Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

So I was looking at this flat-screen monitor that I don't have the right power cord for (it takes the Mickey-Mouse-shaped connector that I know I've seen before but can't remember where, instead of the shape most computers use), wondering what the odds were of it working once I found or made a power cable for it, and decided to open it up and see just what it was that was rattling inside because I thought that might turn out to be a clue...

I got the case apart, and there was a Faraday cage inside it, that the rattling bit was inside of. Getting that open took a bit more trouble, but once I got far enough in to pry one edge of the guts away from the back of the LCD panel, this fell out:

It's roughly three eighths of an inch across, and even-more-roughly five sixteenths of an inch tall (I didn't feel like going to fetch a ruler so I just held it next to a 1/4" patch cable and a 1/8" headphone cable -- if I'd thought ahead, I would've put a ruler in the photo). There are contacts on the underside, and it looks like it just came unsoldered from a circuit board. I'm guessing that the odds of the monitor working correctly (or at all) without this piece in the circuit are awfully darned slim, right? (OTOH, if this is all that's wrong with it, maybe I can get it apart enough to sneak a soldering iron in there, though I'm uncertain of the amount of skill required since I see only pads, not pins, to attach it by.)

I haven't Googled the part number; all I really know about it are the two obvious facts: it's not where it's supposed to be, and it's an inductor. Then again, any other details are probably moot -- either I can put it back where it goes, or I can't. I'm guessing that the chipped-off bit isn't going to be significant. (If it's just epoxy, I'm safe -- does epoxy have a sort of grainy look where it breaks? If it's ferrous, which I can't get a sure enough feel of with my fingernail to identify by touch (and I can't tell whether a magnet is being attracted to the black substance or to the metal of the coil, or perhaps a core if there is one), then the chip might alter the magnetic field a little, but I dunno, it's an awfully small piece.)

But it makes a kind of pretty photo, in a geeky way.

Speaking of geeking, here's how I got that photo in case anyone with a ditigal point-and-shoot needs to know the trick. I took a 50mm lens from a 35mm SLR film camera (I keep one that doesn't fit any of my cameras by the bed to use as a loupe), and held it up against the front of the digital camera, backwards. Then it was just a matter of moving closer and farther from the subject while looking at the LCD on the back of the camera, until I found a distance where it could focus. (Actually, I'm not certain whether the camera could really do anyything about the focus at all in that situation; I don't think it could have compensated if I'd been a little off. Fortunately it's not difficult to arrange as long as you can see what the camera sees, as is the case with either an SLR or a digicam with a display. The piece was sitting on a white sheet of paper, as close as I could manage to a lamp with a compact fluorescent bulb. (I presume the blue tint to the white paper is because the camera didn't automatically white-balance exactly right; sometime later I'll try setting the white-balance manually to the fluorescent setting and see how close that is, or try shooting in bright sunlight).

I did dial in some exposure compensation on the camera, but surprisingly I didn't have to do any level/curves/contrast adjustment in the computer afterwards. (Maybe I could've diminished that hot-spot on the side nearest the lamp if I'd tried, but it didn't seem important enough to sweat over.) All I did in Gimp was crop, scale, and add the copyright text.

I shot this with the digicam cellio gave me. (It has a 'close up' setting but not this close up.) If I'm going to shoot more macro with it, I foresee more rubber bands in that camera's future. I must say. I'm rather pleased to be able to get shots like this with it.

By the way, does anyone have spare power cables of the Mickey-Mouse-shaped variety? (If not, well I have an X-Acto knife, electrical tape, and a few of the wrong shape of cables.)