An old man approached me when I was getting my son from school. His grandson is my son’s class mate. He asked me if I repair car alarm remote controls. I do not have any experience in repairing such items but I was willing to give it a try.

This is how it looked when I got it from the customer.

All wrapped in scotch tape. The moment I took the scotch tape off, the remote control fell apart.

This is how it looked after taking the scotch tape off and glued it back on with super glues. Not the best look but it looked much better than before.

I put a battery in it and turned it on and I could hear some music melodies started to play and lights came on but the display was flickering. According to the customer, this was a working remote control but the main problem was the details on the screen were flicking and it was annoying to him.

I took the screws off and took it apart. I did not know what to expect because like I said I had no experience in repairing such devices.

It looked clean on the inside. I checked it closely with my microscope for cold soldering joints and I saw a few. Re soldering these cold joints did not help the issue. When I took it totally apart, something fell off the remote control.

These are two boards attached to each other using four pins on the left and three pins on the right.

This part fell off from inside the remote control and I had no idea where it came from in the circuit. I called the customer and asked him to come to the shop because he told me that he had another pair that is working fine. Instead of going through the headache finding out, I have the answer just about five minute away.

I opened the other remote control and located where the missing part was. Sorry I could not take a photo of it because the customer was in the shop.

As you can see, there is the same piece on the other lower circuit board and it is already there and the missing one is on the upper circuit board marked in red. This piece was a frequency crystal that was loose on board. I did not know what it was and I could not find any information about it. It was marked MK-1.

All that I care about was once I soldered it back to the board, the flicking was gone and the remote has steady information on the screen.

Mission Accomplished.

This article was prepared for you by Waleed Rishmawi, one of our ‘Master Authors’ and currently working in the Bethlehem area of Palestine repairing electrical and electronic equipment.

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Note: You can check his previous repair articles in the link below:

https://www.electronicsrepairfaq.com/a-shorted-110-ac-volts-hair-trimmer-repaired-model-wahl