News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu
avatar_chinnyhill10

Broken Penpad

Started by chinnyhill10, 14:37, 02 July 16

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

chinnyhill10

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?
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

TFM

Verify the ROM content
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

arnoldemu

Is there any cmos battery or cmos ram that needs to be reset? Perhaps some settings have got corrupted?
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

robcfg

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.

Bryce

It sound more like a power problem. Leaking caps perhaps?

Bryce.

arnoldemu

Chinny, send it to Bryce - he'll fix it for you.

:)
My games. My Games
My website with coding examples: Unofficial Amstrad WWW Resource

Bryce

Quote from: arnoldemu on 12:23, 06 July 16
Chinny, send it to Bryce - he'll fix it for you.

:)

Yeah, no problem.

Bryce.

chinnyhill10

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
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

chinnyhill10

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.
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

||C|-|E||

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.

Bryce

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.

SRS

"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 ?


chinnyhill10

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.
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

chinnyhill10

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!
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

Bryce

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.

||C|-|E||

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

chinnyhill10

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.
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

Gryzor

Doesn't this procedure work for calibrating it tho?

chinnyhill10

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.
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

Gryzor

Boom.


Great, a calibration method that doesn't work without calibration :D (yeah, I know)

Bryce

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.

chinnyhill10

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.
--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

Bryce

What a mess! Do you intend cleaning the case and restoring the Penpad to a usable state?

Bryce.

chinnyhill10

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.



--
ChinnyVision - Reviews Of Classic Games Using Original Hardware
chinnyhill10 - YouTube

Bryce

Yup the logo would definitely go, but with a solvent bath you should be able to get it back to pure plastic.

Bryce.

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod