SAT repair trouble & rant

[BobDavis88@AOL.COM]

John Ross writes:

> I have replaced them a couple of times in the past. No big deal.
>  I found a replacement pack at Radio Shack it was #23-245 4.8V 600mA Nickel
>  Cadmium, for racing cars.

Ahh. Thank you.

>  Being fair to Paul, .... he showed me one someone had used a high wattage 
iron >  on, and it had ruined some boards.... 

I don't think it's up to him what risks I take. Why should he take offense? 
It's an inanimate object. If I ruin it, can he not just charge me more to fix 
it? I know some repair people feel it's some kind of insult to be asked for 
self-help advice, and while I don't want to give free two-year courses in 
piano rebuilding, I have found that an occasional freely-given tip to a 
customer comes back to me many times over in customer loyalty, additional 
work, and by golly, personal job satisfaction. What does it cost me to tell 
them how to get a paper clip out from between the keys, saving them an 
expensive service call? You can't buy that kind of PR, and it feels good too.

>  Be sure that you turn your spare on once a week to charge the capacitor, it
>  acts as a holding voltage for the memory. If it uses all its charge, the
>  chip uses voltage from a little flat disc battery. If that goes flat you
>  lose the memory, and the SAT does not know what to do.

Excellent advice, which I will implement.

>  Back to your problem, why did you not just leave the charger attached, and
>  use it like a plug in unit? Or was a cell shorted, and dragging the voltage
>  down?

Both! One unit has a shorted cell, and the other will not hold a charge. It  
_will_  work on the charger, but I'm not always near an outlet (like on stage 
tomorrow afternoon). 

Thanks for the reply,
Bob D