Don't touch that dial!

You know you are starting to get a handle on technology when people start asking you to try and fix things. A colleague of mine came to me last week with a broken remote control and a hopeful look on their face, so I did what I could to patch it back together. It was a bit of a failure as ultimately it did not work, but I was pleased to be asked.

It was another case of components pulling the PCB trace off the board. If you think that sounds familiar that is because it is largely the problem I had in my LED display so I was reasonably confident I could work around it. In this case the damage had been caused by the IR LED moving at some point and snapping away from the board.

I don't have an IR reader, but I planned to use the camera on my phone to try and see if the bulb was outputting anything. It is an interesting fact that phone cameras can pick up IR light to some degree. Google the subject and you will find a lot of information on it. Sadly even when I was using my multimeter I did not see any output from the bulb, so I could not be sure that it was working before I handed the remote back to its owner, although I could see it passing current.

The fix was only a 10 min job, scraping off a bit of coating from the PCB and adding more solder to the join to bridge the broken section.

When my fix did not work the remote went in the bin which is a shame as I would like to have solved the issue, but it is still an interesting puzzle. As the join passed current through I think there may have been another issue somewhere.