We like a very dark room, as recommended for good sleep-hygiene, so all other lights are out.

The dumb thing has a non-extinguishable large LED display on its face, so that is normally blacked out with tape.

It also has an old fashioned radio, but we have a decent IP-radio which serves us nicely.

The unit was a clear-out at CdnTire for about $9 when we bought it yrs ago. I always meant to open it and permanently cut power to the main display.

2/?

A weird thing is that the projector clock has its own time-setting buttons!

It's clear they did the cheap-and-easy thing: just found a little clock chip intended maybe for a watch or a travel clock & packaged it, sending only power. #UX be damned.

The more elegant user-friendly solution being one time keeper sending signals to a projector unit.

But that's kind of a feature for my hacking idea – maybe I can just fix the projector failure, and discard the rest of the unit!

3/?

So the repair part of this #repairProject took about ten seconds to figure out.

Turns out there's a little "projector on/off" button on the back.

I don't operate nor really ever see the unit BTW. It's on the other side of the bed tended by my SO, and I'm kind of just seeing it for the first time since we bought it. It's just always been there and I don't need to think about it.

Looks like the switch failed.

4/?

That button never gets used, it's on all the time. Looks like it's a latching pushbutton.

I suspect the switch's latch mechanism's plastic parts have degraded, and it released and won't latch anymore. It's a 10cent part but this also offers more opportunity to the hacking part of the plan.

I could just solder-bridge the switch and be done with a 5min repair. The soldering iron is already hot in anticipation. #notAEuphemism

5/?

…But that hacking opportunity still seems appealing.

I think I'll proceed until it potentially mushrooms into a big thing that will consume my weekend.

Plus I haven't even disassembled anything. Where's the fun in that?

6/?

Coffee refreshed and clk radio opened up.

It's a funny mix of 60s and 90s technology.

Single-sided phenolic circuit board, with rough snap-off daughter card chunks. Wire jumpers for 2nd side routing.

A mix of labour-intensive thru-hole components, but a smattering of 1206 surface mount Rs and Cs. A few repair jumpers. Barnacles are cheaper than a new board fab.

At least the radio tuner isn't waxed string.

7/?

Cheap gear analysis is always the most informative - but while there's lots of cost reduction here, there are some obvious costs and complexities that could easily be cut still - ie so many screws, and all slightly different when they don't need to be.

But hey, I'm not redesigning, I'm hacking.

Y'know I used to run a big corp consumer-product tear-down project for a few years. That was rather fun - though it was focussed on much tinier items than this.

Anyways soldering iron calls.

8/?

I see they went a long way since this unit was discontinued and sold off for $9.

This is what comes up when you search for it now.

Sounds like there isn't a separate clock inside the projector anymore? Anyone got one?

9/?