interesting digitizer experience

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Hey everyone,

I recently learned something that I thought others might be interested.

I have an old Palm Professional (w/ 2MB upgrade card, making it
effectively a Palm III) whose digitizer went flaky several years
ago, often jumping off by as much as an inch, and sometimes
switching spontaneously from almost correct to way off.

I read somewhere that the problem can be a bad connection between
the digitizer and the sensor (screen) and the digitizer (circuit
board), so I took the thing apart and cleaned that connector
thoroughly with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip. This seemed to
improve things a little bit, but I still had major problems.
Eventually I gave up and got a newer Palm.

So, recently I bought a spray can of CAIG DeoxIT D5 contact cleaner
for another purpose, and I thought, hey, why not try this on the
Palm's digitizer contacts? So I pulled the Palm Pro apart, and
used the DeoxIT to clean the contacts. Then I put it back together,
and lo and behold, the digitizer is performing quite well! I haven't
had to recalibrate it at all, and using the venerable DigiChek 0.1
program (from 8 years ago...), it seems to be spot on.

Anyway, the point is that if you are having digitizer troubles,
then it may be a good idea to clean the contacts with something
specifically meant to clean electrical contacts. I *thought* I
was cleaning it before, but apparently I wasn't.

Now if this old Palm only had a better display, more memory, faster
synchronization, a newer release of Palm OS, an SD Card, and a
built-in rechargeable battery...

- Logan

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

This is most interesting. My old Palm Vx had the same problem, and I'd heard
about the connector thing, but taking the Vx apart was not for the feint of
heart (it involves heating the case with a hair dryer to soften the
glue!!!...) so I never tried it. Now, my Clie SJ-33's digitizer is all
wonky, so I wonder...

Take care,

Steve

On 1/14/05 6:40 PM, in article ADZFd.4950$Z%.4312@fe1.texas.rr.com, "Logan
Shaw" <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> wrote:

> Hey everyone,
>
> I recently learned something that I thought others might be interested.
>
> I have an old Palm Professional (w/ 2MB upgrade card, making it
> effectively a Palm III) whose digitizer went flaky several years
> ago, often jumping off by as much as an inch, and sometimes
> switching spontaneously from almost correct to way off.
>
> I read somewhere that the problem can be a bad connection between
> the digitizer and the sensor (screen) and the digitizer (circuit
> board), so I took the thing apart and cleaned that connector
> thoroughly with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip. This seemed to
> improve things a little bit, but I still had major problems.
> Eventually I gave up and got a newer Palm.
>
> So, recently I bought a spray can of CAIG DeoxIT D5 contact cleaner
> for another purpose, and I thought, hey, why not try this on the
> Palm's digitizer contacts? So I pulled the Palm Pro apart, and
> used the DeoxIT to clean the contacts. Then I put it back together,
> and lo and behold, the digitizer is performing quite well! I haven't
> had to recalibrate it at all, and using the venerable DigiChek 0.1
> program (from 8 years ago...), it seems to be spot on.
>
> Anyway, the point is that if you are having digitizer troubles,
> then it may be a good idea to clean the contacts with something
> specifically meant to clean electrical contacts. I *thought* I
> was cleaning it before, but apparently I wasn't.
>
> Now if this old Palm only had a better display, more memory, faster
> synchronization, a newer release of Palm OS, an SD Card, and a
> built-in rechargeable battery...
>
> - Logan