DVR Chatter

I got brave and took apart my remote.  The bottom side of the buttons seem to have black rubber tips. Even though some buttons work and some don't, (or at least sometimes they work if you use a million pound of force and hold the button down), they all look the same. That is, there doesn't seem to be any metallic of any kind painted on them. I'm thinking maybe that rubberish stuff wears down.  Anyway I'm gonna try the aluminum foil tape fix to see if it works. It appears that the rubber tip of the back of the button makes contact with the metal on the circuit board.

I first glance, I don't see how the tape fix would work. But I'm gonna try it in a few days.

By the way...I was able to put the remote  back together and it still works !!

Did you try the rubber cement?

Another thing along the same lines is the stuff you can use to repair your rear defroster in the car, although that was reported to flake off after a while and gum up other keys.

There is a specific repair kit listed, too.

Here is the info that I got from an Amazon review of the remote:

The name of the repair kit is "Caikote 44" and the part number is K-CK44-G. I bought it at Fry's for $5.99. You can order it directly from the manufacturer for $7.99. There is enough paint in the kit to repair a lot of remotes, cell phones, basically anything with rubber keys.

Just Google "Caikote 44" and you will find the manufacturer site easily.

Update: Found the Caikote 44 at Fry's.  It worked !!  So far, so good.   $5.99 fix.

Note: I couldn't find the stuff at first. I asked a clerk. He took me to an aisle that had all kinds of solder type stuff, etc.   Couldn't find it.  As he was looking at a section, I wandered over to another section...Didn't see any, but, packages of 'stuff' hanging at looked like, well, if they have it, that's were it will be. I was determined not to have to go home and order it on-line. THEN..I looked at some 'stuff' that hangin on the wall, and there was one package a litte bit longer then all of them on the rack.  I scooted them forward, and there it was, hidden in the back, the only one.  Well....it makes for an interesting to me, anyway. 

By the way....DARN it for that.  The wife had already OKayed me to go my a new, updated, color Harmony.
Now we don't need it. But wait....maybe we WILL .... after playing with the remote, now all buttons working,
I picked it up about 1/2 later, and none of the lower buttons worked. The green transmit light didn't light when pressing any. What in the world ?  So hit the OFF button to turn TV off. Then back on again, which I resets all the buttons, I hoped. And, well, it did.  So it works again. I don't know what that was all about.
Maybe the new paint stuff on one of the  buttons got stuck. I let it dry about 2 1/2 hours after painting it on.

Stay tuned fellas !!  Could be another one of those "It could only happen to Ned" things.

Oh by the way...unrelated...  I now have 3 friends who have switched to ATT UVERSE and they are all loving it.  I would likely switch today if it were available in this neighborhood. But we are a 35 yr old area...likely won't see it for a long time here.

So here's still yet, another update on my Harmony Remote.
I guess I'm about ready to put it to it's final resting place.
You recall, seeing above posts, I had the well known buttons stop
working. I did the paint with Caikote repair. It seemed to work at the
time.  After a few weeks, it starting acting crazy. Some buttons didn't
work, some would cause strange things to happen.  The TV would
turn on, the AV  receiver would turn on...things like that..
all without pressing any  buttons.

The green transmit light would be lit solid.  I read that sometimes
the paint repair stuff starts flaking. It makes contact and
does strange things. So I opened the remote again, and scraped
off the metal contacts incase some paint stuff was on them.
When I put the remote back together it worked fine...... for
a few days. Then same thing.  So I opened it up again and
scraped the metal contacts that the buttons touch and , again,
it worked.  Well this keeps happening and happening and happening.

I like what I read about the Harmony One but it's $200 on sale ....yikes..
I'm waiting for a new Best Buy 12% members coupon to come in
the mail...maybe I'll take the plunge.

So jealous.

Well so far...the thing works like a  charm. It's comfortable to hold..BUT there
are cases where I have to use two hands. That's mostly because my DVR is quite
low in a TV stand case. When you use the touch screen, and you angle the remote
downward toward the box, you are viewing the touch screen from an angle, so I
sometimes it the wrong button on the screen. But it's no biggy.

When I updated the software, and made the change to the new remote, I was
surprised that the buttons were setup as well  as they were. For example, my
659 remote did not have a 30 second skip. I had to 'teach it'. Well the ONE
has a FF button, which does manual fast forward. And it has a  FF> button, which
already does the 30 second skip. So I didn't have to do any extra programming
for that.

You can setup favorite channels, which put the station logos on your touch screen.
So you just press the logo and it goes to that channel once it's been setup. I haven't
done that yet. But I found a link where someone made A BUNCH of logos that he
lets you download. So that's probably next.

The ONE will control up to 15 components. I don't have anywhere near that.

There's lots of 'chatter' about the battery life.   The ONE has a rechargable battery.
Logitech actually says to simply put the remote in it's cradle every night.  Yet, the
docs say the battery might last 1 or 2 weeks between charges, depending on
activity.  I found that some users don't cradle it every night, and typically, they
need a charge after about 5 days. But it's nice having a cradle nearby. How many
times was I using the 659, (4 AAA batteries) and got a "Change battery" message,
and hoped I had 4 AAA's somewhere.  I don't really care if the battery lasts 5 days,
or 2 weeks. Just drop it in the  cradle.

I like that the remote 'comes to life' when I pick it up.  The  backlight shuts off
within a few  seconds of setting it down. You can adjust how long.


That's really about it.  Oh... I bought mine for $199 on sale at bestbuy.  I read that
a guy bought one at dell.com for $149.   I figure it's ok though... probable shipping
costs might have added to that, and if I have a problem, short term, I can just
go back to bestbuy.

I called logitech customer service to ask a question before I started the update.
I had about a 10 minute on hold, but the person was helpful and I could understand
him very easily (shame on me for saying that ?).  I had heard some negative about
logitech customer service, but it went very well.

We'll see how it goes.