Personal computing discussed

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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Aug 10, 2019 12:35 pm

A while back I put in a manifold for the compressor in my garage. Of course, it leaked. :roll: Well, today I'm running the air lines for things running off that manifold so I took the time this morning to take it down, take it apart, and address all the leaks. Remember Gerbils, if you aren't making a mess with the thread sealant, you aren't using enough. :D Just don't get it inside the lines...

--SS
 
cheesyking
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:38 am

I re-pointed the front wall of my house. As you can probably guess from the amount of muck I had to use in some places it badly needed doing. TBH there were a couple of bricks I might have been able to wiggle free jenga style if I'd tried.

Image

At least my work was no worse than anyone else that has worked on that wall over the years although maybe I should have put something in the mortar to darken it up a bit so it matched better.
Fernando!
Your mother ate my dog!
 
Chuckaluphagus
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:22 am

I do not do ladders*, so I recently paid someone else to do a similar repair to my chimney. At the top of the chimney, the mortar was so far gone that the workers were able to just pull the bricks off by hand. Glad that was taken care of before a storm blew it over.
_____
* Heights are ok. Tall ladders are deeply nerve-wracking and I will only ascend one if absolutely necessary.
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Aug 17, 2019 8:25 am

Yesterday morning when the alarm went off at 5:50AM, it felt awfully warm in the house. A quick check of the thermostat showed it was 78F (the thermostat was set for 72F). Definitely not good, considering the high was supposed to be 101F. A quick jaunt outside confirmed that the condenser wasn't running -- no compressor, no fan. Into the garage to turn off the breaker, upstairs to turn down the upstairs unit to help keep the house somewhat cool, and back into the bedroom to turn the downstairs blower on so that air is at least circulating. The blower is on a different breaker from the condenser. With that done, time to do some basic investigation. Need to know if I'm going to have to call out an AC tech. Turns out, no. The problem became immediately obvious when I opened the outside disconnect panel for this condenser.

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The smell of magic smoke was strong and unmistakable. Went back in the garage to double check that the breaker was off and then pulled the plastic cover out of the disconnect panel.

Image

Remember Gerbils, 240V @ 50A is a lot of power! :o

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Image

I very much dislike doing work on 240V circuits -- they scare me! But, I had no desire to wait half a day without AC to have an electrician come out and replace it and pay through the nose for the privilege, so of to the home improvement store I went.

I had to pick up a couple of #8 splices. I cut back the burned black wire past the melted insulation and spliced in a new segment. You can't see it in the pictures because it's hidden, but the white wire already had a splice in it, with a wire nut on it. While it seemed solid, I went ahead and replaced it with a butt splice, same as the black wire. New box and 50A breaker, and we were back in business.

Image

The longer length of wires I spliced in are nicely tucked in under the internal faceplate of the enclosure. Put the exterior cover on and call it a day...

Image

It actually went pretty smoothly. The only problem I had was that it was so hot, the sealant I had got very very runny in the heat, so I couldn't get a good bead around the box where it meets the wall. I'll need to pick up some silicone caulk next time I'm out (today).

--SS
 
Usacomp2k3
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Aug 17, 2019 4:12 pm

I had a breaker catch fire in the main panel inside. Flames were licking out the cover. :o
Needless to day we went to Home Depot and replaced the entire panel that day. Had to replace all the breakers too since I went with a different brand. It may have been overkill, but now I don’t have to worry about it.
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Aug 18, 2019 5:43 pm

Today's repair project -- a stained glass lamp.

Some background. As a wedding present, my mother had commissioned a beautiful, custom, hand crafted stained glass lamp. It hung in the entry way in our old house. A few years after we got married, we were having a new bed delivered and as the mattress was being carried upstairs, it shifted and bumped the lamp. In slow motion, it came loose from its chain and fell onto entryway floor. The damage was substantial, but amazingly repairable. I shipped it back to the craftslady who made it and she put it back together, good as new.

One weak spot in the design of the lamp are the mounts for the chains from which it hangs. The attach to copper wire hooks that are attached to the inner seam in the corners of the lamp. I don't know if it was missed in the initial repair, or just happened over time, but two of the mounting wires had pulled away from the lamp and needed to be repaired. In the below, I've been the wire out a bit to give room to work in the corners of the lamp.

http://kovarindustries.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_20190818_130814561.jpg

First up was cleaning the seam with Goo Gone, to get rid of remnants of the adhesive from the original copper foil. I also removed the foil and solder from the mounting wire and sanded it lightly to get rid of any remaining patina, or other oxidation.

Image

Did that on both sides, then it was time to lay new copper foil on the seam. Not easy, given the physical constraints of the space, the light weight of the foil, and the aggressiveness of the adhesive. But, I got both sides in, pretty cleanly.

Image

Image

I picked up a Weller WLC200, just for doing this repair. Ok, this repair was a good excuse to pick up a high powered iron that I will probably used two or three times a year, but at those times, it will be extremely handy to have. Also picked up a container of liquid flux and a pound of solid core 60/40 solder.

Soldering the joints was an interesting exercise due to the constrained space, the wire in the joint, and the fact that this was my first time doing stained glass work. :o

http://kovarindustries.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_20190818_141513108.jpg

Image

All in all, they turned out satisfactorily. Not as clean as some of the original seams, but that may actually be a positive as these seem to be a bit stronger. I thought about touching up the other two as well, but decided that I'd be better leaving them alone as they were showing any signs of separating from the corners. The solder bead runs all the way up the corner, past the mounting wire and joins the bead from the outside of the corner to give some structural integrity and to keep it from being just the adhesive on the copper foil that is keeping the top of the mounting wire from pulling away from the corner.

Image

Image

I have a bottle of black patina arriving tomorrow so that my new solder will match the finish of the rest of the lamp. Once that's done, I can hang it back up. It goes in the stairway of our current house.

A couple of pictures from before I took it down for repair...

Image

Image
 
Mr Bill
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Aug 19, 2019 10:04 am

Nice work. Don't you just hate how poor the dynamic range is on cell phone photos? I bet that lamp is really stunning.
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SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri Nov 01, 2019 5:25 pm

Couple of interesting repairs lately. Spent two and a half weeks down in NOLA, helping out family in the hospital. Not long before I was coming home, one of the other people there hit me up with the "Hey, would you mind looking at my computer? I think it might have a virus." Being nice, I said ok. Didn't take much poking at it to figure out it wasn't a virus. The machine is an HP DV7 laptop. It would boot Windows, but when the login screen would come up, the LCD would get artifacts and then just show a black screen. If you connected to an external monitor, things would work fine. Virus and malware scans came back clean. Even with the external display, the system was surprisingly slow. Running some disk checks confirmed a failing drive. With a failing drive and something graphics related, I brought the laptop back to TX with me for a bit deeper investigation. Replaced the bad drive and fixed several driver installs. This system has switchable graphics -- the Intel HD graphics in the processor and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6370. Once the drivers were fixed, I could actually switch between the two. Everything worked fine with the Intel HD graphics and was a mess with the HD 6370. Stripped the main-board out and reflowed it with a heat gun. Amazingly, that seems to have fixed everything.

During my recent travels I message from my wife at about 6:30AM -- "Are you awake yet?" One of those message that cannot mean anything good. In talking to her, the outside freezer had failed and all the food in it had not only spoiled, but started rotting -- meaning that it had been off for many days. To make a long story short, the thermostat had failed. The thermostat was a basic, mechanical version that uses a bellows to actuate a relay to turn the compressor on and off. I was going to just order the replacement part, but in thinking about it, I realized that it would be just as likely to fail again in the same way -- by leaking. Instead, I opted to order a digital temperature controller (that cost half as much, BTW) and installed it instead.

I should have taken a bunch of pictures, but didn't. The only modifications I had to make to the fridge were to install a tap off the neutral line to power the controller, and to cut the whole in while to install it. I also built a foam box around the controller to let it start a little warmer from self heating since it's minimum operating temperature is right around the minimum set temperature for the freezer -- the freezer is listed as operating from -10F to 10F.

Image

Image

Note that the display is showing 50.5F, not SOS... :P Ended up working out quite well and has been holding to freezer at 0F +/- 2 deg F.

--SS
 
a_non_moose
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:50 pm

Waco wrote:
As the new owner (slave) of the wife's new to us 2001 Audi TT...I finally understand what you mean. The thing is a nightmare to work on.


BWAH-HAH-hahahahah!

OMFG, I fully understand, now.

Married 1 yr (together 7) and I *finally* pried my filthy mitts from my G73JH and let my wife have control (I.E. her lappy for 2...3? years).

Somewhere between Christmas and New Years...there was eggnog and the meeting with the keyboard. (urk)

Swabs, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol and shop vac attachments for computer work (darn things actually work pretty well for liquids, dust and misc).

Rub. Squish alcohol and vacuum...worked except for main "enter" key.

And, well, something is still "stuck" as I can do any scandisk because when I try it auto cancels. :(

Wife swipes a keyboard (to my media server...grrrrr) to type....works, but still: can't sleep lappy, some issues, and has to shutdown vs sleep. Complaining ensues and I and my (now) step-son
are like "well, if you had not dorked it up with egg nogg, would not be an issue".

TL;DR
Wife spills egg nogg on lappy. Husband orders 13 dollar keyboard replacement on 10+ year old lappy, while looking for a new one as a late Xmas present.
 
a_non_moose
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Jan 04, 2020 8:56 pm

Chuckaluphagus wrote:
I do not do ladders*, so I recently paid someone else to do a similar repair to my chimney. At the top of the chimney, the mortar was so far gone that the workers were able to just pull the bricks off by hand. Glad that was taken care of before a storm blew it over.
_____
* Heights are ok. Tall ladders are deeply nerve-wracking and I will only ascend one if absolutely necessary.


A-freaking-men.

Great with heights on a *STABLE* platform.

So long ago, on a 3 story ladder and painting eaves...threshold of "ok, ok, ok" and that fine line of "OMFG, I'm gonna pee myself" while painting. Yeah. Teens, 1st job, and invincible, buuuut
danged if I did not have my limits.

Same here. Spent about 1K for my lovely gas fireplace + logs and to have the chimney and crown redone.

I was warned a while back...that's gonna cost ya....it did and I was ready/glad to pay.
 
Aranarth
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat May 23, 2020 3:45 pm

I have 1994 ranch king 52" ride on mower and it needed new drive belts and starter.

I had a friend clean out and adjust the carb 2 weekends ago and with all the hard starting and running I wore out the starting gear.

Took me about 4 hours to figure out how its dine since the directions weren't clear or non-existent.

Previously i could not get it to go into 3rd gear or higher now the belts are so tight it has trouble switching from forward to reverse.
Works in all gears now though!
Also runs really well and starts really fast!
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
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anotherengineer
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue May 26, 2020 7:43 pm

lol squirrel

you working right now? how do you have time for all that stuff? kids moved out? Good work though, like super dad. Odd seeing a breaker outside, here more of a disconnect outside and breaker inside.

I got a pile of work, biggest priority gets the time, and other stuff gets the back burner, winter tires have to come off this week, then finish off the PC desk, it will be nice when that's done, it's been on the back burner for years!!
Life doesn't change after marriage, it changes after children!
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed May 27, 2020 8:10 am

anotherengineer wrote:
lol squirrel

you working right now? how do you have time for all that stuff? kids moved out? Good work though, like super dad. Odd seeing a breaker outside, here more of a disconnect outside and breaker inside.

I got a pile of work, biggest priority gets the time, and other stuff gets the back burner, winter tires have to come off this week, then finish off the PC desk, it will be nice when that's done, it's been on the back burner for years!!


I don't watch TV -- not knocking those that do, in the least. Daughter is in college, I don't stop -- my wife will tell you that. I'm always doing something.

--SS
 
anotherengineer
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed May 27, 2020 9:45 pm

SecretSquirrel wrote:
anotherengineer wrote:
lol squirrel

you working right now? how do you have time for all that stuff? kids moved out? Good work though, like super dad. Odd seeing a breaker outside, here more of a disconnect outside and breaker inside.

I got a pile of work, biggest priority gets the time, and other stuff gets the back burner, winter tires have to come off this week, then finish off the PC desk, it will be nice when that's done, it's been on the back burner for years!!


I don't watch TV -- not knocking those that do, in the least. Daughter is in college, I don't stop -- my wife will tell you that. I'm always doing something.

--SS


Same thing here, but it's usually fixing all the stuff the kids break. Lots of parenting since wife is a 12hr shift worker (nurse). 8 yr old boys are especially hard on stuff. The military should use them to test stuff for durability!!
Life doesn't change after marriage, it changes after children!
 
DiMaestro
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed May 27, 2020 10:08 pm

The last thing I fixed was my moms mower.

My cousin and his son looked at it, they replaced plugs investigated wiring, and my cousin said 'the wires to the starter are wrong'. After my mom yelled at me for allowing that to happen I went to her house 3 days later.

I did this. Primed it 3 times, pulled down the 'run' bar on the mower, and hit the pullstart like I meant it. Pop - off it went. I then mowed her lawn. After I was done I made her come out to see what I did, and how to start it. Showed her how to pull start it, then showed her the electric start worked as well. Showed her how to charge the battery again.

**** battery was dead.

I was pretty Po'ed over this. I mean it's a lawn mower. Who doesn't know how to start a lawn mower?

Regardless. I showed my elderly mother how to charge it and start it.
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Wed May 27, 2020 10:12 pm

anotherengineer wrote:
SecretSquirrel wrote:
anotherengineer wrote:
lol squirrel

you working right now? how do you have time for all that stuff? kids moved out? Good work though, like super dad. Odd seeing a breaker outside, here more of a disconnect outside and breaker inside.

I got a pile of work, biggest priority gets the time, and other stuff gets the back burner, winter tires have to come off this week, then finish off the PC desk, it will be nice when that's done, it's been on the back burner for years!!


I don't watch TV -- not knocking those that do, in the least. Daughter is in college, I don't stop -- my wife will tell you that. I'm always doing something.

--SS


Same thing here, but it's usually fixing all the stuff the kids break. Lots of parenting since wife is a 12hr shift worker (nurse). 8 yr old boys are especially hard on stuff. The military should use them to test stuff for durability!!


Yes. There was a 6-7 year period, when my daughter was 10/11 to about 17, where I had much, much less time. I had to make an distinct effort to carve at a bit of time to work on things during that period, usually an hour or so after she went to bed. I also tend to rotate through various areas of interest. Many projects will cross domains, but when I get blocked, frustrated, or just burnt out on something, I'll put it aside. I haven't flown RC much in the last two years. I've had a number of things in life that needed my time, and what free time I had, I was using to restore Ms PacMan. That's at an almost done state and can be shelved for a bit -- it's playable and looks good, just finishing details -- so I'm taking a break from it and doing some electronics and 3d printing projects. The current state of affairs has helped to some degree as I haven't had to travel at all since January (I took 11 work trips in 2019), and I've gain about 45 minutes to an hour from not going into the office.

Truth be told, I wonder how many of the high profile makers have time to do what they do. I know that in some cases (Adam Savage) they have crews for filming and helpers and such, but even taking that into account, I'm amazed. If only I didn't have to work a day job... :D
 
cheesyking
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri May 29, 2020 6:10 am

It's not a repair but I made this:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zH9pvPXLKVvL6zGM7

Yes it's another bookcase but it's also a door and in proper scooby-doo style, pulling a particular book forward releases the catch (well it will once I've figured the catch out). It only leads to a small cupboard and it's bit gappy around the top, bottom and right hand side but I'm not actually trying to hide priests from the reformation ;)

Fortunately there's a wall underneath the bit of floor it sits on so I'm not worried about all the weight causing it to fall through the floor.

It took me about a week and I wasn't trying to film it at the same time so I'm also at a bit of a loss as to how some of these maker types manage to find the time for everything they do. Of course I was working in my garden with hand tools, I suppose it would have been a lot quicker if I had a proper wood shop setup and had some actual training and/or skill at woodwork.

Here's a quick video I made after I'd fitted the hinges so you can see it in action.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bR17WrjrYREFf1XC6
The way it closes on it's own is of course a feature and nothing to do with me messing the hinges up.
Fernando!

Your mother ate my dog!
 
DiMaestro
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Fri May 29, 2020 10:51 am

cheesyking wrote:
It's not a repair but I made this:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zH9pvPXLKVvL6zGM7

Yes it's another bookcase but it's also a door and in proper scooby-doo style, pulling a particular book forward releases the catch (well it will once I've figured the catch out). It only leads to a small cupboard and it's bit gappy around the top, bottom and right hand side but I'm not actually trying to hide priests from the reformation ;)

Fortunately there's a wall underneath the bit of floor it sits on so I'm not worried about all the weight causing it to fall through the floor.

It took me about a week and I wasn't trying to film it at the same time so I'm also at a bit of a loss as to how some of these maker types manage to find the time for everything they do. Of course I was working in my garden with hand tools, I suppose it would have been a lot quicker if I had a proper wood shop setup and had some actual training and/or skill at woodwork.

Here's a quick video I made after I'd fitted the hinges so you can see it in action.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bR17WrjrYREFf1XC6
The way it closes on it's own is of course a feature and nothing to do with me messing the hinges up.


That is properly cool. :)
 
anotherengineer
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Jun 11, 2020 8:12 pm

ludi wrote:
notfred wrote:
My house was built in 2006 :(

And the builder used multi-turn valves? Ugh.


Not to nit pick, but pretty much all valves are multi-turn, except ball/plug valves. ;)

And does putting on the summer tires count?
Life doesn't change after marriage, it changes after children!
 
a_non_moose
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Thu Jun 11, 2020 9:27 pm

Prepping for rebuild of the 3770K...testing stability with Intel burn in test and killed the board...I think.

Waiting on replacement. Sad part is, Win10 ate itself, kept none of my files and win7...sorta works, but BSODs now vs programs quitting randomly.

Well, I wanted to know what's up...so here we are.

All else fails, System Guide and I think the "Serious business" seems to be the sweet spot. Going to ask in the builder fora if the cooler can be mounted
easily in a Corsair 750D's ceiling area.

Wish me luck.
 
cheesyking
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Mon Nov 02, 2020 8:44 am

Just fixed the electric water pressure sensor in my boiler. I'd tracked the fault down to it, got the part number, ordered the replacement, released the pressure in the system, unscrewed the old sensor and then tried to fit the new one.

Of course I'd ordered the wrong sensor and the thread different from the old one. After a minute or so of swearing I realised that something was a bit odd. I'd unscrewed the old sensor and no water had come out of the open hole. Even though I'd released the pressure there should still have been some water coming out of it. Sure enough the whole thing was clogged up with 25 odd years worth of crud and the original sensor worked just fine once it was cleared out.
Fernando!

Your mother ate my dog!
 
Aranarth
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 03, 2020 7:51 am

I fixed the car...

We have a saturn vue and it started to ramdomly lock the doors after we a got a new battery installed.

Took the terminal wires apart, clean up everything with a scrubby, applied Vaseline (cheap dialetric grease) to the terminals and put it all back together.

Not had a problem since.

Look on the wife's face when I asked for Vaseline to fix the car was priceless... :D lol
Just gonna lube it up honey! :D
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
Old machine: Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 3ghz / 8 gig ram / Radeon 7870 / 240 gb PNY ssd / 1tb HD
 
cheesyking
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:13 am

It's amazing the number of car problems that can be fixed by cleaning the battery terminals
Fernando!

Your mother ate my dog!
 
Aranarth
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:41 am

cheesyking wrote:
It's amazing the number of car problems that can be fixed by cleaning the battery terminals


In this case I'm pretty sure it was a bad connection to the secondary negative terminal.

The negative wire has a main connection to the negative battery terminal but mounted on that same connector is a smaller bolt with another negative wire.
When I took it all apart I could see there was some cruft stuck under the crimp/washer for the smaller wire.

The lube was probably over kill...
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
Old machine: Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 3ghz / 8 gig ram / Radeon 7870 / 240 gb PNY ssd / 1tb HD
 
Blahpony
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:25 am

I replaced the door piston on a bedside gun safe. The old piston was less than enthusiastic about opening. The new one works much better. It's about half an inch shorter, so the door opens slightly less. Now I don't have to unlock it then pry it open with a screwdriver.
 
Aranarth
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:59 am

Blahpony wrote:
I replaced the door piston on a bedside gun safe. The old piston was less than enthusiastic about opening. The new one works much better. It's about half an inch shorter, so the door opens slightly less. Now I don't have to unlock it then pry it open with a screwdriver.


Alexa we need guns!

Alexa we need LOTS OF GUNS!!!

Go watch the video on youtube funny and neat as heck.

Depending on the command you either get a small cache or things opening and displaying guns all over the place.
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
Old machine: Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 3ghz / 8 gig ram / Radeon 7870 / 240 gb PNY ssd / 1tb HD
 
Blahpony
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:08 pm

I don't have that level of automation. Just the push buttons for the code on the safe to pop the door open.

Neat videos, though.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Anyone repair anything today?

Sun Nov 08, 2020 4:47 am

Vent fan in the master bath. Motor was screeching. Took it apart, cleaned and oiled the bearings.

Didn't take much longer than it would've to identify and order the correct replacement part, and it's one less piece of junk in the landfill.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

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