The "Knack"

Some time ago, the Dilbert animated program featured a very young Dilbert being taken to the doctor by his mother. He was diagnosed with "The Knack" - a condition involving an intuition about electronics and how they worked.

I don't have The Knack, but fortunately I do have some Knack-ish tendencies. Over the weekend, Kev's C-PAP machine quit working. Actually, it was just the switch. This of course meant that it wouldn't turn on. Fortunately, the switch on it is a "toggle" arrangement, so even if it's unplugged while it's ON, it'll go right back on again when you plug it in.

We wound up disassembling the thing at 11:00 Saturday night. Took the 3 screws out of the bottom of the unit to take it apart, only to discover that
1) the circuit board was held to the top of the unit with 4 more screws, and
2) the switch was between the circuit board and the top of the unit.

Of course.

4 more screws were removed, and we fiddled with the switch. No dice.
Well...hey, it looks like the switch is just these two little metal dots that finish a connection between these two power points. Wonder what happens if you have the unit plugged in (while disassembled...yeah, that's a great idea...) and then put a piece of foil over those two contacts?

It turns on, is what happens. Yay!
So, Kev's C-PAP is once again working, he will hopefully remember to put in a service call to the C-PAP place, and all is well.

Hey dad, guess what, I learned something other than "how to bug your father in 2 easy steps" by hanging out with you and asking you a bazillion questions every time you tried to fix something.

Thanks for your patience. I love my dad. :)