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Saturday, 4 December 2021

The Darts Pro Scoreboard.

 Aggie, the landlord from the local pub called..

"Dozman, the darts scoreboard's fallen off the wall and stopped working... Can you take a look?"

This is going to be easy ... 

"Yeah, why not?"


It's a keypad entry thing, with two big 7-segment displays, that allows a person to accurately score a game of darts, regardless of how much beer has been consumed. It's powered by a USB-mini socket and matching wall-wart.

Removal of the back reveals a small PCB... 






There's a micro controller, some form of display multiplexer, and the membrane connector. 




And, rather oddly, something that proports to be a "Supercap" , but is only 0.047F 5.5V (47,000uF) - not really that super...




After examination of the USB socket, it's clearly damaged. The USB socket also has it's data pins conected to the microcontroller, presumably to facilitate easy programming at the factory. Connecting the 5V rail up to the workshop power supply proves all is well.


The USB plug is cut off the wall-wart, the polarity checked with a meter, and hard-wired to the PCB. A zip tie is used to provide some strain-relief.


Another saved from landfill! 

... although some people obviously need to improve their aim!! 


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