well you may find this amusing but trying to fix a broken hinge on my own omnigo
i managed to tear the ribon cable which connects the keyboard and screen. be warned.
there are no spare parts.
choices
|
well you may find this amusing but trying to fix a broken hinge on my own omnigo
i managed to tear the ribon cable which connects the keyboard and screen. be warned.
there are no spare parts.
choices |
The socket is at the bottom right of the LCD, which is not ideal.
The power socket. I took a socket from an personal stereo (because it is small). It hast hree pins; 1 is battery +ve in, 2 is ground (-ve) and three is +ve out to board. As a plug is pushed into the the socket, the connection between 1 and 3 is broken, and instead power is taken from the outside of the plug.
Opening the omnigo. Take a backup of the omnigo data and remove all batteries. The omnigo is in three parts; keyboard, battery shell and screen. The screen is opened by lifting off the thick plastic sheet which surrounds the screen. The screen is best peeled from the right hand side as there is nothing delicate at its outside edge. It is held in place with tacky glue and can be peeled away. The touch screen will start to lift but should be held back with the rest of the display.
Now the touch screen is loose and its connector is visible in the top left.
Also visible are four torx screws (the kind common on PCs). My T6 torx
driver fitted. With all four screws out the casing is still secured with
internal clips which will probably get broken as the shell is levered apart.
Don't put pressure on the display panel as there is a thin glass sheet
between the touch sensor and the LCD panel. Open the case by levering the
top part open first (opposite the hinge), many of the internal clips are
friction popers and gently pull away, but at the hinge there are clips which
should not be forced -- mine broke. The popers along the bottom are hard to
get apart and the glass sheet is vulnerable. Lift away this half of the
plastic shell.
With the OmniGo flat on its back with the keyboard nearest, the inside of the top hinge-pivots are visible. The right hand side has a metal friction device, the left hand side contains cabling: a ribbon connector and power from the battery. The ribbon cable dissapears under the LCD panel, the power leads are what require modification.
The origins of the power leads are not visible without looking inside the
battery housing. It is hard to fully open, but the friction poppers can be
prised apart to see into the housing. Two leads connect the -ve battery
terminal to the board in the keyboard half of the OmniGo. These are not
visible without opening the battery compartment and keyboard shell and
access is not required for this modification. The keyboard shell is not
easily opened; I could not get mine completely apart.
My socket would barely fit in the available space and the ribbon must not be
constrained as it moves when the omnigo is folded open and closed. This next
bit will be hard to describe, I cut a notch in the outside half of the
omnigo casing that was the same size as my socket, then I could glue the
plug in place so it becomes part of the casing. This has pros and cons.
Pros: plug is securely fixed and takes up less space in the organiser; Cons:
internals are fixed to the casing (harder to maintain insides in the future)
and it looks like a hack. With the omnigo folded shut, the socket casing is
visible.Note how the metal friction device is installed in case it falls out of
thebattery casing shell. The back of the shell display will lift away leaving
the LCD panel on its metal screening tray.
Watch not to damage the ribbon connector when soldering, and that non eof the power terminals touch the unshielded side of the ribbon when reassembled. With the socket organised and secured, the +ve from the battery compartment is disconnected from the board and now connected to the +ve in of your socket (use a continuity meter to determine how the socket works), new lead connects +ve out of the socet to the board where the battery +ve was connected, and another a new lead connects -ve of the socket with the existing -ve from the battery on the board.
Check the transformer: I have a multivolt transformer that output six volts on the three volt setting, so be sure to check with a meter first. The transformer I now use is a 3 V, 500 mA unit.
It should be possible to test your omnigo at this point. With luck everything works. Reassemble display casing. The existing glue should be strong enough to hold things in place.
I was asked a couple of questions after my initial posting: Where do I find a T6 Torx tool? This is the six pointed star shape screw driver. I got mine from work. The RS part number is 662-541. See www.rs-components.com/rs
Is there room for socket and a diode (needed to prevent charge from going back through the batteries.)? The design of the socket disconnects the battery +ve when a plug is pushed in. RS call these "PCB Mount, dc Power Sockets" like Stock No 486-656.
Please feel free to ask any questions if you decide to try this modification. And don't blame me if it all goes wrong!
Peter. (ptaffs@btinternet.com) 23:09 29/02/00