The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Home Ec

Things around the home & hearth

  • Ativa Cordless Phone Batteries

    These were cheap-after-rebate phones with 2/3 AA NiCd cells that lasted nigh onto five years. We rarely talk on the phone and even more rarely use these, so they’re on the dreaded continuous trickle charge and low usage cycle that kills rechargeable batteries. Of course, they’ve been sitting there for five years…

    The rebuild was no big deal, although I had to replace the original 360 mAh NiCd cells with 650 mAh NiMH cells (with tabs) because that’s what’s available nowadays. The trickle rate will be even lower relative to the capacity, of course, which may or may not be a Bad Thing.

    The packs contained a simple fuse consisting of a thinned section of the usual nickel strap connecting two cells, covered with a fiberglass sleeve under the shrink overwrap. For lack of anything smarter, I harvested the fuse and soldered it in the new pack. although the risk of a catastrophic short seems fairly low:

    NiCd pack with thin-wire fuse
    NiCd pack with thin-wire fuse

    The final result looks about as you’d expect, complete with obligatory Kapton tape wrap:

    Ativa phone - rebuilt battery
    Ativa phone – rebuilt battery

    The old pack is kaput and new pack delivers pretty nearly its rated capacity at an arbitrary 550 mA discharge (which is, admittedly, a bit stiff for the old pack):

    Ativa phone battery tests
    Ativa phone battery tests

    That takes care of one phone… the other one’s probably in the same condition, so I have enough cells to rebuild it, too.

  • Credit Card Services: More Details

    Just fielded a call from Credit Card Services that got all the way to 6:35 before the final disconnection!

    Based on the conversation, we have a few more details:

    The slimeball outfit identifying itself as Credit Card Services turns out to be a wholesale demon-dialing operation, which leads one to wonder why the FTC can’t figure this out and take some action. I mean, sheesh, CCS must represent a substantial fraction of the total voice phone call traffic; a few honeytrap numbers should be productive.

    Anyhow, when you answer the phone and “press 1 to speak with an associate”, CCS farms the call out to a variety of back-end operations that evidently pay for live prospects (i.e., suckers). In this case, I was talking with someone working for “Client Services”; she was remarkably friendly and patient, which suggests she’s very new to this game.

    The minimum balance they’re interested in has dropped to $3k. Used to be $4k; must be a sign of the times.

    She wasn’t representing a loan operation, but was quite hazy about the details of how her organization would reduce my loan rates, other than that they “worked with the lenders” to that end. I pointed out that, while I wasn’t mad at her, she should understand that I’m reluctant to discuss my financial affairs with someone who really couldn’t describe the proposition in any detail.

    She said that she could “do her best” to get me off the Client Services calling list, but that would have no effect on further calls from Credit Card Services, as other companies would be paying for those calls. She had no idea why “pressing 3 to discontinue further calls” didn’t work, of course.

    So I asked if she had a supervisor that might be able to explain how the whole operation worked, she said she’d try to find one, and the next minute produced the usual clunks and tinks that presage a dropped call.

    Perhaps the pleasant voices are “make money at home” suckers fronting for the loan sharks?

  • Credit Card Services: Payback

    If you have a landline telephone number, you’ve probably been robo-called by “Rachael” from “Credit Card Services” with an offer to lower your credit card rates. She gives you two options:

    • Press 1 to speak with a live operator
    • Press 3 (or, sometimes, 2) to prevent further calls

    I presume you’ve discovered that pressing 3 has no effect.

    Credit Card Services is obviously a scam:

    • We’re on the FTC Do-Not-Call Registry
    • We don’t have a pre-existing business relationship with CCS
    • They use a robo-dialer
    • Pressing 3 (or whatever) doesn’t discontinue the calls
    • Their caller ID is spoofed

    Rather than get mad, play along. CCS obviously preys on suckers willing to read off their credit card information to total strangers, so you can retaliate by stringing them along as far as possible, thus increasing their cost-per-sucker. Admittedly, their “agents” are (at best) minimum-wage slaves, which means you’re messing with their income stream, but after the first few months it becomes pretty obvious that the calls will never stop and you may as well roll with the punch.

    Suggested topics, all presented in a slow monotone with long pauses:

    • Making sure they’re not associated with any of your credit cards (they aren’t)
    • Understanding whether they’re offering a loan to pay off your cards (they lie)
    • Asking for a callback number in case the call gets dropped (it’ll be a junk number)

    They expect a minimum $4k account balance with the usual usurious credit card rates. Getting them to admit any of that requires carefully paced inquiry, because their script requires getting my balance before they devote any more time to me. I haven’t fed them any (totally bogus) numbers yet, but that may be the only way to get beyond the preliminaries.

    Topics I’ll investigate in upcoming calls:

    • Their current interest rate
    • The repayment schedule
    • What they hold as collateral
    • How’s the weather where they are (it’ll be terrible here, for sure)

    Thus far, I’ve discovered that any mention of these topics produces an instant disconnect:

    • Why pressing 3 does not discontinue further calls
    • Inquiring about their company mailing address
    • Asking to speak with a supervisor
    • Whether lying to strangers all day affects their personal relationships

    My record so far is 3:05 from picking up the phone, which includes the recorded message and a bit of hold music.

  • Roof Shingle Fungus Redux

    Cleaned the gutters a while ago and the shingle fungus is getting worse: more sites and more stains. I sprized some general-purpose fungicide on the area over the kitchen:

    Shingle fungus - east slope
    Shingle fungus – east slope

    And down the valley between the north and east slopes:

    Shingle fungus - north and east slopes
    Shingle fungus – north and east slopes

    We’ll see what happens by next spring; I hope the larger moss clumps will take the hint.

    However, that short length of copper wire seems to be improving things. Here’s the before:

    Copper effect on roof discoloration
    Copper effect on roof discoloration

    Compared with the current state, from a different spot:

    Shingle fungus - below Cu wire
    Shingle fungus – below Cu wire

    The intense streaks have vanished, leaving a uniform lighter gray layer, and the upper area near the wire looks, mmm, less awful than the lower areas. I think running copper wire or zinc strips (which I have not found at the big box stores) along the ridge vent will do wonders, although I’m not sure how to anchor either one along the hip joints between the other slopes.

  • RCA Alarm Clock Dimming

    Mary prefers dim digits on the bedroom alarm clock, far below what the usual DIM switch setting provides. I’d slipped a two-stop neutral density filter in front of our old clock’s VFD tube, but the new one has nice green LED digits that ought to have a tweakable current-setting resistor behind the switch. Indeed, a bit of surgery revealed the switch & resistors:

    RCA clock - DIM switch and resistors
    RCA clock – DIM switch and resistors

    It turns out that the 220 Ω resistors set the DIM current, with the 100 Ω resistors in parallel to set the BRIGHT current. Weirdly, the display operates in two halves: one resistor for the lower and middle segments, the other for the top segments. The resistor numbers give a hint of what the schematic might look like:

    RCA clock - LED current-set resistors
    RCA clock – LED current-set resistors

    The current control isn’t all that good, because the brightness varies with the number of active segments. With 470 Ω resistors (yes, from that assortment) in place, the variation became much more obvious; the LEDs are operating far down on their exponential I-vs-V curve. We defined the result to be Good Enough for the purpose.

    Four short screws hold the circuit board in place, but one of them arrived loosely held in a pre-stripped hole. I cut eight lengths of black Skirt filament, anointed them with solvent adhesive, dropped two apiece into each screw hole, and ran the screws back in place. I likely won’t be back in there, so it should be a lifetime fix:

    RCA clock - ABS filament in screw hole
    RCA clock – ABS filament in screw hole

    Done!

    As with all the trade names you remember from back in the Old Days, the present incarnation of “RCA” has nothing whatosever to do with the original Radio Corporation of America:

    RCA clock - data plate
    RCA clock – data plate

  • Christmas Cactus Time Lapse: Drat!

    With macro lens adapter in hand, I started taking a picture a day with the intent of making a time-lapse movie:

    Christmas Cactus flower bud
    Christmas Cactus flower bud

    Of course, that particular flower bud fell off after three days.

    We returned the plant to a cool location for the Christmas season. Evidently the kitchen was far too warm for best performance…

  • Brita Pitcher Lid Hinge

    This pitiful excuse for a hinge actually lasted far longer than I expected:

    Brita pitcher lid hinge pins
    Brita pitcher lid hinge pins

    Also much to my surprise, the plastic solvent-bonded to itself, although I doubt either of those pins will survive another four years.

    The yellow discoloration seems to be most prominent on the inside of the lid, which suggests the water is nastier than they’d have you believe. The disinfection additive has switched from chlorine to chloramine and back to chlorine over the last few years, which may have something to do with it.