Firedrift Button Out at Top/Bottom maybe just mine...

[Si7]

I had noticed on my Firedrift that the Third Button from left was "hanging-out" at the bottom, worked OK but looked ugly against the other two when viewed from the right angle.

Stripped it and investigated - the third button had lost one of the two retaining latches (snapped off/fatigued) This allowed the button to hang out at an angle at the bottom as there was no latch there. Probably only my machine in the whole World but here's an easy fix I came up with just in case :

Clean/degrease the inner face of the switch for glueing.

Cut a 100mm (4") cable tie to about an 8mm (5/16") tail.

Glue (cyno) this to the inner face of the pushbutton with the fat part of the cable tie head facing out (from say an imaginary centre of the button) making sure the cable tie head is just about the same up/down position as the missing/broken latch.

A 100mm cable tie head is just about perfect size to sit in the recess the busted latch was supposed to occupy.

Button will sit level ! (well mines fixed anyway )

Pics :

http://www.morso5.fsnet.co.uk/img/Fire1.jpg


http://www.morso5.fsnet.co.uk/img/fire2.jpg

[PachiFool]

Slick fix, Si!

Kevin

[slotter]

Your pics are always super -- they look like they were professionally done. What camera do you use anyhow???

[johntofva]

Well done Si7. I applaud your simple approach to solving this problem.

[MrGneiss]

Nice fix!

[wolfsblood]

Great idea! Well done!! Great pics!!!

[Tony Junior]

Great tip, excellent pics. Well done, sir!

[Si7]

Thanks for the kind comments

@ Slotter, it's just a £99 Canon A60 2M Pixel camera used at 768K pixels (1024 x 768) That's the trick. The more pixels used the more light is required so the aperture opens wider and the shutter speed slows to achieve this = you get no depth of field and no clarity as you can't really hold still at much less than 1/30th second. At 768K pixels (1024 x 768) you can overexpose 4 or 5 stops and close the aperture 1 stop still getting around 1/45 second. My 1600 x 1200 pictures (2mp) are worse than my 768K pics (0.76 mp) because of this and 768K pixels is still too much for 'net anyway let alone these 5 mega pixel cameras people insist on buying

This is a Pachislo token pic taken at just 300,000 pixels (0.3 mp) massively over exposed and brightened still more in Abobe as an example, sorry for waffling

http://www.morso5.fsnet.co.uk/img/Tokens.jpg

[slotter]

Hey, thanks for that advice. I normally just leave my 2 mp camera at full resolution which is needed for good quality photo printing, but I'm going to experiment with a lower number of pixels for web postings because, as you mentioned, 2 mp is often way too much for online work.

[Tony Junior]

Si7, many thanks for the tips. I know nothing about digital cameras other than turn it on and push the shutter release.

I used to be a faiir photographer with B&W in a Contax RTS (still have a couple of them), but digital is foreign to me. Ol' point and shoot, that's me.

I'll have to experiment with digital.

[luckydog]

I have a Sony digitial camera, I get close to 20 pictures to a 1.44 floppy disk.

about 70k each and as you can see by the pictures on my link, they all come out very sharp and clear.

[Tulsa]

I also have a Sony that uses a 1.44 floppy. Darn thing is huge... Nice pics though.

[slotter]

Those Sonys were great in their day. Still good cameras, for that matter, but they are getting a bit dated. They had a a good zoom, too, and it took the other manufacturers a long time to catch up.

Not any of the computers here even have a 3.5" drive any longer and my computers are not the newest.

Things change fast.

[Tulsa]

I build my own computers :aetsch: so I can always include what I need in them. Those pics of the game room were taken with that Sony, still not doing a bad just at all. The battery life sucks though as it has to drive the floppy motor.

[luckydog]

I get 2 hours use on one charge and have a backup battery.

if i want prints of pictures i have to burn to a cd,

most stores don't accept floppies for prints anymore.

I got great pictures of airforce two when gore was in town and eclipse of the moon with the zoom.

[Tulsa]

WOW, Gore? Didn't he invent the internet? bwahahaha

[luckydog]

I was standing at the curb with some other people by the store i worked at when Gore and his fleet of black explorers came driving by.

The army had snipers on all the building roofs in the area by the airport.

He waved :>)

Where is he now????????

[Tulsa]

The army had snipers on all the building roofs in the area by the airport.

Well I can only assume they missed!

[PachiFool]

The Sony Mavicas have great optics! The advantage of a bigger camera is bigger lenses don't look out of place. I never bought one because of the whole floppy thing (Macs haven't had floppies for years now!) but I sold alot of them.

Kevin