With a majority of the woodworking for the little TV complete, it was time to permanently mount the signal wires. I decided to use magnet wire for the on/off switch because the wire needed to be routed through a tight space. The audio wires were the four very tiny red, gold, green, and red-green wires internal to the earbud's insulation. The power leads were some nothing-special wire I had laying around.
I used rubber cement and electrical tape to insulate the wires and act as a strain relief. I wanted to use Plasti Dip, but the 16-year-old manning the hardware store basically insisted that the product did not exist because she had never heard of it. I bought it there in the past, see, but there was no benefit to continuing the conversation with her - teaching a pig to sing, and all that...
Neither auto parts store carried it either, but one guy at NAPA said he knew for a fact they carried it in the hardware store I just came from. That made me smile, and I thanked him.
Why the smile? Well, as I get older, I find myself randomly dropping more and more (not necessarily old) information along the wayside to make room for new stuff in my apparently full-to-capacity brain. It's comforting to know that I didn't imagine the whole "I know I bought this insulating goo here before" thing - it really, truly, happened. Not just because the whole hardware store incident is probably one of the most boring delusional fantasies anyone could possibly have, it gives me hope for other things I "know" for a fact happened or were said or done that, I guess, have slipped everybody's mind but mine...
Like when I know damn well I put my hat on the dresser and when I go to get it, poof, it's gone. And not merely gone, it had never been there in the first place and no one even knows what this thing I call a "hat" even is. After a thirty minute search during which I am on the verge of tears and questioning the reality of all that is around me, it poofs back into existence.
"I found it. It was in the bottom of the cedar chest at the foot of the bed," I say. "You must have put it there," Mrs. Snowurchin says.
Really? I came home, took off my hat, dug out the extra comforters, and buried it in the bottom of a wooden box I never use. I wonder what I was thinking before and after I did such an odd thing. It must have been like "Hahaha! My arch-enemy, Future Me, will never find it here! Now to slip myself a roofie to wipe out the memory of this ever happening and my diabolical and, frankly, petty scheme will be complete. Hahaha!"
But this isn't about my hat or my inability or unwillingness to hang it on an easily accessible hook in the bedroom closet. It's about me accidentally bricking a media player. Let's move on.
After the wires were soldered, insulated, and strain-relieved, I tested the player out to make sure it still worked. It did not. It would not boot at all, in fact. Hmph. I don't think I shorted anything together and I know the board is getting power from the battery. Maybe the repeated manhandling damaged some of the flex-board circuitry inside. As far as I can tell, I didn't "let out the smoke".
Jimmydunes says that it might just be bricked in software and that there is some sort of fix that can be applied via the USB port. I was a little leery before about plugging the modded Frankenplayer into a computer someone actually cared about - and that's when it was working. Now there are just too many unknowns for me to try that at all.
Call me prudent. Or call me a coward. No... prudent. I like prudent better...
I have decided not to push forward with the project - like I said, I really didn't want to turn this into an electronics chore. I will shelve this for now and, once I get back in the mood for electronics work, I might dust it off and troubleshoot it.
Some of you know that I like to add a Secret Puzzle to the woodworking projects I complete, with the idea that they would be discovered by some stranger later. I generated a puzzle that was to be pasted to the bottom of the TV after the project was completed. Shame to let it go to waste, so I will post it tomorrow...ish.
Looking back, I see that I've completed quite a few projects in a row without issue so I was due for a speedbump of some kind. That's just statistics, right there. Although I have reason to be bummed, I really have no right to be.
Besides, I'm a hoopy frood who really knows where my hat's at.
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3 comments:
See what you get? You should have had an electrical engineer help you. The next time I visit I'll bring my disposable computer with me to see if we can get the little fella breathing again.
You are mean and helpful.
I knew you were putting the hat there. I too thought it an odd place for a hat.
The mrs.
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