Post #4240274

Some people I follow post about electronics and the topic is really fascinating to me. I have these two remote control for air conditioners from the attached picture, and of course they don't work just by putting batteries in. So I thought why not give it a try to repair them? Perhaps some fedi-people can give me pointers and we can have fun talking electronics. (Better than asking you-know-who, right?) If you'll humor me, I'll outline my newbie approach below. The beige one on the left I could not pry open. Removed two screws, but it's like the case is a single piece of plastic. I tried using a multimeter on the contacts, but it only beeps on what I assume is the "back" connection of the batteries that wires the plus and minus together. On the "CAR-26P" it looks like the circuit board has some corrosion. When I try the multimeter on the battery contacts it gives a short beep. And then when I switch the black and red thingies, it beeps again. I tested the behavior on my working AC remote and it does the same: a short beep whenever I switch the needles. With my high-school level knowledge of electronics (that is, close to zero), I'm assuming this is because it takes a short moment for a capacitor to charge and after that... idk I guess the resistance becomes too high? And if I switch the needles the polarity becomes reversed and the capacitor discharges or so, allowing some current to flow which makes the multimeter beep. That's my theory at least, and that's where I'm at. I put the multimeter in random places and here and there it beeps, but that's about it. I wonder if the remote could work again by cleaning the corrosion... but how? Citric acid? By the way a little background: These remotes are inherited from an elderly couple who are more or less recently deceased. They didn't have any descendants. A while ago I posted about some old newspaper I found while taking care of their things here I didn't really know them, and the wife died a few years earlier leaving the husband behind for a while. Now I'm going through tons of old clothes, books, tools, tableware, futons, blankets.... just generally tons of stuff. It's strange, going through a dead person's private things. They had a habit of writing their name on a lot of the boxes and things. But without any descendants, the name now marks the items as belonging to a person that no longer exists. And I'm throwing most of it in the burnable trash and erase their last traces. I don't mean to sound negative. It's the way things go for all of us eventually. But until then, let's try to keep our things in good shape. So, any idea about the remotes? #electronics #repair #diy