[BRLTTY] Slightly OT, cleaning braille display cells

[Mario Lang]

Dave Mielke <dave at mielke.cc> writes:

>>One reason why the PBs feel so nice
>>to me might be that I think they have slightly longer pins than the newer
>>cells these days, so the text feels more present, and I guess
>>problems with dust might show a little later than with newer displays.
>
> Another possible reason (just a thought) is that newer displays are designed
> with battery conservation in mind wqhereas the older ones were designed to run
> on house current. The pins on the older ones, therefore, may have been moved
> with a stronger action.

Thats not quite true for the PB40, which runs from 4 standard
batteries...  But the pb80 is house current only, right.

>>Yeah, this surely increases the display live time by several years.
>>Dont eat breakfest while working, wash hands if you feel
>>a bit sticky, and by all means, avoid getting dusty particles
>>on your display.  I've developed a unconscious habit of realising
>>early enough if there is something dusty on the display, and in many
>>cases I manage to just throw it away before it ends up falling
>>into one of the holes.  Additionally, putting some kind of blanket
>>over the display if you do not use it also helps to increase life time,
>>especially if the display is in a room with lots of
>>dust in it...
>
> My biggest catastrophy in this area was when one of my children accidentally
> spilled a whole glass of water into my display. For some mysterious reason, a
> couple of the cells and three of the control keys suddenly stopped working.

Well, water is never good for devices which run with current...
Cellphones are also a good example of things that occasionally
get dropped into water.  Sometimes, one can save them,
but in other cases certain things just stop working.  I guess this
is related to the fact if the device was actually running when it came
into contact with water...

-- 
CYa,
  Mario