Signature Electronic Signs Inc repair

This post is continued here: http://www.bobdavis321.blogspot.com/2013/01/signature-electronic-signs-convert-to.html

There are several Signature Electronic LED Signs for sale on EBay. I bought one that did not work and to get it working I had to add a power cord, and connect the 5 volt power to the processor board in the upper left corner.

Here is the right side of the back where the 110 Volt power is connected.

These signs are made with Cadaces CDVO-1 boards strung together.  Each of those boards holds 8 of 8 by 5 LED arrays.  TPIC68595 serial shift registers drive the columns and a 74HCT138 drives the rows via some TIP127's.  There are 12 of these Cadaces CDVO-1 boards in the sign.

The controller card has two wires that connect it to the outside world. One is green one is blue.  I have traced them out to a "485" IC.  That IC is a RS422 communications chip, so likely the sign is communicated with via RS422.  You will need a Serial or USB to RS422 adapter to talk to the sign.

Here is what one of the Cadaces CDVO-1 boards looks like.

Here is the back side of the Cadaces CDVO-1 board.  I have metered out the pinout and hope to post that soon.  Then I can work on interfacing it to an Arduino or something like that.

Here is how the Cadaces board connects to the controller.

 Here is a size comparison between the new sign and the old Silent radio sign

The new sign is now working with the Arduino processor, but there is a bug when trying to run the entire sign.  Each sequential board displays the same thing as the previous board, it is just scrolled down one position.

 I am using the same software as with the Silent Radio sign, but with the register clock jumpered to the serial data clock, and the column selection code has been modified to work with the 74138.

Poloroid TDA-03211 3211 32 LCD TV Repair Part 2

I recently had to re-repair the Poloroid TDA-03211 3211 32 LCD TV. This time one of the tiny blue capacitors in the red circled area had shorted and turned black.

I could not read what was written on those caps so I removed them and tested them. The two good ones were about 1 pf, or at the range limit of my capacitor meter. They appeared to be 3 KV caps. So I replace the fried one with a 1 pf 3Kv capacitor and the TV still did not work.

The problem was that I had soldered one capacitor in wrong.  Two of them are part of the protection circuit that detects any problems and shuts down the High Voltage.  They have to be replaced properly or the set will shut off after about 5 seconds.

Here is a better picture of the power supply:

 I circled the blue caps, the tan one is my replacement capacitor.  Notice the large red caps, they are 2.2 uF at 400 volt paper caps that replaced the old 4 uF electrolytic caps.

Dunlap Clarke Rebuild part 2

A while back I started rebuilding a Dunlap Clarke Amplifier.  This is an update to the rebuild project.  I stripped the cabinet almost completely bare, then cut holes in the sided for new heat sinks.  Next I drilled holes for the power transformer.

Next I installed the heat sinks with the new circuit board and wired everything up. The new power transformer is 50 volt center tapped at 8 amps.

 

So far all I have done is a hum test.  I connected speakers and tapped the input screws to produce a loud hum.  Next is to wire up the input jacks and level controls.

Popout Vertical Menu for WordPress website using HTML and CSS

I designed a popout vertical menu for wordpress for a previous employer but they never liked it or used it.  So here it is for everyone to use!  It only uses CSS and HTML so it can be used anywhere!

To see it in action, select all of the code, cut and paste it into notepad.  Save it as "vertmenu.html" then find the file that you just saved and double click on it.

Here is a picture of it in action:

 

<style type="text/css">
#navigation {width: 180px; font-size: 1em; Font-family: arial;}
#navigation ul { margin: 0px;  padding: 0px; }
ul.top-level { background: #CCf; }
#navigation li { list-style: none; }
  ul.top-level li {
    border-bottom: #fff solid;
    border-top: #fff solid;
    border-width: 1px; 
  }
#navigation a {
  color: #000;
  cursor: pointer;
  display:block;
  height:25px;
  line-height: 25px;
  text-indent: 10px;     
  text-decoration:none;
  width:100%; 
  }
#navigation a:hover{ text-decoration:underline; }
#navigation li:hover {background: #DDF; position:top;  }
  ul.sub-level { display:none; width:600px; height:220px; }
  li:hover .sub-level {
    background: #EEF;
    border: #fff solid;
    border-width: 1px;
    display: block;
    position: absolute;
    left: 180px;
    top: 5px;   }
  ul.sub-level li {
    border: none;
    float:left;
    width:180px;
    }
  
#navigation .sub-level { background: #EEF; }
 /*IE RESET HELPER*/
 li:hover .sub-level .sub-level { display:none; }
 .sub-level li:hover .sub-level { display:block; }     

 
</style>

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New floor for a friend

Recently I installed a new floor for a friend.  It is the interlocking wood floor like what I did in my living room.  These came with a water seal and pad built in so installation was easier.  Here are some pictures of the resulting floor.

Samsung 42 inch Plasma TV Repair Model P4231

I picked up a 42 inch plasma TV for free a few months ago.  The owner was getting rid of it because it shuts off after a few hours.  It eventually got so bad that it acted up after just one hour.  So it was time to take it apart and fix it. Here it is with the covers removed.  You have to remove the base to remove the back cover.

Here is the power supply board. You will need to remove it for servicing. First check for any blown capacitors. Then turn it over and re-solder any connections that go to anything mounted on the heat sink or that looks at all worn.

 If all else fails add a cooling fan.  Mine has now been running over 4 hours after re-soldering the connections.

Compaq F700 repair

Recently I had the job of fixing a Compaq F700 that overheated and shut off after about 15 minutes of operation.  Needless to say the cooling fan was completely clogged with dust as can be seen in the picture below.

To get inside of this computer you need to find some hidden screws.  First you remove the panel above the keyboard, then the keyboard then the CD ROM drive.  There are three screws hidden above the CD ROM front edge.  Then there are three screws you must remove from the bottom, two are standoffs and one is above the hard drive.  I circled their locations in the picture below. 

There is another screw that can only be reached from above, once the CD ROM is removed.  There is a hole now available that goes down through where the CD drive had been to access a hidden screw down below.  You have to remove the screen and all the usual screws to finally get the top cover off the laptop.  Once you remove the main board the cooling fan screws are hidden under some black sticky plastic.  They are extra small and hard to remove.

Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy approaches our coast I am compelled to think back over the last few years.  Somewhere on this blog I talked about how when Florida was promoting the gay lifestyle for two years in a row three hurricanes per year crossed through Florida, some hurricanes crossed more than once!  Then there was California voting in gay marriage and in one night 800 dry lightning strikes started almost 1000 forest fires.  Then last year New York adopted gay marriage and three hurricanes/tropical storms hit New York state in one year!

One tropical storm hitting in 20 years is more the normal for New York state.  Maybe only one in every 10 years, but last year 3 tropical storms hit NY in one year!  Is that supposed to be a coincidence?  Now we are bracing for tropical storm "Sandy".

This storm is just the beginning of the end.  I have seen visions of smoke rising out of many cities.  I have heard "this will happen here" when I see the unrest in the middle east.  I have had dreams where the government forces are attacking innocent civilians in the cities just like what has been going on in Syria and other countries.  This upcoming election is a loose-loose situation.  Either way we loose.  If one side does not win they claim they will start a second civil war.  If they do win they will finish off this country. 

We need to pray for a miracle!  We need a revival to save this country.  We have committed three major sins.  First there is the shedding of innocent blood - abortion.  Then there is promoting homosexuality in our schools and with the changing of the definition of marriage, this is the "abomination that brings desolation".  And last of all we have abandoned Israel, God's country and His people. 

12 Things to look for in a new web site

Here are twelve things to look for when you are creating or purchasing a new web site design.  These are some serious questions that you need to ask before investing in a new web site.

1. Does it use an industry standard platform such as Joomla or Wordpress or does it use some sort of “custom code”?  If it is not based on an industry standard platform, then how many bugs are hidden away in the “custom code” and how is the custom code going to be kept up to date?

2. Does it rely on Java and or on flash in order to work?  If so there are a lot of people that have those disabled or they do not work properly on their computers.  An animated jiff can usually do the same thing as flash without any of the risk.

3. Does it have a simple HTML/CSS based menu system that can be easily followed by and indexed by the search engines?  If the menu is hidden in flash it might as well not exist.

4. Does the web site submit a site map weekly to Google and to the other search engines?  That is the quickest way to get your web site indexed by the search engines.

5. Does it have titles on all of the pages, all of the links and on all of the pictures?  Titles are an easy and safe way to stuff keywords that are highly ranked by the search engines.

6. Does the home page have a clear purpose?  What do you do?  What makes your company better than the competitors?  If they have to search to see why your web site exists then it might as well not exist. 

7. Does the home page have a place to sign up?  It needs some sort of “Call to Action”? There has to be an easy way to sign up for web only specials, deals, monthly newsletters, etc.

8. Does the home page have social media links?  Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and whatever other social sites that your company uses?  Can they “like” your company?

9. Is there a “about us” or “Contact us” with you physical address and phone number?  I almost always want to know where a company is physically located before I order anything from them.

10. Does it have an easy to find search function that returns relevant results?  I hate it when I have to use Google to search inside a web site for something that I know is hidden in there somewhere.

11. Does it support mobile browsers?  This usually requires that it detect a mobile device and then reformats the entire site to fit on the mobile device.

12. Does it use colors that make the text unreadable?  There needs to be lots of contrast between the background and the text.  For example green text on a blue background can be unreadable. 

New roof project

Well for months I debated between putting on a metal roof or using shingles.  Metal costs a tiny bit more but is many times faster to install.  Well the folks at 84 lumber had Architectural shingles on sale for $86 per 100 square feet.  That compares to about $105 everywhere else.

First I had to remove the flat roof over the deck and replace the last 1 to 2 feet as they had rotted out.  Then I put on a new roof using roll roofing.  Basically you nail down a 9 to 10 inch wide strip around the outside edges.  Then cover those strips with roof cement and then put the new roofing on using that cement, and nail down the top edge.  That way no nails are visible when it is done.  However it leaked the first time it rained because the cement was not dry yet in the seams.

Here is the roof when it was almost done. Note that I spilled a little roofing cement on the flat roof near the ladder.

Here is the new roof once it was done on the first side.  I also replaced the attic vents because 84 lumber had them for less than $10 each and the old ones were very rusty.  The vent pipe in the middle was spray painted after this picture was taken.

Next the car port roof needs replacing, it has always leaked.

Here are some "Before" pictures, first one of the main roof then one of the carport roof.

47 inch Sony TV teardown

My neighbor was throwing out a huge TV because the screen was broken.  I told him that you can make money selling the parts on eBay.  He told me that I could do that, so I hauled it away.  The number of inverters inside of it really surprised me.  There are a total of 24 inverters in there.  Here is a picture of what the guts looked like.

By the way the circuit boards sold for about $50 and the base sold for an additional $30!

My latest book is on Kindle

My book "Creation is a Fact" is on Kindle!  You can find it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00937S4IQ

It has taken a lot of work and as I can see there is still a lot more work to to do.  The table of contents needs work, several things need fixing for the smaller page width, and there is another book to add to the bibliography called "Cryptozoology from A to Z"

Even as I was publishing the book the news came out that drilling at the Antarctic found proof that it was once a tropical paradise just like the North pole!  Remember that the south pole is much colder that the north pole.  How could it have once been part of a tropical paradise?  Only via the canopy theory as found in my book.

Why write another book on creation?  Because I want to answer the question of what God did on the eighth day.  God created everything in six days, then he rested.  Then what did He do? Many creationists seem to imply that He never woke up form his "nap".  I believe that God went back to creating.  I believe creation is part of God's nature.  That explains why stars and planets are still being created today.  God loves to create.  He loves to be creative in our lives as well!

I have also created an Amazon author page, it is at: www.amazon.com/author/bobdavis321

Removing AVG 2102

Is AVG 2012 a virus?

I had to remove AVG 2012 from a computer the other day.  First I tried "AddRemove" programs from the control panel but it did not work.  Then I tried CCleaner but it could not remove it.  I could not even manually shut AVG 2012 down from "Windows Task Manager".

Finally I restarted the computer in "safe mode" and located C:\Program Files\AVG and AVG2012.  I then deleted the entire directories.  When I restarted the computer and I ran CCleaner to fix all of the registry errors.  Next I installed "Microsoft Security essentials".  Now the computer runs much faster and uses a lot less memory. 

Why are there two bottles when it fits in one?

Have you noticed lately that you can but two bottles of medicine and then pour the second bottle into the first with room to spare?

I see it all the time, a big deal, two jars for the price of one. They are both less than half full! Why not sell just one FULL jar for the price of one, and save on the environment?

Quick fix for wet basement

How to quickly and cheaply fix a wet basement. Drill holes in the bottom of the cinder blocks and let the water out. Then fill the blocks with expanding foam. Each can can only do 3 or 4 blocks. As the foam expands it will push more water out of the blocks.

 I got this idea from a church that was being built. First they laid the blocks for the basement. Then they brought in a big truck and filled all of the cinder blocks with foam. If the blocks are filled with foam then the water cannot get into them.

 The many cans of expanding foam might be expensive, but it is far cheaper than digging up all around the foundation and re-coating the outside or digging up the floor and putting in a drainage system.

If you can get at the top of the blocks you can also fill them from the top too.  Do that in several layers of foam with time to harden in between the layers otherwise the weight of the foam will compact itself.  It still takes a lot of cans of foam to do this.  I am sure there must be a company out there that can fill the blocks with foam from a truck!

How to list all posts in WordPress

I recently had the need to list all posts on a WordPress web site.  After hours of playing around I found a great Plugin called "Get Post List With Thumbnails".  It did a great job of listing everything in the sidebar but the explanation on how to get it to show up in a page is a bit difficult to understand. 

To list everything in a page, create the page, then switch to HTML and put something like this into it - [gplt orient="h" imgo="false" ttgo="true" dtgo="false" dtfrm="1" categ="" postnr="200" linn="4" divwid="300" tbwid="100" tbhig="100" cp="1" cs="1" lwt="2" tte="" sptb="false" tgtb="false" ordm="DESC" ordf="ID" metk="" mett="" pgin="" ptype="post" dexcp="false" gptb="false"] 

That short code above will do 4 across by 50 top to bottom for a total of 200 posts.  It looks like this:

The short code is a bit difficult to figure out.  To get an idea of what the codes mean use the widget in a sidebar and the long version of the short codes will then show up.

How to locate infected computer with a UTM5 or UTM10

I have worked with a number of Firewalls over the years, but the Netgear UTM Series Firewalls are not easy to work with.  After several attempts to find what computer is trying to access an infected web site I made a printout so I could easily find my way there.

Select "Content Filter" set the date back one day and select "Download" to get a copy of the data. It opens with a spreadsheet and then you can look in there to see who the offending computer is.

Comparing Digital TV Antennas

I have tried two different antennas for Digital TV reception. One cost me only $2 at a yard sale. One was far superior in rejecting interference and in reducing the number of drop outs.

Would you believe that the older antenna in the bottom picture did a much better job of rejecting interference like that of a train going by and in reducing dropouts? The four "bow tie" design is by far the best antenna for modern digital TV reception. The other antenna designs like the one in the top picture feature VHF reception and that is only needed for FM radio these days. The older bow tie type of antennas are also not nearly as directional so you usually do not even need an antenna rotor to get a good picture. So save yourself some money and get one of the old antennas!

Experiment with water and a balloon

I have been working on writing a book called "Why Believe in Creation?".  It comes from my notes from teaching on creation about 10 years ago at an EGC home group.  I was looking for some more science experiments to prove the existence of the canopy theory and some one wrote me and told me to use a balloon!  I was shocked at how well the experiment went.  Here is a picture of what happens.

Basically you turn on the water at a sink so it runs slowly but continuous.  Then you take a balloon and rub it in your hair until it is very charged with electricity.  Then you hold the balloon near the running water and get ready to be surprised at what happens!  It is more fun than pouring water on a magnet and seeing that the magnet is still dry (water moves away from magnetic fields).

The concept that I am trying to prove is that the earth was once perfect on its axis and the earths magnetic field was once many time stronger that it is today.  As a result water flowed "uphill" and went up to form a canopy of thick ice that protected the earth.  This canopy then turned the earth into a greenhouse, a tropical paradise from pole to pole.  The earth was mostly land back then so it was truly a green planet.

Then there was a meteor that destroyed the canopy and knocked the earth off its axis and weakened its magnetic field.  When the underground water came rushing up it pushed back the land and made the mountains burying the tropical paradise.  These buried trees turned into coal over a few thousand years.  So now we have buried coal as evidence that there was once this tropical paradise.

For more information get my book.....

Dodge Stratus Battery replacement

Recently I had the fun of replacing the Battery in a 2005 Dodge Stratus.  At first I could not find the battery but after following some cables back to the battery, I located it.

To replace the battery you must first remove the Left Front tire.  Then you have to remove the plastic around the front of the wheel well.  Next you need to disconnect the ground, then the positive, then remove the brace that goes in front of the battery.  All told it takes about 45 minutes to do.

I have been featured on EE Web!

I have been featured by Wired Magazine, Hacked Gadgets and now by EE Web.  Check it out:
http://www.eeweb.com/spotlight/interview-with-bob-davis

Samsung Syncmaster 214T repair

Samsung Syncmaster 214T repair for the symptom of a faint and flashing picture.

The solution is to replace 5 capacitors in the power supply.  They are 3 x 330 uf at 25 volts and 2 x 820 uf at 25 volts.  It is safe to use 470 uf and 1000 uf capacitors to replace them if you do not have the correct values in stock.

Dis-assembly can be a little tricky.  Start by removing the base by removing the 4 screws on the back of the monitor.  Then there are catches all around to remove the front.  Start at the bottom, and watch out for the short cable to the front controls.  Once the front bezel is removed, the guts come right out.  Then remove the metal cover and there is the power supply.

There are 5 capacitors that are bulging as can be seen in the picture below, replace them.

How to get more gas milage or better MPG

When I purchased my van it only got about 16 miles per gallon. So I set out to improve on that. First replace the spark plugs. Use platinum as a minimum, there is also split-fire and ring-of-fire plugs that will help give better MPG's.

Second add some magnets to the fuel line. Here are two sets of hard drive magnets on the fuel line of my 2001 Ford Windstar.

Next add a spacer to your oxygen sensor. The problem is that the car is running so well that the computer thinks it needs to pollute some more. Adding the Oxygen spacer tells the computer that the exhaust is more polluted so it will stop dumping so much fuel.

So far I am getting about 25 Miles Per Gallon, I will keep working on it with a goal of getting up to 30 MPG.....

Wordpress - How to replace TimThumb Improved

Back in 2009 I replaced TimThumb in the Mimbo WordPress Template with a change in the function that was used to get the thumbnail images. This function is found under "Theme Functions" and it is called "Get_post_image". The problem was that TimThumb was slow, and there already is a thumbnail image created whenever you upload an image to your Wordpress blog. That created thumbnail image usually ends in "-150x150.jpg".

The version of this function that I wrote back in 2009 was too slow because it used the "if file exists" test to see if the image name that it created was correct and if it did not exist then it went with the full sized image and just scaled it down by specifying a width and height of 150 and 150.

So the simplest way to select the already available thumbnail image is to remove the last 12 digits and replace them with "-150x150.jpg", Right? Unfortunately reality varies greatly from theory. The first problem is that you might have a ".gif" or some other image extension. So you have to remove the extension, then remove the next few digits, then replace them and then put the extension back.

Well that works about 75% of the time. The next issue that you have to deal with is if the image is smaller than around 600 pixels wide, there might not be any extension added onto the image that needs to be removed, so you just need to add the "-150x150" to the image. How can you tell what format the image is in? That is done by breaking down the image and then looking for first a "-", then a 3 digit number, then an "x" then, optionally, a second three digit number. So here is the code to do all of that:




/* For Getting the Image FASTER */
//GET-POST-IMAGE1 by Bob Davis - improved version of script by Tim McDaniels

function get_post_image1 ($post_id=0, $width=0, $height=0, $img_script='') {
  global $wpdb;
  if($post_id > 0) {
    $sql = 'SELECT post_content FROM ' . $wpdb->posts . ' WHERE id = ' . $wpdb->escape($post_id);
    $row = $wpdb->get_row($sql);
    $the_content = $row->post_content;
    if(strlen($the_content)) {
      preg_match("/<img src\=('|\")(.*)('|\") .*( |)\/>/", $the_content, $matches);
      if(!$matches) {
    preg_match("/<img class\=\".*\" title\=\".*\" src\=('|\")(.*)('|\") .*( |)\/>/U", $the_content, $matches); }
    $the_image_ext = substr($matches[2],-4);
    if ($the_image_ext == ".JPG") {  $the_image_ext = ".jpg"; }
    $the_image_dash = substr($matches[2],-12,-11);
    $the_image_num = substr($matches[2],-11,-8);
    $the_image_x = substr($matches[2],-8,-7);
// replace -???x??? with -150x150 and then add .jpg back on
    $the_image_src = substr($matches[2],0,-4);
    $the_image_repl = $the_image_src . '-150x150' . $the_image_ext;
// just add -150x150 and then add .jpg back on
    $the_image_src = substr($matches[2],0,-12);
    $the_image_add = $the_image_src . '-150x150' . $the_image_ext;
// Check to see it the name ends in -???x???
        if(($the_image_dash=='-') && (is_numeric($the_image_num)) && ($the_image_x=='x')) {
       $the_image = '<img alt="" src="' . $the_image_add .'" width="' . $width . '" height="' . $height . '" />';
           } else {
           $the_image = '<img alt="" src="' . $the_image_repl . '" width="' . $width . '" height="' . $height . '" />';  
                 }
        return $the_image;
      }
    }
  }

Playing with Free Energy Devices

First of all “free energy” is not an oxymoron. There are lots of easily used sources of free energy, like water going over waterfalls, sunlight, wind blowing, etc. Lesser known sources of free energy are gravity, the earth’s rotation, and magnetic fields. These sources of energy are harder to tap into and it is harder to get large amount of energy from them.

The first type of free energy device that I have experimented with uses an antenna as part of their power source. Supposedly Tesla’s self powered car used an antenna as its main power source. I have played with two of these types of generators. One uses a Tesla coil and the other just uses a bridge rectifier. I found two methods of obtaining more than one volt, but it was not enough energy to even light a LED! The first setup has the antenna going to the top of a Tesla coil secondary. The bottom of the secondary goes to a bridge rectifier. The other input to the rectifier comes form the ground and it can go through a smaller coil on its way there. The output of the bridge rectifier was about 3 volts, but dropped to 1.5 volts under load. A similar arrangement has the antenna and ground go directly to the bridge rectifier. That produced less than a tenth of a volt until I ran the output through a coil that was sandwiched between two large magnets. At that point it produced over one volt.

Magnetic generators use magnets and usually have electrical pulses to modulate the magnetic fields. If you believe that magnetic fields are not stationary but that they are always moving then all you need to do is to tap into those fields or modulate them so they reach a coil in waves to produce AC power output. There are several different arrangements of these generators. You can use two horseshoe magnets with pick up coils and pulse coils. You can use a long bolt with magnets on the ends and with many pick up coils and one pulse coil. Some of these devices have been patented and are proven to work.

Self propelled rotating generators are another source of free energy. To me if the generator takes a lot of power to begin with then it is highly suspect. There are generators that use a spinning wheel to produce static electricity. Then a high voltage oscillator is used to convert the static electricity into AC and then transformers can step it down to lower voltages that can be used to light ordinary light bulbs.

Motor Generators can supposedly produce more power out that what you put into them. They are very handicapped from the start because the motor is not efficient to begin with, so the generator has to be lie 200% efficient just to break even.

Another "What is This" Question

This is another one of my crazy inventions. The right side is a Nortel telephone. The left side interfaced with a computers printer port so it could control the phone via onto-couplers. It was used to control message waiting lights on a telephone system.

Can you guess what this is?

While digging through my junk I came across two things that I made years ago. Can you guess what they are?

The first is a IBM PC Turbocharger. It might be missing a crystal. You replaced the clock chip with this module and your PC could jump from 4.7 MHZ to 7 or even 8 MC. Wow that is fast....LOL.

The second is an APPLE IIE MMU Emulator. It could double your memory so that you could run Appleworks. Apple claimed it took 100 IC's to do the job, but they lied to intimidate people from trying. As it turned out Appleworks did not even read the status bits so 2 IC's were not even needed hence the empty sockets. I tried to get it published but no one would believe me that it worked so they did not publish it!

Arduino Based DSO Oscilloscope

My Arduino Based 25 million samples per second DSO Oscilloscope project is underway.  Years ago I made several printer port projects that were in my book "Digital and Computer Projects".  Over the years some of them were updated to work with a serial port using either a 68HC11 or a Basic Stamp.  Now I am starting work on redoing them using an Arduino.  My first projects were earthquake prediction and LED signs.  Next comes a 25 MSPS DSO Oscilloscope.  Currently I am reusing the old PCB from the Printer Port Scope project. 

I went looking for my old pictures and schematic on the Internet and somewhere around when Geo Cities closed down all of my old schematics were lost.  I am now searching my old hard drives to try to find them.

This is the block diagram of the prototype. As you can see it was very complicated. I built it using wirewrap about 15 years ago.

This is the block diagram of the simplified version that was used for the printer port O'scope.

Here is the analog input section. I am in the process of adding a LF351 input buffer IC.

This is the schematic of the memory section. It has the A to D converter and a FIFO.

This is the schematic of the clock, I left out a third 74390 that really should still be there.

Here is the PCB from the last version of the Printer Port Scope that I am reusing with the Arduino.

Targus Universal Charger Repair

Recently I fixed a Targus Universal Charger. This is the second time I have worked on one of these. If only I could remember what the problem was the last time, I could save myself lots of work. The symptoms are that there is no power at the output jack, and changing the jack does not fix the problem.

First I checked the power cable and it had power on the yellow main conductor to the shield. So it had to be the jack right? As you can see in the picture I tore the jack all to pieces to no avail. The actual problem is that the interchangeable jacks are ALL bad!  They have to be broken apart and then re-solder the center connector to the circuit board.  You might want to re-solder the grounds too while you are in there.

I swapped the rebuilt jack to the AC adapter end in the picture.

The connection color code from the end with a metal plate is:
Red
White
Yellow-Power
Ground-Sield
Blue