I spent the better part of yesterday evening working to repair Kelly’s color printer, which I had broken a few weeks before when I stepped on its power cord. The cord yanked the power socket loose on the pcboard, which made the printer not turn on unless you jiggled the cord a bit.
I popped the cover off the printer, located the offending socket, and promptly was confused. It looked like all the socket’s leads were still connected to the board, yet there was no power getting to the printer. After checking it and rechecking it, I decided the only way I was going to get the printer working again was to solder the cable directly to the board, bypassing the socket.
It’s been a while since I soldered, but I did a decent job with the soldering gun in putting the wires on the board. With a proud look, I plugged the printer in, and … nothing. I wonder now if the short in the socket right after I broke it was enough to fry the board.
Fortunately, color inkjet printers cost about, oh $20, so it really wasn’t worth my effort to repair it. Still, the practice with the soldering gun reminded me just how much of a geek I really am.