TR Forums

I realigned the hinges on one of my cabinets. Now they close and looks straight.

I replaced the "wings" on my quadcopter that my 2 year old calls "nano" because she wants me to play with it near her more.

I replaced the drive pinion on my 1/8 scale RC car... I still think I need to regrind the driveshaft flat though... it's a little bit rounded... where is my dremel?

Yesterday was "lighting day". First up was the "ghost lamp". My wife and I have three way touch lamps on our night stands and hers would spontaneously turn on. Actually, it would spontaneously register a touch as sometimes it would go from low to medium on its own. This was actually a re-repair as the touch controller in this lamp had given up before Christmas and I had finally gotten around to installing the replacement. Funny thing was that it worked perfectly fine on the bench. Took it back apart and shortened the touch sensor wire down and re-routed all the AC lines away from it. Exorcism successful.

Second project was more of a fix than a repair. The lighting situation in my hobby room has been rather dim since we moved into the house. The room has my electronics work bench along one wall and my airplane building table in the middle of the room. A single ceiling light fixture with a pair of 450 lumen LED bulbs just really wasn't up to the task. I have a pair of touch controlled LED desk lamps on the workbench to help the lighting situation there. (These, which I would definitely recommend.) Yesterday, the wife made a comment about needing more light in the room and asked if I was interested in going to the home toy store (Lowes and Home Depot around here) to look at lights. No more prompting needed.

I had originally been planning to put track lighting in, with six to eight heads to give good coverage and light. However I couldn't really find something I liked that wasn't going to be pretty expensive -- not to mention, in stock. About to give up, I happened to turn around and stumble on the solution: 5500 lumens of bright white goodness. Installed it last night, which turned out to be a bit harder than expected. 12 foot ceilings meant getting out the big ladder and the light itself is pretty flexible as it's just a stamped steal rectangle with some shallow ridges for rigidity. Holding it up to mark the mounting holes, while keeping it square to the rest of the room was an exercise in patience.

It doesn't look as stylish as track lighting might have, but boy does it solve the lighting problem. My daughter walked by last night and looked in. Her response was "Holy crap! What did you do?" Because it's as wide as it is, it acts as a very diffuse source of light. No sharp shadows. Today's project? Install the dimmer for it. Didn't feel like doing that last night, in the dark.

--SS

*Edit: Just happened to look at the LED bulbs I took out and the were 450 lumens each. No wonder it seemed so bright -- over 5 times the light output.

Yeah, those shop light style LED fixtures are amazing. Roughly doubled the lumens and halved the power when I swapped tube LEDs for the CCFL tubes in our kitchen. At that price it might be cheaper to find a CCFL shop light and just buy the LED tubes to put in it, though the aesthetics may not be as good.

Kougar wrote:

Yeah, those shop light style LED fixtures are amazing. Roughly doubled the lumens and halved the power when I swapped tube LEDs for the CCFL tubes in our kitchen. At that price it might be cheaper to find a CCFL shop light and just buy the LED tubes to put in it, though the aesthetics may not be as good.

Hit or miss, though. I've encountered some T8 shoplights that won't drive LED tubes.

Not today, but a few weeks back: earlier in the year I found an oak bed frame for a lofted (3 ft/90 cm off the ground) twin bed, sitting at the curb with a "FREE" sign taped to it. Wood in good shape, but some parts had clearly been stacked on the floor of a damp basement or garage for a while - those parts had gone all grey and rough.

Sat in my garage for way too long, with the constant thought in the back of my head that I would fix it up before the winter came. Well, the winter was bearing down, and I wanted to give it to my son as a Christmas present. So during the two weeks before Christmas, I took some days off of work, took everything apart, sanded it all down and restained it. Came out pretty well in the end. My wife and I assembled it in his bedroom just in time for him to get to sleep and dream of Christmas morning presents. It would have been a little earlier, but I realized late in the game that the previous owners had never actually screwed down the side rails (to keep the kid from rolling off and plummeting). A quick Christmas Eve trip to find an open hardware store, some wood screws, and my kid is at least that much less likely to break his skull.

My wife found some great, warm, Star Wars bedsheets, and after Christmas I added in a 200-LED lighting system on the underside of the bed frame, which can now be either a peaceful reading/play space or a disco hall with rainbow strobe lights, depending on his mood.

I don't tend to do this sort of work, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

ludi wrote:

Hit or miss, though. I've encountered some T8 shoplights that won't drive LED tubes.

Strange, but good info to know, thanks! For those interested Costco has a 4-pack of 4' Feit 1700-lumen each tube LEDs for $40 right now. The tubes on these are even direction adjustable, not something I'd seen before.

I did not repair anything today, unless you count myself. I had multiple aches and pains (and a couple of minor burns) on account of doing a larger than normal batch of homebrew yesterday (too much heavy lifting, with a small dose of klutziness), and was really tired because after the brew session we went to a New Years party that lasted until past 3:00 AM. After being up for a few hours this AM, I spent a substantial part of the day napping. By around 3:00 PM I was good as new. Well, as good as it gets for someone halfway through their 6th decade, anyway...

Continuing the "around the house" repairs, I tackled the gas fireplace last night. It's a nice electronic ignition unit, but it had a habit of cutting out. Sometimes it would burn for 15-20 minutes, sometimes only five. It wouldn't go off and stay off, it would shut off, then immediately re-light. Being an electronic ignition, and not a standing pilot, it uses a flame sensor rather than a thermocouple and/or thermopile. I had already diagnosed the problem as the pilot flame not making good, continuous contact with the flame sensor. I had messed with the pilot hood a little in the past, with no luck, but to really adjust and clean things I needed to pretty much take everything apart.

It looked like I may not have been the only one to mess with the flame hood on the pilot as it seemed a bit mis-shaped. Though since I never saw it new, it could have been "normal". Most of the flame was exiting the front, rather than the sides, and it was yellow tipped rather than a nice clean blue. Once I got everything apart, I cleaned the flame sensor, and reshaped and positioned the flame hood -- that took a bit of percussive maintenance. Putting it back together and the result was a nice clean blue pilot flame... and a fireplace that still cut out. The behavior had changed somewhat though in the the time from shutting off to relighting had reduced from 1-2 seconds to a fraction of a second. Still not good though.

The final fix was pretty simple: a judicious application of force to flame sensor probe to bend it a bit and put it more directly in the path of the pilot flame. With that final adjustment, the fireplace burned nicely all evening. I kind of wonder it the silly thing had been flaky since the house was built (12 years ago). When I took everything apart, there were not a whole lit of signs of significant use and the gas valve for the fireplace was turned off when I bought the house. The inspector had noted that the fireplace "didn't work" and the seller knocked a few hundred off the price rather than address the problem. Who knows, but its fixed now.

In digging around in the fireplace, I did notice there is a very minor gas leak somewhere in the unit. With my head, and hence nose, in very close proximity to the unit, I could detect a faint whiff of gas. With the cutoff valve off, the smell did go away, and it was stronger around the main valve body than around the burner. I say stronger, but it is more accurately to say "detectable". This isn't a major leak by any stretch and I really couldn't smell anything sniffing around the burner. I had to be right down by the valve body to get the hint of gas. So I suspect the inlet connection on the main valve body isn't well sealed. Next time I'm at the home toy store, I'll pick up some sealant, then clean and reseal the inlet.

Ah, the joys of owning a house...

--SS

My old watches have been broken for a while now but today I decided that it's time to fix them. After a few hours, three cups of coffee, two cigaretts, and a lot of stress, I finally made them work again. I'm not a professional in such things, so I was (and, to be honest, still am) kind of proud of myself.

I finally got the new video doorbell installed. We don't have a peephole and our front door is too nice to drill into it. So I bought the wife a new electronic doorbell for Xmas. Well, that unit was bad and I had to return it. The replacement unit was also bad, but it took me 90 minutes on the phone with tech support to make sure it wasn't something I was doing wrong. The new unit arrived today and worked first time. Now I can see people on the other side of the door before I open it. Phew. Next step: Mount a spare tablet on the inside so I don't have to go find my phone when the doorbell goes off.

Routine oil & filter change plus tire rotation on the '98 Camry ballooned by another ninety minutes, when the tightening of a squeaky power steering belt (via right-front wheel well) led to concurrent discovery that the front brake pads had mostly returned to the dust from whence they were formed. Of course, I didn't have those parts, so that was an extra trip to town. But it's done now.

SecretSquirrel wrote:

Yesterday was "lighting day". First up was the "ghost lamp". My wife and I have three way touch lamps on our night stands and hers would spontaneously turn on. Actually, it would spontaneously register a touch as sometimes it would go from low to medium on its own. This was actually a re-repair as the touch controller in this lamp had given up before Christmas and I had finally gotten around to installing the replacement. Funny thing was that it worked perfectly fine on the bench. Took it back apart and shortened the touch sensor wire down and re-routed all the AC lines away from it. Exorcism successful.

Or so I thought... dun, dun, dun!!! The light was fine the first night, but the next day, it took to turning itself on again. I stumbled across the actual fix, kind of by happenstance. My wife wanted to read, so I swapped the lights on the two night stands. Lo and behold, mine, which had been fine, started behaving the same. This led me to realize that when I had hers plugged in on the work bench, it had been plugged into a surge suppressor as had mine, on my night stand. Her's, on her night stand had not. A quick trip to the storage bin to dig around for a decent surge strip and both lamps are now working properly.

I haven't taken the time to investigate further, but I suspect it might be related to the powerline network adapter that is plugged in in our bedroom. It extends network to the receiver in the room for streaming Pandora and internet radio. Not entirely sure why the lamp would have just started misbehaving as the network adapter has been there for the better part of two years, but then I'm not sure what else might be causing the oddness either.

--SS

Of course right as the temperature drops to sub-zero (F), the furnace humidifier decides to snap off a gear tooth and stop spinning. I find a new motor/gearbox unit on Amazon and get it installed and all is well again (although the house had dropped down to single-digits humidity).

Two days later, I notice the house is dry again. I go down to check it, and the drum is spinning but it's bone-dry. Turns out the float valve in it uses a tiiiny orifice to meter the water, which got a small bit of crap lodged in it. I have a feeling there's some corrosion happening in the household pipes as I've been cleaning flakes of green crap out of sink faucet screens lately, but a bit of wire and a good flushing of the line fixed that for now.

Had the dryer vent freeze closed yesterday late afternoon. Problem is we have an upstairs laundry so that means borrowing the neighbour's 20ft ladder, setting it up in the middle of a snow bank down the side of our house, on quite a slope where I need blocks of wood under it to keep it level. Of course it's dark, snowing and about -20C to add to the fun. 5 minute fix once I got up there, but not the best of times getting there.

Oh, the joys of home ownership and winter weather..... Water pipe burst this evening. Not yet repaired but I was able to isolate quick enough thank goodness.


Seems odd since the temperature here in NJ is starting to creep up from of the low single digit temps we had over the weekend. I guess ice formed up near the outlet and caused some intense back pressure on the weak joint? I was lucky and heard the pipes knocking around so I had a clue there was a break somewhere. Quickly turned off the main and was able to isolate the line leading to the break so I can run my other water lines. I hope this is the only crack but I need to check more of the line since I saw more than one wet area. Glad I was home shudder to think how much water damage it could have caused.

G8torbyte wrote:

Seems odd since the temperature here in NJ is starting to creep up from of the low single digit temps we had over the weekend. I guess ice formed up near the outlet and caused some intense back pressure on the weak joint?

Looks to me like the joint was freezing up and cracked the elbow, then water started seeping out and re-thawed it, upon which you heard it running. But, I would be curious what the inside of that pipe looks like once you cut it apart. I've seen/heard of a couple cases where corrosive water attacked copper pipes from the inside and nothing was obvious from the outside until the leaks opened up.

SecretSquirrel wrote:

I haven't taken the time to investigate further, but I suspect it might be related to the powerline network adapter that is plugged in in our bedroom. It extends network to the receiver in the room for streaming Pandora and internet radio. Not entirely sure why the lamp would have just started misbehaving as the network adapter has been there for the better part of two years, but then I'm not sure what else might be causing the oddness either.
--SS

Power line communications are the bane of engineers working with AC power, and are forgotten often when it comes to noise. They work by intentionally inducing "noise" on the power line through a variety of techniques, but typically by switching in and out a load at a high controlled rate. Surge suppressors typically ruin the data rate of power line comms as they will absorb some of the communications energy thereby attenuating the signal and lowering the data rate available. That is why putting the surge suppressor near the lamp is helping, its filtering out the PLC signals.

I have had the displeasure of working on a few projects that had PLC as a part of a larger system, and both had terrible conflicts between communications and safety features. We also had a great deal of trouble just getting the PLC to communicate from one workstation to another across a cubicle wall since both workstations had surge-suppression power strips we were trying to push through. In office buildings, many times the power goes from one outlet all the way down a few floors to the circuit-breaker box, and then back up on another wire to a wall socket right next to it. It wont form a link as it cannot push through a breaker box. Power line communications is just a bad idea for anything but the home.

If you have those new circuit breakers that are arc-fault detectors, PLC will set those off as many times the communications appear like an arc condition, especially if there is a heavy load at the same time.

SuperSpy wrote:

Of course right as the temperature drops to sub-zero (F), the furnace humidifier decides to snap off a gear tooth and stop spinning. I find a new motor/gearbox unit on Amazon and get it installed and all is well again (although the house had dropped down to single-digits humidity).

Two days later, I notice the house is dry again. I go down to check it, and the drum is spinning but it's bone-dry. Turns out the float valve in it uses a tiiiny orifice to meter the water, which got a small bit of crap lodged in it. I have a feeling there's some corrosion happening in the household pipes as I've been cleaning flakes of green crap out of sink faucet screens lately, but a bit of wire and a good flushing of the line fixed that for now.

I gave up on my humidifier long ago. Maintenance nightmare. A funny story is I needed to siphon out the old crappy salt water out of it to rinse it, so I thought it would be fine to pull a siphon with my mouth. Got a mouth full of that crap, and discovered it would be perfect for inducing vomiting in a poisoned patient. Insta-barf. It was more of a project to clean up my mess than clean out the salt.

I fixed my foot!

Sunday evening I had a sudden gout attack in my right foot. Could barely walk. Immediately iced it, drank lots of water, and started popping the maximum dose of ibuprofen for 24 hours to get the inflammation under control. It's still a little sore this morning, but that's the quickest recovery I've had to date. (Before I knew what it was or how to treat it, attacks could last up to a couple of weeks.)

ludi wrote:

G8torbyte wrote:

Seems odd since the temperature here in NJ is starting to creep up from of the low single digit temps we had over the weekend. I guess ice formed up near the outlet and caused some intense back pressure on the weak joint?

Looks to me like the joint was freezing up and cracked the elbow, then water started seeping out and re-thawed it, upon which you heard it running. But, I would be curious what the inside of that pipe looks like once you cut it apart. I've seen/heard of a couple cases where corrosive water attacked copper pipes from the inside and nothing was obvious from the outside until the leaks opened up.

Yep, that makes sense now. It is a water line I don't use much. Probably froze days ago and split that elbow. Then as temperatures outside increased yesterday the water started forcing through hence the knocking noise I heard. I'm on city water so the pH is not corrosive. I have lived in other areas of the US where well water can be naturally corrosive or "aggressive" as they call it with a pH less than 7 and it causes metal leaching. Copper lines will cause bluish-green stains in this type of low-pH water. Well water from limestone aquifers are usually OK but areas with clay geology tend to have low pH well water along with the high iron and rusty color. These are usually treated at the source with lime or an ortho-phosphate to balance the pH.

I just viewed a few plumbing DIY videos on copper soldering and they advise to be careful applying the flux paste evenly inside and outside the copper before soldering. If it clumps inside or is not cleaned off well outside after the job it can be corrosive and cause pin-holes.

Not exactly rocket repair....

But better than popping ~$60 for a new unit!

Fixed a dead Shop-Vac. Last time I tried to use it, the motor cranked for half a second, then died. The initial suspect was stuck or otherwise noodled brushes. Tearing the thing down was surprisingly easy. All it takes is a 6mm(?) torx driver philips driver. After inspecting the brushes, commutator and other bits, a bit of meter-beeping revealed that a connector that appears to unite two sets of field coils was open. The assembly uses a thin shim of brass to bridge two copper wire post contacts, probably doubling as a last-ditch fuse of sorts. Anyhoo, I soldered a ~20ga wire between the two posts and called it 'done.' Squirted some chain lube into the top bushing for good measure, and bolted the sucker back together. Vroom!

Geonerd wrote:

Not exactly rocket repair....

But better than popping ~$60 for a new unit!

Fixed a dead Shop-Vac. Last time I tried to use it, the motor cranked for half a second, then died. The initial suspect was stuck or otherwise noodled brushes. Tearing the thing down was surprisingly easy. All it takes is a 6mm(?) torx driver philips driver. After inspecting the brushes, commutator and other bits, a bit of meter-beeping revealed that a connector that appears to unite two sets of field coils was open. The assembly uses a thin shim of brass to bridge two copper wire post contacts, probably doubling as a last-ditch fuse of sorts. Anyhoo, I soldered a ~20ga wire between the two posts and called it 'done.' Squirted some chain lube into the top bushing for good measure, and bolted the sucker back together. Vroom!

Hmm... that's encouraging. I was thinking I would be needing to replace my Shop Vac, as it was making some godawful squealing noises the last time I used it. If the motor is that easy to tear down, I can probably get (another) 15 years out of the current one!

just brew it! wrote:

I fixed my foot!

Sunday evening I had a sudden gout attack in my right foot. Could barely walk. Immediately iced it, drank lots of water, and started popping the maximum dose of ibuprofen for 24 hours to get the inflammation under control. It's still a little sore this morning, but that's the quickest recovery I've had to date. (Before I knew what it was or how to treat it, attacks could last up to a couple of weeks.)

Both my brother's had it. So far, knocks on skull, I've not had it. I attribute my immunity thus far to my coffee drinking habit. Coffee is supposed to help ward off alzheimer's, kidney stones, gout, and sleep. And does a nice job with asthma symptoms and migrains.

ludi wrote:

G8torbyte wrote:

Seems odd since the temperature here in NJ is starting to creep up from of the low single digit temps we had over the weekend. I guess ice formed up near the outlet and caused some intense back pressure on the weak joint?

Looks to me like the joint was freezing up and cracked the elbow, then water started seeping out and re-thawed it, upon which you heard it running. But, I would be curious what the inside of that pipe looks like once you cut it apart. I've seen/heard of a couple cases where corrosive water attacked copper pipes from the inside and nothing was obvious from the outside until the leaks opened up.

We had some copper pipe in for analysis at the lab where I worked. Seems that if the copper purity is not up to standard, copper pipes are far more likely to corrode. This was one of those always hot circulating hot water systems. Butit may still somewhat apply for cold water.

My 7 year old shop-vac bit the dust and so I spent the $20 on one of the home Depot bucket vacuums, and I actually really love it. Especially for liquids.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

My 7 year old shop-vac bit the dust and so I spent the $20 on one of the home Depot bucket vacuums, and I actually really love it. Especially for liquids.

Holy crap, I was unaware that this thing existed. Brilliant! HD also gets bonus points for naming it after one of the most bad-ass guitarists alive (Buckethead).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgVSdFtokYM&t=23s (apologies for the "What are you listening to RIGHT NOW?" thread cross-contamination... )

First time I've actually seen this. H1 headlight bulb, less than 2 weeks young, melted wide open yet with no visible filament damage. My guess is that it had a chip in the globe or a spot of grease on it when it was installed:



Anyway, the light is repaired now.

just brew it! wrote:

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

My 7 year old shop-vac bit the dust and so I spent the $20 on one of the home Depot bucket vacuums, and I actually really love it. Especially for liquids.

Holy crap, I was unaware that this thing existed. Brilliant! HD also gets bonus points for naming it after one of the most bad-ass guitarists alive (Buckethead).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgVSdFtokYM&t=23s (apologies for the "What are you listening to RIGHT NOW?" thread cross-contamination... )

Hard to beat the flexibility and resilience of a 5-gallon bucket. For the price it also is easy to buy separate ones for wet and dry and just leave the paper filter off the wet one. I’ve been looking to get one of the bucket wheels to make like portable too.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Hard to beat the flexibility and resilience of a 5-gallon bucket. For the price it also is easy to buy separate ones for wet and dry and just leave the paper filter off the wet one. I’ve been looking to get one of the bucket wheels to make like portable too.

Those do look very neat. Firehouse Subs sells those style buckets for $1 too, I think they would even fit on those.

just brew it! wrote:

Hmm... that's encouraging. I was thinking I would be needing to replace my Shop Vac, as it was making some godawful squealing noises the last time I used it. If the motor is that easy to tear down, I can probably get (another) 15 years out of the current one!

AFAIK, the Squeal of Death is most usually the result of the (top) motor bushing getting dry. The bottom bearing is a proper ball-and-race affair that tends to live much longer. You can get 'enough' access to the bushing in just a few minutes by removing the motor module from the lid/frame. Give it a shot of oil or spray grease and is should be good for at least a few hours of run time.