it’s been a while

Yesterday I busted out my soldering iron for the first time in at least a couple years. The pager remote for the alarm in my truck had been screwing up a few dozen times a day, and now the case had split at the bottom so I figured there wouldn’t be any harm in cracking it open to take a look. Once I did I found that the reason the battery seemed to be loosing contact all the time wasn’t because the contacts were too loose or anything, but the spring had separated from the solder holding it to the board. Most of the time it was in contact, but if jostled around it would disconnect for a split second causing the remote to reset and sing for thirty seconds. A pretty simple fix since I had the right tool on hand. Then I cut a new groove for the key chain attachment peg so it wouldn’t push the case open anymore, reassembled it, and it’s good to go!

OK, so it’s technically held together by tape right now… but it’s still more useful than it was before. I managed to break off half of the snap connections while prying it all the way open. I might have to look for a replacement case online now, but I don’t need to take it back to that crappy shop that installed the thing years ago.