Problems With Electronics Sometimes it is possible to get satisfaction from an answer you discovered in an electronics repair. I had a problem with both my car remotes. The car is about 4 model years old and the remotes both fell apart and I had rubber bands wrapped around them to hold them together. They were just getting worse every day. I guess this happened because they were plastic and just didn’t hold up. I spoke to someone else who had the same brand of car and he had the same problem. I started looking into getting new remotes and found the dealer wanted $300 for the remote and another couple of hundred dollars to program it. You had to program it or all you had was a useless remote. When I realized the price was going to be $500 or more just for a tiny remote which should cost in my estimation about $19.95, I decided this was a total rip off. The remote consists of a plastic case with a special key inserted in the top. When you open it, there is a rubber pad under the buttons and under that a small board with the button contacts. On the reverse side of the board is circular contact which engages the battery. I had a case where the board was still good and only needed the remote because the case was falling apart. Then I got a brain storm. If I could buy a new remote case, I could swap the board in my broken remote to the new case. I had to be very careful because I would need the original equipment case so this could work. Well, I couldn’t find a case, but I did find the next best thing. I found a company that sold original equipment remotes for my car. I bought one and with shipping and tax it cost me a little over $100. Already a savings of $200 over the dealer price. This would be my final cost if my idea worked because the old card was already programmed, saving me another $200 +. It took me about a week for it to be delivered, which annoyed me a little since I had paid for priority mail but that is what it is. When I took it out of the package, I was a little apprehensive, did I throw away $100, or did I hit upon a good idea? I looked the part over carefully and it was exactly the same externally. Now I had to pry it apart to get to the guts. This became a lot more difficult for some reason. I had opened my two remotes a couple of times to replace the batteries and never had such a hard time. The thought kept running through my head if I wasn’t extremely careful, I would break this case. I slowly massaged it open and to my relief it was exactly the same inside. I removed the insides from my old remote and put them into the case from the new one. Then I found the case was very hard to put together. It took me about ten minutes to carefully get it closed. Then came the final test. I went outside to the car and tried it while holding my breath. It worked fine. Sometimes building things electronic can produce unexpected problems. I have built many desktop computers in my day and every once in a while, some builds would not go as they were supposed to and you think to yourself what am I going to do if I can’t get this thing to work? I remember one time I couldn’t get the most important piece to fit properly. It was the central processing unit also known as the CPU. I played with it for quite a while and finally succeeded in getting it to seat the way it should. Some of the hardest pieces to get on in the old days were the devices which fit over the CPU and were the devices which kept it cool. They had clips on them that were often hard to clip. If I were to guess I think many a computer builder might agree with me on this. Commercial builds were probably easier because they might have had special tools. It isn’t always building or replacing electronic parts that is the only problem. Recently the cable company sent me a new modem and told me they wanted the old one back. They said they were doing me a favor because they were increasing the speed. I thought to myself, if something can go wrong it will. I disconnected the old modem and put it into the box which had the new modem in it so I could send it back. The agent had told me not to worry it was a simple unplug the old modem and plug in the new. I have to say I did not believe this and I was correct. I plugged in the new one, plugged in all the wires, went to the computer and nothing. I had no internet or home phone service. Lucky for me my cell phone was available. I called the cable company and told them I needed help setting up the modem. They in turn told me the cable modem had to be registered with them before the hookup would work. I wish I would have known this first, I thought all that might have been automatic when I hooked it up since I was told that was all I had to do. I had wasted over an hour trying to solve this problem. The company registered the modem and were about to tell me some more things when Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head. My hand hit the power button on the phone cutting us off. It was a lucky thing for me once the registration was done, I was able to finish the job. Then I got hit with the final blow. My cell phone was bought in 2020 and I was told by the phone company it is not going to work anymore after the end of March this year. The reason being the 3G cell towers are being shut down and I need to buy a new phone. This has also affected my car because some of the features require 3G so they will be lost. To give you an idea, accident notification will not work anymore among other things like my Blue Tooth which controlled remote start, maintenance reminders, navigation and more. Many medical devices will no longer work because of this, so if you have a medical alert system, I suggest you call the company and find out if you need a new device. Sometimes I think we might be better off if we went back to the 1960s.
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