Leffakone's Timer Broken?
Categories: [ TV/Leffakone ]
Leffakone's timer's been working perfectly for almost two years, but since we moved, it doesn't always work as it should. The LED goes off when it starts to receive data (as expected), but then it just reboots (because of the watchdog timer) and then waits for data again (its LED on). But it will not accept the data anymore. And after a couple of days, for no reason, it works again (and blinks happily while counting down).
I took it to the telecom lab last Tuesday and Niko took a look at it. The solders seem fine. We changed the micro-controller and flashed it. It still behaved erratically on the bench, rebooting repeatedly for no obvious reason, sometimes receiving data with the available signal low but touching the data wire with the finger (I mean the insulation of the wire, not the metallic part). Niko unsoldered and resoldered the crystal, thinking it was faulty, with no effect. It seemed doomed.
Then I took it back home, checked with an ohm-meter that all the resistors were resisting, that the capacitors were capaciting, and I put it back in Leffakone. This was last Thursday. Since then, it's been working perfectly…
[ Posted on November 29th, 2008 at 23:36 | no comment | permanent link ]
Personally, I've never addressed mail to Finland with the prefix. I suspect that it exists (as it does in addresses in the German-speaking countries) as a sort of 'check digit' for when the country name may be written in a foreign form (since it should be written in the language of the mail's origin for the benefit of the sorters!). Maybe France feels like they don't really care.
P.S. Clicking on this comment box causes the cursor to jump to the 'name' field and highlights its contents. I have to tab to this box to type in it. The remaining fields are working properly.