Saw this at the local Jo-Anne Fabric and got it on sale:
Kinda classes up the joint, doesn’t it?
Yes, it’s really Duck Tape …
Category: Home Ec
Things around the home & hearth
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SPD Bicycle Cleats: Wearout Thereof
Mary decided her cycling shoes were worn out after about four years and maybe 8000 miles. Walking with cleated shoes doesn’t work well (no, we don’t bother with cleat covers), but they’ve seen a few miles of pavement, too:
Worn SPD cleat in cycling shoe A closeup shows that the surface of the old cleat really has worn away:
SPD cleats – new and worn The rear tang is mostly there:
SPD cleats – rear tang But the front tang is mostly gone:
SPD cleats – front tang New shoes, new cleats, new pedals… we’re still tuning for best fit.
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Trouser Hangers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
So I finally looked at why one of the trouser hangers made a nasty gritty noise. Turns out that, no suprise, when you rub steel against steel long enough, it wears away:
Trouser hanger – abraded steel Another hanger had a huge roller that worked wonderfully well:
Trouser hanger – elaborate roller That one was obviously over-engineered, but a simple roller also works well:
Trouser hanger – simple roller They cheapnified this one just a bit too much, because it’s not quite a roller any more:
Trouser hanger – ineffective roller A bit of rummaging turned up enough hangers with working rollers, so it’s all good now…
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Dog Tick
There I was, in the kitchen, minding my own business, when I felt something crawling up my shin…
Dog Tick – Ventral It’s 5 mm from snout to rump, so it’s most likely a dog tick, not a deer tick, not that that makes me feel much better. It’s stuck to a strip of adhesive tape to prevent it from going anywhere and was flat enough to have not fed on anybody recently.
One could develop agoraphobia…
That picture didn’t require focus stacking, although I gave it a try anyway with inconclusive results. I must conjure up a much more rigid camera mount before that works well; a mini tripod isn’t good enough.
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Canon S630: Bulk Ink Rot
Something has gone badly wrong with the yellow bulk ink that I’m using in the Canon S630. Over the winter a precipitate formed in the bottles:
Sediment in ink bottles And in the ink tanks:
Sediment in ink tank But now that the Basement Laboratory has warmed up, not only does the precipitate remain, but some of it is growing:
Growth in ink tank The picture doesn’t do it justice; it looks like pond scum in there. Only the yellow ink behaves like that, so it’s likely some contaminant in that batch. Because I buy ink in pint bottles, it’s a long time since that batch arrived and there’s no point in kvetching to the vendor. IIRC, I actually got this bottle from a friend who scrapped out his S630; he’d been refilling cartridges from the same source, too.
I ordered four sets of five tanks (CMYKK) from the usual eBay vendor for 20 bucks and will toss the old tanks & ink when those arrive.
There’s a set of four bulk ink bottles from a long-dead HP2000C printer on the shelf, but I suspect the ink chemistry differs by enough to ruin the Canon’s printhead… which is discontinued, so when the head dies, the printer dies, too.
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They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To: Hinges
Door hinge with pin punch hole A hinge started squeaking, which required nothing more than a long pin punch, a soft hammer, and a dab of oil.
The unplated steel hinges in our house date back to the middle of the last century and all of them have a convenient hole in the bottom for a pin punch: much fancier than the raw edge of the folded frame and the butt end of the hinge pin. You drive the hinge pin upward with a few taps, lube it, and tap it back in again with a soft hammer (perhaps against a folded rag), and you’re done.
On the other side of door, however, lies one of our follies. For reasons that made perfect sense at the time, the hallway has five different shades of white paint:
- Flat walls
- Eggshell ceiling
- Gloss trim
- Semigloss front door
- Epoxy hinges
The hallway has three branches, two openings, and ten doors. The white really sets off the hardwood floors and doors, while brightening what would otherwise be a rather dim area, but never, ever again will we make that mistake.
On the other paw, the hinges came out well. I took them off all those doors and jambs, cleaned the steel, gave ’em two rattle coats of white epoxy, and reinstalled. Much nicer than contemporary “shiny brass” plating or raw steel.
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Philips Sonicare Essence 5000: Battery Replacement
Back when I got a Philips Sonicare (on the recommendation of my dental hygenist, after a particularly nasty bout of plaque removal), the battery gave nearly two weeks of service between charges. As shown in that graph, the runtime gradually faded away to two days, at which point I decided it was time to tear the thing apart and see about replacing the batteries.
The instruction manual tells how to dismantle the case and extract the NiCd battery for recycling:
Please note that this process is NOT reversible.
Well, there’s a challenge if I ever read one, but Wouldn’t It Be Nice If you could take something apart, unplug its defunct battery, install a new one, and button it up again? Then you wouldn’t be forced to buy a new $70 toothbrush, which probably explains everything… and I suppose the replacement battery would cost $40, even if it were a pair of AA cells.
For reference, the instructions (clicky for more dots):
Disassembly Instructions – 1 
Disassembly Instructions – 2 
Disassembly Instructions – 3 As predicted, suasion applied through a small screwdriver popped the top end of the case apart, but the remainder required concerted prying and muttering. The case halves mate with a tongue-and-groove joint that’s either sonic welded or adhesive bonded to form a watertight seal all the way around, to the extent that they suggested cleaning the thing in a dishwasher.
Eventually, though, it came apart:
Sonicare – case opened The “motor” (actually, a solenoid that couples to the magnet on the brush stem) is firmly potted in place (on the right), as are the NiCd cells and the charging power pickup coil at the base on the left. The potting compound seems to be a clear epoxy, rather than a compliant rubber, and it doesn’t bond to the case at all. It is, however, a perfect fit and doesn’t pop loose without a struggle; their instructions will definitely break the PCB.
Seen from the other direction, six connections join the PCB to those immovable objects. The four pins (on the far left) go to the solenoid and the pair (just to their right) to the battery:
Sonicare PCB solder points A few dabs of desoldering wick suffice to free the pins and release the PCB. Mercifully, the potting compound surrounding the charging coil slid out easily, as they (inexplicably) omitted a mechanical lock molded into the case:
Sonicare – PCB removed Removing the NiCd cells required considerable prying, as described in the instructions, that en passant damaged their cases. I think if you weren’t paying attention, you could easily rupture a cell case with the screwdriver and spatter the area with potassium hydroxide, perhaps shorting the cell in the process and producing rather more excitement than most folks expect.
A closeup of one cell; the other bears similar damage:
Sonicare – damaged NiCd cells I snipped off the cell tabs and applied them to the new NiMH cells. A bit of closed-cell foam between the cells and the PCB cushions the assembly:
Sonicare – new NiMH cells on PCB Stacking more foam snippets under the cells filled the space left by the potting compound, then soldering the solenoid pins held everything together:
Sonicare – new NiMH in place A wrap of clear adhesive (rather than the obligatory Kapton) makes for a tidy joint that probably won’t last very long, but it looks much the way it did before the operation. The case is no longer waterproof and won’t withstand the dishwasher. In fact, I must now store it with the brush end downward to keep the last few drops out of the handle.
There’s an interesting solder jumper on the PCB that I didn’t bridge, but the next time it’s opened up I’ll apply a dab:
Sonicare – BLINKY jumper The alert reader will notice that I’ve replaced 2000 mA·h AA NiCd cells with 600 mA·h 2/3 AANiMH cells, without changing the charger. The power transfer through the inductive coupling drives a trickle charger at about one hour of recharge per brushing, so there’s not much danger of overcharging the cells.
Now, to discover what runtime fresh cells deliver. This calls for another slip of geek scratch paper in the bathroom.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 