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| Monthly Themes | ||
| Monthly Theme Poll |
Three First Place Winners Earn a Shopping Cart of $100 (from element14 sites)!
This month's theme is Simple Electronic Repairs and comes from fvan . The idea is to repair a device that is malfunctioning instead of throwing it away or buying a replacement. Simple electronic repairs is good first step before tackling a full blown electronic projects on your own. This is a good opportunity to start tinkering with an electronic gadget you love but might be missing because its no longer working.For example, want to make that discontinued ipod classic that stopped working more than just a collectors item? You could not only repair it but give it a larger storage capacity, maybe even replace the spinning hard drive with solid state drive. Another discontinued you could repair is the Pebble watch. The front of the glass isn't fused to the display and it includes a replaceable battery.
You can also give new life to laptops, smartphones, or tablets that are sitting there collecting dust but you've never gotten around to getting rid of. Many old Dell laptops, for instance, label their screws and connectors for easy assembly with end user self-repair in mind. Even when its a little trickier, such as with Apple products, many people have saved themselves a lot of money, not to mention long waits in line, by replacing batteries, screens, or hard drives that Apple would have you believe you couldn't fix yourself.
As fvan points out simple electronic repairs doesn't need to be complicated, such as repairing a faulty switch and will give you insights into some troubleshooting techniques. He uses a malfunctioning Xbox guitar (pictured right) as an example. One of the buttons would only allow you to go up instead of up or down, seriously limiting your options of what you could rock to. Rather then throwing the guitar away and getting a new one he opened it up to discover a reed switch was used for each position. One of these switches was constantly "ON", even in idle position, due to the magnet and switch being too close to each other. By gently bending the legs of the reed switch a little further away, it created enough distance to move set it as "OFF" in the idle position. 
Perhaps you picked up a really cool piece of vintage tech from a garage that needs a little work before its restored to its former glory. A lot of older tech has a larger and more modular design which allows defective modules or subassemblies to be quickly identified and easily replaced. This is in stark comparison to a lot of modern electronics, with a smaller footprint and necessitating more compact, specialized components and package assembly, it can be difficult to fix anything yourself without special desoldering equipment, tweezers, magnifying glass, or dealing with the manufacturer.
Simple electronic repairs is an opportunity learn about how your favorite electronic devices work. In the process you can bring to life amplifiers, video devices, game consoles, musical instruments, music players, speakers, cameras, phones, computers, laptops, tablets, and more.
How to Win
| Come Up With a Clever Name | Stick to the Theme |
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| Be Original | Submit Video Proof |
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Your Project Examples
| Monthly Theme: Simple Electronic Repairs | |
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Worklog : Repair of 20-year old precision multimeter, HP 3458A | |
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| The Monthly Theme You Voted for: Simple Electronic Repairs | |
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| Roboguy | Ben Heck's Xbox Laptop Repair |
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Your Project, Your Ideas!
| About Project14 | Directions |
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Every month you'll have a new poll where you'll get to decide an upcoming project competition, based on your interests, that will take place a couple of months in advance. Themes are broad in scope so that everyone can participate regardless of skill set.
What are Monthly Themes?
What are Monthly Theme Polls?
| Step 1: Log in or register on element14, it's easy and free. Step 2: Post in the comments section below to begin a discussion on your idea. Videos, pictures and text are all welcomed forms of submission. Step 3: Submit a blog post of your progress on your project by the end of the month. You are free to submit as many blog entries as you like until the beginning of the next theme.
Be sure to include video proof of your project!
Visit: Simple Electronic Repairs
You have until December 14th, 12:00 AM CDT to submit your completed project!
A jury consisting of your peers will judge project submissions! |
Let us know your ideas for a Simple Electronic Repair Project in the comments below!
You have until December 14th, 12:00 AM CDT to submit your completed project!
 | Terms_and_Conditions_Simple_Electronic_Repairs.pdf |
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