Thanks to guenter.fritz, I fixed my dream machine. Mine wasn't as melted as his was, but the melted plastic did run down into the micro chip below. As best as I can guess, the plastic sliver was placed below the silver cylinder circuit thing (don't know what it is) as some sort of heat shield, but it melted instead. Really bad choice on sony's part. I scratched most of it off, especially around the solder joints and IC connector points the best i could with a toothpick and a blade careful not to break any contacts, swabbed with alcohol, reassembled and it works!!! I guess I'll see if it was worth the effort. I like the alarm clock, innovative for its age. Hard to imagine that a tiny defective circuit could ruin an otherwise product and harder to believe Sony chose to ignore the problem despite all the evidence. Anyway, if you are inclined as I was to take it apart, there are a lot of screws and the top behind the snooze button doesn't like to let go. There are several plugs and cables to pull to get proper access. The metalic one going to the screen has a tab you have to lift before you can pull it out.
i'm sure most people will just chuck the thing in the trash, but I like to tinker.
