My alarm clock is over ten years old. It does not work properly anymore. It still tells the time, but the actual alarm part of it has descended into annoying. I find I sleep better if I don’t have an alarm to wake me; I still wake up at approximately the correct time. But, in its age, my clock has decided to ring the alarm even if I have set it off.
This hasn’t bothered me too much. Since I don’t trust it, I’ve never set it, which leaves it at the default alarm time of midnight. Apparently I can turn it off in my sleep because I can’t recall it waking me. (Ironically, if it is set for seven in the morning, that will cause me to wake at five in the morning, but that is my brain’s fault.) But last night I came in after midnight to find my alarm ringing and decided enough was enough. Out came the screwdrivers and soon my clock was in pieces.
I found out some interesting things. (Nothing entertaining, like don’t poke electronic bits that are plugged into wall sockets.) The crux of the problem is that the on/off switch no longer has a metal part to allow it to complete a circuit. But why would that set off the alarm?
Apparently, the default state of the clock is to ring the alarm. When it is set to the off position, a theoretically working switch completes the circuit to not ring. When it is set to the on position, all the circuit does is turn on the light to indicate that the alarm is set. i.e. The on light is totally separate from the act of ringing.
The handyman’s secret weapon was tinfoil. Ram it in the on/off switch so it can start doing its job again. Another option would be to cut the speaker cord, or permenately complete the “off” circuit. But I still have the idea that there might be times that I want to have a working alarm again.