never actually wore. Along with that we have at least 20 cubic yards of empty boxes, she just can't bear to discard any of those because she might "need" one someday.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I actually bought a new thermostat for home to replace the 20 year old one that fried a diode

See thats what boils my blood, I wonder how many a/c alternators are 'trash' somewhere because of a 50c part?

 

[fgcason]

See thats what boils my blood, I wonder how many a/c alternators are 'trash' somewhere because of a 50c part?

Most of them. The auto stores practically insist that you buy a new or rebuilt alternator too which doesn't help matters.


Here's a fun one for you that should make you scream: I am currently sitting 8ft from a $700ish late 1980's model TV that was being given the heave ho after 6 months of use because it broke for the very first time. It was still under the 3 year warranty. (Dad ran a TV repair business and was bringing the owners a replacement because they repeatedly insisted that they did not wan't that old piece of junk fixed. This was the very first time it had ever failed) Anyway, he brings this one home and says it's mine if I fix it. It took longer to get the back off than it did to find and swap the broken part out. What the previous owner never knew was that after all was said and done, it cost them $750+ to...wait. Stop. Let me say that again: It cost them $1,450.00 (old tv=$700 PLUS new tv=$750) to replace a 4 cent part which we just happen to have laying around in a coffee can. About 3 years ago, another part in it was starting to fail. A capacitator. 45 cents. This piece of junk is so spendy: I'm out a whopping $0.49 so far. (FWIW I found 2 quarters, a dime, and a penny in a parking lot last week -- Do the math. )

That was 1987...AMU's for a CE152 were what? (I forget exactly now) $27? $30? So 700/30 = 23.3 hrs. We won't get into all the other stuff I've fixed.

For those who think I'm crazy, remember this: Us fiscially irresponsible dumbheads wasting our time can buy an airplane, cash on the spot, with what we save by fixing things instead of replacing it. A little trivial manual labor on a spendy object is free money in the bank.

And yet, people like me are considered wacko freaks of nature and fiscally irresponsible for wasting our financially valuable time on such trivial matters. (The fiscially responsible people still tell me to throw a perfectly good piece of equipment in the garbage and go spend $500 every time something breaks) Oh yea, we also get a sense of accomplishment that no one can ever get by slapping a credit card down on a counter.

 

[wsuffa]

Here's a fun one for you that should make you scream: I am currently sitting 8ft from a $700ish late 1980's model TV that was being given the heave ho after 6 months of use because it broke for the very first time. It was still under the 3 year warranty. (Dad ran a TV repair business and was bringing the owners a replacement because they repeatedly insisted that they did not wan't that old piece of junk fixed. This was the very first time it had ever failed) Anyway, he brings this one home and says it's mine if I fix it. It took longer to get the back off than it did to find and swap the broken part out. What the previous owner never knew was that after all was said and done, it cost them $750+ to...wait. Stop. Let me say that again: It cost them $1,450.00 (old tv=$700 PLUS new tv=$750) to replace a 4 cent part which we just happen to have laying around in a coffee can. About 3 years ago, another part in it was starting to fail. A capacitator. 45 cents. This piece of junk is so spendy: I'm out a whopping $0.49 so far. (FWIW I found 2 quarters, a dime, and a penny in a parking lot last week -- Do the math. )

First color TV I had was a throw-out that I picked up in college. We kept a tennis shoe on the floor next to the TV... we called it the "color corrector"... every time the blue gun would go out on the picture, we whacked the side of the TV with the shoe and *VOILA* the color was restored. Eventually broke down and got an OH tube at a cost of something like $75. Held on to that TV for a couple more years until I could afford a nice, new componant system. When I got rid of it, it was time.

As for other stuff, I ain't letting anyone look in my garage!

 

[Ghery]

While growing up in the 1960s our portable dishwasher had its control switch/timer give up. Serviceman came to the house, swapped it out and I grabbed the failed unit. Bad contacts. Dropped it in my junkbox. Fast forward a few years. Dad brings home a 12 inch GE wall clock from work that had failed. I looked in the back and thought, "gee, that motor looks familiar". Yup, the one from that old dishwasher timer was a heavy duty version of the same. Same output gear, same speed. Swapped it into the clock and the clock fired right up. Dad suggested that maybe he ought to take the clock back to work. I said "fine, right after I take my motor out of it". Still have that clock in a box out in the garage somewhere.

Packrats of the world, unite!

 

[Keith Lane]

Remember Emmitt the fixit shop owner on the Andy griffith show.....

Gawd, how I'd love to have that job.

Fixin is fun. It's just not profitable. It's cheaper to buy new. We're losing the ability to fix stuff with every generation.

My kids think I can fix "anything". Unfortunately so does my wife. Even I have at times admitted defeat anf <gasp> replaced stuff.

 

[SCCutler]

Guys, I am completely dedicated to fixing broken stuff, it is a form of mental therapy for me, but the odds of Dave finding a motherboard for his laptop, and for a price which even allows for a repair, are pretty slim.

Could happen...

 

[Greebo]

Dave:
In this case, you have to get over your condition.

You are going to be lucky if, with the original HD and a new laptop or some kind of external drive holder for laptop style drives, you can recover the data.

When a motherboard goes, be it laptop or desktop, the motherboard is gone. With a laptop, that means the laptop is pretty much done.

My $0.02172 (adjusted for inflation)

 

[fgcason]

but the odds of Dave finding a motherboard for his laptop, and for a price which even allows for a repair, are pretty slim.

Could happen...

Might happen. Might not. This is why you should always know where the local electronics junk shop is. You can find stuff there that simply does not exist anywhere else anymore. Heck, there's often stuff in there that nobody can identify. If you're smart and don't mind some hunting around, those places are gold mines. You just don't know until you walk in and start scrounging through stuff.
8 teeny metric machine screws for the motorcycle carburetor. Honda said $15. Junk shop guy said drop a nickel on the table on the way out and he'd call it even.

 

[SCCutler]

Might happen. Might not. This is why you should always know where the local electronics junk shop is. You can find stuff there that simply does not exist anywhere else anymore. Heck, there's often stuff in there that nobody can identify. If you're smart and don't mind some hunting around, those places are gold mines. You just don't know until you walk in and start scrounging through stuff.
8 teeny metric machine screws for the motorcycle carburetor. Honda said $15. Junk shop guy said drop a nickel on the table on the way out and he'd call it even.

You are making me want to cry. There used to be so many of these around, the places that had old electronic and electromechanical equipment of all kinds and character sitting around, and you could shop, buy project or experiment parts-n-pieces, and not go broke in the process. There are few left, and none around here anymore (that I know of).

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

It cost them $1,450.00 to replace a 4 cent part

Wow.. I enjoyed that one Frank. Hey - how much is a glass-tube style ordinary automotive fuse? About 30c?
I am sitting next to a GE microwave that is about 6 yrs old. In its first year it completely went dead. Everyone including the GE expert said forget it, throw it away, fixing it ain't gonna happen. A pal who has my disease says, lets open it up! Being cautious about the HUGE Capacitor, we cracked it open and replace the 30c fuse and it has not looked back since.


PS: don't you know, you guys? Nay-saying about my laptop motherboard only makes me REALLY dig in my heels about fixing this thing!! My wife knows to say, "oh it can't possibly be fixed" as the best way to make me grit my teeth, curl my lips and get at it!

 

[fgcason]

Hey - how much is a glass-tube style ordinary automotive fuse? About 30c?

I have no clue at all. I have never bought one. When stuff was committed to the landfill, we always salvaged useable stuff before dumping the body. It cuts down considerably on repair costs. I have at least 50 of those fuses that I grabbed from the shop when I moved out. You never know when a common part can come in handy.

I am sitting next to a GE microwave that is about 6 yrs old. A pal who has my disease says, lets open it up!

$0.30 and probably 10 minutes of effort vs $100.00 and an hour driving around to get a new one.

Do you not read the label that says danger high voltage no user serviceable parts inside??? Well, me either. Besides, 99% of what breaks is usually off the shelf generic parts.
Tamper proof torx screws my toolkit..they don't even slow me down..I have a row of those bits and a bunch of other weird bits in the middle drawer next to the ratchet handle that fits them. They spin right out.

My favorite comment to the so called highly trained professional experts who obnoxiously insist I can't fix something when I'm looking for parts: "Just because you are incapable of doing something does not mean that I am incapable of doing the same thing. This is well within my skill level as are things far more difficult. This is an easy fix. GoawayyouarebotheringmeIknowwhatIamdoing."

 

[gismo]

PS: don't you know, you guys? Nay-saying about my laptop motherboard only makes me REALLY dig in my heels about fixing this thing!! My wife knows to say, "oh it can't possibly be fixed" as the best way to make me grit my teeth, curl my lips and get at it!

Many times I've fixed something (or tried to) just for the challenge, although these days it's often hard to find the time. The only reason I replaced the thermostat is that there's no backup and it's failed twice already (different component each time). I'd hate to have it quit while I was away for a week during the winter.

 

[fgcason]

There used to be so many of these around, the places that had old electronic and electromechanical equipment of all kinds and character sitting around, and you could shop, buy project or experiment parts-n-pieces, and not go broke in the process. There are few left, and none around here anymore (that I know of).

Look around the warehouse districts, particularly the older out of the way forgotten places. The one here was in an out of the way ancient strip mall then moved into an old safeway building that no one wanted.

Those places aren't limited to electrical stuff. One place I use to go to had an ejection seat including the mount(rails included, no rocket motor though) and a canopy off a T-33. I never figured out what the twelve 20ft long 10" diameter hardened steel bars were for though - no holes, no screw fittings, no flat surfaces, nothing. They were just long round bars that weighed more than my jeep but someone had to have had a use for them at some point. Those places are full of weird stuff.
The local shop here has made probably $50 off me. Rat Shack would have cost easily $1000 for that same stuff...assuming the stuff was available which it isn't. You gotta know your junk and not mind getting a little dirty and you'll save a fortune.

 

[gismo]

Look around the warehouse districts, particularly the older out of the way forgotten places. The one here was in an out of the way ancient strip mall then moved into an old safeway building that no one wanted.

Those places aren't limited to electrical stuff. One place I use to go to had an ejection seat including the mount(rails included, no rocket motor though) and a canopy off a T-33. I never figured out what the twelve 20ft long 10" diameter hardened steel bars were for though - no holes, no screw fittings, no flat surfaces, nothing. They were just long round bars that weighed more than my jeep but someone had to have had a use for them at some point. Those places are full of weird stuff.
The local shop here has made probably $50 off me. Rat Shack would have cost easily $1000 for that same stuff...assuming the stuff was available which it isn't. You gotta know your junk and not mind getting a little dirty and you'll save a fortune.

We've got one here in Mpls called AxeMan Surplus. It's mostly junk but some of the junk is interesting. About 25% electrical, 25% mechanical and pneumatic and the rest pretty useless. Another shop that was almost entirely electrical/electronic went upscale and dropped the surplus/used stuff.

 

[wsuffa]

I ended up breaking open the kitchen hand mixer today. Seems I, uh, overstressed, uh, it while making dough a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't run at all, but smells bad.

They made it next to impossible to get in - keeping the user out. One of the screw holes was filled with an unremovable plastic plug. I finally broke it out.

Looks like I burnt out the mixer. Breaks my heart, but it's gonna have to go in the trash. No fuses or other stuff inside that I can deal with.

Sigh.

 

[Greebo]

You overstressed the mixer making dough??

My wife bakes all the time - I'm having a hard time picturing that wearing out a motor - what kind of dough was it, quick-dry cement??

 

[wsuffa]

You overstressed the mixer making dough??

My wife bakes all the time - I'm having a hard time picturing that wearing out a motor - what kind of dough was it, quick-dry cement??

I think the clue was the oily-electrical smell as the mixer slowed to a stop.

Used the food processor for the next batch.

My old boss had a rule: if something blows out in the electronic apparatus, figure out what it was and replace it with a part that has a rating twice as high....

 

[Greebo]

The idea of bread dough being made in the food processor is even more scary. Bet that batch came out with extra gluten!

 

[wsuffa]

The idea of bread dough being made in the food processor is even more scary. Bet that batch came out with extra gluten!

Worked OK for cookies and pie dough.

Food processor works *fabulously* for Ciabatta bread..... I like mine chewy...

Pasta is done by hand on the countertop.

 

[Ghery]

IMy old boss had a rule: if something blows out in the electronic apparatus, figure out what it was and replace it with a part that has a rating twice as high....

If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway!

Oh, that reminds me. The key lock on the driver's door on my Jeep is getting really sticky. Guess I need to stop at the hardware store and get some graphite lube... Or the tools to take the door apart to replace/repair it. Oh goody, something other than what my wife will want me to do on Saturday.

 

[gismo]

I think the clue was the oily-electrical smell as the mixer slowed to a stop.

Used the food processor for the next batch.

My old boss had a rule: if something blows out in the electronic apparatus, figure out what it was and replace it with a part that has a rating twice as high....

Likely the smell was the motor windings overheating, but I suppose it could have been something in the speed control.

If it was the motor and in the tradition of your boss's advice, I think I've got a three HP 3 phase variable speed motor around somewhere. Do you suppose that would fit?

 

[wsuffa]

Likely the smell was the motor windings overheating, but I suppose it could have been something in the speed control.

If it was the motor and in the tradition of your boss's advice, I think I've got a three HP 3 phase variable speed motor around somewhere. Do you suppose that would fit?

No question it was the windings.... this thing was dirt simple, no 'speed' control, per-se (the brown marks on the windings was a great clue, though there was some charring around the brushes). I was hoping for an infernal fuse.

I always wanted to no-load a big series DC motor in EE/Mechanical class....

I bought a 250 watt hand mixer today, less than $30 courtesy of Wally world, including a stand.

 

[Ghery]

I always wanted to no-load a big series DC motor in EE/Mechanical class....

Death wish? How about pulling the field on a parallel connected motor? Should be about the same effect.

We had test beds in the lab that had three machines on a common shaft. DC, AC induction and AC synchronous. One lab exercise was to use the DC motor as the prime mover, synchronize the AC synchronous machine with the incoming AC line and close the switch. Used light bulbs across the switch contacts as a synchroscope. Of course, it was more fun to close the switch when the "generator" was 15-20 degrees out of sync with the power grid.

 

[wsuffa]

Death wish? How about pulling the field on a parallel connected motor? Should be about the same effect.

That'll work. A student almost did that one day. I can still hear the instructor screaming across the room!

 

[tparsons]

Back to the laptop ...

Check Ebay for a motherboard. I've seen quite a few for an old Dell I have. Fortunately, I didn't need one.