Dead – Foxes Den

HP Jornada 540 Series PDA Pocket PC

I have two faulty pocket PC units that I can hopefully combine into a “Frankenstein” unit. Can we get at least one of them working again?

What the listing stated….mostly AI produced I guess?

Untested, no charger, docking station only by Hewlett Packard

32MB Jornada PDA 540 Series Pocket PC Windows & Docking is a highly functional device that comes with some amazing features. This device is perfect for individuals who desire a highly efficient PDA Series. The device is sold as untested and is compatible with the Windows operating system. The brand of this device is HP, which is a well-known brand in the tech industry. The PDA Series is HP Jornada and it comes with an installed memory (RAM) of 16 MB. The display size (pixels) and screen type are unknown, but it has a model number of 540. This device comes with a docking station that allows ease of use for individuals.

EBay

And this is my original old 540 (548) Jornada.

I just know this is going to be a challenge, and to be honest i will have two of these when this one arrives. This is the 16 mb version, released in Mid 2000, currently aged at around 26 years old. I’ve had a dead one sitting in one of my junk drawers for a couple of years now and I though it would be a good challenge to get at least one of them working again, another one of my Frankenstein projects if you must. I have no charger for these, the chargers are priced at a premium with the online pirate community, (Robbing swines!) so I will just have to make do. At least with the docking station that this unit has I have somewhere to start from. I suspect both batteries will be dead so I may have to use some jiggery pokery to get some power into their circuits to see if we can get any signs of life.

It’s safe to say at 0.5mA my old units 3.7v battery is very dead

But whilst we await the arrival of this unit, here is a little bit about this PDA:

The Jornada was a line of personal digital assistants or PDAs manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. The Jornada was a broad product line that included Palm-Size PCs, Handheld PCs, and Pocket PCs. The first model was the 820, released in 1998, and the last was the 928 model in 2002 when Compaq and HP merged. The Jornada line was then succeeded by the more popular iPAQ model PDAs. All Jornada models ran Microsoft Operating Systems that were based on Windows CE.

Jornada 540 series

The HP Jornada 540 series, including models 545, 547, and 548, was released in July 2000. As one of the original Pocket PC platforms, it featured a 12-bit color display, 32MB RAM, and USB connectivity running Windows CE 3.0.

The Jornada 540 series was one of the original models of Pocket PC, when the platform was first announced. Sharing the Operating System, CPU and memory card slot of the 520 series, it featured a 12-bit display (originally advertised as 16-bit display) and USB connectivity. Two models were made available that were identical except for the amount of RAM. The 545 had 16 MB RAM and the 548 had 32 MB RAM.

Wikipedia

Assessment:

The old one I originally had is in fairly good condition, only displaying age related wear and tear. It has its original touch pencil, and is pretty much all there. Its battery (a 3.7v Li-ion) is very dead though (see pictures above) I have no means at present to see if I can charge the battery.

I have however found a charging alternative that will not break the bank. I have found a chap in Germany called Edgar, that runs a business selling cables and peripherals for older units, as well as more up to date systems, his shop is in Hannover and his company is: systemhauszakaria.com. I have managed to get a USB charging unit called a System-S USB Charging cable, that has the connectors required for this unit, and being a USB cable I can use a suitable plug for the mains supply , if required.

The cable includes a data transfer cable that also fits the unit, however my main task is to try and get some power into these units.

Let’s give it a go.

I’ve used the new lead, left the unit on and monitored it for about 90mins, and it does appear to be taking a charge. An Orange light indicates that charging is taking place.

The unit displays as 100% charged with the charging lead in. when disconnected it drops to about 50% but within a couple of seconds it shows as 100% again, this could be a time delay of some sort whilst switching to the battery circuit.

At this point I thought it would be worth getting the back off again, to check the battery charge. If you remember earlier in this post, this old unit that had sat unused in my desk for the last couple of years and when last tested the battery was dead at about 0.5mA. However this is a transformation, as when the battery was now tested its voltage was 4.09v. Now, a 3.7v Li-ion battery such as this should have a max charge voltage of 4.2v, so in theory this battery is in quite good condition considering its age. There may be a little deterioration, however considering this battery is possibly 26 years old it’s held up very well.

The unit will be left for a while to see how the charge holds. 10hrs later, untouched and off charge, I can confirm the power is still indicating 100%, this pleases me as it shows the battery is still good and has a good life inside of it. Very pleasing for what is potentially a 26 year old battery.

The new unit has now arrived and I’m surprised it got here after being posted in a couple of old carrier bags, no padding just a couple of old bags. I suspect the seller wanted it off his hands, they probably had little faith in it ever working again.

However, despite this, the actual unit appears to be in quite a good condition. It’s free from dinks and scratches and both the unit and the charging cable appear to be in a good order.

Now, the good thing is that both these units have their original touch pencils. This cradle has a cable connected to it and a USB socket, however that USB socket is for data transfer and not charging. To charge, the new System-S USB cable has to be connected in line. The cradle will then charge. And it looks as if it is doing just that.

This time i have connected the new unit and cradle to a Power bank charger to see if this works, and it appears to be doing just that. It drained the power bank quite quickly, it only half charged, I’ll have to put it back on the household power tomorrow to fully charge it and check its battery capacity.

Tomorrow has arrived and the unit has been on charge for a couple of hours and it is indicating as fully charged. Back on the bench with the back off I can confirm the battery charge is reading at 4.08v so it is pretty much the same reading as the other unit.

New unit and cradle with power bank charger

These two units are both of the 540 series however the newer one that came with the cradle has only 16MB of memory (The 545) whereas my older one (The 548) has 32MB of memory. It appears that HP created three variants in the 540 range and I now have two of them. The 545 had 16 MB RAM and the 548 had 32 MB RAM, the one that escapes me, the 547 was also a 32MB variant. (I’m going to have to get one now just to complete the set)

Repair:

Less of a repair and more of a resurrection to be fair. I said it would be a Frankenstein project, and that’s exactly what it has been. Both units have charged well despite my concerns, they have been charged in a monitored environment and neither are showing signs of overheating, irregularities or any battery swelling or other issues. The battery management system on both batteries seems to be doing its job, and doing it very well.

I’m going to use this section to test some of the functions, to look at the installed program package and at the same time monitor battery usage along the way.

And as with all my projects, a thorough clean of the units is going to be carried out, it’s just got to be done.

But first I’m going to leave these units for a few days to see if the batteries drain.

Three days later it’s good to see that when turned on, both units are holding a similar, slightly discharged reading that is to be expected. I’m pleased at this, and it appears that both batteries are holding out well and working very well after a long period of inactivity.

Left again for a couple of more days and both units are now prompting me to accept that the UK has now turned to daylight saving time, (as it has) and this is another good sign that shows that all is working as it should be.

What am going to do with these units? Please don’t ask me that as I just don’t know. I’m probably just going to use them for note taking, maybe for a to do list for my work room, but in reality they will probably just get stored in a sealed bag with some silica bags to keep them dry, until I either move them on or find another use for them.

The package originally installed on these units consisted of the following:

Microsoft Pocket PC Suite: Pocket Outlook (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Inbox), Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Windows Media Player (for audio/video), and Pocket Internet Explorer.
HP Productivity Tools: HP Home Menu, HP Task Switcher, HP Image Viewer, HP Backup, and HP Emergency Backup.
Third-Party & Utilities: LandWare OmniSolve Calculator, Developer One CodeWallet Pro (for passwords), AvantGo (for offline web browsing), and PeaceMaker (for infrared contact exchange).

One item I wanted to test is the infrared transfer ability between units. I’ve made a small file within the word program, set one unit to transmit on infrared and the other to receive. On sending the file, this task worked fine.

The transfer worked however both units have to be within a very close line of sight to do so, it just shows how much file transferring has moved on within the last 25 years or so. We have been spoilt.

These units are both working fine.

Result:

There are many uses listed for these units online including MP3 players and television controls. However, I think using as a to do list for my workspace is probably the most appropriate usage for me. I need organisation in my life, so what if I’m using technology from quarter of a century ago.

Why not?

Two perfectly good items saved from landfill.

Small victory, and that’s good enough for me.

Many thanks for passing by. It’s always very much appreciated.

Our total love and devotion

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

As I’m sure, anyone at all that pays any attention to what is written in these posts, will know we lost our best friend Alf, our beloved pet dog on 16th August last year. There’s probably a lot of you out there who are probably saying,“ For gods sake man just get on with it”.

Easier said than done I’m afraid. If you read the facts and figures, animal grief is just so real, especially in an animal loving country such as ours.

I’ve never really experienced it in such a manner before, but this time we’ve really struggled. I think I summed it up at its peak here: Is there a cure for a broken heart 💔 . There are a number of other posts about him but this one sums up the raw feelings when we lost him.

We’ve never been able to have children in our life, it’s complicated. Especially when you spend your life with the most wonderful woman who would have made the most fantastic mother, it really is heartbreaking to see her interactions with children and the love she shows them. Then in the quiet moments I really see how it affects her. All I can do is comfort her.

This is where Alf strolls in. He was to us, what was always out of reach, a kind of surrogate if you like. It was fate how we found him and he had the starring role in our lives for eleven beautiful years.

To answer the question: If I could make my pet understand one thing? It would be:

You were our love, our confidante our life. Our most precious companion. And we miss you so much.

Yes it’s more than one thing I know. But when a kindly loving soul enters your life and has such an effect on it, you just can’t label them with one singular credit, one word, It just can’t be done.

Life is a strange voyage. Sometimes when you can’t have something, you are blessed with the most perfect alternative. I believe we were blessed. His time came and he had to move on. I just hope some where, another couple who have maybe suffered similar issues as we did, are now experiencing some wonderful “Alfie” time. That little fellah truly had wings.

Love you for always lad.

Peace.

Stop fighting Demons

What could you do more of?

Now there’s a very open question.

Give more to charity?
Be happy?
Have time off?
Spread joy and happiness throughout the world? YAWN 🥱

There is so much we could do more of, personally it has always been a challenge for me to be a better version of what I am. My good lady challenges me regularly asking why I think this, and to be honest I just look back at my father and compare myself to him, he was a nasty horrible man.

She keeps telling me there is no comparison and I’m nothing like him, but to me I can see comparisons and that’s what I don’t like. That’s why I challenge myself to be better than him, and constantly try to do more of that.

He’s been dead getting on for twenty years now, and he haunts me to this day.

I could certainly do more of dropping the demons and getting on with what I have left. It’s a fight.

And it looks like that’s what I’m destined to do, more fighting.

Be kind to all you meet today. Have a great day.

Weir-y

Taken whilst attending a wedding in Darwen Lancashire.

Sunnyhurst brook has some lovely weirs on the stretch near the olde kiosk. However like many rivers in the Uk its water is brown and lifeless. A shame as it is a beautiful feature and would look glorious if it had a restored habitat.

Such a shame.

Taken on an iPhone 14 Pro Max

Dinner for 14 please..

If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?

Strange one this, it would have to be a mix of those who are living and those who have passed.

It would be something like this:

My Wife – we always have plenty to talk about, relevant and irrelevant.
My brother John – passed away a few years back, but such a funny soul.
My Mum – again passed away but such a beautiful kind soul.
Karl Sagan – this guy cemented my interest in the universe with his Cosmos tv series and the book I still have to this day.
Professor Brian Cox – the modern version of Karl, and someone he could talk to, I’d love to eavesdrop this conversation.
Michael Stipe of REM – my favourite group, I have so many questions and what a lovely guy.
Michael Collins – Apollo 11, what was it like to be floating about out there when your colleagues were getting all the acclaim on the lunar surface?
My Brother in law Tel – always good company.
My sister in law Liz – absolutely lovely, and always ready to stir it up.
My sister Anne – a duplicate of my dear mum.
Bob Marley – my introduction to Reggae.
Bing Crosby – my dad’s favourite singer, and I was brought up listening to him, as I don’t want my dad there this would be close enough to him.
My Nan – Dads mum. A lovely tortured suffering soul that would do anything for anyone.

That’s about it. What a mixture of people. I’m sure I’d sit there for ages just holding the hands of my loved ones and just listening and savouring every little moment.

Perfect

Happy days everyone

Tiger “Sonic the Hedgehog” handheld console

What the listing said:

Console is sold as nonworking, shows no sign of life. Item is in good physical condition but there is a lot of corrosion in the battery compartment

Ebay

I’ve decide to look into what seems to be the “New Antique” sector of retro gaming. The prices being commanded for 1980s/90s old school gaming is crazy with many small handheld items that would have cost a couple of pounds being sold into the hundreds. Absolutely nuts!

My decision making process on this was simple. I love hedgehogs, we have plenty of hedgehog visitors to our garden, so what better game than “Sonic the Hedgehog?”

Anyway, at the cheaper end I managed to bag this for £9 GBP. If I get it working, those units are selling between £20 – £45 so I should at least get my original outlay back, pending on what work needs doing.

So here we go….

Well, it’s arrived and cosmetically it looks fine.

Now I opened the battery compartment and could see no corrosion, on opening further I noticed some of the screws had been threaded so I guess someone has been in here before me. And I was right. The corrosion can be quite clearly seen on opening the unit.

Where the corrosion is on the negative terminal, a wire is also disconnected, hooray I thought, an easy fix. Hold on tiger, it’s not that simple. it appears the corrosion has leaked down the wire to where the negative wire joins the circuit board, in fact all four wires at this point are holding on by threads of wire. These will need re soldering.

This game appears to be from 1992 according to the stamp on the main board.

The negative terminal connector is broken, i have some replacements on order but I’m going to repair this one.

I’ve taken the corroded rivet out that held the spring. I’ve found a small screw and have used this to connect to the plate. I’ve cleaned the whole lot with wire wool and have cut off the excess screw and filed it all down. It now looks as good as new and no cost involved. I will finish it off with a dab of solder on the back to ensure good contact is maintained.

Peering underneath at the board it all looks ok, needing just a good clean with IPA. However, I’m not really going to be able to confirm this until I’ve re soldered and checked continuity from the batteries.

There could be some damaged tracks, again I’ll know that when all the basic setup and tests have been done. There is also a possibility the speaker could be damaged as the corrosion has reached there. I’ll test with the multimeter in the meantime. That all checked out ok and the speaker is fine.

I’ve given a good overall clean with some IPA and the entire unit inside and out looks as good as new.

I’ve replaced both the power cables from the battery unit as one had fallen off and the negative one had looked as if it had been crushed. I was changing so it made no odds to change the other.

I ran some checks with the multimeter and everything is fine, all tracks are good and it looks as if the corrosion was localised, this unit has dodged a bullet.

Batteries in and it’s now working well, see this video short:

When you don’t know what you’re doing

However, as I’m not a gamer I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, it makes a lot of noise and appears to work but god knows what I do. It certainly does a lot more than it did when I received it.

Another one saved from landfill.

Sony ICF-480L 3 band radio assessment and repair

I originally posted regarding the purchase of this item in this blog post Sony ICF-480L 3 band radio

The radio was received earlier today. Cosmetically it is a bit tatty, batteries were placed into it and apart from a quick flash from the power light when it was switched on there was no sign of life. So the original description was false as it stated that it powered up with a very low volume. Oh well, not to worry, it now gives us something else to look at.

Looking in the battery compartment there looks to be corrosion, this seems to be a common problem with items I’m buying at the moment. The screws have all been tampered with so I suspect others have been inside this radio prior to my purchase, this could be interesting to see what’s already been tampered with or attempted.

I’ve had the unit open and the first thing that comes to light is the utter filth inside. The speaker is thick with god knows what and the board and switches are also covered in the same filth. Before I do anything I’m going to get this cleaned up.

I’ve used IPA on the board and cover and on the (thankfully small) corrosion on the positive battery pole and this has cleaned up nice. I’ve used contact cleaner on all the switches and dials and these have also come up ok.

The speaker grill, I have tidied up and used permanent marker to get rid of the marks on this item. This has tidied it up really nicely.

On the speaker I just used a dry cotton bud to wipe it over but I have my suspicions with this speaker, it looks quite worn and earlier reports on the lack and consistency of sound points to this being a potential issue with this unit. There are no clicks and pops when turning the unit on, there is a power and tuning light. Just no sound.

The speaker is a 4 ohm 1w speaker, I’ve used a multimeter to check its operation and it’s showing as dead, not registering at all, it should be looking at indicating something within its 4 ohm range. I’ve double checked it by putting a battery across the terminals and there are no pops or clicks so this confirms things. I now need to source a new speaker.

Trying to source this speaker in the uk is a tad problematic. There are items available but I’m not paying out two to three times the value of the whole unit. I’m going to try some thrift shops to see if there are any suitable donor units available if not I’ll have to purchase a few of them from China, and that will still be cheaper than purchasing here in the UK, crazy isn’t it? But it’s a long wait….

I did manage to get one from the Uk. Paid about £5.18GBP and it should be here in a couple of days. The annoying thing is that the postage is almost the same cost as the actual speaker and that only cost £2.69GBP. Annoying though that is, it has to be done if we want to get this fixed.

I couldn’t get a 1w 4 ohm speaker only a 1w 8 ohm speaker, this will be fine as at this level of use it will not affect output at all.

A small bit of desoldering, removal of the speaker clamp and the speaker comes away after a little persuasion. I take the opportunity to clean the board and all the battery contacts with some cleaner, and all corrosion marks and debris are now a thing of the past.

I put some contact adhesive on the speaker grill and put the new speaker in place, clamp is attached and I now solder the speaker wires back in place.

All screws back in place, new batteries in the rear and battery hat hatch closed, the unit looks good.

But does it work?

Radio works – have a listen

You betcha! Have a listen to the short video above to hear it as it should be.

I’m very pleased with this little project. Simple repair in the end but in my eyes it’s another item that isn’t going to landfill. And that’s a win for me, as it’s a nice little radio and I’m going to get some good use out of this.

Jobs a good ‘un 👍

Not just Dead….Fully dead

I have just brought this inoperative Roberts Dab Blutune T2 digital radio off of EBay for £8 (GBP). I managed to barter the price down a bit from £12 and I was quite pleased with myself for doing that.

So today I have received the package. A lovely little item cosmetically in good condition with the only external damage being that the speaker cover has a tiny tear in it , and the very tip of the aerial is broken along with the plastic stop that secures it when in the down position….no real issue, all easily dealt with.

The concern is the label on the top of the unit. Fully Dead!

So what’s that then? Is there an in between? Some sort of purgatory for audio systems, or is it a way of saying that someone has ensured it will never work again?

Well, I’ll get the back off tomorrow and have a rummage to see what’s in store for me. Maybe my bartering of the price has meant the seller has removed all internal contents so that I now have a nice “Empty box”.

I just love some of these descriptions sellers use, makes me giggle and wonder what was going through their minds when they decided to sell an item that is fully dead.

Maybe there is just different grades of death that I was just not aware of.

You can find the assessment and repair attempt here: Roberts Blutune T2 breakdown and fault finding

Anyway, thanks for passing by, be safe, be happy.

Jornada 540 series

Assessment:

Repair:

Result:

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