One heck of a hack

[salvogendut]

The other day it almost felt like I had hit the jackpot. I found this dude on Facebook who was selling the following : 1 CTM640 + 1 MP-3 + 1 DD1 + 1 FD1 + 1 464 for ... drumroll: 100 euros. After a bit of back and forth I pressured him a bit to close the deal and soon after it was done, 150 Euros including shipping. Seemed like a dream deal. However the status of everything was 'unknown' so I told the guy don't worry I'm aware of it and I am gonna take care of any fixing that will be necessary. Once everything arrived home and I unpacked everything I could not believe my eyes. 


The first thing that I checked was the monitor. I turned it on and there was no signal but it buzzed and whirred as if there was some activity. Luckily I had the wits to test the output of the dongle connector before I hooked up anything to it: 13+ Volts. Hang on! This can't be right. I checked again and again and quickly realized there was something odd in the monitor so I put it aside for the time being.

After I checked the 464 and DD1/FD1 everything was luckily ok (except for the drive belt, but that seems to be an easy fix).

Now going back to the monitor that's when I started noticing the oddness of it. Somebody had drilled a hole in the front , in the middle of the logo and they also had managed to screw some bolt on one of the sides.. what the heck!? 





So I opened it and that's when I stood still and awestruck: What the hell is that? And what is that for? It was bolted onto the side of the monitor case and the cables together with a small pcb were tucked in inside.



I managed to remove that by unplugging the black electric connector and cutting a couple of thin wires which connected it to some other cables on the motherboard. And it looks like this when it's out of the monitor:










Now that I removed it, the monitor won't power on anymore and it seems like whatever this thing is was feeding or re-feeding power to the monitor, so I will try to reconnect it to make some tests.

It occurred to me that the MP-3 tv tuner has one socket that accepts 12V in input and that is maybe why this thing was outputting 12+ volts. Is it possible that they had turned the monitor into just a tv with this hack? Or would this be some hack to fix it somehow because it was not powering on anymore? I have absolutely no idea what this thing is. Any ideas ? Any tips?

[eto]

Is the 12V connector also a 5.5mm/2.1mm plug? If yes and if GND is on the inner pin it might have been a mod to use the CTM 640 with a 664 or 6128.

Btw: even with a malfunction monitor this was a great deal. 

[salvogendut]

Is the 12V connector also a 5.5mm/2.1mm plug? If yes and if GND is on the inner pin it might have been a mod to use the CTM 640 with a 664 or 6128.

Btw: even with a malfunction monitor this was a great deal.

No it was the regular plug that would go into a 464/6128 5V and the inner pin is positive. When I connected it to the femal connector of the MP-3 tv tuner I could see the MP-3 led turn on. They might have modded it , together with the other stuff.

Just a thought, I can see the transformer that was bolted to the case has a fuse in it. Is it possible that somehow they were using that thing in place of the original transformer/PSU (which may be toast) ?