Posts Tagged Improvements
Weatherproof Outlet Cover Re-Chaining
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-07-08
The yard camera now resides outdoors and plugs into one of three outlets on the patio, all of which have weatherproof covers attached by a bead chain to the trim plate:
That’s the after-repair condition, as two of the three chains were broken when we bought the house.
Stipulated: the covers needed scrubbing, but sometimes ya gotta stay focused on the Main Goal.
Two feet of 3.4 mm brass bead chain (because spares: ya gotta have stuff) arrived from eBay, I dismounted all three covers, and discovered the bell-shaped brass caps on the old chains were perfectly serviceable after six decades:
The outlets are wired to circuit breaker 28, of course.
Having enough chain to go around, each cover now sports a slightly longer leash than before:
Reinstall in reverse order, the camera rebooted as it should, and it’s all good out there:
That was easy …
KEDSUM LED Shop Lights: Cheapnification Thereof
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Machine Shop on 2019-07-02
As the basement’s fluorescent fixtures and lamps gradually die, I’ve been rewiring the fixtures for LED tubes, all bought from KEDSUM through Amazon. The first few batches looked like this:
The most recent two batches seem cheapnified:
The tubes show similar changes, going from a stylin’ version to a simple cylindrical cap:
The most recent carton label might lead you to think they’re counterfeits, but it could just be a simple typo:
There’s absolutely no way to tell what you’re going to get from any vendor on Amazon (or anywhere else, for that matter), so there’s no point in returning them, but I’d hoped buying “the same thing” from “the same seller” would produce a consistent result.
Monthly Science: Weight
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Recumbent Bicycling, Science on 2019-07-01
Homeostasis is a thing:
On the other paw, the eyeballometric trend line since mid-April slopes at -1 lb/month and arrives at just over 150 lb in December, so progress continues apace.
MPCNC Diamond Engraver: LM3UU Bearings, Second Pass
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop, Software on 2019-06-28
Having a single spring and a fixed upper plate works much better than the first version:
The (lubricated!) nyloc nuts under the plate provide a little friction and stabilize the whole affair.
The solid model has the same stylin’ tapered snout as the LM12UU drag knife mount:
The spring seats in the plate recess, with the 3 mm shank passing through the hole as the tool holder presses the tip against the workpiece.
I diamond-filed a broken carbide end mill to make a slotting tool:
Lacking any better method (“a tiny clip spreader tool”), I rammed the Jesus clip the length of the shank with a (loose-fitting) chuck in the tailstock:
Even without nyloc nuts, the first test worked fine:
The 53 g/mm spring rate may be too low for serious engraving, but it suffices for subtle Guilloché patterns on scrap platters.
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
Ooma Telo 2: Speaker FAIL
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-06-26
The tiny voice inside our Ooma Telo 2 box died, although the VOIP phone service continued to work fine. A bit of searching showed the speaker seems to be the weak link.
Well, I can fix that.
Start by prying the recessed top panel off the case:
Remove the circuit board to expose the tiny speaker, taking care not to rip the tiny wires out of the tiny connector:
You can’t measure a dead speaker, but it seems to be an 8 Ω unit.
The speaker sits in a rubber surround, with a foam rubber cushion against the PCB, tucked into a walled garden stiffening the case:
I don’t happen to have a tiny 8 Ω speaker, but I do have a bunch of small speakers, so I bulldozed those walls with a flush cutting pliers and a bit of cussing to make room:
Nibble an adapter ring to match the rim of the new speaker, thereby routing the sound out those little holes, and hot-melt glue it in place:
Hot-melt glue the new speaker in place atop the adapter, taking care to fill all the edges / cracks / crevices below it with an impenetrable wall of glop:
The sealing part turns out to be critical with these little speakers, because a leak from front to back will pretty much cancel all the sound from the cone.
Cut the wires off the old speaker, affix to the new one, replace the PCB, snap the case lid in place, and it sounds better than new.
Millions of transistors in those ICs, but Ooma can’t spec a good speaker? Maybe they should have used a bigger speaker to begin with; ya never know.
Micromark Bandsaw Table Angle Gauge Tweak
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop on 2019-06-23
Mostly, the Tiny Bandsaw™ cuts thin sheets, where having the blade at a slight angle off perpendicular doesn’t make much difference. I recently started to cut a thicker block and thought the blade looked a bit slanted, so I deployed the Tiny Square™ to set it properly:
Which produced this result on the blade angle gauge under the table:
Huh.
The scale pointer is printed on what’s basically a sticker. The QC regime for the bandsaw apparently doesn’t ensure the pointer appears at the proper place on the sticker, nor does it verify the overall alignment.
I peeled the sticker off off, trimmed the near edge, and re-stuck it with the pointer aimed properly:
It makes me feel better, anyway …
Now, as why they put the scale pointer behind the table clamp knob, where it can’t be seen directly, that remains a mystery.
Dryer Vent Adapter Rebuild
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-06-20
When we bought this house, it had its original clothes dryer, which was vented directly through the wall with a few inches of 3×10 inch square duct. Alas, contemporary dryers use 4 inch round hoses, so I conjured a round-to-square adapter from a length of air handler duct:
I’d used … wait for it … duct tape to hold the end caps on, because I knew I’d be taking it apart to clean out the fuzz every now & again. The most recent cleanout occurred when I noticed the end cap had eased its way out of the adapter, releasing warm fuzzy air behind the dryer.
The solution, which I should have done decades ago, holds the end caps in place with sheet metal screws:
A pair of small clamps held everything in the proper location while I applied a suitable step drill and installed the screw:
Now the duct tape just seals the gaps, rather than holding against the minimal pressure in the box, and it should be all good until the next cleanout.
So simple I should’a done it decades ago. Right?
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