Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Three years ago I installed a 1.5 TB WD Elements USB drive as an external backup for the “file server” in the Basement Laboratory. The log files show that the drive started spitting out “short reads” early in October, which means the rust has begun flaking off the platters.
Repeated fsck -fyv /dev/sda1 runs produce repeated failures at various spots, so it’s not in good condition:
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Backup-1.5TB contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Error reading block 97649088 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while getting next inode from scan. Ignore error? yes
... snippage ...
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Error reading block 104039017 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading directory block. Ignore error? yes
Force rewrite? yes
Directory inode 26009985, block #26, offset 0: directory corrupted
Salvage? yes
... snippage ...
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Inode 25903223 ref count is 41, should be 40. Fix? yes
... snippage ...
Backup-1.5TB: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
736471 inodes used (0.80%)
10173 non-contiguous files (1.4%)
9367 non-contiguous directories (1.3%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 119655/12234/0
142996292 blocks used (39.04%)
0 bad blocks
3 large files
276772 regular files
459614 directories
0 character device files
0 block device files
0 fifos
10377447 links
76 symbolic links (72 fast symbolic links)
0 sockets
--------
11113909 files
Given that rsnapshot lashes the daily backups together with extensive hard links, so that there’s only one copy of a given file version on the drive, I don’t know what 76 symbolic links might mean.
It’s been spinning up once a day, every day, for about 40 months; call it 1200 power cycles and you’ll be close. The usual runtime is about 10 minutes, giving the poor thing barely enough time to warm up.
One data point does not a curve make.
The warranty on new WD Element drives seems to be a year; I have no idea what it was slightly over three years ago, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t more than three years…
The various desktop boxes around here get powered up once a day, too, but I tend to replace them every few years and have never had a hard drive failure; a few system boards have crapped out, though. The boxes acting as controllers for the 3D printers and the Sherline CNC mill have a much lower duty cycle.
After the last annual inspection, the Nice Man told me that the rear shocks were rusted out and, although they still worked and he couldn’t fail the van, he wished he could. After 13 years and 88 k miles, yeah, they looked pretty grim:
Sienna OEM rear shocks – removed
The loose steel snippet came from the bottom of the outer shield; it had completely rusted off and dropped free around the lower mount. I suppose that was what got his attention.
Anyhow, the removal went astonishingly well:
Back the van out of the garage until the wheels line up with drop to the driveway apron
Pop inside dress covers over the struts
Remove top jam nuts, cushion, cups
Remove bottom bolt from wheel carrier (easily!)
Spritz penetrating on rubber bushing
Compress shock, twist until bushing slides free
And the installation was equally smooth:
Install shock on wheel carrier
Torque bottom bolt (29 ft·lb)
Aim strut at hole in body
Cut restraining wire, guide strut through hole
Install OEM bottom cup, new cushion & cup, new nylock nut
Tighten to same length as OEM nut
Install dress covers
The OEM cup fits snugly into the body hole to center the strut, so it seemed like a Good Idea to reuse it. Despite the rust stain inside the body, it was in reasonable condition.
You’re supposed to jack the van up while fiddling around underneath, but the driveway slopes down from the garage enough to provide access. I did chock the wheels, of course, but not jacking the van and putting it on stands looked like a major safety win right there.
The bottom view, which shows the effect of a dozen New York State winters on ordinary steel:
Sienna replacement rear shocks – bottom
The top view, which shows that the bushings did leak a bit of water over the last decade:
Sienna replacement rear shocks – top
Done!
I suppose, just for completeness, I should do the front shocks, but those aren’t nearly as easy and I’d have to start by buying a spring compressor.
I picked up a $35 LED bulb that’s allegedly equivalent to a 75 W incandescent, replacing a 100 W equivalent compact fluorescent bulb that an X10 relay switch couldn’t turn off cleanly, for a torchiere floor lamp. ‘Nuff said about early CFL failures.
It has both upward and downward facing LED chips that light up the diffuser and ceiling in equal measure. Both strings are visible from the side due to the heavy molded plastic lens around the chips:
LED Bulb
Some interesting bits from the package:
Home Depot LED Bulb Warranty
A 22.8 year lifespan at three hours per day works out to 24.983×103 hours. I wish I could have heard the arguments about whether they could claim a 23 year lifespan…
At the same duty cycle, the 5 year warranty covers 5.479×103 hours. Huh.
The URL at the bottom leads to some general info, but nothing you didn’t know already.
It works well enough, but at $35 it’s really a capital investment that I suspect will never actually pay for itself…
The kitchen sink has a small faucet that used to connect directly to the well out back, but now delivers town water from a line bypassing the water softener. The large steel washer below the sink deck has been shedding rust for a while and finally disintegrated:
Kitchen faucet – rusted washer assembly
Well, this is a perfect application for plastic, not steel, so I conjured up a pair of disks:
Sink Base – Build
The large flat one goes below the sink deck in place of the steel washer and the smaller part of the stepped disk fits inside the deck opening to stabilize the faucet:
Sink Base – Show
The two dark rings bracketing the deck between the orange plastic disks represent a pair of gaskets / washers / seals cut from 1 mm rubber sheet with a straight razor toting compass:
Kitchen faucet – plastic disks and rubber deck washers
Just for fun, I used Slic3r’s Hilbert Curve top and bottom fill pattern. It produces a nice, grainy texture that feels appropriate for anything needing a non-slip grip (at least on the top, as the bottom surface is glass-smooth).
Everything stacks up thusly, with the top dark ring representing a rubber seal that came with the faucet:
Sink Base – Assemble
It looks about the same in real life, albeit minus all the colors:
Kitchen faucet – fitting stack
The black plastic and black rubber blend together and vanish amid all the chrome:
Kitchen faucet – assembled
Alas, when I turned the water on, Mary said “That doesn’t sound right…” at about the same time I discovered a fine mist under the sink. See if you can spot the problem:
Kitchen faucet – corroded copper tube
A shined-up view should make it obvious:
Kitchen faucet – corroded copper tube – pinhole
A trip to the precious metals aisle of the Big Box Home Repair Store produced a roll of 3/8 inch copper tubing, although I should have the stub end of that original roll somewhere in the heap. The fitting at the bottom of the faucet turned out to be completely non-standard and I had to re-use it with the new tubing, but it still sealed perfectly.
I hate plumbing jobs. That fix better last for another decade…
Much to my astonishment, the ordinary adhesive tape holding the Sonicare Essence power toothbrush together lasted for a bit over a year. As the tape splits along the gap in the case, the coil driving the brush head begins vibrating inside its nest, making a truly horrendous racket.
The new fix looks a bit odd, but works fine:
Sonicare Essence – red tape
The tape comes from Mad Phil’s stash and is, I think, splicing tape for reel-to-reel 1/4 inch recording tape: it has zero stretch, infinite strength, and adhesive that’s obviously lasted forever. The inside of the spool says “NOPI Made in Germany”, which doesn’t lead anywhere useful, although the NOPI name does seem to appear in a tape context.
After a year, the replacement NiMH cells are doing fine, still operating about once a day for three weeks from a 24 hour charge.
OK, somebody decided that the classic metal blade used on all plastic wrap boxes since the dawn of time cost too much, so they decreed that it be replaced with a plastic blade that costs essentially nothing:
Walmart plastic wrap – plastic cutter
Unfortunately, a thin plastic blade also bends easily and, after a few uses, cracks along the midline. After that, it simply doesn’t work; there’s no way to actually tear the plastic off the roll.
It turns out that a common hacksaw blade is exactly the right length and, oriented with the teeth pointing to the left, will rip through plastic wrap like, uh, a hacksaw through plastic:
Walmart plastic wrap – real cutter
That this hack should not be necessary goes without saying…
There’s a layer of double-stick foam tape between the box and blade. It’s probably removable, but I was in a hurry.
Alas, the nice slotted cap I put on the driveway drain can’t handle the amount of debris released by the trees next to the house and above the gutters. I’d removed the thumbscrew to simplify clearing the cap whenever I go for the mail, but that just accentuated the problem:
Driveway drain – fountain
The backup must be over a foot of water at the end of the pipe; that fountain emerges from the 1/4 inch hole for the thumbscrew. Fortunately, the slope is large enough that the water (probably) isn’t backing up into the retaining wall footing drain.
When the pine trees toss their dead needles overboard, the cap plugs solid and, minus the screw, blows across the driveway:
Driveway drain – clogged
It usually doesn’t roll very far, although I’ve retrieved it halfway to the street.
I still think the chipmunks will move in without a grate blocking the pipe, but I’m unsure how to proceed…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 