From: Brian Mayton (bmayton_at_mac.com)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 14:01:50 PST
I recently acquired two emates, and the first one's hinge broke,
piercing the display cable. I spent a lot of time repairing the
display cable, and not wanting to have to do the same to the second
eMate, I quickly disassembled it, checked and greased the hinges, and
added washers to keep them from slipping out.
The soldering really is not difficult at all, and you can get
everything you need including a soldering iron that will work for
around $10.00. The connections you have to desolder and resolder on
the motherboard are quite large and difficult to mess up. Plug in the
soldering iron, let it heat, and carefully heat one of the solder pads
while gently pulling on the wire attached to it. It should come free
within a few seconds. If it doesn't, take the iron off, let the board
cool down, and try again. The important thing is not to overheat the
motherboard, which could burn it. Do the same thing for all the solder
pads until all four wires are freed.
To put it back together, you'll need a little bit of flux paste. There
still should be enough solder left on all of the pads to adequately
hold the wires, but if you don't think there's enough, you can add a
little. Just heat the pad with the soldering iron and touch the end of
the spool of solder to the heated pad.
Apply a thin layer of flux to the top of the cooled solder pad, and lay
the corresponding wire on top of it. Briefly apply heat with the iron,
and in a puff of smoke you should have a good connection.
It's a lot less difficult than it sounds, the important thing is just
not to heat the board for more than a few seconds since you could burn
it or lift traces.
If you still want to do it without soldering, it can be done, but you
have to be extra careful. Remove the bottom of the eMate first. Now,
open the screen. Remember that once the front cover of the screen has
been removed, DO NOT EVEN THINK about moving the screen. If you try to
readjust the angle, you risk snapping off the little plastic plunger
that activates the switch on the motherboard so the eMate knows when
it's open.
Disconnect the backlight connector, and run it through the hinge, so
you can pull it out completely from the bottom of the eMate. Remember
not to move the screen!
Now you should be able to disconnect the display cable from the
motherboard, unscrew it, and tilt it to one side so you can barely get
a screwdriver in there and unscrew the speaker from the case. The
motherboard should now be free for you to lift it out of the case.
Be very careful not to flex the wires where they're soldered on to the
motherboard, because if they move around too much they'll break loose
and you'll have to do some soldering.
In my opinion, the soldering/desoldering method is the safer technique,
since you don't have to worry about fishing cables around and trying to
hold the motherboard up while you unscrew the speaker.
On Sunday, February 23, 2003, at 11:53 AM, Jim Bethel wrote:
> I have a pristine eMate that I have become reluctant to use because of
> the
> dreaded "hinge springs" problem. I don't know one end of a soldering
> iron
> from another. Recent posts report fixing the springs without soldering.
>
> I am curious whether the eMate gurus, like Woo and Robert and others,
> have
> fixed their eMate springs or have an opinion about this issue.
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 23 2003 - 17:30:01 PST