Category Archives: electronics

Logitech K750 – Solar Keyboard

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For the past few years, ever since I got a laptop, I’ve used a laptop stand with a built in keyboard, and although a bit limiting as far as manoeuvrability is concerned, it’s worked quite nicely. It allows my screen to be lifted up, and puts it a bit further away from me, while also giving me a full size keyboard to work on.

It’s not an amazing keyboard but it’s done me quite well, until earlier this year when I upended a cup of coffee onto it. To it’s credit, after I stripped it, drained it, and cleaned off as much of the sticky stuff as I could, it continued to work. But the stickiness is still there, impeding my typing. And so I was looking around for keyboards, but couldn’t find one I liked.

logitech

I knew which keyboard I wanted, it was this one (Logitech K750). The solar powered one :) but it was R1,000. And I wasn’t going to pay that much for a keyboard. Ideally I was looking for a wireless ‘island’ key layout, much like my laptop’s keyboard. But I couldn’t find one in I wanted to buy..

And so I resigned myself to sticking to my sticky keyboard. Until Takealot had a daily deal and I picked the same keyboard up for halfprice, much to my delight. In typical Takealot fashion, they completely over-packed the box, but the keyboard itself comes in a slim box, with only the essentials. The keyboard itself is very thin, but with a surprising weight to it. It has some flex to it, and two spindly legs to raise it, but it all seems sturdy enough.

corner

The keyboard has a nice gloss finish (it even comes with a cloth), with the two ‘large’ solar panels taking up space along the top of the keyboard. The keyboard makes use of Logitech’s unifying remote, and even comes with a small extension for plugging in the back of a desktop PC.

The letters on the keys are in the middle or slightly below the centre of the button, which makes it look odd, but obviously has minimal impact. One thing I am missing straight off the bat, is the lack of wrist rest. My laptop obviously has one, and my laptop stand also had a rather sizeable one. But I’m sure the lack of this will be forgotten in time.

A keyboard, below a keyboard, below a keyboard

A keyboard, below a keyboard, below a keyboard

The keyboard has an on/off switch, assumedly to spare a bit of battery and a ‘light testing’ button, which when pressed illuminates a green or red LED depending on how much light the panels are receiving at the time. The keyboard is also designed to never have its battery replaced. Only time will tell, but that’s obviously why we have the solar panels.

Overall a very nice keyboard that I’m happy with. The layout is ever so slightly larger than my old keyboard, so my fingers feel slightly stretched, but I don’t know if that’s actually true or if it’s just the lack of wrist rest that makes me think that. Now I just need to build a new laptop stand for myself.

Logitech Z506 demise and disassembly

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Back in varsity I had a set of 2.1 channel Logitech speakers. They were great, simple and provided good sound. Alas one day they stopped working, never found out why, even after taking it apart (one had to saw open the wooden sub box) and getting several friends and family members to analyse it. In any case, I ended up purchasing a Logitech Z506 5.1ch set to replace them.

And they’ve done me well. Until recently. I’ve had them for about 3 years; I would have expected a longer life but I fear the recent spate of load shedding (and related grid instability) might have given them a knock (oddly I think it’s what happened to my last set too).

Anyway, they stopped working unexpectedly, so logically I took them apart. You can see the process below. It’s quite nicely put together, but also not with the intent of it being taken apart again later.

In any case I looked around a bit and saw that what I still believe is a fuse was not letting any current through (marked T3.15A250V). So, lacking a replacement fuse, I shorted the fuse and thought I’d fixed the problem, alas I fear there was another reason why the fuse had gone as I plugged the power back in.

Cue loud bang, my lights going out and enough flames to give me a fright. 10 o’clock at night, I made my way to my tripboard and reset the plugs, unfortunately I had also managed to trip the switch in my landlord’s house. Fortunately they were still awake and didn’t ask too many questions as I asked if I could check their tripboard quickly.

So I’m once again in the market for new speakers (edit, managed to revive them, see below), but for others who might have more luck than me, here are instructions to disassemble.

Unscrew the 10 screws on the backpanel. Unscrew the 4 screws mounting the speaker to the bottom of the box. Pull the speaker out. You will notice bendy wire clips stapled to the case holding cables in place, loosen these as required.

Undo screws on back and bottom of speaker

Undo screws on back and bottom of speaker

If you have small hands you can unplug the speaker, but otherwise rest it on top. The backpanel slides out, but there is a bit of double-sided tape holding it in place at the back under the panel. You can release this by pulling the PC-Board away from the side of the box. You can then pull the backpanel and PCB out. This will let you unplug the two plugs on the power supply.

Plugs to unscrew and mounting points

Plugs to unscrew and mounting points

With the main board out, you can loosen the two screws holding the PSU in place and slide it out.

partsSimple as that, above you can see where the fuse I shorted was, and also a bit of the transformer which I think I burnt out. Oops :(

Update:
A bit of searching led me to believe that I could fit a replacement power supply and all would be alright. I had a spare laptop power supply (90W, 19V) lying around, and I wired this up. So far it has been running like that for several months.

It is also possible to buy direct replacement boards, for example here.

I made a mistake

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I’ve been wanting to get myself a TV for a while. I moved into a fully furnished place at the beginning of the year, with free DSTV and thus a TV. But it was an old 74cm CRT. Massive thing (honestly, I weighed it and it’s 49kg), but not the greatest picture, especially with my PS3.

So I’ve been looking for the past month or two and was pretty much waiting for a sale on a Samsung or Sony, say R5,000 for a decent 42″. Then about three weeks ago, Hi-Fi corp have a sale on a JVC 42″ smart TV (JVC LT-42N630SA), with wi-fi and a bunch of other features. Great I decided. It only cost R4,000, and I was willing to take a slight quality knock for the lower price and smart TV capabilities. Sadly the TV was sold out before I could get to the store.

Then this week I see the same TV is on sale again for R5,000. Fine I decide, let’s just get it, although it’s more expensive, you would pay quite a premium for the same functionality in a Samsung. So I went and bought it. Oops.

It’s not that  it’s a terrible TV, it’s just really not great. The process was fairly painless, but shucks. I can’t remember how long it took to startup the first time I turned it on. I’m quite sure it was in excess of 2 minutes. I have a lot of complaints about this TV. the biggest one being it’s usability. Everything just takes forever (or doesn’t work).

  • Under normal conditions it takes 25s to start up
  • The “Google TV Remote” app to use your cell as a remote is not allowed in South Africa (ie you can’t use it), Even though there’s a brochure for it in the box.
  • The preloaded Youtube app doesn’t work.
  • Menu and interface is logical, but very laggy, and unpredictable at times.
  • Pushing buttons on the remote doesn’t always seem to do anything.
  • The system update button kills the ‘settings’ app each and every time.
  • Video quality on my RF in was terrible
  • You can’t change the picture mode (4:3, 16:9, original, etc.)
  • Sound quality is below average
  • The whole time while connected to Wi-Fi or a USB device, the icons show in the bottom right corner (I tried for a few minutes to turn this off but couldn’t find a way)

What it has going for it

  • It does have Wi-Fi and a ethernet port, so it should be capable of more.
  • Picture quality was decent
  • The TV is pretty cheap.
  • It is a good looking, well built TV

But in the end I took the TV back. I couldn’t deal with it. Hi-Fi corp gave me a full refund without any issues. I had a look at some other TVs, but in the end went to Game and picked up a Samsung 40″ for a few hundred rand less than the JVC.

And most importantly, I’m happy with it. It responds quickly and without hassle. It may not be ‘Smart’, but it can still play files from USB, and there’s always my PS3 I can use.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Woes and FNB

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Earlier this year I switched to FNB as my main bank. Transition was fairly uneventful. When the Galaxy S4 was released a month or two later, the bank offered it in tandem with a CellC 100 package at a discounted rate, and I decided to try it out.

The major issue for me in these dealings was the lack of store. FNB mobile services are all handled over the phone/internet and devices are delivered. This is a particular hassle as I had to be there in person to collect the package when it arrived at work. Not easy due to where I work and the type of work I do. Anyway.

Received the phone 3 days after scheduled delivery and two phone calls, due to a variety of issues mainly, in my opinion, a lazy delivery man. In any case, Success!

geek.com

geek.com

Get home, start up, all good. Connect to wifi, start fiddling. Wifi disconnects… try reconnect, can’t see any APs. Minute later phone reconnects, only to disconnect 10s later… Try everything to get it to work properly, no luck, google issue. People mention certain routers have been known to cause this issue, try out suggested tips. No luck. Go to friend’s house, another friend’s house, Cell-C shop. All WiFi APs result in same problem.

Cell-C won’t take the phone as it came from FNB, phone Samsung SA, they tell me I can take it to service shop where I live. Take it to them, they won’t take it cause it’s still within 7 day return period. Phone FNB, they say no problem they’ll come and collect it. Again, it’s a hassle for me trying to organise collection when I’m available. Anyway, few days later, phone gets collected, probably a week or so after I got the phone.

Another issue was that The CellC simcard I got with the phone wasn’t registering on the network. CellC said that I must speak to FNB, FNB people I contacted (apparently not the correct ones) said I should phone CellC customer care, who were equally helpless. In any case I decided to leave this until I got my phone back. A week after I first received my phone I received an email which told me the sim card would automatically register after 2 days.

So another week later I get a phonecall to say my new phone is going to be delivered to me. Cue another hassle of trying to get phone delivered when I’m available. New phone works 100%, sim-card is registered, everything’s going well.

Two months down the line and my battery life seems to be suffering, lasting me from 06h00 – 20h00 with moderate use, used to be go in excess of 24 hours without requiring a charge. One day my phone was on 70% battery, drops to 0%, restarts itself a couple times, stays off. Open case and take out battery, battery looks swollen :x

Think to myself what a schlep this is going to be going through FNB again, taking my phone etc. Will be without a phone that can take a micro-SIM. Anyway, decide to go straight to local Samsung support shop, walk in, they go in to the back come out with a brand new battery, slot it in and I’m good to go again.

Although I haven’t heard of other people with the same Wi-Fi problem as me, many people are starting to complain about the battery swelling. The battery has a 6 month guarantee, so I’m hoping my next battery lasts. No idea if this is a phone or battery issue. Time will tell.