I've been taking apart Spectra heads and salvaging button covers (I'm sure Motorola has a great name for them) to use on MY Astro Spectra control head. I salvaged three control heads yesterday.
The first two were nice and clean, and in fact looked as though they'd never been opened.
The third one, however--It looked about the same from the outside, but when I got it open, the circuit boards looked as if they were a much older design, just from the look of the components. As I pry the boards apart, a shower of flakes begins to fall out.
"This can't be good," I tell myself, as I move closer to the sink.
Every surface of the interior is covered with a brown paint-like goo.As I begin to wash and toothbrush it away, I catch a whiff from the goo. It smells like a burnt house.
It was cigarette/pipe/cigar tobacco residue. I washed and rinsed and Windexed away for a while and got most of the goo removed from the switch covers I wanted. There's still a bit down in the deep recess corners that I'll go after with my dentist tools. But that's for another day.
I wonder why the exterior of the switches wasn't stained. Why wasn't the interior and its switches better isolated from this air-borne stuff? Wouldn't that amount of residue cause problems for service?
The things I learn by taking apart radios.
The first two were nice and clean, and in fact looked as though they'd never been opened.
The third one, however--It looked about the same from the outside, but when I got it open, the circuit boards looked as if they were a much older design, just from the look of the components. As I pry the boards apart, a shower of flakes begins to fall out.
"This can't be good," I tell myself, as I move closer to the sink.
Every surface of the interior is covered with a brown paint-like goo.As I begin to wash and toothbrush it away, I catch a whiff from the goo. It smells like a burnt house.
It was cigarette/pipe/cigar tobacco residue. I washed and rinsed and Windexed away for a while and got most of the goo removed from the switch covers I wanted. There's still a bit down in the deep recess corners that I'll go after with my dentist tools. But that's for another day.
I wonder why the exterior of the switches wasn't stained. Why wasn't the interior and its switches better isolated from this air-borne stuff? Wouldn't that amount of residue cause problems for service?
The things I learn by taking apart radios.
