Repaired my 2730 screen!

[101stpathfinder]

Very timely griff! Just last night I was searching for (And found this) :


There was also a good write-up on the ST forum W/pics.

My 550s (2) are both down… one screen issue and one has lost a on/off button.

Hoping to repair both myself. TIME.. TIME… I need more time!

 

[dcarver]

Geesh! What next? Analog telephone repairs?

 

[Fred W]

Sure. What's wrong with a dial phone? If I still had one I'd fix it. (not sure they will even work any more)

I repaired one of my zumo 550's with a $20 eBay digitizer back a couple of years ago (documented here), and the replacement screen is chugging along just fine, knock on wood. I went ahead and ordered myself another couple of the digitizers because I have two of the 550's and they are well known to be the weakest link for these GPSes.

@Tony - Before you go all crazy replacing the on-off switch, is your symptom that you cannot turn your GPS on? I had that exact thing happen recently on a trip up to Acadia. The unit had worked perfectly the night before and I just shut it off normally, then would not power up in the morning when I was heading out. I managed to fix it by removing the battery, cleaning the contacts with a pencil eraser and then reinstalling it. I think it was the battery / power cycle that actually fixed it as the contacts looked fine. Worth a shot anyway.

 

[ionbeam]

@Tony - ...I managed to fix it by removing the battery, cleaning the contacts with a pencil eraser and then reinstalling it....

If the battery is fully discharged the Zumo won't turn on in the cradle. Charge the battery and it will fire right up. Fred's issue was dirty contacts, but the oxidation was very faint. My Zumo battery doesn't hold a charge well and will stop the Zumo from turning on.

A #2 yellow pencil eraser is a magic tool for cleaning electrical contacts. The gold on electrical contacts if very thin and won't take much abrasiveness.

 

[Fred W]

Maybe. Maybe not. I made the all too common mistake of modifying two things at the same time, so we will never know which fixed it. But I have heard other reports (on the zumo forums) of a battery pull fixing zumo lockups and other such shenanigans.

Is the eraser on a #1 or #3 pencil any different? What if the #2 pencil is blue?

 

[Geezer]

Maybe. Maybe not. I made the all too common mistake of modifying two things at the same time, so we will never know which fixed it. But I have heard other reports (on the zumo forums) of a battery pull fixing zumo lockups and other such shenanigans.
Is the eraser on a #1 or #3 pencil any different? What if the #2 pencil is blue?

The number is not critical, but the pencil must be yellow.

 

[ionbeam]

Here we go, splitting hairs, infinitives and dancing angels on pin points...

Fred is right as far as his Zumo revivification might have been either removing the battery or cleaning the contacts. The takeaway for the Forumites is removing the battery and cleaning the contacts is a good, easy, no cost troubleshooting step. Another takeaway is that a dead battery causes the same symptoms and charging the battery should be done if cleaning doesn't do the job. Those with meters should check the battery voltage (3.7 volts) if cleaning the contacts doesn't work.

The abrasiveness and rubber used in erasers can vary with 'lead' hardness (#1, #2, #3). Yellow was tongue-in-cheek to a point. Mechanical pencils, especially the $0.50 type use an oil impregnated eraser to improve the feel when erasing paper and is not a good contact polishing tool, a wood (or similar composite material) pencil has the kind of eraser that works best. Many electronic techs use the eraser as a standard tool.

More than 99 and 6 nines% of FJR owners have no need to read what is below this line


My company used to buy a select few resistors without the normal outside shell on which the value stripes are painted. The few resistors had the black carbon that makes the resistance exposed as well as the spiral trimming marks that set the final resistance. We would install these resistors in circuits that needed to be tuned to a specific voltage or frequency the way most companies would use a trim pot. We would use erasers to rub the bare resistor to change the value. The engineering staff was not impressed with the stability of pots and felt the bare resistors were better.

We originally used a draftsman's mechanical eraser but when the paper draftsman went the way of the dinosaurs we needed to find alternate erasers with similar abrasiveness and glide to the old electromechanical erasers. In the eraser replacement tests I learned a bit about erasers and it is no joke when I mentioned specifically a #2 eraser and the half joke about yellow was a hint to use a mainstream pencil which should imply a standard abrasiveness.

For the people that live in the UK and speak proper Queen's English, please substitute RUBBER for ERASER. Thanks!

 

[mcatrophy]

Here we go, splitting hairs, infinitives and dancing angels on pin points... ...

For the people that live in the UK and speak proper Queen's English, please substitute RUBBER for ERASER. Thanks!

Many thanks for your thoughtfulness, but not really necessary; we do understand "eraser", and when in the right (wrong?) company, "rubber" can mean something entirely different .
Now, if you want a tricky screen to change, try changing the lid screen of a Nintendo 3DS. Real fun.

 

[Twigg]

Also ... we use and understand the full description "rubber eraser".

And Ionbeam's post gets a "like" purely for the word "rvivification"