Display of Affection: Laptop Screen Replacement

As consumers, we all know the sad fact is that things are manufactured to fail. The technology we use day in and day out will one day give up that virtual specter and need to be replaced with something new a shiny, that essentially does the same thing. If you've read many of my blog entries you'll know I buck against that to the best of my ability. I've always inherited friend's, and sometimes family's outdated technology to make the most of it. I figure if I can make use of it then it's not needlessly taking up space in some e-waste facility. Once a product is well and truly cooked though, I do begrudgingly let it rest in pieces. Those are truly sad days, but believe me I try everything within my power to keep them going.

Such is the case of a Dell Inspiron 3520, I acquired from a friend. This laptop has been through a lot, mostly with me in the past five years. It was given to me in about 2016 as not working. At the tail end of 2019 I fixed it up and used it as my daily driver. I had been using it for everything I usually do on a laptop, but a little over a year ago the screen started flashing. At first it only happened for the first few minutes of boot up. Then it became constant and wouldn't go away. This led to the screen slowly but surely fading into complete and total darkness. What am I to do with a thirteen year old laptop? Buy a new screen? NOPE!

In 2010/2011 I was given a brand new Acer Aspire 5552-3691, which I loved, but it too was eventually relegated to the closet in its travel case. The laptop worked, it was just so slow it wasn't worth using, but it had been my daily driver for most of my life between 2010/2011 to about 2017. It means the world to me, so I kept it even though its not in the best working condition. When the Dell's display decided it no longer wanted to work, I decided to see if the screen from my Acer was compatible. I tried searching online, but there isn't really a lot of information on laptop screen compatibility between models. 

Realizing I was mostly on my own, I decided to look at the connector that attached each screen to the motherboard, which were completely different. I then decided to dig further and check the connector on the back. They were both 40 pin, and everything seemed to look the same. At this point, why not try and see if it works. Long story short it worked just fine. No more flashing, no more dim backlight. The laptop that I loved, my Acer Aspire, had given it's vision to save the Inspiron 3520. Although my Acer Aspire is slowly deteriorating, and I hate to see it, I can now use the Dell I am currently writing this on for, hopefully, a little while longer. The best part, to me, is knowing I'll be doing it all through the same screen that I had enjoyed so much all those years ago.

Fallen Musical Heroes

The recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne dug up a few past emotions for me from the passing of other musicians who I also truly admired. There have been a lot of great musicians who have passed away in my lifetime, for a myriad of reason, but I'll be covering the losses that affected me the most. The ones with whom I feel I have the deepest musical attachments. Since we started off with Ozzy, it's only right we also speak about Randy Rhoads. I'm only 42, so I wasn't even a twinkle in my parent's eyes when Randy Rhoads was tragically killed, but once I started playing guitar and really listening to Randy's playing, I realized what the world had lost. I think you can't talk about Ozzy without also including Randy (obviously post-Sabbath), so for them to both now be reunited in the great beyond brings a little bit of solace, however they are both greatly missed in our Earthly musical realm.

Dimebag Darrell's passing, I think we can all agree, was the most distressing because of how it happened. In terms of my guitar playing Dime's influence wasn't as strong as Randy Rhoads, but he was certainly on the list of guitarists I admired. He himself was influenced by Randy Rhoads, among others. Sadly his life was cut far too short, and what might have been hangs heavy within the minds of his fans.

Peter Steele was the engine that drove Type O Negative. That's not trying to take away from the other guys, but I believe that sentiment may be how they also feel as they disbanded after Peter's passing. A completely one of a kind, Peter Steele's vocals and bass lines gave Type O Negative something no other band had. Although "what ifs" have surfaced, there is absolutely no replacing Peter Steele's vocals. Even though we knew Peter had health issues, even going so far as to make a joke about his own passing five years prior to his actual passing, it was still a bit of a shock. 

Ronnie James Dio had quite a career prior to stepping into the boots left behind by Ozzy in Black Sabbath. From his early days with The Vegas Kings, to Ronnie Dio & The Prophets, to Elf, to Rainbow, then to Black Sabbath, to his solo career, back to Heaven and Hell. I think it's safe to say Ronnie James Dio truly loved to entertain. His passing was sad, but he had been sick, and while that didn't completely take away the shock, it did help blunt that razors edge. 

Gary Moore had become such an important guitarist to me in the five years prior to his passing. In the early 2000s I had read somewhere that Ozzy wanted Gary to replace Randy, but Gary declined. A complete unknown to me at the time, I started listening to some of his music. This took me from the metal head I had been to the blues lover I am today. Although Gary did play rock, and he did knock on the doors of heavy metal, let's not deny that, his career will mostly be remembered for the blues. By early 2011 I was listening to all the Gary Moore that I could. Sadly, it wasn't long into 2011 when he passed away suddenly.

Jani Lane, to me, is an underrated talent that most people saw as just another hair metal pop singer. When I was a teenager my friend traded me two Warrant CDs for Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins, and, I'm sorry Billy Corgan, but I feel I got the better end of the trade. I loved Siamese Dream, don't get me wrong, but Cherry Pie and Dog Eat Dog opened my musical world up to a completely different level. I often reminisce about the summer I spent locked away in my dark room listening to Dog Eat Dog over and over while playing Resident Evil Director's Cut. Jani's writing felt far deeper than just your average Aqua Net endorsement. His voice was also one that stands out to me. I recently ran across some of his time in Great White and, no disrespect to the late Jack Russell (himself a fallen musician), but Jani's vocals on Great White songs made them even better. His passing was sudden, shocking, and to be completely honest the one that hit me the hardest. Of all the great musicians on this list, it was Jani Lane's passing that hit the hardest.

Solder Supply, and Reviews

As an electronics nerd, and amateur guitar pedal builder, solder is one of the most important things to have on hand at all times. I'm always going through it, and I can always use more. Throughout the years I've been trying to find the best deal on the best solder, and along that journey I've found some really good stuff, and some really horrible stuff. Ideally I'm 60/40 rosin core, but even if that's how the spool is marked, that doesn't always mean that's what you're actually getting. Back when RadioShack was an actual place I bought a spool of their stuff and it was great. Smooth flow, great adhesion, and the finished product was nice and shiny. The only problem was, back then I didn't know what diameter to buy and it was way too big. What would have been perfectly fine for large jobs, or maybe even plumbing, was cumbersome for soldering a wire back in an NES controller.

Once that spool ran out I turned to Amazon, and found Kester. Kester is just as good as the RadioShack spool, but in a diameter that I could actually use on the smaller projects I had. In fact, Kester may have been the brand who would OEM for RadioShack, who knows. I used Kester 83-3000-0000, 83-4000-0000, and 83-6337-0027. I'm not sure what the differences in the numbers mean, but I do remember them all being really, really good solder. I think I event tried some 63/37 and didn't notice any differences. Kester just makes really good quality solder.

As solder became far more important, by way of building a ton of guitar pedal circuits each year, I decided to try some cheaper, wacky named solders from Amazon and even Aliexpress. These were 100g spools for a few bucks, and they all flowed like milk left out in the sun for a week, and their finishes were just as lackluster too. I found out they were lead-free, even though they claimed to be 60/40, tin and lead alloy. I tried to avoid using them, but I couldn't afford to keep buying Kester, so eventually I had to make them work. I found they flow best when I turned my soldering iron up to 700f  (371c). Sure they would flow and adhere better, but they cooled as shiny as a lump of charcoal. Long story short; they're not very good.

Then I found what I consider to be the best middle ground solder. It flows like Kester, it cools like Kester, but a 100g spool doesn't carry the Kester price. At first the name had me worried it was just like the other bad stuff, but Yi Lin solder, I found, is the best inexpensive spool of solder I've used. I purchase the 100g spool, then I spiral it around a Sharpie and put it into the little personal Kester dispenser tubes. It usually fills 4 or 5 of the Kester tubes, which usually builds quite a few guitar pedal circuits.

If you're happy with your current brand of solder, that's perfectly fine. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, try Yi Lin. At least as of the time I'm writing this, it's been the best quality solder I've used. I'm hoping it stays that way. Below I have a link to my wishlist where, if you're feeling generous, you can purchase a spool of solder for all of my future soldering needs. I can always use solder, and I'll greatly appreciate it. While you're at it, buy yourself some too!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/21AZETWJXJ8AR

Spare Parts Slasher (Keeley Katana Clone)

When I first started building pedal circuits I wanted to build a Keeley Katana clone. It seemed all the rage, so I figured I may as well have one. Back before I built all of my Klon Centaur clones, paying a few bucks for a 7660S chip for voltage adjusting seemed useless to me. I questioned why I even needed a charge pump when I could just use an 18v power adapter. At that time the only layout for the Katana Boost clone was from tagboard effects. It sat in the back of my mind for ages, because while I really wanted to build it, I didn't see the need for the charge pump, and I didn't quite understand how to remove it from the circuit/layout. Maybe one day... well today was that day! Actually, a few days ago was the day, because I decided to finally do the modification. I'm not a professional musician, so having the internal charge pump isn't as important to me as it would be to them.

The basic bones of the layout were left the same, but I did sub some oddball JFETs for the 2N5484s. I had a J103, J112 and K223 laying around, so I asked ChatGPT which would work best, and it claimed J103 for the clean boost (Q1) and J112 for the high gain (Q2). It claimed the K223 wasn't a really musically unusable JFET; this will be addressed in just a moment. I only had a C250k potentiometer, so I used that too. Everything else was left the same, and when it came time to test the circuit I got nothing whatsoever. After about an hour of back and forth with my old pal AI bot, I decided it was time to take the J103 out and replace it with the only JFET I had left, the K223.

The issue was J103's gate couldn't be pulled down to 0v, no matter what I tried. The little bastard fought me tooth, nail, source, drain and gate. There just wasn't anything I could do. Once I had subbed the K223 in as Q1 the circuit came to life. I adjusted it to the maximum clean boost and it sounds ok. Does it sound like a Keeley Katana boost? HAHAHA no. The tonal transparency just isn't there. Does it work as a boost with two gain stages? You bet your skid marked underwear it does! Would it sound better with 2N5484s? Probably. I was scared to order parts to build this, being completely unsure if it would even work. I did make sure all components are rated above 18v, but this sounds perfectly serviceable even at 9v. The C250k doesn't sound too bad either, a bit of an odd sweep, but not unusable. Crucial detail: The J103 and K223 have different pinouts, and were adjusted to the required pinout.

I'm sure there are circuit builders who will come across this and think I'm an idiot. *tips hat* Howdy! I simply overthink everything, usually until I talk myself out of it. When I do follow through with something I've created or modified, I'm never confident in it. Ever. Even after the circuit has come to life, and it's been tested thoroughly. There's always a shaky voice in the back of my head telling me it's going to break and never work again. Especially once I've removed it from my test rig and packed it away. Weird stuff happens sometimes, and it makes no sense. For better or worse. Well, if you want to omit the charge pump and build a stripped down clone of the Katana boost, here you go. Full credit for the original layout goes to its original author in the link above. In the future I may build an external charge pump to have around, but for now an 18v power adapter works just fine, but it also does just fine at 9v.