it’s been several months since I’ve completed any new works, for a combination of reasons. I need some fresh material (which means a trip to the florist’s shop this time of year), but more critically my sketching tablet finally failed on me, my original Wacom bought in 2006 or 2007. I put a LOT of miles on that thing, wearing one pen nib completely down and a good chunk of a second. What failed wasn’t the tablet itself but the connector Too much bending back and forth when I stowed the pad when not in use. In hindsight I should have been more careful so the cord didn’t bend too much but given the 16+ years it gave me I certainly can’t complain.

A little internet searching and I found instructions on how to fix the connector, with a site showing precise wiring instructions. I haven’t soldered much in a long time and had negligible experience even when I was doing a bit but, hey, what have I got to lose? Unscrewed the pad bottom and sure enough three of the wires had come loose. Soldering iron and solder in hand, off i go.

What wasn’t spelled out in the instructions is you really needed a magnifying glass to properly align things – space was extremely tight – but more importantly the article failed to mention that you needed three hands or at the least some clamps. But after much struggle I finally got it attached and thought I’d best plug it in to the computer USB port before hot-gluing the cord in place and screwing the back on again. Voila! Power light! Got out the hot glue gun, got the cord set, then thought I’d better check one last time before putting the dozen screws back in. Uh oh, no light. Sure enough, a lead came off during the wiggling to get the cord positioned right. Back to soldering, but this time either it was just too much movement or I used too much heat as the tiny (1 mm square) metal pad to solder the lead to came off of the circuit board. Game over.

It was a long shot, didn’t have anything to lose, so I reluctantly said good-bye to an old friend, time to buy one of it’s kids (or likely grand-children or great-grand-children at least given the time that has passed).

So yeah when deciding on a replacement it was a pretty easy decision, opting for the Intuos Pro. Lots more features that I haven’t even begun to tap into yet so I’m sure I’m not leveraging a fraction of it’s potential but I can get back to basic editing. With details like the fern fronds in with work-in-progress piece you definitely need a tablet, both for the fine control but also for the pressure sensitivity.

So hopefully will have a few more works appearing in the coming weeks!