DIY Techno-hacksOld hard drive platters make wonderfully good drinks coasters - they look dead smart and expensive and you've stopped people reading your old data into the bargain.
Have you taped all your remotes together, peep-show-style? Have you wired your doorbell to the toilet? What enterprising DIY have you done with technology?
Extra points for using sellotape rather than solder.
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chthonic, Thu 20 Aug 2009, 12:30)
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DIY TV repair using the magical invention of FireWhen I was about 14, I had a ZX81 but no TV of my own. Then my step-mother bought me an old 22" black-and-white one from a jumble sale for 20p (wow! thanks!) and it worked very well for a while. I even modded in a switch and an earphone so I could watch it quietly at night.
Then, one day, poof. Magic smoke escaped from something inside and the horizontal scan stopped working. A single vertical line in the centre of the screen isn't very compelling viewing, so I opened up the back again but couldn't see anything wrong.
So I replaced the fuse and fired it up again. Bang. Dead. And again. Bang. Dead. And again. Bang. Dead. Something caught fire. Aha! At last I can see what the dead component is - it's the one that's alight.
It was a 600V paper capacitor, and I happened to have a replacement around, so I blew it out, let it cool, and fixed it. The set worked forever after until it was finally replaced with an Amstrad CPC464 and monitor.
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Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Sat 22 Aug 2009, 9:37,
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