Code and Life

Programming, electronics and other cool tech stuff

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Dissecting the Excalibur Game Time Chess Clock

A go-playing friend of mine had a broken “Excalibur” chess clock that we here in Europe use extensively in go tournaments. The LCD was shattered and I don’t think they ship replacement parts:

Because the clock is not of much use without a display, I got to rip it apart to see what it contains. This particular clock is used quite a lot, so I thought I’d share the images. Note that you can click on pictures to view larger version of the image.

Screws were located under the rubber pads in the bottom of the clock:

The top came easily off, and it turns out there isn’t much else than the buttons attached:

Beneath the cover, a rather simple circuit is revealed – basically it’s just a few buttons, micro switches and a flip-flop mechanism for the big ones:

The controller chip itself is housed in an epoxy blob, so no details can be seen on the make and model:

The LCD seems to be directly controlled by the main circuit. It seems there’s not much to reuse from this clock in other projects, especially as the most potential part, the display, is broken. Too bad!

2 comments

Francisco Hernández:

I’m have the same problem, my Excalibur was broked and i’m trying to replace LCD without successfull, can you help me to solve it?

jokkebk:

Probably nothing can be done, only thing would be to contact the manufacturer and ask if they sell the displays are replacement parts. And even then you’d need to do some serious soldering to replace it – probably costs less to buy a new one…