TI provides installers for Windows and macOS. To get out of it we need to use TI-Nspire Computer Link.
The mode heavily restricts the available features on the calculator as required by testing institutions. I thought the "test" means some system self-evaluation stuff, but turns out it means an exam at school or something like SAT. While I was tinkering with it I got it into the Press-To-Test mode. I don't remember clearly but I think I got this TI-Nspire CX CAS calculator as a gift from my library tutoring job.
If I ever find a solution, I’ll be sure to update this post.This how-to is a description of the solution in this video. The third one remains stubbornly powered down. I just added a bit of solder from a soldering iron to each of the metal plates where the clips had worn through to plastic, and two of the TI-Nspire CAS’s were up and running again. Sure enough, it started on the very first try.Ĥ metal pads where contact occurs, especially note the hole worn in the lower right one.Ĭlearly, aluminum foil is not a long term solution to this problem, but a tiny amount of solder is. To test this theory, I actually inserted a small piece of aluminum foil over the plate, closed the Nspire CAS back up, and attempted to start it again. It appeared that, through the years, the metal wire clips have actually rubbed clear through the metal plates to the plastic on the other side, breaking the circuit.
The view of the lower left one is obscured by the battery compartment. What I realized was that there are 4 metal wire clips that come from the battery compartment on one half of the Nspire and make contact with 4 tiny metal plates on the other half of the Nspire. If the problem was bigger than that, I probably wouldn’t be able to fix it anyway. I was operating on the assumption that somehow the circuit formed when I insert the batteries might be broken. I didn’t have a star head screwdriver small enough, so I actually had to use a specialty drill bit that I had which was a perfect fit. Next I gently pried the front and back halves apart, allowing me to see the inner parts of the Nspire.
With all that said, if you’re curious about what worked for me, feel free to read on.Īs I said, I’m not an electrical expert, so I’ll be using layman’s terms here. I started by removing the 6 screws on the back of the Nspire CAS. It may have been a stroke of luck that this worked on 2 of my 3 TI-Nspire CAS’s. You could cause further damage via this process. I also don’t know if this will work for anyone else. I’m certain this is not a Texas Instruments approved solution, and if your Nspire is still under warranty, I’ll be this this will void it (if you are still under warranty, call them up at 1-800-TI-CARES they will fix it for you).
I’m far from an electrical guru, but I thought maybe I could get lucky and the problem would obvious. In fact, after a little bit of investigating, I did figure out the problem.ĭISCLAIMER: To be clear, I’m NOT suggesting this as a solution to anyone else. With these CAS’s refusing to turn on and being years beyond their warranty, I figured I had nothing to lose by opening them up to see if I could find the source of the problem myself. Since the math team budget at our school is zero, I have to fund raise for every calculator we buy, and I can’t just magically produce a few more. With so many kids on the team this year, I can’t afford to have that many CAS’s out of commission. Yesterday, despite changing batteries a couple of times, 3 of my old TI-Nspire clickpads would not power up. My students take great care of their Nspires, but we were early adopters, so our original TI-Nspire clickpads are coming up on 6 years old, and I’m always a little nervous during this process. When the start of the season nears, one of my preseason jobs is to get the team TI-Nspire CAS handhelds out of the closet, both to update to the latest OS, and to make sure they all still boot up. I had an unusually large number of kids try out, and even after cuts, we had a record number of kids on the team, 32.