TR Forums

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I guess if I'm messing with full voltage electricity at main feeder line (150A @ 240V would hut. Alot), I'm probably going to want to not DIY. Also I would need the power company to come out and pull the meter to be able to replace the main breaker with a different setup.

EDIT: I like something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Control ... 00AHTWRDM/

While not quite as scary, note that you will still be messing with 150A @ 240V lines as that is what feeds the main breaker box. Yes, you can de-energize them at the service breakers, but turning those breakers back on can still be a very energetic experience if you get something wrong downstream. That said, if you have a spot, outside, you can run the main feed lines coming from the service box through that and "be done with it".

Good luck. Something that seems "simple" up front...

notfred wrote:

Here in Ontario we can DIY on our own house and then just pay a small fee to get the inspector in. If it is all up to code then he gives you the inspection certificate just as if you had spent a lot on a master electrician to do the work.

Yes, but depending on what we do, we still need to get a building permit before hand depending on city bylaws.

MileageMayVary wrote:

anotherengineer wrote:

and give it a coat of industrial zinc primer

Send me your leftovers!

lol, ya, stuff isnt cheap, about $150 cnd a gallon. Just have to see which brand is good and get a gallon and a new set of cans for my respirator.

Fixed my "new" ride on mower I got last fall. It came with a snow plow and mower deck.

It is a 1994 MTD knock off 18hp Briggs and Stratton with a three blade 46" mower deck and 48" snow plow.
Itmowed twice just fine before winter but I burned out the front drive belt trying to use it to plow snow over the winter to so I replaced the front and rear belts, swapped the plow for the mower and went to mowing.

The mower would not drive in anything higher than 4th gear and the drive belts were slipping and then it died and would not restart, it appeared to have a seized motor.

Turns out the starter was jammed and I just needed to turn the engine by hand. I moved the mount point for the belt tension spring forward an inch and double checked the oil.
Looks like the oil was lower than shown on the dip stick causing the mower to die to protect itself from low oil pressure.
I also tightened the spark plug wires.

The mount for the snow plow was hitting the mower deck when changing the deck height. I fixed it by swappiing the mount on top of the the mount arms instead of below and now it just clears the deck.

With these changes it drives in all gears, mows just fine again, and the idle is much better.

Not bad for a 25 year old mower!

Aranarth wrote:

The mower would not drive in anything higher than 4th gear and the drive belts were slipping and then it died and would not restart, it appeared to have a seized motor.

How many damn gears does a riding mower need!? Transmission swapped out from a big rig?

MileageMayVary wrote:

Aranarth wrote:

The mower would not drive in anything higher than 4th gear and the drive belts were slipping and then it died and would not restart, it appeared to have a seized motor.

How many damn gears does a riding mower need!? Transmission swapped out from a big rig?

Since there's not really a throttle (at least mine didn't), that's how you trade power going to propel versus to the blade. I usually did 5/6 for driving while not cutting and then 2/3 while cutting. 1st gear only when cutting after a long spell. Note, this was a 10HP craftsman from the late 90's.

Some tractors have a hydrostatic transmission, which is a hydraulic pump coupled to a hydraulic motor with some sort of valving or gating of the fluid to automatically change the output. Similar in principle to a torque converter, fairly idiot-proof, but you do take friction losses in the fluid system.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I'm make 2 laminated labels. One to put on the main 150A breaker coming into the house and a 2nd to put on the main panel. I'll put these in place and turn off the respective breakers before plugging the generator in. These will stay with the generator when not in use and will be my manual "lock out, tag out" when in use. It's manual, but should prevent any issues for my personal use.

Just to be clear, that's simply "tag out", not "lock out".

"Lock out" is only provided by things like the key-retaining locked breakers as suggested by JustAnEngineer, and it is what you want for the reasons ludi went over.

Simply as a industrial analogue, "tag out" is seriously deprecated. Everything new is lock out, and anything old that can be modified is made into lock out unless seriously infeasible.

OSHA really, really doesn't like tag out, for the practical reasons everyone here has already gone over.

So, yeah, please don't do that.

In a tenuously connected vein, had to have the AC guy come out and replace a blown capacitor. Apparently the power outages killed it. Going the whole weekend without AC was pretty miserable. At least it was only 85 and not hotter.

Yikes.

I was just in your area, and yeah, "only" 85.

And what is the deal with those bugs?

MileageMayVary wrote:

Aranarth wrote:

The mower would not drive in anything higher than 4th gear and the drive belts were slipping and then it died and would not restart, it appeared to have a seized motor.

How many damn gears does a riding mower need!? Transmission swapped out from a big rig?

You run the motor at top speed to drive the blades at a speed that cuts grass well, then use the gears to adjust your forward speed based on the thickness of the grass you are mowing etc.

Unlike in a car where you have a variable throttle and gears, with a typical yard tractor you use the throttle to select an engine speed and can usually can accelerate well in any gear as long as the engine is producing enough power. With this one being at 1/2 throttle and nothing on the PTO works just fine for just driving in high gear. If you engage the PTO you need to go to max power.
I have 7 speeds selectable with hi/lo forward and reverse. (14 forward speeds 7 reverse)

In low range and tire chains I can help the wife's 3/4 ton truck out of a snow drift.

Funny enough our JD 20hp small farm tractor can also work the same way, you select the minimum engine revs with a hand throttle and then the foot throttle gets you from that engine speed to max revs. Makes it handy when you need to power hydraulics to lift and move a 1000# round bale without stalling out.

ludi wrote:

Some tractors have a hydrostatic transmission, which is a hydraulic pump coupled to a hydraulic motor with some sort of valving or gating of the fluid to automatically change the output. Similar in principle to a torque converter, fairly idiot-proof, but you do take friction losses in the fluid system.

I prefer the manual speed selector then you don't have to keep the "accelerator" pressed down all the time.

I had a toro with a hydrostatic transmission. I'd get a leg cramp at the end of mowing because the forward selector was very stiff.

Glorious wrote:

Yikes.

I was just in your area, and yeah, "only" 85.

And what is the deal with those bugs?

Two words: standing water

FWIW we had to have the capacitor on our A/C replaced a couple of years ago too. I guess when you think about it, those things are operating in a pretty harsh environment (assuming you're talking about the one that lives outside attached to the compressor and not the one for the inside blower).

just brew it! wrote:

Glorious wrote:

Yikes.

I was just in your area, and yeah, "only" 85.

And what is the deal with those bugs?

Two words: standing water

FWIW we had to have the capacitor on our A/C replaced a couple of years ago too. I guess when you think about it, those things are operating in a pretty harsh environment (assuming you're talking about the one that lives outside attached to the compressor and not the one for the inside blower).

Correct on the 2nd point. On the first point, I assume he is talking the love bugs, not mosquitoes. You'd be right as the the latter. The former is just an annual thing. You get used to it *shrug*

JBI wrote:

Two words: standing water

I specifically meant a particular bug, well, two bugs, that were everywhere and constantly, erm, "coupled", together. One bigger, one smaller.

Love bugs, kissing bugs, I guess it was the "season", but man, all over the place, and for impressive amounts of time.

This weekend, I got to tear back into a set of brakes I replaced last weekend in order to eliminate a banshee shriek during moderate braking and turns. As expected, the thin steel pad-guide clips which came with the new brakes were formed too wide and were dragging on the disk. Only took an hour to pop out both fronts and complete the exorcism with a bench grinder, but I sure do hate doing the same job twice.

----

Other: AC motor capacitors are always the first suspect if the outdoor unit won't start. Pretty easy to replace as long as you take note of the wire connections, but usually not in stock at the local hardware store. I was fortunate last August when ours died on a Saturday, and found a "close enough" unit on-the-shelf at this very unique store in Boulder. But afterward I ordered another one on Amazon and socked it away it for the future. (Many AC units with a dual-run capacitor use something in that range, and given the 10-20% tolerance, you can get away with substitutions, and if the shape is wrong, just replace the bracket with galvanized gasline strap.)

Glorious wrote:

JBI wrote:

Two words: standing water

I specifically meant a particular bug, well, two bugs, that were everywhere and constantly, erm, "coupled", together. One bigger, one smaller.

Love bugs, kissing bugs, I guess it was the "season", but man, all over the place, and for impressive amounts of time.

I was down in Florida a few weeks ago visiting the mouse, and those little things were everywhere. People waiting in the various ride queues were going nuts trying to avoid/kill them.

ludi wrote:

Other: AC motor capacitors are always the first suspect if the outdoor unit won't start. Pretty easy to replace as long as you take note of the wire connections, but usually not in stock at the local hardware store. I was fortunate last August when ours died on a Saturday, and found a "close enough" unit on-the-shelf at this very unique store in Boulder. But afterward I ordered another one on Amazon and socked it away it for the future. (Many AC units with a dual-run capacitor use something in that range, and given the 10-20% tolerance, you can get away with substitutions, and if the shape is wrong, just replace the bracket with galvanized gasline strap.)

I am more knowledgeable now that I was 4 hours. Realistically, the whole unit is 17 years old, so probably won't need to replace that part before I'll end up replacing the whole system. For posterity's sake, here's what I would need:
https://www.amazon.com/97F9850-Volt-Rou ... =1-2-spell

Last Friday I pulled a busted USB port from a Smart board controller, and replaced it with one from a busted projector. It was a slow, amateur job, but it saved our district $160... (Minus my time, which based on my soldering skills means the district may have broken even. )

Saturday was change the spark plugs in my wife's Durango. 5.7L Hemi V8 -- 16 spark plugs! Luckily the engine bay is actual pretty open. With a swivel spark plug socket, I was able to do all of them in less than an hour. Pull the engine cover off and go at it. Nothing else had to be removed. While I was digging around under the hood, I pulled the throttle body off to clean it as well. It was surprisingly clean. Way cleaner than my G37 when I did it at about the same mileage. 10 minutes with carb cleaner and some paper towels and all good. Being a big V8, I could actually put my entire hand inside the intake manifold, so I wiped it out too. Nothing really there though. Add a container of Lucas Oil high mileage fuel system and injector cleaner and call it good. For once, a DIY that didn't take any more time than a pro shop would have, and a sight cheaper. Not that 16 iridium plugs are exactly cheap.

Today wasn't so much fixing something, but I got something done that I'd been meaning to do for a while. I put together and installed a distribution manifold for my compressor.



Feed from the compressor comes in to the right. Raw air output with a quick disconnect fitting, then filter and drier. Dry/filtered air feed comes next. This will go to a retractable reel on the ceiling. That will probably get installed next weekend. Finally is an oiler and air feed for the air tools. That will probably go to a second hose reel, but I haven't quite decided. It may just go to a drop down quick disconnect. It's lowest priority though. I need to get the dried and filtered air setup for the paint sprayer.

--SS

Had my best friend down for 24 hours. We knocked out a few projects.
Hard-wired some bedside lamps (that I've had for 3 years ).
Took apart the blade assembly on the mower and figured out why it wasn't tightening down on the shaft.
Ran 100' of 12/2 UG cable out to the shed to provide power out there that wasn't through an extension cord. I need to get a reel out there to make my life easier. Any recommendations on them? Harbor Freight looks like a reasonable choice. This will be for things like the table saw, RAS, and other tools. They have a 16ga version but that sounds like a bad idea.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Had my best friend down for 24 hours. We knocked out a few projects.
Hard-wired some bedside lamps (that I've had for 3 years ).
Took apart the blade assembly on the mower and figured out why it wasn't tightening down on the shaft.
Ran 100' of 12/2 UG cable out to the shed to provide power out there that wasn't through an extension cord. I need to get a reel out there to make my life easier. Any recommendations on them? Harbor Freight looks like a reasonable choice. This will be for things like the table saw, RAS, and other tools. They have a 16ga version but that sounds like a bad idea.

I was just at Harbor Freight this weekend and bought the 30ft version (16/2 instead of 14/2). Considering returning it though as Home Depot has a similar 30ft, 16/2 for $35. Only considering though since the HD unit has significantly less favorable reviews than the HF one. Go figure.

--SS

I guess for low current stuff it would probably be ok. Amazon has a 14/2 for $60. Leaning that way.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I guess for low current stuff it would probably be ok. Amazon has a 14/2 for $60. Leaning that way.

I would base the decision on continuous loading. For low power devices (e.g. small hand tools) or short-duration loads (e.g. table saw) that aren't overly sensitive to voltage drop, the slightly thinner cord is probably fine. For longer-duration loads (e.g. portable compressor) you want the thicker wire to avoid heating up the reel. For high continous loads (space heater), bypass the reel and use the shortest and thickest cord that gets you to an outlet.

Shifter stopped working. It wouldn't shift out of Neutral. Car wouldn't turn on after I turned it off. After some research I isolated it to the shifter cable; I was able to ship by manually rotating the selector on the transmission. I ended up having to take the middle console apart and found what was left of a bushing and the end of the shifter cable not even touching the shifting arm. For now, It was secured by making the stud thicker with duct-tape and holding it in place with zip-ties. Tomorrow I'll need to hit up the store and buy a pack of circlips.

Before:

After:

My brother in law found the old repair manual for my Yamaha CR600 Receiver on line, complete with circuit diagrams and spec values for every component. He found a broken trace at one end of one of two baked resistors that was out of spec in the signal section for the output amp. The We ordered replacements from mouser (shipping cost more than getting 4 of each) and he put them in and repaired to trace. He also replaced the same two resistors on the other channel. Then he put a volt meter on the check points while I twiddled the adjustment pots and we got all the voltages it right into spec on both channels. Its really sweet to have this Receiver working again. I've paired it with the infinity speakers (picked up for $30 and re-coned the woofers recently). It sounds great down at the lab and easily penetrates through the sound of vacuum pumps and exhaust fans.

Its great that older stuff can be fixed this way. I bought that receiver in 1974. My brother in law says it looks like a child soldered the system together. I've seen similar poor work on the pickup traces of electric guitars.

Mr Bill wrote:

My brother in law found the old repair manual for my Yamaha CR600 Receiver on line

Its great that older stuff can be fixed this way. I bought that receiver in 1974. My brother in law says it looks like a child soldered the system together. I've seen similar poor work on the pickup traces of electric guitars.

I've repaired one of those (might not have been the CR600 but it was one in the same model line). Great units. Probable that Yamaha wasn't using wave soldering yet (or couldn't due to limitations of sensitive components). I would imagine that hand-flowing 800+ through-hole connections against a timeclock doesn't lend itself to pristine work, especially if the board wasn't quite cleaned properly or the iron temperature was a bit off that day.

ludi wrote:

Mr Bill wrote:

My brother in law found the old repair manual for my Yamaha CR600 Receiver on line

Its great that older stuff can be fixed this way. I bought that receiver in 1974. My brother in law says it looks like a child soldered the system together. I've seen similar poor work on the pickup traces of electric guitars.

I've repaired one of those (might not have been the CR600 but it was one in the same model line). Great units. Probable that Yamaha wasn't using wave soldering yet (or couldn't due to limitations of sensitive components). I would imagine that hand-flowing 800+ through-hole connections against a timeclock doesn't lend itself to pristine work, especially if the board wasn't quite cleaned properly or the iron temperature was a bit off that day.

Heck, even modern-ish stuff can have poor soldering. When Rosewill switched designs (and presumably contract manufacturers) on their RK-9000 keyboard line back in the early part of this decade, there was a whole slew of people who had problems with keys which would go intermittent after a while due to poor soldering between the Cherry switches and the PCB. My son ran into this issue on his RK-9000-BL; I reflowed the failed switch joints and he got another few good years of heavy gaming use out of it. (It eventually failed again and he moved on to a Corsair something-or-other; the RK-9000-BL is currently sitting in my "to be repaired and relegated to spares pile" queue.)

I've also had pretty much nothing but problems with plumbers.. even those licensed (which are rare in my area). Unless it's a problem buried in a concrete-slab foundation (or under a crawl-space, which I don't have), I'll do it myself.

Now electrical is something else.. messing with the circuit-breaker panel scares the crap out of me (..well, other flipping a breaker on/off). A few days ago I did an outlet on the other side of one interior wall, that didn't take much more than about 40 minutes. A few years ago I installed a mini-split AC, and with the exception of new breaker and an outside fuse (both of which weren't "seated" quite right), that went OK electrically (final condenser-line hook-up by the AC people for warranty didn't go so well, but they fixed it eventually) . I don't even try with my homes central AC units.

My most recent home project has been cleaning/organizing both of my two-car garages.. not a "fix" but its been onerous and taking FAR more time than I expected. It's amazing how much crap I've had to throw away..

I've had to open up my Technic receiver from 1992 a few times to clean out cat hair and dust, and it's entirely through-hole parts. Would be very straightforward to solder and repair by hand.