Category Archives: Electronics

Toyota Truck Display Fix

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Before my 2006 Toyota TRD becomes a faded memory, I wanted to share this fix. Yes, after a long ownership I sold it. Gotta pay for the NV200 Van Conversion – Phase 1 somehow. This is the last picture of this great truck prior to selling. The new owner was extremely happy to buy the truck – it only had 70K miles on it!

In the upper cab, there is a digital display for temperature and compass direction. It had not worked for several years and one day I decided to see if I could fix it. Of course, I went to the web and looked to see what other people had done.

Sure enough, it’s a common problem and takes about one hour to fix it. If you have this problem with your truck, go to the web. There are many great videos that will walk you through the repair process.

The first step is to remove the module. It’s pretty easy, a couple of screws and some tab releases, and then removal of the cover to get to the circuit board.

Just as the video pointed out, a surface mount resistor became unconnected at one end. It can clearly be seen in the lower right of the board.

I fired up my soldering iron and resoldered the resistor in place. I did the reverse order module assembly and tested.

It worked perfectly, and I saved $150.00 by doing it myself!

Earlingo – The Animal Assisted Therapy Headband

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About a year ago, I took an online class on how to certify your dog as an Animal Assisted Therapy pet.

I have a very gentle Chihuahua mix and thought she would be a good candidate to go into senior homes or hospitals to cheer folks up a bit.

So I signed up for the class. The class was very informative, but unfortunately my pup was too old. Your dog must be 7 years old or less to become certified.

This got me thinking about training my dog in a special way. A way that facilities would want her to come in, certified or not. She had to have a skill. Something other dogs could not do, and would be interactive for the person.

In college, I did a paper on “Signaling Behavior Among Wolves.” I’ve had an interest in animal communication (Cuttlefish Comm Board) for many years. In 2016, I had a very interesting experience at the San Diego Zoo (Dee Meets The Maned Wolf). These two experiences gave me a unique idea.

Develop a headband (I call it an Earlingo Headband) with controllable dog-shaped ears on it that the user can control and interact with the therapy dog. Even if the person was not able to control the ears, I could wear the headband, move the ears, and interact with the dog while they watch.

The concept is that the dog will perform different movements (sit, stay, lay down, etc.) based upon the headband ear movements – visual communication only. Of course, I’d train my dog using operant conditioning prior to any visits. With positive reinforcement, she would learn to associate an ear movement with a particular behavior.

I will use servo motors along with an Arduino Kit, as mentioned in my Cuttlefish Comm Board post, to make the ears move.

I really think that this might bring a smile to someone’s face!