Any OP nubs for sale ?


Linux-SWAT

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Hi !
My CC left nub is in bad shape, mostly going left/down.
A reset can make it work for some minutes, but that's all.

I desoldered and cleaned it, but the behavior stays the same.
I don't remember if you still have some, I'd need two, keeping one just in case.
 
I would like to purchase some as well. I believe they are being saved for RMA repairs, though. If the defective boards were still for sale, I'd buy some of those and grab off them.
 
So... this has been asked already :-(.

Would not mind getting some nubs myself... I could desolder myself a nub from my spare Pandora (I actually planned to do so, but changed my mind - I want the spare operational).
I now want the spare to be "instantly usable" should I need it (like I just did, when the daily driver unit developed purple screen... now fixed...).

My right nub drifts right unless I remember to position it properly manually each time I stop moving it. And it moves left very slowly :-(.
Haven't tried cleaning, because unsoldering them is such a laborius task (unless I'm doing it wrong: lifting them a tenth of a millimeter at a time with pieces of paper/toothpicks/whatever... *sigh*...)
I wish you could just stick them in and lock them in place or something...

Anyway, seems to me that the nubs will be the practical death of many Pandoras - when both are broken/drifting you're kind of left with a device you cannot use for most tasks.

Are there really no replacements at all for these? Not even in another (but hackably installable) from factor?-(

Has anyone tried making their own? What would you need that's hard to get? Is the chip reading them picky when it comes to the range of voltage coming out, or would it calibrate to "pretty much anything"?
Why do they even break? Is it an oxidation thing? Springs?
 
If I take a mouse I might as well take a lot of other stuff too... Also note that I constantly use the device standing up and moving around. A mouse is no solution. A small trackball might do the trick, if glued or taped into the device... looks are of no concern to me.


D'oh! I never checked the repairs section... just the spare parts. :-||:-|| stupid of me! Yes I would have ordered a nub for 20 euros (and yes, I'd have paid that much also without the installation work to replace this already broken one). While changing the LCD cable I could have also changed the nub with less than an hour's worth of extra work...
BUT unfortunately I missed that. I'll just have to place another order at some point when I can justify ordering more stuff in the same shipment (and hope ED doesn't run out of nubs...).
Besides, you didn't quite get my mindset: I was more into buying something like 4-6 of them to get rid of this problem once and for all.
I know the Pyra is coming soon, but even when I get one, it'll probably take a couple of holidays for me to hack it to a state I'm ready to rely on at work (for example, with a device this small, full disk encryption is not an option when storing work related information). The Pandora is far from breathing it's last breath for me...
 
Yes, I guessed that since the Pandora parts are not being produced any more, I better not wait. Atm the site says "45 nub repairs available". So I guess, this means 90 nubs left? :) I´m sure ED would send you the spare ones for own repair.
 
Make that 84 nubs left now ;) as I just finally placed my order.

Thank you to you atari_afternoon for pointing out the possibility!



Update: Nubs arrived almost "too quick" ;-) because I didn't have time until today to actually replace the broken nub. The switch, though bothersome work, went without a hitch and the new nub works just fine.

The work took more than the estimated hour, because I was overly careful with it - lifting the nub the thickness of a single piece of paper at a time... But hey, all pads are still right where they belong - in the board :).

The old nub, by the way, is now also alive and kicking (according to resistance measurements), but I suspect it would soon have issues again were I to install it back to my Pandora. The nub was dirty inside (which I guessed...). But a rubber part has also worn through, so cleaning would now have to be done regularly - muck has a route to the metallic pads.
 
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