Monday, October 30, 2017

Low Tech "Clocking"

Plugging in... 
Electricity and electronics. Can't have one without the other. And this week, the electricity sparked that dreaded blinking 12:00 on a client's stove. It should have been easy to re-set the clock, if the touchpad "settings" didn't fail to respond when touched. EVERY other touch button on the stove worked, except for the one we needed. My client lamented about the old-fashioned dials that we used to use to twirl about to set clocks.

Seemed like a costly event to get the stove button fixed - the circuit board might have been the culprit, but the company could not say for certain. So, the Tutor was asked, "anything you can do"? And there was. Quite a low tech solution, but it worked.

It just so happened it was 11:55am when the Tutor put the thinking cap on. Knowing that most electronic clocks default to 12:00 on a power outage, the Tutor created a power outage by turning off the breaker to the stove. We waited until it was high noon, flipped the breaker back on, and pressed the CANCEL button on the stove. Choosing cancel stopped the blinking, and the clock began keeping time at 12:00pm, which was the correct time of day.

The Tutor suggested the client use the same technique the next time the house lost power. Quick, elegant, and a no cost solution.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, and is it turned on? 

Unplugged

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