Getting Thing’s Opto board out…
My Hurly Rivet Tool came today, together with two small bags of rivets. Thank you Richard! Tried it out straight away: wonderful (although the tool did leave a small mark on the rivet head).
Also I worked on the Thing opto board again. This time I established that although the “crosstalk” problem was still evident (the Thing opto up switch turning off whenever the Left outlane switch was activated). No amount of pushing and pulling of the plug to the board or of the board itself would deactivate the opto switch manually. However, having activated the Left outlane switch (so that the Thing opto up switch turned off) by manipulating the opto board, I got the switch to switch on again manually. So, without verifying that the CPU board was not to blame for the error, my next port of call is the opto board. Time to take it off, and therein lies my next problem:
The optoboard is attached to the Thing box bracket with two screws. No difficulty there, but then there’s the interrupter assembly, attached to the motor spindle with a grub screw. This assembly prevents the board from being removed. And I don’t have a tool for the grub screw……yet.