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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (41242)	11/6/1999 11:09:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Key fob update Last night I tried the toy key fob again. But every time I inserted the batteries I'd just get this sort of epileptic babbling shriek. And then the buttons wouldn't work. So I dismantled it again (lotsa self-tapping Philips screws in polystyrene ... slow going since I didn't want to damage the threads) and then noticed that the unit was wet inside. I loosened the teeny circuit board from its support pillars (more self-tapping screws; one had a bad slot and required me to use a big screwdriver) and teased it aside. The buttons were loose green plastic bits with these cunning rubber plungers inside. The circuit board had these strange little mazelike printed features where each plunger engaged it. Well, I blew-and-wiped each button and plunger clean and dry. I delicately dabbed the face of the circuit board dry. It took me twenty minutes to get the buttons and plungers back in their slots and get the circuit board lined back up with its screw holes. When I put the batteries back in, I got no sound. (Ooops.) But then I cycled the four buttons and got the normal, old sounds back! Bimbam! Blip-blip! Whgrrr! Beepbeep! I felt so good. One thing amazes me in retrospect. This toy was whipped out in China for pennies, and yet the build quality was superb. All the solder points were clean and strong, and the wiring was neat and built to take a Daddy messing around in there. And those little rubber plungers are a work of industrial art. I handed it back to Helen this morning. She was delighted, but I'm sure she knows zip about the drama and sentiment that went into it on my end. I had a smile like one of those TV ER docs when a Tough Case (invariably bubbly and nubile) walks&waves at episode's end. When she and Tom are finally done with it, I'm keeping it. For the memory box.