Not chocolate buttons

At the weekend my mother-in-law gave me her Sony alarm-clock-radio to see if I could repair it. Basically the tiny plastic tabs that hold the buttons in place have fatigued and snapped, so the button sags and waggles around. The actual electronic switch (in the blip) is fine, but it's now hard to get the right contact and it took me quite a while to turn the radio on and off.

The little plastic tabs are too small to repair, so I'm not sure how to fix it. I think I can make a spring from plastic foam that may return the button, and maintain the correct alignment onto the small switch. Without the tabs the plastic button can wiggle and doesn't cleanly align with the switches.

It's been sitting on my desk for a few days while I ponder on how to fix it, other than the radio on and off buttons, it works perfectly fine and I hate throwing something away that can be repaired. At least I stand a better chance with this that my old Pure radio and alarm-radio - where the back end service was turned off and they didn't care - don't buy anything from Pure.


Apparently this is my 11th year, and 4014th blip. Sorry it's not that exciting! For prettier recent blips please see:

* Near and far away...
* Sunset over the lake
* Copper corrugations