[HN Gopher] Repair adventure: A single white LED causing stuck k...
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Repair adventure: A single white LED causing stuck keys on a RN988
keyboard
Author : panic
Score : 75 points
Date : 2023-07-04 01:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (halestrom.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (halestrom.net)
| Maxburn wrote:
| I guess if you value your time far less than money you can save a
| couple bucks on cheap keyboards? I guess they now have a cherry
| brown based keyboard and can experience the different between
| that and awful membrane boards. Personally I think a little extra
| money is worth it for a keyboard that lasts years instead of
| dumping a membrane board in the landfill like OP apparently does.
| antiterra wrote:
| OP got the membrane board from a dumpster, it was already
| headed for the landfill. Not sure how that deserves any shame?
| Maxburn wrote:
| It's not shame, but IMO if you value your time very little
| than sure dumpster diving can pay off.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| If you know how to value time you don't say stuff like
| this: the point of time is to live life meaningfully by
| your own standards (which may or may not align with
| society's standard)
|
| Our brains all generate relatively the same amount of
| happy/sad chemicals, so it turns out the satisfaction of
| winning a nobel peace prize and the satisfaction this
| person feels fixing their dumpster dived keyboard can only
| be so different in magnitude.
|
| It's not like doing universally meaningful things unlocks
| some kind of super-happiness, so there's no reason to shy
| away from "unmeaningful" things if they bring you joy.
| tom_ wrote:
| I assumed the point was that your comment "dumping a
| membrane board in the landfill like OP apparently does" was
| a misrepresentation, as the author was doing the exact
| opposite of dumping the keyboard in the landfill!
|
| Whether this represents a good or bad use of one's time,
| who can say. Some things, people do because they enjoy
| them, even if the activity doesn't make complete economic
| sense.
| Maxburn wrote:
| OK, you are right. I was focused in on "that's a decade
| of $20 keyboards lasting a year each." BUT they didn't
| actually do that, which is good.
| alyandon wrote:
| I've been moderately happy with Tecware Phantom series
| keyboards. Per-key RGB, socketed switches, etc for $40-$50 USD.
|
| I'll never go back to membrane keyboards.
| Maxburn wrote:
| They are totally worth it. The cost is almost secondary to
| me, it's an excellent typing experience and it reduces
| reparative stress injury.
|
| I have a rosewill that is made from cherry brown switches and
| apparently the minimum electronics to make it work reliably
| unlike the low end one OP wound up with. Probably cost me $80
| six years ago but it works the same as it was new, and I
| expect to get a decade out of it no problem.
| zokier wrote:
| Wrt TKL (and smaller) vs full-size keyboards; you can easily also
| get separate numpads these days. You might wonder what is the
| point of getting tkl keyboard and then separate numpad, the
| answer being that you can then position it more ergonomically,
| for example on left side of keyboard or right side of mouse.
| marklar423 wrote:
| As someone who dabbles in electronics, I found this to be a cool
| debugging scenario. The "aha" of the LED doubling as a diode in
| the circuit, and the fix from that was really interesting to me.
|
| It's a small anecdote, but inspiring since I hope to also get to
| the point where I can repair something on the component level one
| day.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have repaired a number of things at the component level. If
| you're looking to get started, a lot of consumer electronics
| are "bad" when they simply need a through-hole capacitor
| replaced. They are generally visibly bad and bulging at the
| top, have visible markings to ID the part, and can be replaced
| with a cheap iron.
|
| This is why my AV receiver still works. :-)
| marklar423 wrote:
| Ah yes I've read about the infamous capacitor plague :D.
|
| So you start by just doing a visual scan of all the caps on a
| board to see if any are bulging? If nothing is apparent,
| where do you go from there?
| fullstop wrote:
| AV receivers are nice because a lot of them have the
| schematics and parts list right in the service manual. This
| is the one that I repaired:
| https://yamahaservicemanual.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/02/y...
|
| The part in question: https://i.imgur.com/hZDA08y.jpg
|
| Repaired: https://i.imgur.com/IMbBUeN.jpg
|
| Start with a visual inspection, looking for any components
| which appear to be visibly damaged. For capacitors this
| would be something bulging, but if something has failed
| thermally the chip might be burned. If you see anything
| burned, though, I would exercise caution before proceeding.
|
| After that, measure the output of each power supply with a
| multimeter and confirm that it is at the appropriate
| voltage level. If you find something which is off, you need
| to confirm that all of the additional components supporting
| the power supply are present and functioning. You can
| measure resistors on the PCB with a multimeter.
|
| Some AV Receivers will also fail after a number of heating
| / cooling cycles. In this case, the solder joints on the
| relays have gone bad (physically disconnected) and they can
| just be soldered again to correct the problem.
|
| Honestly, AV Receivers are a great place to start since
| they are generally both well documented and designed to be
| serviced.
|
| edit: one other thing -- you can check the clock output of
| different crystals / oscillators, etc, if you have an
| oscilloscope. This can be useful to know if the clock is
| operating at all, and, if it is, confirm that it is
| clocking at the appropriate rate.
| marklar423 wrote:
| That's really useful to know, thanks!
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > that's a decade of $20 keyboards lasting a year each.
|
| Whole lot less landfill tho.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| All that work to avoid purchasing a $5 keyboard? People are cheap
| about the weirdest things.
| LovinFossilFuel wrote:
| People with too much free time or not too many interest outside
| tech.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I do these sorts of things. I don't do it to save money
| (sometimes, the repair is more expensive than the replacement
| cost). I do it to avoid sending stuff to the landfill as much
| as possible.
| Arrath wrote:
| Some people are tinkerers, and I for one enjoy reading through
| some in-depth physical bug chasing like this. I certainly don't
| have the patience (let alone the expertise or equipment) to do
| it myself, but I'll sure as hell read about it.
| extragood wrote:
| My dad is an old school EE and this post really reminds me of
| him.
|
| It doesn't matter that he lives comfortably and could much
| more easily replace the hardware. He enjoys the process of
| taking something broken and making it useful again.
|
| I liken it to spending hours configuring and modifying open
| source software when a paid option exists, if you have the
| expertise and/or interest. And doing that with hardware has
| the added benefit of reducing waste, which is something I
| admire.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Show me where can I buy a mechanical keyboard with Cherry
| switches for $5
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(page generated 2023-07-05 23:02 UTC)