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This book is dedicated to my parents, for putting up with their young son’s taking apart everything in the house, even though it scared them to death; to my brother, for providing me with a steady stream of broken items to fix and the encouragement to figure them out; to Greg, for sharing countless happy teenage hours fiddling with circuits, projects and walkie-talkies; to Rick, for always believing in and promoting my talents; to Rob, for teaching me new ways to think about natural phenomena; to Cousin Jerry, for some of my earliest guidance in electronic exploration; and to Alvin Fernald and Tom Swift, Jr., whose fictional technological exploits kept me spellbound through most of my childhood and made me believe anything was possible with a handful of transistors and the know-how to make them wake up and do something. About the Author Michael Jay Geier has been an electronics technician, designer and inventor since age six. He took apart everything he could get his hands on and soon discovered that learning to put it back together was even more fun. By age eight, he operated a neighborhood electronics repair service that was profiled in The Miami News. He went on to work in numerous service centers in Miami, Boston and Seattle, frequently serving as the “tough dog” tech who solved the cases other techs couldn’t. At the same time, Michael was a pioneer in the field of augmentative communications systems, helping a noted Boston clinic develop computer speech systems for children with cerebral palsy. He also invented and sold an amateur radio device while writing and marketing software in the early years of personal computing. Michael holds an FCC Extra-class amateur radio license. His involvement in ham radio led to his writing career, first with articles for ham radio magazines and then with general technology features in Electronic Engineering Times, Desktop Engineering, IEEE Spectrum and The Envisioneering Newsletter. His work on digital rights management has been cited in several patents. Michael earned a Boston Conservatory of Music degree in composition, was trained as a conductor, and is an accomplished classical, jazz and pop pianist and a published songwriter. Along with building and repairing electronic circuitry, he enjoys table tennis, restoring antique mopeds, ice skating, bicycling and banging out a jazz tune on his harpsichord. Contents Foreword Acknowledgment Introduction CHAPTER 1 Prepare for Blastoff: Fixing Is Fun! Repair: Why Do It? Is It Always Worth It? CHAPTER 2 Setting Up Shop: Tools of the Trade Must-Haves A Good Place to Work Digital Multimeter ESR Meter Oscilloscope Soldering Tools Desoldering Tools Hand Tools Magnifier Clip Leads Swabs Chemicals Heatsink Grease Heat-Shrink Tubing Electrical Tape Small Cups Internet Access Nice-to-Haves Digital Camera Power Supply Testers, Signal Generators and Meters Isolation Transformer Stereo Microscope Bench Vise Hot-Air Rework Station Hot-Melt Glue Gun Magnet on a Stick Cyanoacrylate Glue Component Cooler Spray Data Books Parts Assortment Scrap Boards for Parts Wish List Inductance Meter Logic Analyzer Spectrum Analyzer BGA Rework Station CHAPTER 3 Danger, Danger! Staying Safe Electric Shock Physical Injury Your Turn Electrical Damage Physical Damage You Fixed It! Is It Safe? ATE: Always Test Everything! CHAPTER 4 I Fix, Therefore I Am: The Philosophy of Troubleshooting Why Things Work in the First Place Products as Art If It Only Had a Brain The Good, the Bad and the Sloppy Mistakes Beginners Make That’s How It Goes History Lessons Initial Evaluation Use Your Noodle: Case Histories CHAPTER 5 Naming Names: Important Terms, Concepts and Building Blocks Electrical Concepts Circuit Concepts Signal Concepts Building Blocks CHAPTER 6 Working Your Weapons: Using Test Equipment Digital Multimeter ESR Meter Oscilloscope Soldering Iron Desoldering Tools Power Supply Transistor Tester Capacitance Meter Signal Generator Frequency Counter Analog Meter Contact Cleaner Spray Component Cooler Spray CHAPTER 7 What Little Gizmos Are Made Of: Components Capacitors Crystals and Resonators Crystal Clock Oscillators Diodes and Rectifiers Fuses Inductors and Transformers Integrated Circuits Op Amps Resistors Potentiometers Relays Switches Transistors Voltage Regulators Zener Diodes CHAPTER 8 Road Maps and Street Signs: Diagrams Hooked on Tronics Call Numbers Good, Not Bad and Miserable Schematics Once Upon a Time… Amplifier Stage Switching Power Supply Push-Pull Audio Amplifier Mega Maps Give It a Try Radios CD and DVD Players Keep Reading But I Ain’t Got One! Your Wish Is Not My Command: Case History CHAPTER 9 Entering Without Breaking: Getting Inside Removing Outside Screws Separating Snaps Removing Ribbons Pulling Wire Connectors Layers and Photos Opening a Shut Case Receivers and Amplifiers VCRs, CD and DVD Players TVs and LCD Monitors Turntables Video Projectors Portable DVD Players with LCD Screens MP3 Players PDAs Smartphones and Tablets Camcorders Digital Cameras Laptop Computers AC Adapters CHAPTER 10 What the Heck Is That? Recognizing Major Features Power to the Circuit: Power Supplies Follow the Copper-Lined Road: Input Shake, Bake, Slice and Dice: Signal Processing Out You Go: Output Stages A Moving Tale: Mechanisms Danger Points CHAPTER 11 A-Hunting We Will Go: Signal Tracing and Diagnosis Dead Comatose or Crazy Alive and Awake but Not Quite Kicking Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No To and Fro All the World’s a Stage Check, Please When All Else Fails: Desperate Measures CHAPTER 12 Presto Change-O: Circuit Boards and Replacing Components Through-Hole Parts Surface-Mount Components Choosing Components Parts Machines Substitutes Capacitors Diodes Relays Resistors Transistors Zeners Installing the New Parts Through-Hole SMT Finding Parts Saving Damaged Boards LSI and Other Dirty Words CHAPTER 13 That’s a Wrap: Reverse-Order Reassembly Common Errors Getting Started Reconnecting Ribbons Oops! Broken Latch Layers and Cups and Screws, Oh My! Oh, Snap! Screwing It Up Without Screwing It Up When You Had to Break In Done! CHAPTER 14 Pesky Parts and Persnickety Problems Automotive-Related Problems Condenser Microphones Push My Buttons LCDs: Liquid-Crystal Disasters Lithium Batteries CHAPTER 15 Aces Up Your Sleeve: Tips and Tricks for Specific Circuits and Products Linear Power Supplies Switching Power Supplies Audio Amplifiers and Receivers Digital Still Cameras Disc Players and Recorders Earbuds and Headsets Flat-Panel Displays and TVs Hard Drives Laptop Computers MP3 Players Remote Controls Smartphones and Tablets VCRs and Tape-Based Camcorders Video Projectors Have At It! GLOSSARY Common Circuits INDEX I Foreword f you want to enjoy the detective’s process of figuring out why your electronic gadget stopped working right and the rush you’ll get when you finally fix it, smile along with Michael, your kindred spirit, as you read this book. I met Michael in 1977 in a moped shop in Boston. In the course of our very first conversation, his sleuthing instinct showed itself when he said, in classic Columbo fashion, “You’re a physics guy. There’s something I have always wanted to know, and nobody has been able to explain. Why is it that when you slowly angle a pitcher to pour out water, first it dribbles back down the outside and then at some critical angle finally pours out in a stream? What determines that critical angle?” The little voice inside me said, “This is a curious guy who looks at things differently, digs deep, and has a passion for keeping after the questions until he really understands. If he’s asking about this, what the hell else is he into?” As it turned out, quite a lot! There was music (Michael was and is a professional-level composer and performer), inventive electronics (fixing and building a wide range of unusual things), mechanics (not just mopeds, but all the little hinges, switches, battery clips, and so on that inhabit enclosures and bedevil us), figure skating, computer programming (Apple II, IBM and databases) and natural philosophy—what people used to call physics, but entailing a little more wonder on the part of the philosopher. My electronics experience was merely in support of physics experiments and hobbies. Michael’s was in making consumer electronics devices—stereos, ham radios, video equipment, you name it—either come to life when broken or work much better than originally designed by implementing some ingenious, simple improvement. He is exceptional at diagnosing these complex electronic products because he has taken the time to truly understand exactly how the whole was created from the parts. Time after time he would explain enthusiastically how some really weird interaction of parts would lead to quirky behavior or failure in something he was designing or repairing, and I just ate it up. When he talked, his “renaissance man” way of understanding the world around him came right through. This book reads just like Michael talks. It approaches electronics and its repair from multiple angles, like a big puzzle to be solved, with a significant dose of wonder and enjoyment of the process. Just to give you a sense of the guy, here are some things Michael created 30 years ago, in the early 1980s, way ahead of his time: first, the CD player with a vacuum tube amplifier on the back end that was older than Michael himself and made magnificent sound. Now you can buy expensive, audiophile-grade players built exactly the same way. Then there was the ham radio in a motorcycle helmet with the antenna sticking out the top that he’d talk all over Boston on while riding his moped to my office. He may have been the first to develop a combination amplifier and regulated power converter so you could play your own high-quality music source through the car stereo—essentially what now comes standard for smartphones. My favorite was a $10 circuit he developed for my company that could reliably detect 10-femtofarad shifts in capacitance. That’s a hundredth of a picofarad! It’s such a ridiculously tiny amount that it took an exotic lab instrument to find it at all. I doubted it could be done, but he delivered a relatively simple circuit that worked like a charm, even in the presence of stray capacitance thousands of times greater than what we were trying to measure. His approach was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He wound up developing numerous circuits for us. And from there he just kept going. While doing projects for us, Michael also worked with a clinic in Boston to create a wheelchair-mounted, computer-based speech system for children who couldn’t talk, several years before something similar was developed for Stephen Hawking. He also created computerized training aids for medical students, with a humorous question-and-answer format that kept them entertained while they learned. They were the precursor to today’s game-based learning software. A few years back, he converted ten of those funny wall-mounted singing bass fish into a programmable ensemble to accompany his original music on stage! He had them flapping their tails in rhythm and mouthing the backup vocals in perfect sync. He has continued to develop new circuits and repair and modify old ones, making them work like new or perform tricks they were never meant to do. If you’re ready to learn the essence of the thinking, the approach, the mindset that goes into tackling the gremlins lurking in those intimidating-looking circuit boards, this book is the one that can deliver those elements along with enough specific examples, tips and information to give you a really good chance at a successful repair.