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Apache AL13P Repair

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Apache AL13P Broken Trace FixI just received an Apache AL13P laminator I purchased off eBay (for doing toner transfer PCBs), as not working, for $15 with $15 shipping (so, $30 vs a new one for $90 from Amazon). Listing said the motor worked, but the controls didn’t. Figured it would be something easy.

Item arrived from FedEx saying they had inspected it (guessing they wondered about the odd weight of the box), but otherwise in very good shape. Looking at the unit, it had obviously been dropped in shipping to the original purchaser, as one of the top case tabs had broken, and upon opening, the transformer had broken loose of the power PCB (breaking a trace at the time, as well as breaking a leg/lead off the primary side of the transformer). So, repairing we will go!

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2nd Fluke 87 True RMS Multimeter Repair

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Fluke 87Just posting a quite note that I recently purchased another Fluke 87 from eBay, this time at a more rational price of $75, with a fading display. With the wonderful help of Mr. Modemhead’s detailed explanation, I was able to get the screen back to factory quality, and the unit looks brand new!

Also cleaned up the yellow rubber boot with another page he published here. Meter looks brand new, took me maybe 25 minutes to do the screen repair. I’m pretty darn happy. I now have a Fluke 8060a, 87, and 189… I’m not sure they’re all considered the same family, but that’s how I’m going to look at it. =)

Repairing Panasonic PNLC1029

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Panasonic PNLC1029 BoardI purchased a set of Panasonic cordless phones from woot.com a while back, and all of them worked great. But, after a while, one of the chargers stopped working. Looking at the voltage on the charger, it was showing the normal voltage across it (about 5.5V), but the unit just wouldn’t charge. I wired up the unit with my meter between checking amperage draw, and it was only pulling about 2mA, where a working charger showed 200mA. Hmmm…

I opened the charger (single screw on the bottom) and it’s pretty darn simple, as you can see from the picture. The 1R resistors both checked out, as did the fuse, but interestingly, I was seeing a 1.8V drop across the protection diode. That’s… not right. I opened another unit and got the normal 0.6V drop across it.

So, figured the diode might be bad, I pulled it, and got the more normal 0.6V drop. So, bad solder joint it would have seemed. I put it back in, and soldered it back in, and it stayed with the 0.6V drop. I hooked it all back up, and meter showed a more normal 200mA draw. So, it works!

Obviously, given the look of the board, I’m guessing these are cranked out by the thousands, and just ended up with a cold solder. So if you have one of these, check that protection diode (as well as the fuse), since it’s unlikely the resistors would go south. =)

PNLC1029 1N4001UPDATE 7/3/2014As can be told from the comments, I’ve had the repair fail since doing it. Resoldering the diode would help for a bit, then it would fail again. So, knowing the diode was the issue, I grabbed a standard axial 1N4001 from the parts bin, trimmed the legs, bent them over, and soldered it in place. So far, it’s working… but I’m not going to consider it fixed until it lasts for a good month or so. I have to wonder, since I can’t find any stats on that diode, if it’s overheating (and therefore, under-spec, but that generally wouldn’t cause the symptoms seen). And yes, I know it looks like hell. I don’t care. =)