I Bought ARGOS CUSTOMER RETURNS to FIX - Can I Make ££$$€€
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Hi, in this video I bought an Argos customer returns box to attempt to fix the broken items.
So what will be inside, will anything be fixable or will it all be broken beyond repair.
Let's find out.
If you would like to support these videos, please click here / mymatevince
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince.
So nice to see these things being fixed instead of being sent to landfill
The same i think - thank you ! BTW the glue gun (by hot-air) was great - i hope one time in a wholesale you would find the real glue gun :) but it wastes more glue than your method. Like a toothpaste tube wastes more toothpaste than needed :)
what would have been nicer is if these ultra cheap low quality items were never produced in the first place
Low-cost, bulk buys by big chains order these substandard items for big profits
Yepper!
Don't worry, Amazon still throws lots of good things to landfill 😢
I love watching you bring these broken items back to life. Thank you from a bedridden old man. I find it entertaining and educational.
Old devices often had block/part diagrams glued somewhere inside their cases. And it was a norm to get the schematic sheet distributed as an insert in the user's manual.
I remember that too.
Those were not that complex back then, nowadays everything is in one chip with billions of transistors and proprietary circuitry, but without what we have these days we wont be on the internet or we would still use computers the size of rooms
@@309electronics5 Things like color tube TVs were quite complex. Certainly more complex than 90s highly integrated devices. Also, there are schematics of things like PC and laptop motherboards available to download (not always legally, but still). Usually it's just a couple of sheets. Would be easy to print and put into a manual. No one expects internal chip diagrams. Even just a part list would be enough.
I think companies have come to two conclusions here. Most people will not even think of repairing something and of those that do, few will try. Add in the desire of companies for customers to buy again, though why one would if the thing broke, and why would printing a schematic be anything but a useless cost to a company?
Doesn't happen much these days with these cheap Chinese products. Except some microwaves, maybe... edit: however, it doesn't take that much more time to add the part number of the ICs to the silkscreen... I loath seeing "U1", "R1".. ok, cool, that refers to a reference number on the schematic, we don't have one... just print the part number.
I am an electronics engineer, I have a bachelors and a masters and spent most of my career as a design engineer and watching these videos make me realise how much of a prima Donna I am. I would want schematics and a direct line to the designer, a rider and an assistant. Well done guys for doing this, believe it or not most engineers are happy you exist, the companies we work for probably not so much! You patience as well is astounding, I would have bailed in the first I don’t know… 2 minutes. The reason it is not printed on the silk is the BOM.. I think there does not need to be a schematic available but the BoM would be helpful
The 2nd clock was definitely tampered with. There's no way it would have left the factory in that state. Someone messed with it, and then returned it as faulty. My #1 reason for never buying open box or returned goods, even if they work, is that you never know who had them before, and what they did to them.
Or maybe someone sabotaged someone else's alarm clock for some devious motive. Then the owner rightfully thought it had just broken and returned it as faulty.
That's far far less likely, often times you cannot get a full refund for a working product, it's easier to just open it and snip a wire, then when the company receives the item and verifies that it doesn't work, you get your money back.@@Derek_Garnham
Buy a clock and change your mind there is no refund. Take the back off and cut random wires gets your money back.
@@mbak7801 Exactly that!
Then the seller's loss gets put into the overall price of their products, so the rest of the customers pay for a select few to enjoy free products.
I've got a cheap scale to use in making espresso and it's inaccurate, so I decided to return it. Had to contact Amazon because I couldn't print a return label and spoke with two different agents, got the label issue sorted, all without even asking me what was wrong with the product...
Could simply be terrible QC.... never know.
I like these random fixes. Honest faults indeed!
Excellent, thanks devtty 😎
The 'wire with fabric' will be Litz wire, where wire and thread are spun together to reduce 'skin effect' where radio frequencies are present. It also is used on loudspeakers to reduce metal fatigue where the link wires are flexing...
Absolutely right. :)
yeah what i think happened with the second clock is that someone didnt like it so cut the wires and returned it as faulty - they also asked for a refund.
I don't know why you'd do that. It's a cheap clock radio, clearly, but a cheap clock radio is better than no clock radio in my view.
i did that with a cheap cellphone. intentionally overdischarged the battery and tampered with the charger so I can return it. Some stores just don't accept a "change of mind/item no longer needed" as a valid reason to return a product.
@@RealEpikCartfrenYT What country do you live in? I think here in Australia we generally have the right to return something if we decide we don't like or want it, but it has to go back within 14 or 30 days or something. I could be wrong though, I can't remember exactly, but you do have rights as a consumer.
@@Lachlant1984 Bosnia and Herzegovina is my country's name.
There _are_ stores which do accept returns normally but in this case I needed to tamper with it as they only accept if it's faulty.
Argos has 14 day money back no questions so seems a bit silly but people be crazy :)
The AM radio has been purposely damaged/disabled so that it could be returned as not working.
In case the staff plugged it in not only does the Tuner not work there is no sound. No-one opens the equipment up to check for physical internal damage so they get their money back. And they then go back and purchase another one which they will also return within the year of purchase.
Thanks @Mymatevince for another cracking video, you really are awesome!
Great video 🍻
20:09 The polarity of the speaker does matter. As soon as you get near another speaker with the correct polarity, playing exactly the same, you may hear some weird sound cancellation effects 😉
Starting at 26:30 , you talk about "Right to repair", how it would be better to have access to documentation of circuitry in some way. Somebody already mentioned, how it's been normal, that schematics and parts lists of a product were included in delivery...they stopped doing this decades ago, bit by bit, time flies 😳
Louis Rossmann is heavily lobbying for RtR and I think its a good thing to make people aware of these bad practices.
34:54 Measure it. Your Multimeter has mA uA and A connections. To use them, plug the red probe into the A. Break the circuit and use the probes to bridge the supply output to the circuit input through the multimeter. If the measurement is below 0.2 A (200 mA) use the mA mode and connection. And MAKE SURE you are not using the amp measurement connections for modes they are not intended for, as it MIGHT DESTROY your multimeter, or the circuit, or both, you can even pop a circuit breaker by accident. Never measure how many amps a supply can provide, if you don't know its regulation capabilities...done it on a german 3.5 kw breaker 🙈 nice pop
39:22 list of features says it, Power Supply Ripple Rejection. This is kind of what you want for the application "radio". Both were a good choice, but the first may have had a hard time coming up from shutdown with its max 0.5 watt rating 😅 the second one delivers roundabout 1 W max. and might pop just like the factory one, if 1W is not enough (measure it 😆).
EN and SHDN with the line above means NOT in binary logic. So like, not shutdown when true (voltage).
The ENABLE pin, is high to enable. The SHDN pin had a line above it, so it was an inverted signal, so that's low to shut down. They are the same thing.
Yeah probably just inadequate current on the first one.
With those dome switches, you could turn on the radio when it apart and press the button with your finger to test. More often than not the switch is not the fault, but looks like you got lucky with that one and it wasn't aligned correctly :) Good to have a success on the first one. The speaker fault looks deliberate. Customer didn't like it and wanted a return. Looking closely at the speaker, looks like it was deliberately cut. There is a band switch on the radio, someone cut out the AM Loop Antenna also. Speaker polarity with a single speaker is not important as a speaker uses AC, so you can connect them either way. On a device like this phasing is not important. The battery polarity, I've seen it often with Chinese made devices having the colours wrong
I suspect that the Bush DAB Radio had the wrong power supply plugged into it that took out the regulator and audio amp IC.
Great fixes as always, Vince. 😊
Yep, very often these audio things have centre negative and most supplies are centre positive. I bet they didn't check first.
@@englishrupe01 Japanise products tend to use centre negative. i.e. Casio, Brother, Epson etc.
@@chrisg6597 Yep, and a lot of guitar stuff does, too.
@@chrisg6597 And several '80s home computers too. If you're lucky the device will have a reverse diode on the input that will blow dead short in the event of reverse polarity and only kill the power supply not the whole device. If you're REALLY lucky it might also have a fuse which will blow when the diode shorts to protect the power supply as well
Could the problem be the cells were fitted arse about face
If your worried by the current draw in battery mode of your radio (or any battery device) simply put your meter into Milliamp mode and pull out a battery and remake the connections but with your meter in series, basically let the current flow through the meter as wall as the radio and read of the current when on and then measure when off. Probably next to zero when off maybe a few milliamps, dunno...cheers.
You need microamp resolution to measure this, but his multimeter has that setting.
Hi Vince. Unless they are heavily shielded, switch mode power supplies cause too much interference, especially on AM bands, to be used inside radios.
Thank you Terry👍👍
The second clock, with the cut wires, looks like someone has a "smart kid" wanting to repair items and opened their new clock radio and cut some wires to "repair" the clock. Parents noticed no sound and returned the item.
At 3:03 there is a tiny little piece of black (possibly plastic?) visible on the centre of the affected cap, moving the switches around probably disturbed it. Nice troubleshooting though!
noticed that also, a very small speck rendered it useless! great fixes Vince!
a great pity that not more High Street, Catalogue and Retail Returns Centres aren't employing apprentices, repairers, restorers and technicians to repair and fix stuff to restock as 'refurbished' etc. - Would make such a difference especially for Electron waste such as these from entering landfill.
It really is such a shame that people are so quick to throw things away and buy new things. There are pretty much no consumer products you can buy that are made to last like they used to be!
BER - Beyond Economical Repair.
A technician being paid £8 per hour takes two hours to fix a £10 radio. Which probably cost £4 to manufacture before the markup.
I know this because I worked at an eFab firm where they were fixated on the length of time to repair something. Their margins were very low which was on them.
@@kjamison5951 Exactly my thoughts. Only practical as a hobby. It's a shame stuff has been cheapened so much as to become disposable.
@@kjamison5951 spot on, not economically viable.
You don't know how Argos returns work or where they Go So why comment
28:00 Absolutely well put my friend. The problem is that they want you to buy a new one when it breaks 😑
Love these random faults. Great job Vince
Thank you Phil😎
Nice to see items being fixed instead of going to landfill. It is particularly good to see when some of the fixes are minor. Minor glitch in the rolling text? Chas Newport is listed twice in the club member section.
🎵Newport, Newport, so good they named him twice 🎵
For the second bush radio: looks like someone needed the JST connector which is why it is missing and also the wires to the speaker.
Either this or it was a QC Unit, which was intentionally manipulated, that got through.
The FM antenna is usually a single wire and the AM antenna is a coil around a ferrite rod. Good work, man
I used to have a PC repair shop and once came across a GPU that seamed fine apart from a physically mangled capacitor, being an ASUS channel partner and having access to original spares for their laptops I decided to get in touch with them to simply ask for the correct value, after a bit of fenageling and representatives the final answer I got was that it was proprietary info and they will not risk letting it out there lest someone manages to get enough info to copy it.
Bit of a change from when all HiFi and radio equipment would come with the schematics inside the cover.
Many manufacturers nowadays even grind off the labels from key components.
And this is why we need Right-to-repair laws in place everywhere, who include the requirement for public access to technical schematics.
And fines that actually matter for breaking them. (None of this, "we'll fine you 2 million for this" when they *Made* 2 billion on it).
I'd say .1% of the annual earnings for the first infraction, and every time they are proven to intentionally break it, we move the decimal point one spot to the right.
Bet you no one of them will ever go beyond 3 times.
Heh, Apple would be funding half the world in 2 years...
I remember when I bought broken PC Speakers from Conrad Electronics für under 5 Bucks, it had the Ground trace missing on the Audio Input. I soldered a Jumper wire and fixed it, It's unbelievable that some Manufacture skip the quality control, at least for some people it's an advantage to get a Cheap Device which are sometimes easy fixable, but for regular customers it's annoying to have the rassle to return it, or even fail after a short period of time.
iron transformers are used in clock radios because the time is mains referenced, over a year the clock will be almost dead acurate in most areas
Love your patience / ingenuity, and ability to apply what you know to fix these things. Excellent video presentation as well.
I bought one of these bundles Vince (pretty sure same seller). They’re all Argos returns and are mostly easy fixes. They downsides are some are cheap plastic breakages that very hard to fix confidently.
Yeah, I bet it is the same seller👍 Nice to get some easy fixes though even if the quality of the products are questionable!
@@Mymatevince I don't believe that many people are buying those CD Walkman things when you can just load a heap of music files into your phone.
The quality of these units is below any quality level at all. Harsh clicky buttons and cheap components, mass produced with little or no QC. Why do we import such tat?
That one with cut wires will be a change of mind return that they have sabotaged to look like it was faulty.
Those cheap clock radios usually run the clock of the mains frequency so it’s much simpler to have a transformer and a lines power supply to tap into that
Nope, that was way back with synchronous motors, today a clock chip and a small crystal is way cheaper. :p
That first clock, when you put the dome in where the original had been not responding, you didn't completely seat the dome into its little nibs. This has the effect of making it taller than spec, which points back to the idea that the button above it is a bit short or otherwise mis-formed.
no
Hi Vince, what a fixer MARATHON! BTW I think that the regulator on the radio blew because someone connected a 12V or a laptop adapter to it. Regarding the power draw, you can always disconnect one of the battery leads and put the multimeter in between to measure it. ;-)
Cheers Marcel👍
Using your amplified speaker (line in) for fault finding is an excellent idea. But to protect it from input shock, add to the end of the cable, in series: a 50n capacitor and a 220k resistor.
Awesome video! Its so satisfying fixing stuff. The cool thing about this is if monetised this video has probably made about £400 so it was worth him doing it but also it has likely inspired many to try and repair broken stuff too 😊 everyone's a winner!
hi vince you make fixing things look easy ..... and brighten my day as i am disabled a bit ! i have been watching you for a long time kind regards paul h
Thanks for the trip down not so good memory lane. I started in the electronic repair business as an apprentice in the 1960s when things that were sold were on the whole repairable, though since then things have gone down hill to the throw it away it is not repairable for most things we have today. I was very glad to hang up my soldering iron put the Avo 8 in a box and put it in the loft though I have kept its long time replacement Fluke in my workshop that does not have any thing to do with electronic repair. I wish you all the very best for the future but on those three radios you looked at I do not think you broke even on time and components.
Hi mate totally unrelated to the vid, but i had hay fever since i was young, if it's any help. Try avoiding lager and wholemeal wheat based products. ( e.g Brown bread) try avoiding during the summer months, and also put vaseline under the nose and under the eyes (not too near) this will also stop pollen from getting in. I did for a year and didn't suffer once. Hope it helps. Have a great day 👍🏻🙂
I’ve always backed away from electronics... you sir are educating a old folk that will take on any repair as long as it’s challenging
The 8002 amplifier chips are realy common they are in almost every (cheap) thing. I bet someone plugged the wrong voltage in the white radio causing the chips to blow up. You are lucky the main processor of the radio (on the little pcb thats soldered onto the main pcb under a sticker) is fine and did not get damaged
22:00
Deductive reasoning is your friend.
You've traced the power input to the 5-pin IC.
You assume the 5pin sot23-5 is an LDO, because it has two filtering caps (one for input, and one for output)
Since you know 5pin sot-23-5 based LDO's pretty much have only a few pinout configurations, you can further narrow it down based on a few criteria
1) Where is the VCC, GND inputs?
2) Which way around is the output?
3) Is there a current sense resistor / divider attached, if so, to where?
Once you've run these questions down, you can pretty easily narrow down the IC type you'll need
From what i can see (and you should probably verify the connection points) it looks to me to be an AP2205 or similar adjustable LDO
Such a great video Vince, It was a pleasure to watch with insight and knowledge. Takes me back when I used too repair Mum's Boot-sale items.
She always said, that, it makes good practice for me. Until, I spent nearly an hour repairing a radio to working order. When finished, she said that she nicked it from a stool after an argument with a seller... I felt like tossing it in the bin.
I did see the funny side after a time. Sadly we lost her 23yrs ago. Sad, but good times...
just came across your channel last night, brings back lots old memories of taking stuff apart to diagnose and fix and sell on, its so satisfying seeing some many of these products with such minor issues fixed to find a new home and giving it a chance to do what its designed for, save so much junk in landfill that doesnt to be. i always salvage batteries out of disposable vapes and build portable power banks or LED portable torch or lanterns for camping with them or repurpose them for other electronic projects in future. Subbed by the way cos im sure alot of your contents will help myself others out there to fix their goods before even considering dumping it.
For the DAB, you'll find that the SHDN/ label has a bar on top of it denoting that it shuts the regulator down when low, the other regulator was just labeled EN which denotes that it's enabled when the pin is high which amounts to the same thing.. There's no 'feedback' on these fixed regulators. I suspect that the 100mA output limit of the first regulator wasn't enough causing the output voltage to collapse that's why it didn't work. As mentioned elsewhere, probable reverse polarity of the batteries, as the unit would have come with it's own dedicated power supply, did the blowing up honours!
That power regulator IC on the DAB radio, didn't have any sort of feedback pin. The extra pin was to put a capacitor across to reduce output noise. Can't think why, it can't be a switcher internally without any sort of coil, or a capacitive voltage multiplier, cos they only work on whole-number multiples of the input. Usually. But whatever, that's what the data sheet said it was for, a 470pf cap to reduce noise. That, the shutdown pin, and the usual 3 for a regulator, and that's your 5 pins.
Well done on the fix btw! Nice work.
The words I'm looking for here are Deft and Skill. So enviable to see such confidence and slick work by someone who really knows what they're doing all the time and knows how to do it. And 80% of that skill is diagnosis of what's the source of the problem. I'm really impressed with this.
glub glub glub glub
Quite interesting obviously no one would bother to repair these the skills/knowledge involved costs a lot more.
Those snappy triangular switches can be a real sod to align right. I had one of the 1970s Mastermind games, and the whole keyboard works like that and I took it fully apart before realizing quite how it worked right. There were a few keys non-functional. Getting that back together and working nicely was a nightmare.
I have a portable air conditioner with those PCB buttons and it was getting very hard to turn on so now I just switch it off at the socket.
Good clear video and informative. One thing though. I would recommend using something like Knipex wire strippers, side cutters are just wrong. Then soldering a 3/8th stub. Cutting off 1/4 to leave a 1/8th nub of neat wire to dab onto test points on the board. Using fly leads with long bare wire or worse a frayed end of multi-strand is asking for a short circuit. Otherwise a big thumbs up.
when I was a kid there was a paper in side radios and stuf that had schismatics in there
I love the way you fixed one by rubbing a greasy finger across a connection 😂😂
Vince, about the radio, OK, you got it and that is the most important. Anyway, I guess there was a more simple way of finding out the regulator voltage. Considering you had the correct code for the sound chip (that you replaced), its datasheet would probably indicate the necessary working voltage.
Exactly ! I won't bother to comment.
^ but you did.
Working in manufacturing, it isnt entirely uncommon for the assembly team to forget to solder something like a speaker wire. Or to have a unit sent for rework, only to be returned afterward to be reassembled without mentioning that something has been cut or removed and needs replacing before reassembly... It's incredibly annoying, but thats what happens sometimes.
I've also seen it happen where a new assembler decides not to follow the process on a product that requires a sequenced assembly process, causing parts/wires/components to break. Which is real fun when not following process instructions means scrapping a board with a final product retailing at $10,000+ USD...
Also, repinning those micro connectors is a god damn nightmare when you accidentally break the pin.
I repair a lot. Love to see broken things brought back to life! Always new things to learn from watching others. Many thanks for your excellent channel. 👌
😂 worked in a Alba Bush TV refurbish place when i left school this is a common fault .. they all either dont align or brake off. and normally can be fixed with a soldering iron . RADIO/TV fix.. keep up the good work ..😍
Glad I watched this video as I have a USB power socket to replace, I hadn't realise the milky white blob was just hot glue holding it in situ!
Hello from Tampa Florida! I just surfed onto your channel and enjoyed them (4). I really don't know small electronics but.....I did learn one thing. Don't buy Bush transistor radios 😅.
Great videos and I'm subscribed
modern Argos stuff just oooozes build quality
who needs all that vintage Hifi from the 70s and 80s.
Astonishing detective work. Such great logic. Sherlock Ohms. I couldn't do this. I haven't the temperament (yet). But I carry these thoughts with me when I get frustrated working on something. It's like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Thank you for that.
I love the fact that you're able to fix some sort easily. Because I quite like this brand I know they're not very good but they make items of a company's don't
Not bad, it's amazing that the "faulty returns" can, in some cases, only require small repairs or minor repairs to get them fully working again. Even with the DAB/FM radio, you could tell it was going to be a 3.3V voltage regulator, so hopefully you'd be able to get the right one.
I didn't realise those surface mount chips would withstand so much heat. I try to be very quick when soldering them.
I was screaming at my TV, "stop!", "Stop!", etc. He kept reheating the pins!. The solder was fine the first time, then he kept playing with it. Then he was adding more solder. I was getting pissed! Lol
He left the joints worse than when he first soldered them.
I'm glad someone else noticed the torture that Chip was able to endure. It did better than I did. Lol
PS
I applaud you on your diplomacy.
I have been finding random stuff people had thrown away and repairing them for years, but until I seen your video it never occurred to me to buying them online. 🤔🤔
Brilliant video, gotta love pulling something apart to figure out how it works. 👍👊
Question. Is there any advice you can give about buying these kind of returns boxes? My research came up with a lot of scams, empty boxes etc.
Thanks 🤟 looking forward to the next video
Brilliant watching you work through these faults. Well worth watching. 👍👏🏴👍👏🏴
I'm alway very heavily hit by hay fever and this season I've tried a Bilastine-based product and it was working really great WITHOUT making me tired. I very strongly recommend that you try one of these new ones. (I too am rocking a Philips air purifier for good measure)
The screen print on the pcb is just enough for factory assembly but they do not want you to repair….better you buy new.. by example I recently had a car wiper motor stop and knew it was a pcb fault. The manufacturer wanted £800 for a new motor. Way over the manufacturer price. Initially the manufacturer said it was copyright but eventually talking to lesser employees they explained…. If you could fix they would make no more money but if not they can sell you a new motor. As for price they decide what you would pay. Because you must have wipers they push the price as high as they can. The motor costs them £15 so if they charged you £60 they would make a small profit but on a £20,000 car what would you pay to keep it on the road. Even a second hand car you are not going to scrap it for the sake of £800!! If Right to Repair is forced we might eventually get details but until then…..dream on. ☹️☹️
Which is why they're intent on banishing the right to repair as that prevents them the right to profit. The latest attempt to ban right to repair and modify is a new campaign to ban the repair, modification and replacement of parts by end users "for your own safety" after a series of e-scooter fires in homes in recent times.
Even if I had the right to repair something, that does not mean that I have the skills, tools, or inclination to exercise that right myself. Realistically, my options are to retain a professional (sorry, Vince) to fix it or just replace it.
I do try to donate my non-working electronics to a charity shop, however, so someone else can ultimately attempt to repair them.
Well done spotting the ferrite rod AM aerial.
Mate Vince you did better than l did changing the 7 x 18650 cells in our stick hoover. I let the smoke out for good when a component shot out a big spark as l accidentally shorted out something or other with a wayward loose wire…!
I have the exact same Bush DAB radio from Argos about 3 weeks ago. For the price (£19.99) you can't really grumble, it does what it was designed to do.
Could you imagine if you fixed these items while at a remote location outside? Bush Bush fixes :) Great video as always!
In Australia, DAB+ radio stations do transmit the date and time information, it is very good.
Vince, hope you don't mind me saying, but you left your iron on that poor chip for a loong time, try and do it quick as possible, clean the pads first and tin them and pip pip pip its on. This is not a nice experience for these little chaps and they can only survive a few operations like this, and that was a few in my book!
Edit PS. Your success rate is remarkable and many of your repairs would tax me and really I can't praise you enough.
nonsense.
On the third radio with the faulty regulator and sound chip the enable pin on the 3.3v regulator is tied to the supply so that the regulator stays on because the power is removed from the regulator at an earlier stage in the circuit... I don't think the batteries will be drained.
i feel you mate! i have hayfever too and i despise it.
I like the way you cause a fault behind the scenes to make out you fixed it in front of the camera. 😂
These videos are 100% real
Hi Vince, I enjoyed every minute, love the way you go about fault finding, ok it may or may not be financially worthwhile but you are keeping these out of landfill which is superb, I will certainly be watching future vids. as they really make my day, pity there isn't a channel on free view it would be so much better than the mindless crap they have showing right now, keep going you're a star mate.
That second radio looks like a late friday afternoon assembly made by a new starter on the production line!
I used to have a full time job where i collected all the returns and thrown away stuff from shops bins, all Argos stuff goes back to the depot but most other big stores dont, i had a workshop for mechanical repairs , i didnt do electronics but i repaired and refurbed tons of stuff and kept it out of landfill, the amount of waste in retail and industry made me shake my head at times. £500 items thrown away for no reason . The upside of this i i never bought anything for years as i had 3 or 4 in my store already, all my food was free too.
I've bought stuff broken and fixed it. Also when I buy something electronic and they ask you about extended warranties I decline because most of the time I can fix it and if not it's just spare parts.
For your hayfever use "NEO"CLARITEN (the generic name for it is "Desloratadine so ask the chemist for that instead as it's just the same and much cheaper). It's completely non drowsy and very effective.
thank you, doctor.
@@CleoKawisha-sy5xt I would actually prescribe Fexofenadine. Its what pilots with hayfever get prescribed specifically for its non drowsy behaviour.
Very interesting and instructive video - great idea about the component labelling. Problem is no financial incentive to make stuff repairable. Maybe EU will legislate on this one day as part of CE
Honestly, this could've gone on for 3-4 hours, and I'd still be here. Great video! Liked, Subscribed, Bell'ed, and Commenting for the algorithm. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and process.
That first clock radio with the non-working volume button. Unless my eyes deceive me, when you peel the button off at 3:00 there is a tiny black fleck of something, presumably the black plastic which the case is made from, right in the middle of the domed part at the point where it would make contact with the pad on the board underneath. It's visible all the way up until about 3:11. At some point after that it probably falls off or gets cleaned off and that's presumably why it works of when you put it back together.
According to the Argos representatives, the radio you repaired does not support DAB+. Which is an absurd design and manufacturing choice to make nowadays. If that is the case, let's hope the new owner does not want to listen to Classic FM on digital radio come the new year.
?? representatives ??
@@sleepwalker6825on the Argos website, Technician replied to a message saying its not DAB+. Not a big deal as its not advertised as such and is only £20.
Digital radio? Am I missing something
Great perseverance on the Bush!
Fix no.2, the imssing plug and socket, I've got them in stock. If I'd know how many mm in size, I can send you from Scotland ;) if you'd like. I buy them in a box in various sizes in one package. And, they are cheap as well :).
Regarding marking up on boards, this info is often in the Fabrication Layer - which is where the info to drive the component placement is put - this is NOT printed, its a pure data layer. It would require additional processing to extract values and ID's to put them on the Silkscreen. Often the text in the Fabrication layer overlaps that in the Silkscreen - so a person would need to rearrange things, all adds to the cost.
the cd's that don't play may have an adjustable pot on the side of the Laser, you can adjust that a little tiny bit and can sometimes bring them back to life
It's actually not helpful to suggest this because it's not a valid fix. That adjustable pot sets the laser power level (RF). Tweaking it might cause it to start reading the disc, but the increase in power just make it degrade faster so there's really no gain. That's the trouble, the laser diode is weak and the only real solution is to replace it.
A hundred Thumbs Down? WT? Great as always Vince, I thoroughly enjoyed your repairs!
*** - @13:11 on C9, it looks like there is a bodge wire from factory.. can't tell if it goes to L1 below it.. or over to FM antenna.. *Also* .. that's why you don't add hot glue til *AFTER* you test it.. lol
Pin 3 is a shut down line it can be used to switch the chip on or off (pulled high or low) if it's tied to pin 1 (Vin) then it's being pulled high (this pin can also be controlled by a processor logic low or high, but it's been done the easy way and tied to pin 1). Pin 4 is as stated 470pf cap to reduce noise on the output pin 5 (Vout). Looks like the other components nearby caps etc are just to reduce noise and voltage in other parts of the circuit. hope this helps. Enable pin works more or less the same way logic low or High. Circuit might need more than 100mA this will reduce the voltage and make the regulator hot.
You would be better off finding the input voltage with your meter into the pcb first, then unpluging the items from the mains and using your bench supply to power the pcb, this way you protect yourself from getting an electric shock from the higher mains voltage inside the items. (Hence find the bridge rectifier and the capacitors that smooth the A.C to D.C and other regulators/components after to alter voltages and tap into the circuit there with the bench supply/low voltage side).
On the large radio, there WAS AM on it, since I saw "522" at 6:19, which is the bottom of the AM band - 522kHz.
So someone has desoldered the AM antenna, the cables for the speakers, cut the FM aerial, then returned it!
I'd say more likely that while fiddling around inside they sheared the fine antenna wires. And - speaking as an ex-student - could be someone played a prank removing the speaker wires
1st one.
i would check if the button works while its disassembled rather than swapping the domes.
very interesting ..... jealous of your electics knowledge and ability
Fun series, love the multiple random repairs.
That radio was indeed interesting! Well done as always Vince 👍
Thanks Garth, that was the best one for me too 👍
8:00 someone at the factory was having a bad day lol
Nice to see some seven segment LED displays, even if not attached to a nice old 70s calculator. Please Vince please do another vintage calculator repair.
Blast from the past, havent seen a vince vid in years
Wow! I love those ebay returns and you got four out of four so far. Really really good.
I don’t know why but I love the look and the varta name batteries. I wish we had them in the USA.