When the treasure house of technology fails, the next natural step is to try to repair it. [Adam Wilson] found himself in this position when he obtained Sinclair Cambridge Scientific Calculator in 1974. The progress he made on the device is interesting to read.
First of all, for all old Sinclair lovers, this is a very valuable thing. He found a solution to the problem that the original battery connector is prone to failure. Some parts of RS stock can be used as substitutes, which should save a lot of Sinclair with hard shell connectors.
Saving the connector should have repaired the calculator, but it would only expose an electronic failure. Some detectives traced the power supply, which is a small switching circuit. The failure of the chip and related coils in 1974 brought the project to a standstill. Cambridge Scientific purchased the second repair or spare parts. Fortunately, it happened to have a working PCB. So (Adam) has a working calculator, and we hope he will succumb to the temptation to put the PSU into another one from 2022 so that the other can work.
Anyone interested in this somewhat unusual calculator should look at the calculator we disassembled.
