Sleeping Angel

Aw, isn't that sweet. Kristine fell asleep when I came back
(Actually, after she woke up, Mommy was stressed out. Ha ha ha ha)

Servicing the Philips DVP5100

Just two weeks ago, I wanted to watch some DVD as I had about 40 minutes or so of free time. But then, I discovered that the eject button for the DVD was not working. And watching 40 minutes or so of the Tom and Jerry disc (stuck inside) is not fun.

Since the repair label on the DVD has "expired", I told me Dad to let me have a look inside and if I could not fix it, we could buy, ..... er have it sent for repair. So, after carefully ripping it apart, I found out that the cause was due to a small push button. I already suspect that they're using this kind of buttons as you know how the feedback feels when you push it with your fingers. But in the end, I did not do any soldering as I followed the gut feeling of spraying it with WD40. And it works!

But make sure you turn everything off before you do this as the mains in the power supply board is very exposed. And sometimes, the WD40 is flammable too. Ha ha hah ah a

This is how the DVP5100 looked when opened. Its so simple.
All you need is the DVD drive, the processor, the puwer supply
and the button circuit boards. In fact, I bet I could take them
out and put into a more compact case. Ha ha ha ha.

But no, everyone else in the family will kill me if it dies

This is the push button I am talking about. Most of the consumer
devices now uses it. But sometimes, I do not like it even though I
use them for my prototyping circuits too.

And sometimes, if you brush your hands on these devices which
does not have any Earthing, you will feel a shock, right? Here is
the shocking factor. I wonder if I could just connect an Earth cable

Chains

One problem with the house is when it rains, the water in the balcony would pool and then flows out via a hole at the side. Protruding from there would be a six inch tube. And when the water comes out from this tube, it would fall to the ground below.

Not bad, right? Unfortunately, the water splashes back onto the grill/glass doors. And if we forgot to close it, then the floor would get very wet. So, I got this idea of putting some plastic chains onto the tube where the water would just flow onto it without making any big splashes.

Brilliant!

So, the water flows down the chain

And quietly drips to the floor. I just hope the two girls
would not pull on the plastic chain or else......

[Update: 04032008]
Oops, I forgot about the other end. Must cut quickly or the Sun will weather it and make it unuseable