What's Inside a Fax Machine? -- The Electronics Inside 13

Awe yes the power of the edit. I realize there is some of that going on to produce the videos. I also figured maybe you had your hands on the assemble drawings. I know myself, any device I'm trying to take apart, I spend some time turning it over in my hands trying to figure the easiest way to disassemble. I didn't see that hesitation in your video, therefore figure, he has a tear down manual.

I wrote a story for a friend, more like an instruction set, to install a CD ROM in a Linux computer. This was long before there were drivers and support. I staged the instruction like the script for a 30 minute, do it yourself build a piece of furniture television show. My friend is a friend of wood. The host would say, now we put the drive into the computer and then break for commercial. During the commercial a host of helpers would do the work that would take longer than the 30 second commercial to complete but be edited to look like it was not complex. In 30 minutes you had a working CD ROM.

In actual fact the process takes much longer, like building furniture. The viewer after watching the 30min show thinks, hey I can do that.

I enjoy your tear downs productions. You mention in this video "I might do something with that." Is there a follow-up set, that takes a part to another video of building something?

Brilliant. I'm on it, going to make sure these are watched!! : ) So nice to see that Tim Hunkin is still doing stuff.

Great question!

I try my best to research every device I tear down, so I am not totally clueless when something comes up inside. Sometimes that will be a service manual that clears it up completely, sometimes I'm not so lucky. Most of the time, things are reasonably straight forward, and you can have a good guess based on what they look like.

There have been a few challenging screws and clips along the way - the Dyson 360 eye, and the 90s video camera from Sony are two notable "hard work" episodes.

The final thing to remember is the power of the edit. If there is 20 minutes of me searching for the last screw, it just gets cut... The time lapses that get used on social media slots normally betray this if you look carefully!

I'm curious so I thought I would ask a question.

I got the impression, at the start of your tear down that you knew what screws to tackle first. Now my tears downs are a guess and by gollies, I got it right. Did you have an assemble manual that suggested the order for screw removal to accomplish the task?

Not that it is a bad thing. It makes for a much easier flow than guessing what screw is next.

shabaz  Something to look forward to ?

Thursday March 4th 2021

The Secret Life of components.

A series of eight guides for designers and makers by Tim Hunkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JAgXz6xO0s

Release Dates:

CHAIN                 Thursday 4th March

SWITCHES         Thursday 11thMarch

LEDs                   Thursday 18th March

SPRINGS           Thursday 25th March

CONNECTORS  Thursday 1st April

HINGES              Thursday 8th April

GLUE                  Thursday 15th April

BEARINGS          Thursday22nd April

Tim did a keynote speech for a Maker Faire event which features a whistle stop video tour of the arcade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi7acYMyRSc

His presentation is interesting as he talks through the design process of one of his newer machines 'alien probe' from a maker perspective. Finished machine in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ysylB8Gvj0

Full video clip from the keynote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUqqImOTbFE

Also there is a look at arcade machines in a 'The Life of Machines' sort of documentary style which also features machines from the arcade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Lb0Gs5hAY

That looks fun! Unfortunately I've not been : ( I've visited Ipswich a few times in the past (to visit the obvious large firm there) but not explored beyond in that region so far : (

Have you ever made it to Tim Hunkin's "Under The Pier" arcade in Suffolk ?

Under the pier show arcade, southwold/alternative coin operated machines

Looks like a fun place to visit.

Just started watching it again, and it mentions how it was a Scotsman who invented the fax in 1843, before the phone.

I'm always impressed how many inventions originated from Scotsmen over the years... was there any significant invention that doesn't have some Scottish roots : ) It's like the Silicon Valley of the 1800's : )

Great to see this video. Seeing the insides of the fax machine reminded me of a thing schoolkids do here called 'work experience' at about 15 years old.. they get to spend a week annoying local firms : ) My work experience was at a fax machine repair company (banks would lease the machines from them too). It was fascinating taking apart the machines for their spare bits collection.. high voltage power supplies (for the scanner lamps etc), CCDs, opto-emitters and detectors (for paper feed) etc.. lots of cool stuff : )

Anyway, I remember visiting a bank with one of the staff-members, and the security card reader attached to the fax machine had a lock, but the spare key was tacked inside the fax machine : ) in case the repair engineer forgot to bring the correct key to the site.

Subsequently having learned that, I noticed a similar thing at the local library photocopier.. there was a coin slot attached and the key to override it (for free photocopies) was taped to the back of the photocopier!