Yes! You Can!: Fixing Christmas...

...decors :)

Seasons Greetings!

These past few days has been very hectic with all the shopping, reunions and holiday activities. I usually go home exhausted to the point that I'm not able to do and post any project. :( I'll try to make it up to everyone (including myself) for the posts I've missed.

To start things off - let me share with you how I was able to fix an old but very entertaining christmas decoration.

The fiance's family is fond of setting up a "small" christmas village in their living room. From what I've been told and have observed, what started with just a couple of ceramic christmas houses quickly became a tradition year after year. Presently, the village has grown to no less than 50 houses (got tired of counting years ago) becoming a community to numerous little christmas figures with a new expansion village put up on the other end of the living room just this year :)

Towards the end of the holiday season last year, one of the village's center pieces - a frozen lake/ park with several villagers skating around - started having problems. The figures won't move unless you tap the lake (i doubt if they have...). Please see a video of the problem below.

This year, we found out that the problem has already worsened. Realizing that I have nothing to lose - its broken anyway - I decided to try to fix it.

Here's how it looks after carefully removing the cover. TIP: When opening something for the first time, always be very careful because there will always be the possibility of breaking something - could be a clip that you forgot to pry out or a wire that got pulled out due to your persistent pulling and prying :).

See that there are wires running between the cover and the base. Had I been too excited to open this one up - I might have pulled some of them away from the lights and speakers.

I save the covers of my deo as they are perfect small containers - in this case, they kept my screws organized. As you can see, this skating decor has a lot!

Removed the white plate where the figures skate to see how this thing works.

The red circles are magnets topped with felt - the figures attach themselves to these which allows them to glide over the white plastic base (a.k.a. our frozen lake). These magnets are housed in the crosslike things attached with gears which are then driven by a small motor (the one where the wires are attached).

There is only one screw in the middle holding the magnets and their gears in place. After removing them, found problem number 1: Some of the magnets are no longer attached in their housing - this causes added load and stress to the whole assembly and the motor.Glued them back in place and set them aside to dry.

Removed where the motor is attached.

Unsoldered the connections (if you don't have a soldering iron, you could cut the wire and then connect it back later )

After gathering enough courage, opened up the gear box for further inspection. I had to see if the gears are broken. TIP: Be careful when lifting covers as it may have springs attached to them that might bounce out :) Fortunately enough - the gears are okay - time to test the motor (removed the two scews holding it in place - circled in red)

I set my adaptor to 4.5v, a couple of volts lower than the 6v power supply of this thing, to be safe and then ran my test. TIP: Universal adaptors like this are not often exact in their rating - setting it to 4.5v often times give you around 5+v of power so I usually set it lower at first be sure that I don't fry my motor accidentally.

After several tests - I've observed two things - the motor is not turning as fast as I expected it to be so I decided to go out and compare this old motor to a new one.

I remember opening up a walkman a couple of years back and saw a similar motor inside - if there's one place where I can buy this types of motor, it would be the shop where the sell spare parts for tvs, cassettes, etc. - time visit the nearest one.

The shop was kind enough to let me see a new motor and after comparing it with the one I have - found out that the bushing of the old motor has already been pushed further inside the housing - this could where problem number 2 lies causing the old motor to turn slower than the new one.. Decided to buy the new motor to be sure.

The new motor and the old one side by side.

Placed the new motor and applied a little grease on the gears TIP: You can buy grease in little packets for 10 pesos but in the long run - it is cheaper to buy a small container for around 80 pesos. Got mine from a friend (thanks Push! - every penny counts hehe..)

Testing if the new motor turns the gears properly.

Decided to clean the "lake" with some soap and water so that the skaters can glide through it easily (a cleaner lake looks better too right!)
After everything double checking everything - time to assemble everything back.