[Eurosnob]

What a weekend!

The highlight of my Saturday night was the dirty big lightning bolt that landed somewhere in/near my backyard. I actually felt the pressure wave from it come through the back door. Needless to say it was lights out until I reset the circuit breakers.

The lowlight came the next morning when I discovered my mac had become a Dodo. Even after resetting all the power boards - not a peep. The only glimmer of hope was that the printer/scanner/monitor all still worked off the same power boards.

After doing some mental guesswork about repair v's replace costs I decided to play out a hunch. Armed with my trusty screwdriver set I attacked the power supply with gusto and eventually discovered a teeny weenie little 8A fuse on the control board. One 40 min round trip into Jaycar in the city later and I was rewarded with the sweet sound of a successful startup.

The fuse cost 85c. I shudder to think what it would have cost to have a repair shop do the same thing.

I now have a new definition of relief!

Any one else have storm stories?

[Disko]

Fantastic work there. It would have cost you ~$120 p/hr to pay an apple tech to do that.

[Chr1s]

Nice one Eurosnob.

I'd like to hear more stories about people avoiding expensive repair-shop jobs like you did.

[Bob]

Eurosnob,

That would make a really cool tutorial topic if you had the time to write one up (over time of course).

Could potentially be a $$$ saver for us all, if we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves in your position.

Well done on it though.

Bob

[Rayd]

hehe you should have filed that you computer fried from the lightning and got compo from contents insurance! nice shiny new G5 waiting for you!

[pipsqeek]

I've repaired many a CRT monitor with the same methods you used. Little 85¢ fuse from Jaycar.



pipsqeek

[Byrd]

Originally posted by pipsqeek@Feb 21 2005, 06:18 PM
I've repaired many a CRT monitor with the same methods you used. Little 85¢ fuse from Jaycar.

Me too pip - have found at least a 1/3 of 'dead' monitors found simply have a blown fuse and replacing this makes them work perfectly. I don't know anything else about monitors so if that doesn't do the trick, it's off to the bin for you

Although, seems the monitors that blow fuses often are cheap Taiwanese/Korean ones - better brands seem to handle power fluctuations better due to higher quality power supplies.

Also, once fixed these 15/17" monitors have a value of $20 - 50 on the streets - and not worth the time spent fixing them

Nice work, Eurosnob!

JB

[Atomic]

Yep that is a great story - I always attack a broken product first because frankly repair costs are a joke.

There is an iMac 15" power supply exchange article I wrote a while ago for those who are interested.

[Rayd]

hmm i got a OLD SCHOOL Apple 21" CRT came with my OLD SCOOL quadra. when i use it the screen looks like its resolutin is stuffed, but i think now it dont even power on. do you think its a fuse problem? or is it just that the monitor has died and lived a happy life?

[Eurosnob]

I like the idea of a tutorial & photo shoot.

The fix is fiddly but not hard. I was about to give up on the whole idea of there being a fuse in the power supply whenI chanced across it. It is actually fairly well hidden so I can see how a tutorial would be useful.

FYI: Fuse is 2cm ceramic 8A 250V - Fast blow (The worst kind! He he ....).

As for the insurance idea - I wish! No insurance at the moment and it's "only" a B&W G3.

Having said ""only" a B&W G3" it's about to get a 1Ghz Sonnet Encore G4 jammed up it. It will lend a certain elegance to the specs - 100Mhz Bus, 1Gb RAM, 1Ghz CPU.

It picked it up on eBay last night for $450.00, do you folk think I scored a bargain or a bust?