THE ENGINEERS AT GENERAL ELECTRIC certainly made a clock for long life – this one is around 50 years old. It probably sold for eight bucks at Rexall. But it wasn’t made to be repaired.
Modern clocks are powered by a battery, and regulated by a tiny quartz crystal. And frankly, they’re junk. These old-fashion plug-in clocks were powered by the US electricity grid. They were regulated by the continent-wide synchronized music of a 60-cycle hum so precisely measured that, unless the power went out, you basically never had to reset them.
But the illuminated face was going dark. The tiny neon bulb mounted in some clever light-spreading optics was losing its mojo. Diane couldn’t read the time at night.
These little bulbs are a lovely bit of physics – electrons jumping back and forth between the posts excite the neon atoms, which re-gift us some photons at three specific frequencies for that distinctive orange glow. Some of the bulbs, from Russia or China, have a dash of radioactive material on the posts to help jump-start the ionization. I ordered a bag of them from China for three bucks.
As soon as I opened the clock case, and unsoldered the old cord (hardened rubber insulation, unsafe) the wires of the electromagnet – as fine as the hairs on my beard – broke.
The sad realization is, my hands are no longer steady enough for microassembly. But I got them soldered to the terminals, added some high-grade jump wires, and a terminal block, and put the whole works back together. Including a new cord with 2-layer insulation for safety.
Everywhere you look, we’re just throwing stuff away. I think maybe we should fix more stuff instead.
georgewiman 