1202 ALARM

A non-working one of these came up for under £20 (delivered) on eBay and I figured it would be good craic seeing if I could fix it and add a composite video input. It's a slightly different model (on the right) with a toggle power switch instead of rotary, but apart from that looks identical. I found a brilliant video on YouTube detailing how to add a composite video input to a 1977 Panasonic television which turned out to have a very similar circuit. UPDATE (13/02/22) - All that was needed to get this going again was to replace a fuse on the main board. The problem was that someone had soldered a replacement fuse into the holder at some point and it wasn't rated highly enough. I sorted out the holder and put a 1.6A fuse in and off it went.  I removed the UHF module and battery wiring and started adding a composite video input to this one. Above is an initial test using a signal from my trusty (repaired!) DVD recorder, but some tweaking is st...

Just messing about with the big Dell monitor and a Linx Windows 10 tablet Mike kindly gave me. The screen has a problem with a black bar down the centre which is physical and probably terminal, but it has a micro HDMI output so can drive a monitor. I'm going to get the screen out of the tablet at the weekend and get a part number and a good look at what has gone wrong with it, but the tablet could still be useful as a computer even with no screen! UPDATE!! 27/02/22 I passed this monitor on to Steve from Freegle/Freecycle this morning.  Unfortunately I managed to drop the stand which was glass and shattered, but the monitor will most likely be wall-mounted so not a huge problem. If it fails again it needs a STPS60170CT high specification diode costing about £5.

I got this monitor on Freegle from Noel who has kindly given me a lot of stuff over the last few years. This model is from 2008 and uses a cold cathode backlight and although heavier on electricity, they are more reliable than the later LED backlit models. The power board was dead and a bit of research online revealed a known fault which had killed hundreds of these monitors, an under specification diode which overheats and goes short circuit after 4 to 5 years. The monitor was a beast to dismantle and the power board was clearly never meant to be repaired, with heatsinks that had to be unsoldered and removed to get at the failed part. Repaired it was though, using a higher specification diode salvaged from a junk power supply. Resolution is 2560 x 1600 (roughly 2K) and the picture is exceptionally sharp with vibrant colours and smooth motion. I'm tempted to leave the monitor naked, but the inverter has high voltages so that's unsafe. I might cut a large...