Gutted

Last weekend I watched on a rather fuzzy internet tv channel, the Womens final of the World t20 cricket series from Sri Lanka. The final was between the England and Australia women's teams. It was bound to be a tough match and the players in both teams seemed very nervous. I had first starting watching Women's cricket when I was living in Sydney and the 2009 ICC Womens World Cup 50 over tournament took place there. I watched the England ladies take part in the qualifying rounds and was impressed by the high level of skill that was on show. I watched matches at the lovely North Sydney oval and the beautifully located Drummoyne ground. I found that watching the English girls winning everything was really great and you could choose to watch from almost anywhere in the grounds. England won the final and became the 50 over world champions. Later that year I also watched them win the World T20 tournament at Taunton. Since then, following a winning team has been easy and enjoyable. I have managed to get to quite a few matches since spending alternate six months of each year in Sydney and England. When the English girls are not in Oz, I do watch the Australian Southern Stars team quite a lot. Both teams have high skill levels and some exceptional talents with the bat. Anyway, the English women team members made a couple of mistakes early in their final against Australia and from then on, they were always struggling to get themselves back into the match. After a valiant batting effort by Jenny Gunn and Danielle Hazell the Southern Stars won by four runs. I was gutted after the match and I was just a tv spectator. It must have been very hard for the team members. I suspect that the loss will do them good as they have had very few knockbacks over a long run of success. In all sports it must be important to able to deal with losing, take stock, and move on while learning from mistakes made. I look forward to watching more women's cricket matches when I head back to NSW soon. Last summer (in Oz) I watched the Australia v New Zealand matches. I wonder which nations will be competing in Australia over the next few months. Peewit

Replacing the non-replaceable battery

At the WT20 matches in Sri Lanka, the England Women's cricket team are now the only unbeaten team left in the tournament. They will be playing their semi final match against New Zealand on Thursday. On the way they have already beaten the teams from Pakistan, India and Australia. Sarah Taylor and Danni Wyatt put on some great batting performances. Apparently some team members think that they can still improve their overall performance. Let's hope so.

The chargeable battery in my Braun electric toothbrush seemed to be holding a charge for a lesser and lesser time. I decided to replace it even though it is claimed to be non-replaceable. This may be because there is a bit of soldering involved. I purchased a battery from ebay and used the chosen method of rotating the unit on the charging base to get at the innards.

Removing the battery was a bit fiddly and my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

Eventually the battery was out and I set about fitting and soldering in the new one. Somewhere in this process I must have shorted something out with the soldering iron tip and there was a tell-tale puff of smoke.
A functional test showed that unit did not work anymore.

Could I find a circuit diagram on the Internet ? No.

Having gone to the bother of getting a new battery, I was blowed if I was going to scrap the toothbrush. I must admit that the timer feature that was built into the electronics was rather annoying in practice. I could see that when fitting the charging base, that the battery was charging as shown by the flashing LED. So I had only damaged the control circuit and not the charging circuit. I drilled a hole in the case and wired up an external switch. The switch gives simple manual control of the toothbrush motor. I reassembled everything and it still charges porperly when on the charging base. The external switch is not that much of a nuisance, although it does not look great as can be seen below. At least I should get another few years out of the toothbrush.

External motor switch

Not that beautiful

 

Hoping the England girls will bring home another trophy.

All the best.

Peewit