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| A fuse holder inside IME-141 |
Industria Macchine Elettroniche IME-141 calculator was the one in the lot of four that wouldn't power up, so it was necessary to have a look inside. The first step was to remove three screws and I got a bit worried when I found all of them to be loose. At the first peek inside I noticed the dust (meaning not much has been done inside), the date code on a capacitor telling me (19)73 and a fuse holder: that's a synonym of hope!
Hidden into the fuse holder was this transparent component, showing to the world its inner workings and an obvious gap: the fuse had blown.
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| Blown old fuse |
Its markings suggest it was 125V 1/16A: so large and so sensitive? Perhaps it wasn't even the original one, since there is no marking on the expected value. The closest I could find at home with the same size was 5A, borrowed from another appliance. Well, better 5A and a finger on the power switch than a fully bypassed fuse, isn't it?!
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| "Hello 2018 World" from IME-141. |
All set: calculator switch in "ON" position, finger on the external switch ("OFF"), eyes closed in case something blows up. Click! No alarming sounds, no smells. So I did open my eyes to see the squared 0 staring at me. It works!! Fun is over. HA!
Actually I need to find a safer way to power up the beast without replacing the AC socket. Or forget the historical thingie and fit a standard one.
