My alarm clock lives again

[jzmtl]

Many many years ago when I went off to college, my parents bought an alarm clock to take with me. It was pretty darn expensive back then, something like $60 or $70 freedom bucks. It's been working just fine ever since, except in the past few years the buttons on top of display gradually stopped responding so setting time and alarm became such a pain, I just used my cellphone instead. Sure I could buy a new one for $10 nowadays, but this one is sentimental and except the buttons it works like it did on day one.



Today I set off to resurrect my old friend. The casing actually have arrows pointing at which Phillips screws to remove to open it, certainly different from all the hidden/security/completely lack of fasteners today.



What was interesting is the tactile switches on top of screen are different from the ones on side. Side ones are the common black plastic buttons, but these are copper coned disc with plastic membrane held on by a clip, strange that they would use two different types in the same clock. I managed to pop the clip off without too much damage, and found the bottom of all the copper disc oxidized and blued. It appears to have caused by arcing, didn't think it was possible on low voltage components like this but here it is. I guess being DC it tend to arc more.



So the fix was simple, cleaned up all the contact and back of discs with wire brush, coat with thin layer of dielectric grease, and reassemble.



And that was that, all buttons work perfectly now, good as new. 

[Steinar]

Great work! Always good when it's actually possible to repair something!

[Don Pablo]

Ahh, nothing like fixing electronics. 

[MadPlumbarian]

Cool, I needed a new alarm clock, so I got a fancy time, temp, date, and other stuff one.. but sometimes the older ones are better..
JR

[Grant Lamontagne]

Nice work Jie!

I must have thrown out a hundred or so clock radios since 2001!   

Def

[jzmtl]

Heh yeah, I don't think any of the new stuff is fixable like this anymore. Those surface mounted stuff are impossible to do by hand assuming you can open the case without destroying it.

[Poncho65]

Great fix and it is great having an old friend like that back in your life again

Fixing things if possible is always my favorite option as well and glad it was an easy fix

[moonweasel]

Nice work.
Probably a little difficult to get hold of in your part of the world, but this stuff is well worth tracking down.

I can't tell you how many buttons (same, but in car fobs) that this has rescued saving my customers a few hundred bucks in the process. It cleans out that blue/green smurf crap very well from that copper corrosion, almost like magic.

[Whoey]

When I moved to Europe in 2001 I threw out the digital alarm clock my mom gave me when I was about 10, that made it about 17 years old, it still worked and was falling apart. Sadly it wouldn't work on euro voltage so I figured it was about time to retire it. My wife (at the time girlfriend) bought me a replacement that plays CDs (including mp3 CDs)  with a battery backup. It works great but I do miss my old one... (I think the tuner was far superior in spite of it's age)

[Mechanickal]

Nice work.
Probably a little difficult to get hold of in your part of the world, but this stuff is well worth tracking down.
(Image removed from quote.)
I can't tell you how many buttons (same, but in car fobs) that this has rescued saving my customers a few hundred bucks in the process. It cleans out that blue/green smurf crap very well from that copper corrosion, almost like magic.

Does it work on SAKs?

[Whoey]

Nice work.
Probably a little difficult to get hold of in your part of the world, but this stuff is well worth tracking down.
(Image removed from quote.)
I can't tell you how many buttons (same, but in car fobs) that this has rescued saving my customers a few hundred bucks in the process. It cleans out that blue/green smurf crap very well from that copper corrosion, almost like magic.

When I worked in electronics manufacturing we used alcohol and a toothbrush to clean flux and process debris/gunk off the circuit boards, but I can see how a spray like that might work better for most.

[Smashie]

I thought I was the only person still using a clock radio. Excuse the mess my son is staying with me at the moment.

[ducttapetech]

Nice work on the clock. Sometimes I get lucky and can fix things like that or get unlucky and it let's the magic smoke out. I wonder if I am the only that still uses a wind up clock?

[jzmtl]

Nice work.
Probably a little difficult to get hold of in your part of the world, but this stuff is well worth tracking down.
(Image removed from quote.)
I can't tell you how many buttons (same, but in car fobs) that this has rescued saving my customers a few hundred bucks in the process. It cleans out that blue/green smurf crap very well from that copper corrosion, almost like magic.

CRC is quite common here actually, but I think they don't cater to the mass market since I've never seen them in retail, only in shops.