Don't throw out old electronic equipment until the chip shortage passes.

you cant eat them though

Yes, in the apocalypse I will be bartering my anus ,3 stunted carrots and a pair of shoes I got from shooting my neighbor 30 minutes after SHTF with the local insane VCR surgeon for some kind of frankenstinian electronic abomination.

GREAT POST, thank you:)

Did you ever try to remove a 32 or 64...or whatever pin chip that's computer soldered to a circuit board? Good luck. And did it ever occur to you that chips are programmed for a particular purpose for that equipment?

Last Edited by Endtimewatchman10 on 10/18/2021 01:48 PM

BTW...resistors and capacitors etc. have certain values. You wouldn't replace one of those with just any value.

That's why they make a hot air rework station.







Last Edited by JustmeTX on 10/18/2021 02:11 PM

Someone is ignorant.

There are procedures for this that work fine.

Even a surface mount 386 DX40 could be de-soldered and replaced.

I was at a yard sale and there was a TV/DVD combo on the table so I asked the lady what the price was for it. She started by saying that it didn't really work right but she would take $1 for it.

The manufacture date on the TV was during the height of the Great Capacitor Plague so I rolled the dice and picked it up. Got home, opened it up and sure enough there were 4 or 5 swollen capacitors. Hunted through my junkpile and half an hour later it was in perfect working order.

Since then I've picked up some equipment to work on surface mount components but I really need to practice some more.

The majority of problems that I find with older electronics are things like dead batteries or connectors that have broken.

If you know it's good and the one you are replacing is bad and have a use for it....etc. etc. Too much of a problem for me.

Last Edited by Endtimewatchman10 on 10/18/2021 02:17 PM

I got into it just enough to repair the instrument cluster on my GMC Sierra Truck. It seems GM forgot how to solder or something. Had to simply reflow all the SMD components.
Watched a few videos and made my attempt. Fixed it all in 1 shot.
I was amazed when I reinstalled it and everything worked again.

Buying a replacement cluster would be around $500 I think.
My repair cost me around $100 for a good solder station, the fancy rosen flux, thin solder wire, and a few other little items.

SInce then I bought a video microscope that is incredibly useful for so many things, a bench top power supply, and a desoldering gun. Still need to add a hot air station if I ever want to get into it more. Now might be a good time.

The cool thing is you can buy $500 dead consumer electronics for nothing, fix them for next to nothing and you in essence have a free device, whatever it is. Or you can turn around and sell it.

Last Edited by JustmeTX on 10/18/2021 02:22 PM

OK then. :)

The point is, you might not be able to buy a replacement in the store at some point if the chip supply problem gets worse.

So if we get to that point, you either do without the device, or you fix it.

Last Edited by JustmeTX on 10/18/2021 03:02 PM

I seem to recall a free toaster oven in the garage that I was going to fashion into a reflow oven. Might take a look for it tomorrow.

bump

you might not want to throw out anything until the "great reset" bullshit is over:

[link to imgur.com (secure)]

My dad grew up in the Great Depression and he used to say that the only difference between the last great depression and the next is that people have forgotten how to be poor.

I would also add that we've shifted too far to being a consumer society. People pick up a tablet and have no idea how the magic smoke inside makes Facebook happen. You want to know how I got my junk pile? I took broken things apart and learned why they were broken. The experiments that didn't turn out so well are put into boxes that I root through the next time that I want to fix something or if there's a project that looks interesting.

LOL when THOSE are back in demand, we will be REALLY $#@cked!

Wouldn't that be a kick in the nuts? I still have an XT just because it has an EPROM programmer attached. Haven't fired it up in years, don't know if the magic smoke will still work.

I used to get huge TV's that didn't work and re-cap the power boards. It was a fun hobby.

I also got into reflows with HP laptops and XBOX 360's with the RROD.

Now I'm working on a KTAG/JTAG station for reading and writing ecu's on board.

How do those *TAGs work? I have on multiple occasions put pins into serial ports and... massaged the hardware into what I wanted but I know there's more.

Well, if you're lucky, there's a JTAG pad on the board for the purpose and you select the right head for your reader that has spring loaded pins that land on the pads.

Other than that, you're hunting all over the board and soldering fine wires to processor pins and components on the board to access the TX/RX and power and boot leads. It can get dicey and is fraught with peril. Nothing like accidentally bridging 2 or 3 tiny surface mount processor legs with a gob of solder trying to stick a lead on it.

Thrift stores, garage sales and barter is what we'll be doing until we manufacture everything we need ourselves. Cringeworthy systems are going dowwwwwwn for a reason. Can't buy a decent education for the kid? Homeschool.

So, if you ever think you want to buy a used cargo container to make it into a home, think again just in case it's haunted. Buy a new one.

Yep!!! I would say 90% of failures are capacitors. Easy to scavenge.

I might be weird but that sounds fun. Have to look into it.

Edit: My favorite part of "The Martian" was when he was patching the code of the lander so that he could communicate. Having doing patching, this was the most thrilling part of the movie. You screw up once and it all goes to pasture.

Last Edited by Lowkey Cyberpunk on 10/19/2021 08:01 AM

Makes sense. Didn't even consider that. I have a couple of older phones that we don't use as well computers.

In the future people may be trying to survive with whatever food they can find maybe with no power and on and on and chips and capacitors etc. etc. will be the last thing on their minds. Oh yes and whatever pandemics etc. they can dream up for us. My guns and survival stuff doesn't need chips.

You say that, but do you have a red dot aiming device? or a digital gun safe? Or a powered wheat, meat or coffee grinder?

Washing machine? Fridge? TV? Radio?

And do you drive one of those car/truck things?

So much stuff is digital these days. Pretty hard to say to hell with it all.

Last Edited by JustmeTX on 10/19/2021 10:18 AM

Cool..

It is mostly Greek to me, but any insight into how those devices work is appreciated.





Last Edited by JustmeTX on 10/19/2021 10:40 AM

I'm afraid to throw anything out anymore.

Maybe the hoarders were right.

Maybe they started making fun of hoarders and came out with experts like Kon Mari so that we'd be stuck with our pants down (because we have no belts etc).