Posts Tagged Rants
Power Lift Chair Upholstery Protection
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-07-14
For reasons not relevant here, we have a power lift chair which has been shedding upholstery tufts since the day we got it. After realizing this wasn’t going to stop on its own, I spent a while poking around underneath and discovered the steel struts supporting the leg rest rub along the upholstery during their entire travel:
Apparently, the padding behind the upholstery pushes it a bit further out than the original design could accommodate, letting the raw edges on the steel struts shave off the fuzz.
I put relatively smooth stainless steel tape on all the protrusions and bent it around the rough edges:
Those steel folds are smoother than they appear.
It’s not obvious this will solve the problem, but the struts seems to be scraping off much less fuzz than before, so it’s a step in the right direction.
Why is it all of today’s consumer products require 10% more engineering to work in the real world?
Security Theater: Combination Lock Division
When dialing the proper combination becomes too troublesome:
At a quick glance, though, it looks secure!
Security theater isn’t harmless, not that we have any say in the matter.
Whirlpool Refrigerator Drawer Support Re-Re-Re-Gluing
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-07-03
Spring cleaning provided the opportunity for Yet Another Episode in my long-standing battle with the Whirlpool refrigerator entropy generator:
That little thing supports half the weight of the two drawers across the bottom of the refrigerator; how such a thin plastic member was supposed to be adequate to the task continues to escape me.
If we had to pay real money for all the repairs I’ve made to that piece of crap, we’d have replaced it long ago. The only thing that hasn’t failed so far is the compressor, so driving it until it drops continues to make sense; replacing a working anything seems like a bad idea.
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.
Walkway Over The Hudson: Privileged Parking
Posted by Ed in Oddities, Recumbent Bicycling on 2019-06-29
Although different rules apply to the Park staff, so they can drive back & forth across a crowded Walkway with impunity, it’d be courteous if they didn’t block the bike rack with their vehicles. After we parked our bikes in the rack, the woman riding the third bike couldn’t get out and two other riders simply leaned their bikes against the Welcome Center.
Privilege is one thing, flaunting it seems entirely unnecessary.
I’ve yet to understand why the staff must drive over the Walkway at any time, not just park on the pedestrian plaza, as there’s a perfectly serviceable bridge designed specifically for motor vehicles barely half a mile to the south. Heck, on a clear day, you can even see it from the Walkway. [grin]
Our bikes get us from one end to the other in under ten minutes, about as fast as the Park staff can drive, so using a car doesn’t provide any speed advantage. I can carry a week’s worth of groceries in my bike trailer and rarely see the staff carrying anything bigger in the car, so a “we must haul stuff” excuse seems self-serving.
Every “unintended acceleration” mass-casualty incident involves a vehicle, a bunch of pedestrians, and a driver who never thought it could happen. Proactively eliminating vehicle traffic from the Walkway seems much easier than explaining why you didn’t.
Parking vehicles in appropriate places doesn’t require any explanation.
Thanks …
Email to Walkway Over the Hudson
I should have sent it to the sprawling NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, but I hoped the Walkway staff could forward it to the right person. Haven’t heard anything back; I should have saved the electrons.
Hearphone Deterioration
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-06-19
I bought my Bose Hearphones in late August 2017, so they’re just shy of two years old, and have used them more-or-less daily since then. Although the innards still improve my hearing, the exterior is falling apart:
The conspicuous blue tips come from silicone tape holding the “soft touch” silicone shell together:
The white line seems to be silicone glue holding the hard cover plate to the equally hard base. So far, it’s working, but the two-piece soft cover is peeling away from the very thin adhesive (?) holding it to the hard parts.
The silicone glue under the flexy cover on the control pod along the right earbud cable hasn’t fared as well:
I blobbed ordinary RTV silicone under the cover, ignoring the caveats about acetic acid corrosion, because I don’t have any platinum-cure silicone on the shelf.
When the blue tape wears out / falls off, I’ll replace it with black silicone tape going further up the ring to hold the rest of the soft cover in place:
The ear buds have soft silicone strain relief tubes around the cables. The friction holding them in place failed long ago and, because no adhesive will work with silicone, I wrapped enough double-sided tape around the cables to produce a sticky lump jamming them in place:
A bit of the muck sticks out on both ends and I expect to replace the tape every now and again:
I also expect to replace the non-replaceable lithium battery / cell in about a year, as they’re now barely adequate for a day’s use.
Fortunately, I can’t see any of this hackery while I’m wearing the things:
my face I don’t mind it,
Because I’m behind it —
‘Tis the folks in the front that I jar.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1243103
Epson R380 Printer: Waste Ink Counter Reset
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop, Software on 2019-05-07
Following the same drill as before, the Epson R380 printer once again thinks I’ve changed its diaper before resetting its waste ink counter. Instead, I’ve poured what would be a moderate fortune of waste ink down the drain from the external tank, had I not grafted a continuous flow ink supply onto the thing.
To judge from how often I must reset the counters, I’m expected to buy a new printer every three years. For sure, it’s uneconomical to have anybody else (the nearest Epson Authorized Customer Care Centers is 68 miles away on Long Island) do the deed. As Epson delicately puts it “replacement of ink pads may not be a good investment for lower-cost printers”.
Epson now provides a utility allowing you to reset the counters exactly one time. Having a scrap Windows PC ready to go, I didn’t bother capturing the partition before firing off the previous Sketchy Utility™, nor did I restore it, so the whole process took about half an hour.
The hard drive platters will eventually become nightlights.
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