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Debugging my wife's alarm clock

Monday, October 21, 2024 My wife's alarm clock has been acting up lately. Sporadic at first but then every day, it wouldn't blare in the morning at the set time.

You can even hear a 60 Hz hum from it if you listen closely, just like our AC frequency in North America. My opening hypothesis was that something had broken—maybe a capacitor, maybe just a bad solder joint—and when the alarm went off it somehow cut mains power and used the battery instead, resetting it. The alarm clock boils down to one integrated circuit, one 7-segment display panel, a transformer, and a pile of wires, resistors, capacitors, and that sort of thing.

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