My new(ish) HP-45

[teenix]

Hi all,

I was just removing some bubble displays to swap around for good ones. This proved to be a bit more difficult than I thought as the manufacturing process put small blobs of solder on the display pins on the upper surface of the board. I have an electric de-soldering tool but it had difficulty removing this solder as did de-solder braid.

LEDs don't like a lot of heat, so to help keep the display innards cool I attached a spring loaded binder clip over the pins to act as a heat sink. This was warming up during the process so hopefully it was absorbing the unwanted heat.

The red plastic is a bit softer than I thought and the binder clip slipped off and the sharp corner scuffed over one of the display lenses and gouged it making the digit look like it had distorted LED segments. Murphy is still around so it had to be a good display.

Anyway due to the rarity of these today, I got a fine needle nose file and gave it a clean up as best I could, then out with the old toothpaste again to polish the surface and it came up pretty good.

Its hard to pick the damaged one - 2nd from left:-)

cheers

Tony