It's got me beat ...

Dear god, let's not bring click and clack into this! Then things would get messy fast...

Try using a (strong) magnet around that 'leather' back and see if you can detect screws under it. That may work.

As it happens, I do charge a flat rate to the trade, and most of the stores that I deal with do similarly to the customer who brings the item in, the actual amount being dependant on what exactly the item is. My flat rate includes parts to a value of 5GBP, which covers general transistors, diodes, resistors etc. If the cost of parts (or occasionally labour) is going to exceed that, I contact the store which took it in, and give them a quote. Sometimes, knowing the customer, or based on indications of what he said he was prepared to pay when the job was booked in, the store owner can give me a go-ahead there and then. Sometimes, they have to contact the customer to get a go ahead. In general, it's a good system, and everyone pretty much knows where they stand from the outset. From my point of view, it allows a degree of 'some ya win, some ya lose' flexibility to be automatically built into jobs from any particular store. However, I don't treat it as a catch-all that can be applied absolutely rigidly to all jobs. Yes, I am prepared to lose sometimes against making at others, but it still has to be based around a basic one hour figure, if the losses are not to exceed the gains. There are very few 'stock faults' these days, which means that more and more, every fault has to be 'chased down' which takes you on average, ever closer to that one hour figure, and not making a reasonable profit overall.

For that reason, if no other, I will continue to charge in the way that I always have. It has never caused me a problem in the past, and I don't envisage that it will in the future. There will always be people who do not approve of a particular business practice or pricing regime, but as long as it is leagal, and the majority don't have a problem with it, then any issues that the minority might have, I see as their problem, not mine. Anyway, none of this debate, interesting as it is, gets me any closer to resolving the primary problem, so no more, please ....

Arfa

stores

diodes,

he

me

built

be

not

as

issues

none

Agreed. But I think it was a valid point. And (though it probably doesn't matter to you what I think), it seems to me that you /are/ running your business in a fair and ethical manner.

As to the original problem... I come back to the suggestion of having a dentist X-ray one side of the cabinet. Other than heating the back in the hope that peeling off the covering will reveal recessed screws, I don't see any other way -- short of a service manual -- of finding out just what keeps it together.

I'll stick with my belief that it slides/snaps into place. Press on the back, then slide it down. As Sherlock would likely say, you've pretty much eliminated just about everything else.

Dental xrays cover only a very small area. The largest is 2.7x5.4cm. What you want is one of those bomb detector xray machines used at airports and government buildings. The aluminum case will be a penetratin problem, but the wood sides should be transparent.

I recently had some KUB (kidneys, ureters, and bladder) xrays done at the local hospital. I asked if they could xray small electronics. I was thinking more about reverse engineering multi-layer PCB's. After some muddled officious logic, the hospital refused due to some vague "risk", whatever that may be. My guess is that they just didn't want to risk they very expensive new xray machine on such projects. There was also an issue of the cost. Lacking any other guidelines, the estimated price would have been about the same as the KUB xrays, or $200US per digital print (including cash discount).

I'm thinking a CT scan might be more useful. I also had to run an abdominal CT scan for about $1000US (including cash discount). However, I didn't ask at the radiology imaging service if it were possible. Probably not, due to the same "risk" and cost issues.

Cultivating a contact in a university archaeology department would perhaps be more suitable and cheaper.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

OK. I'm in ! Based on the fact that if I couldn't get into it, it was knackered anyway, I had another go today. Using your idea of a very strong magnet around the leatherette back panel (which is aluminium underneath) I could *just* detect a very slight 'pull' at each of the four corners. Several minutes of quite intense heat on the leatherette, just resulted in it getting too hot to touch. No signs of any glue melting, so I took my blunt curve-bladed scalpel, and dug in at the edge, slowly working the blade under. Turns out that under the leatherette is a layer of some fibrous cardboardy-type material, which is a good thermal insulator, so no heat gets through to melt the glue ... Total thickness of material, probably about

Anyway, once the corners were peeled back, a Philips head screw was revealed at each corner. Even after these had been removed, the back still resisted removal. After more work with the scalpel blade in the crack, followed by a screwdriver tip, it finally came away, after breaking the seal made by the Space Shuttle tile fixing-grade double sided adhesive tape that had been put there.

Now call me picky if you like, but I consider this to be taking the piss by the manufacturer. By using this sort of fixing method, they are clearly defining this expensive radio, as fundamentally non-repairable.

But here's the real bummer. The original problem was that the unit was dead. Not just a bit. Totally dead. The coaxial type DC socket felt a little loose, and I was quite convinced that it would have nicely cracked (lead-free) joints on it, once I got in there, but no. The joints look fine. And guess what ? With the PCB out, it now works. Absolutely solid, not the slightest sign of intermittency. Has run for hours without any sign of a problem at all. I will go over all the joints in the power supply section anyway, and maybe replace the little tactile switch that controls the electronic power switching circuitry.

I think that the leatherette is going to be difficult to glue back down as neatly as it was originally, because of the cardboard substrate. I think that I might just poke a tiny hole through it above each screw position, and tell the owner that if it has to come back, I will be cutting a small cross in the leatherette above each screw, to allow them to be removed without repeating the destuctive removal process.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Got there in the end ... :-)

Arfa

Great! I've been watching this thread hoping you'd find fasteners under the leatherette.

From my reply of 1/10:

"This is very common in cameras. Some of them have 'fillers' in the screw holes over the screw heads to prevent 'dimples' from showing in the leatherette."

I almost got it right, except the 'fillers' were a cardboardy-type material. :-)

Nope. My guess(tm) is the cardboard is to prevent resonant acoustic vibration of the back panel. Also, some posssible microphonics, but that's unlikely with a digital radio. The double sided tape is possibly part of fixing the same problem. When you put it together, run an audio sweep with your hypothetical DAB generator to check if there are any mechanical resonances.

Yep. However, I don't think that was the original intention. My guess(tm) is that it was a side effect of the acoustic damping prevention efforts.

Good idea. My guess(tm) is a broken conductor hidden inside an insulated wire near the power connector, or on-off section. Chop the cable ties and try pulling on each wire to see if any of them come apart or stretch.

Replace the 4 screws in the corners with the equivalent thread and length, but using a decorative screw head and decorative washer. In other words, compress the cardboard and leatherette under the crumbling cardboard and covering.

Congrats. Great idea (PeterD) using a magnet to find the screw heads.

Incidentally, I found parts and pieces of the old genusdigital.com web pile under archive.org, but there was no detail, support, manuals, docs, or even decent photos.

blade

gets

revealed

put

by

dead.

fine.

and

cross

:-)

An other idea is to increase the retro look and disguise the damage by gluing upholstery stud heads (pins criopped off) on the corners. A magnet on a piece of thread is usually better for divining hidden iron/steel

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

No, you're not being picky. This is not unlike using screws and bosses to hold together a remote control, when the screws alone would have been enough.

Cool, glad that helped. I do hope it keeps working!

So the servicer should work for free? What is your time worth?

Mark Z.