on hating hardware
Aug. 11th, 2006 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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I’d guessed the issue was likely dirty contacts (of course, we can’t find our tin of Servisol) or possibly a bent contact in the power socket and planned to investigate further when I could be arsed, but yesterday morning as
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Turns out, on opening the beast, that the manufacturers believe in the early-iPod-firewire-connector school of construction: the power connector was (emphasise was) held on by the solder its three legs sat in on the circuit board. Thankfully, it’s not surface mounted, so it was easy to reattach courtesy of careful application of soldering iron to each corresponding solder blob on the underside of the board in turn.
It’s now reattached, and will stay that way, thanks to a suitably engineered blob of Araldite. I’m still pissed off with lazy-arse design and manufacturing: the failure mode should have been blindingly obvious to anyone; I guess the bastards just bet that the thing would outlast its guarantee.
I just hope I haven’t fucked it in the fixing; I didn’t bother with earthing myself particularly. It charged overnight and now lights its LEDs in a plausible fashion, but we won’t know for sure until it’s paired with the palm and actually tested next time we go out.
ETA: it works a treat.