Consumer Electronics and Leaky Batteries

Recently I’ve been working on some IR remote control stuff, this has me digging through my bin of old remotes looking for one I could use as the controller.

I had one of these classic Haupauge remotes which I’d used a long time ago with a MythTV setup. I’ve long ago retired this machine and tossed the remote into the bin. Sadly I didn’t remove the batteries, and when I opened up the battery compartment I saw that they had leaked and corroded.

This has happened to me before, and usually cleaning out the battery compartment and putting some new batteries is all that’s needed. Unfortunately not this time.

It turns out that opening this remote is easy enough, but I needed some force. The top part snaps onto the lower part – no screws. I used a metal blade to get the two parts separated a little and then was able to get a pry tool in to pop them apart. The case was surprisingly durable and it did need more force than I was comfortable using – but in this case, I figured it didn’t work so I had little to lose.

Here you can see the circuit board before I’d cleaned it up. There was quite a bit of white build-up around the chip and generally around the circuit board at the bottom. There was a recent hackaday post on restoring an old gameboy that had similar problems.

Unfortunately I was not as lucky with this remote.

The chip lost an entirely leg – and this is the power pin as well. I suppose if I was highly motivated to repair I could try grinding off the corner of the chip and then soldering a bridge inside. However, this is a bit beyond my ability to work at microscopic levels.

The lesson here is that when you stash an old remote control away – remove the batteries. For me, the remote is junk – I might strip out the IR led and re-use it somewhere, but that’s about it.

2011 Macbook Pro – A1278 keyboard replacement

Around 2015 we bought a used Macbook Pro for home use. It was replacing an iMac all in one that had a bad power supply. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a real powerhouse of a machine if you look at the specs.

Over time it was clear that older mac wasn’t keeping up. I had done a few upgrades that helped extend it’s life. I’d put in 16GB of RAM – very worth the money. I also later swapped in an inexpensive 480GB SSD. The USB ports got wiggly over time and the keyboard slowly started to fail.

By 2020 it was well past time to replace it, which I did with a Macbook Air M1 (base). Of course I still hung onto the old machine which still worked, but was paired with a bluetooth keyboard. I finally got around to ordering a replacement keyboard from Amazon – a Padarsey.

Of course one of the first places I go for help is iFixit. Unfortunately the repair section for this laptop doesn’t seem to include a keyboard replacment. I used the upper case disassembly instructions and they were close enough and helpful. The keyboard is hidden underneath everything, so you have to take almost everything apart to replace it.

Annoyingly there are three different types of screwdrivers you’ll need: phillips, torx, and tri-wing. I’m really happy with the Kingsdun 60-in-1 set I got recently. It’s got lots of sizes and it’s bailed me out a few times. The bits are not the highest quality, but having the right shape and size makes things possible.

I ended up re-using the existing keyboard screws (there were so many of them!) instead of the ones that came with the new keyboard. I was also grateful for my magnetic mat which helped keep all of the screws organized. Re-using the back-light wasn’t difficult at all.

It was with relief that I saw the system boot up right way after I’d re-assembled it. There are a lot of little bits to get right. It was an epic repair and I’m not sure I’d rush to do it again. Now with a fully working keyboard it’ll continue to get some light use as a secondary machine.

Goodreads – 2021

I’m still tracking my reading with Goodreads, which continues to be primarily eBooks sourced from my local library. I missed doing a summary post in last year, in brief I read 35 books (11,714 pages) in 2020. This was fewer than in 2019.

2021 was a lot like 2020, but somehow I read a lot more books. 64 books (20,858 pages). My goal was 35, and I’ll probably use that as my goal for 2022.

It seems the image dump of the titles is roughly the order I read them in. You can see I read a fair number of series. For the most part to find new material I searched what was available to borrow in random order. I got a few nice surprises.

I really enjoyed the Sandman Slim series. The Diabolic series also stands out as a fun read. I generally rate most books 3 stars, but this year I was more critical and gave out more 2 star reviews than I had in the past. Only The Terminal Experiment and Sandman Slim got 4 stars from me.

With so many rich media experiences, I still think it’s important to disconnect and read. Better still to pick up a paper book and give your eyes something different to stare at. The local library is a great resource not only for books, I discovered that the magazine selection and software presentation was pretty good on my tablet.