Flip Clock Repair (Panasonic RC-6030)

Hey Fixers. My wife gave me a vintage flip clock for Christmas, the Panasonic RC-6030. Unfortunately for me, only a partially functioning clock arrived. In this Instructable, I repair the two parts that were no good, the burnt out 40 year old bulb and the noisy motor that still haunts my dreams. I hope you enjoy it! If you want to watch the video version, check it out on my YouTube channel:

As I mentioned, there are two problems with this clock: it doesn't light up and it makes a ton of noise. I initially had no idea how to fix either, but thankfully for me the world has Mackey from Flipclockfans.com. I watched some of his YouTube videos and read through his site and convinced myself I was ready to break open this 40 year old beast and fix both.

So let's open this thing. What are we, scared?

Lay down something soft. It can be a cuddly blanket from your youth, or it can just be a dish towel if you're not a total weirdo. I used the dish towel. Lay the clock down upside down and take out all of the screws. I did that off camera, but I highlighted where they all are on the underside of the clock.

Okay, now the big reveal. Flip open the plastic cover, but be careful - this thing is brittle. Take a deep breath and marvel at the beauty that is 1970's electronics. After four to five hours, take out the screw on the upper left of the circuit board for the radio. I put some fluorescent pink arrows pointing at the thing. You need to take this out in order to access the clock mechanism.

Ahhh, the clock mechanism ... truly a beauty, right? But the light is burnt out. So plug in your soldering iron and call your wife over and she'll help you pull those wires from where they attached to the clock. You could probably use a third hand. They're cheap on Amazon, but you don't own one yet because I'm full of excuses and potato chips.

Once the wires are removed, you can pull the bulb out from its hiding place and set it aside. We're going to put the bulb in in the next step. Let's go there!

Take out your replacement brand spanking new bulb. Mine happened to be the 5.5mm Sub Mini-Lamp, 12V (10) by Miniatronics Corp. Here's a link to it on Amazon. So let's put that in.

So you're gonna do what you just did in reverse. Plop the bulb in the bulb holder slot thingy and string it along the same path that it was before. Use some invisible tape that has a dishonest marketing team to secure it to the underside of the clock mechanism. Now you gotta solder the points in. Don't get scared now. You're doing great. For my first time soldering in like 10-15 years I didn't do too bad. Good to go!

Now we're gonna try and fix this noisy part of the clock. I put my ear real close to the clock and it was the motor that was making the noise. The motor is located on the right hand side of the clock mechanism.

Remove the cover using a 5.5mm bit.

Put some 3 in 1 oil in the motor -- DON'T DO THIS -- Don't do what I did. Don't put the 3 in 1 oil in that motor. It doesn't need oil. It just needs to be cleaned out. That was a close call.

Mackey, the mack daddy grandfather of flipclocks from Flipclocks.com has a great video on how to clean out the motor. You can use a 91% alcohol solution and it works great. That'll clear out any gunk or goo that you have in there. You just dunk the motor in the solution, then use your finger to spin the outside. Do this until you get out any dust or debris. Let it dry.

Once it dries, you're gonna put it back on the clock mechanism and put its cover back on. Great! That was great!

Screw that little screw back in the radio circuit board. Got a nice close up of that -- Okay. Now put the top back on, screw in all the screws, put those knobs on. You know how to do all that. You took the dang thing apart for goodness sakes. You're done.. almost.

To truly finish, plug the thing in and make a YouTube video about your repair. Also post a picture on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Reddit.

Haha, just kidding, but thanks for reading through my Instructable. If you liked it, consider checking out my YouTube channel and good luck with all your fixing adventures! :)

http://www.youtube.com/c/cheapassreviews