Picked up a "new" Penpad. Boxed, but as expected the coating of the unit itself has turned into liquid hatred.
Starts up fine, asks you to select your language and then says to press the centre of two boxes with a stylus until the machine beeps.
But it never beeps. After a while a faint whining noise starts from the speaker and clicks can be heard wherever you press on the screen.
All a bit odd. Clearly the touch screen works as I can select language but the machine is then hanging during the touch screen calibration (or at least I assume thats what it is).
Any ideas?
Verify the ROM content
Is there any cmos battery or cmos ram that needs to be reset? Perhaps some settings have got corrupted?
As far as I remember, if the CR2032 battery is depleted, all the cmos content is erased.
Also, verifying the rom contents is difficult because the rom is soldered to the pcb.
It sound more like a power problem. Leaking caps perhaps?
Bryce.
Chinny, send it to Bryce - he'll fix it for you.
:)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 12:23, 06 July 16
Chinny, send it to Bryce - he'll fix it for you.
:)
Yeah, no problem.
Bryce.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:59, 06 July 16
Is there any cmos battery or cmos ram that needs to be reset? Perhaps some settings have got corrupted?
Gave it the watch battery it needs but seems to make no difference. Only got the thing to do a video. Had no desire to own something coated in liquid hatred otherwise. :D
Quote from: Bryce on 12:17, 06 July 16
It sound more like a power problem. Leaking caps perhaps?
Bryce.
When I get a moment I might open it up to see if anything obvious is going on. But it is so horrible to handle. And I don't want to 'clean' it as yet as I want to show on the video just how nasty the coating gets.
I guess that if you want to keep it you will have to remove all the nasty coating with isopropanol. Sadly, that is something that still happens to much modern devices.
Removing the "liquid hatred" is a serious pain in the nuts. My Sony ebook reader has just started to have this problem, and as you can imagine, reading with it is no longer an option.
Bryce.
"liquid hatred"
=
"Over time, the rubber coating on the outside of the PenPad turns into a sticky substance which requires the user to scrape off the coating as heavy washing of skin that comes into contact with the PDA600 would be required if the user attempts to use it with the coating still on the system."
What did they use ? Plumpudding ?
Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 17:19, 06 July 16
I guess that if you want to keep it you will have to remove all the nasty coating with isopropanol. Sadly, that is something that still happens to much modern devices.
Indeed. I had to bin the optical mouse I was using on my Amiga as the coating had started to break down.
Quote from: Bryce on 19:46, 06 July 16
Removing the "liquid hatred" is a serious pain in the nuts. My Sony ebook reader has just started to have this problem, and as you can imagine, reading with it is no longer an option.
Bryce.
Yes it's horrid stuff. I got a bit on a finger and it was very difficult to get off!
Actually the coating is rubberised TPU as far as I know. Looks and feels great when new, breaks down after a few years. I'm sure the manufacturers think it's great as a "force the user to upgrade" feature.
Bryce.
Reminds me the coating of the handles and some lower parts of the dashboard in my Golf MKIV. I had to replace them with aluminium ones because they were peeling like crazy :-X
Sorry to drag this up again but I got around to spending more time with the Penpad the other day for a future video.
During setup the Penpad asks you to click inside some boxes to calibrate the screen. Didn't work. However pressing around at random close to the boxes *did* work.
However this means the screen calibration is totally out. It's OK in the centre but the further out you go, the worse it gets. You certainly have no hope of doing anything close to the edge of the screen.
Doesn't this procedure work for calibrating it tho?
Quote from: Gryzor on 13:18, 16 August 16
Doesn't this procedure work for calibrating it tho?
It would if you were able to click inside the box. But you can't. It seems to have drifted so far you can't get an accurate calibration.
Boom.
Great, a calibration method that doesn't work without calibration :D (yeah, I know)
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 18:40, 16 August 16
It would if you were able to click inside the box. But you can't. It seems to have drifted so far you can't get an accurate calibration.
The touchscreen on the Penpad is resistive, not capacitive. These tend to drift over time as the resistance of the material changes. There might be a variable resistor inside to compensate against this, but it's unlikely. You will probably have to change some fixed resistors inside to compensate against the drift.
Bryce.
Here's the video I did on my Penpad.
Would have loved to have tried out the handwriting recognition but with not being able to calibrate the touch screen I couldn't.
What a mess! Do you intend cleaning the case and restoring the Penpad to a usable state?
Bryce.
Quote from: Bryce on 13:53, 16 September 16
What a mess! Do you intend cleaning the case and restoring the Penpad to a usable state?
Bryce.
Not sure it's worth it to be honest. Ashens cleaned his up and it still looked awful at the end of it. The gunk gets into everything and you'd need to dismantle it, separate the case and find a chemical that would deal with it. You'd end up stripping off the logo and it would look rubbish.
Yup the logo would definitely go, but with a solvent bath you should be able to get it back to pure plastic.
Bryce.
Isopropanol works wonders for that kind of crap... and if you find it 100% pure is safe for the electronic components as well. It should not be too difficult to do as Bryce says and go back to pure non coated plastic :) Even without the logo, it would look nice.
Quote from: Bryce on 07:06, 07 July 16
Actually the coating is rubberised TPU as far as I know. Looks and feels great when new, breaks down after a few years. I'm sure the manufacturers think it's great as a "force the user to upgrade" feature.
Bryce.
Sounds like a Microsoft product..
Just to revive this. I donated my broken Penpad to The Back Office Show so he could have a go at reviving it. He cleaned off all the gunk and now the screen calibration is fine. It must have been the plastic gunk interfering with the display.
So if you have a sticky Penpad with the screen calibration not working, that video is well worth a look.