Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner OT: My greatest pianistic achvmnt (nothing to do w piano) :)

......but at the moment I consider it my greatest pianistic achievement. (Which, granted, doesn't necessarily take a lot.)

My dear beloved metronome stopped working.
It's one of these:



It is so beloved that after our house got destroyed in a hurricane (7 years ago), and bit by bit we learned that almost all of our stuff had been saved, but the metronome hadn't turned up, when finally it did turn up (had been tossed into a big box with miscellaneous unrelated stuff), it was one of the main moments. I had been going through box after box, looking in vain for the metronome which I was sure was gone, and there it was.

Since it's one of the battery-operated ones, of course sometimes it stops working. The battery burns out every few years, and you only need to change the battery. But this time, I saw that the connector that you snap the battery into had a wire loose. There's a red wire and a black wire. The red wire was attached to the connector, but the black wire just went nowhere.

I figured if I brought it to an electronics shop, they could fix it in a minute. But where's an electronics shop any more? Do they even have them? I wasn't optimistic about it. Maybe bring it to a hardware store and see if one of the guys (or girls) knows what to do with this thing?

I was tempted to just fiddle with it, but -- well, it helps if you know what you're doing. All I could do was screw it up completely

But that didn't stop me from trying.
And, would you believe (I can't), I got it fixed.

God bless the internet.
I mean, please curse the internet too, because it does a lot of things that suck, but in this case.....

I figured it shouldn't be too hard to find a pic of what that connector looks like when it's normal, so I'd see exactly where that black wire goes.
Well, it was a little hard but I found one:



OK -- a little hard to see exactly, but, looks like it goes basically adjacent to where the red one goes.

So now, I just try to stick it in there. Even though I know basically where it goes, I don't really -- does it go on 'this' side of the red, or 'that' side, or 'over there' -- so I feel like I'm being basically random about it. I stick it in there, snap in the battery, hold my breath and flip the power switch on the metronome -- and it ticks!!
I couldn't ****ing believe it.
(BTW I typed the asterisks myself. It's not the site's censorship going on there.)
So, now I go to place the battery in the slot where it goes (it had been just "out" while I was doing that work) -- and of course now the wire comes out.
OK, no problem, just stick it back in, and this time give it some duct tape to keep it in place.
But how exactly did I get it in before?
Heck if I know -- I did it randomly.

I was just lucky the first time. This time it took many tries. When I got it to where the metronome ticked again, I grabbed for dear life and duct-taped it.
Now it's really all back together.

The reason I'm celebrating it to this extent is that I have no knowledge or ability for this kind of thing, and what happened was completely impossible.
Thank you for listening.

And maybe share your own impossible tales....

Truly an accomplishment, as fixing things seems to be rapidly becoming a lost art in the US.
Elsewhere in the world, people still do "use it up, wear it out, make do or do without."

Mark, you haven't really fixed it. You need to do a little soldering and replace the battery connector (the thing in the picture). I could easily do it for you, but you would have to trust your beloved metronome to the post...

Sam

I admire your patience, but in all likelihood with the vibrations, the wire will get loose again. I do not see how this is set up in your beloved metronome but seems to me either you do some soldering or much simplier you replace the connector with a new one and connect the 2 pairs of wires (one from the connector and the other from the metronome) through a terminal strip.

I wish I could do that.

Back in ancient history, I had "metal shop" (7th grade), so maybe in theory I could do that, but.....
I couldn't do that.


I might wind up hitting you up for that!

Or I might see if there really are any "electronics shops" any more.
In the ancient history that I talked about up there, we had two of them nearby, and actually they were across the street from each other. Funny that the second one put itself there when there already was one across the street.
I even still remember their names. I went to both of them one time when I needed a thing ("germanium diode") for making a primitive radio, probably for shop class, not sure.
The first one I went to didn't have one, the other did.

Thanks for the replies!

I knew that the "fix" is precarious and I'm totally prepared for it to stop working at any time, but I'm hoping that with how securely I taped the wire (and how tightly in place the battery is), it'll go for a fair while.


Yeah. I try to still do better than that, when I can, and, as you see, even when I can't.

Franz made several great metronome models, and I can sympathize with your attachment. That model's takt is so much less ear-splitting than the plug-in black box "thrrraaaaackers." 😁 Good luck.

Search your circle of friends for a ham radio operator, although amateur radio operators are probably more rare than amateur pianists. Other hobbies that solder: model railroading, RCM modeling (planes, helicopters, boats), and robotics. Find a kid in the local robotics club...

Sam

... or buy, new, direct from Franz for only $109.95

Franz metronome

Regards,

Good to know!
(Notwithstanding the $$)

I had thought it was completely defunctified (as it were) in terms of any further production or availability.

Not sure where in NY you are but in the city there are TONS of well rated electronics repair shops. This would be literally a 1 minute fix for anyone of these shops (as long as their soldering iron is warmed up.) Skip all the sponsored links: https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=electronicsrepair&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY

Thank you!

I'll probably leave it as-is for the time being, since at least for now it's working.
But, if it needs help, I'll look into these places.

I did know about most of those kinds of places but thought that they don't do this kind of stuff, just stuff with cell phones and computers.
I would call whatever place in advance to see if they do this kind of old-fashioned wiring stuff.

... or you could be really daring, adventurous and totally fool hardy and buy another make of metronome! (Gasp!)

Cheers!

Or enter the 21st century and get an app for your phone...

Sam

If you understand love....


If you understand love....

Love? What's that?

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

Oh -- a question for y'all who know about this stuff:

(get ready to laugh -- I'm not being stupid on purpose, but sometimes it comes easily)

Is there anything dangerous that could happen from the broken wire, either just because it's basically broken or because maybe I put it in a slightly wrong place (although it's a place that works)?

(I'm guessing that the worst that could happen is just that the metronome would stop working again, but not that it would get destroyed, or that it would catch fire and burn the town down.)

Google "dangers of 9 volt batteries". But most reports of houses burning down are a little overblown... If you store batteries in a paper bag next to a gas can, and the batteries short out, then expect the worst - but you don't do that, do you?

Your metronome might (should) have reverse voltage protection (hook the battery up backwards and nothing happens), but I don't know...

Sam

I imagine that would take some work.
(It's hard enough getting the parts into each other the right way!)

There's a possibility that the loose wire could accidentally short to the other battery terminal. Even if that happened, it seems extremely unlikely that any damage would happen to anything other than the battery and/or connector or start any sort of fire.

Since one of the connector wires is still hooked up, I think reverse voltage protection would be a moot point for this fix. Mark could still touch the battery to the connector the wrong way, but that's no different than any other time he's changing the battery.