Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
What I do not understand is the lack of a license plate on that front bumper, here in New York State where front license plates are mandatory. I’ve noticed several Tesla vehicles (in their S3XY automotive series, among which I cannot distinguish) without front plates, so it must be a Tesla owner thing.
The WordPress AI image for this post gets the angular aspect right, along with the missing plate:
The Samsung over-the-range microwave (ME18H704SFS, should you care) that Came With The House™ coughed up a C-11 error code resolving to “replace the gas / humidity sensor”. Replacement DE32-60013A sensors are readily available, although if you’re expecting a Genuine Samsung Part from Amazon, that is not the universe I live in.
You can remove the upper front bezel from the microwave to reveal the slotted front cover of the compartment containing the sensor, but you cannot replace the sensor without extracting the microwave from above the stove and removing its shell. The bottom of the microwave sits about 18 inches above the stove, so I put a 16 inch cubical moving box (of which we have a near-infinite supply) on the stove to reduce the risk of dropping the mumble thing while removing it.
A total of 20 screws, here laid out in roughly geographic order, hold the shell to the inner frame:
Samsung microwave – cabinet screws
With all the screws out, slide the shell toward the rear by more than you might think to clear the latches along both sides. The latches along the front of the right side look like this:
Samsung microwave – shell side latches
With the shell off, the sensor compartment on the top of the microwave enclosure is revealed:
Samsung microwave – TGS880 enclosure
Although you might think removing those two screws would grant access to the sensor compartment and let you replace the sensor (if you have very long fingers), that is not the case: the small tab toward the left side of the louvered front plate prevents you from sliding it and the plate is not hinged along its left side.
The sensor is held into the socket by a clip snapping into the arms that, in turn, hold the socket into the side wall:
Samsung microwave – TGS880 mount detail
A small screwdriver will assist in releasing the latches on the clip arms; squeezing them in the obvious way didn’t get the job done.
The old sensor then unplugs and the new one plugs in the obvious manner; it is not polarized and either orientation works.
For completeness, the top of the electronics bay:
Samsung microwave – top interior
The magnetron and HV transformer live on the right side:
Samsung microwave – left interior
Then you reassemble in reverse order, heave the microwave atop the 16 inch cubical box, hoist it onto the rail along the back, and install the two loooong screws from the top while holding the front upward with one knee. I took the liberty of replacing the janky steel plates pretending to be washers with actual fender washers:
Samsung microwave – mounting screw
And now it works the way it should.
Of course, the microwave’s “beverage” mode assumes you’re drinking a piddly 8 ounces, rather than sipping from a manly 20 ounce mug:
Magnetic stirrer – vinyl surface
It heats 9 ounces of milk + cocoa just fine, but those 18 ounces of water for tea become just barely tepid.
WordPress has gone full-frontal AI and suggested I use this AI creation as the Featured Image:
The WordPress AI generated this evaluation of my writing:
The content provides a detailed guide on replacing the gas/humidity sensor in a Samsung over-the-range microwave. Consider adding subheadings to break down the process for easier reading. Additionally, including a brief introduction and a conclusion summarizing the key points would enhance the post. The technical details and images greatly support the instructions. Great job!
A solar yard / walkway light appeared in the far back reaches of the yard while mowing:
Solar yard light – bubble
Yes, that’s an air bubble in the middle, so you know the light hasn’t been staying in its Happy Place™.
As the djinn in the bottle put it, “Pop the top and let’s get started”:
Solar yard light – cover off
Those light emitting diodes around the photovoltaic cell in the middle can’t light up any more.
A little more effort with the Designated Prydriver reveals the guts:
Solar yard light – components
That’s an NiMH cell, so the light has been abandoned out there for quite a few years.
The photovoltaic element still worked, but the LEDs were defunct. The corpse will be a guest of honor at the next electronics recycling event down the road from here.
Someday, our great-to-the-nth grandchildren will curse our ways …
Our new-to-us house included a heavy-duty basement dehumidifier with a blower motor calling for a few drops of SAE 20 oil twice a year. Some searching turned up a specialized flavor of 3-In-One Oil for motors.
It arrived with free inclusions:
3-in-One Motor Oil – top inclusion
Backlighting makes them more obvious:
3-in-One Motor Oil – top inclusion – backlit
There’s also a free-floating jellyfish slightly denser than the oil:
3-in-One Motor Oil – bottom inclusion – backlit
As is now the typical case with Amazon purchases, the only choices are to return / exchange the item, as the seller cannot be contacted directly. I tried sending 3-In-One a question through their website, en passant discovering they’ve been Borged by The WD-40 Company, only to be rejected by the site’s Captcha without ever seeing the test images.
AFAICT, it’s oil and the motor will just have to get used to it.
As a temporary expedient while awaiting more outlets in the basement, I screwed several hundred watts of LED strip lighting to the floor joists so I could see where I was going:
First pass at basement lighting
The switch seemed to run warm, which I attributed to being snuggled up against one of the LED strips, eventually became intermittent, and finally failed with the lights out.
Prying apart the snapped-together case destroyed it, but that didn’t really matter when I saw the innards:
T8 LED power switch
The “intermittent” action came from the melted post on the switch actuator at the top of the photo. The “warm” came from the barely crimped black wire on the right side of the switch, which *might* have had half a dozen strands caught in the flattened crimp triangles.
I replaced it with an identical switch from the assortment that came with the lamps. That one seems to run cooler, although I doubt the crimps are really up to any reasonable quality standards.
In addition to adding basement outlets & lighting circuits, the rest of the house has some electrical wiring peculiarities; the kitchen microwave really shouldn’t share a circuit with the dining room lights.
It’s apparently customary for piano tuners to annotate their work on the keys, starting after the serial numbers on the bass notes at the left end:
Piano tuner notes
After admiring that, you can pop the hammer links off with a prybar:
Detaching piano keys
All 88 keys stack neatly into a Home Depot Extra Small moving box, filling it about 2/3 full, starting with the bass keys on the bottom:
Boxed piano keys
I harvested the lovely wood panels, then the scrapper hauled the carcass to the transfer station. Perhaps it raised the secret chord when it hit the bottom …
Lest you wonder why we didn’t try to contact X, who would surely be interested in a free piano: we did. Believe me, we tried, for many values of X, only to find nobody wants a piano in this day and age.
Mary’s new Sewing Room (f.k.a. The Living Room) has a set of cellular blinds over the windows:
Sewing Room – Cellular shades
They have internal springs instead of pull cords: you just grab the tabs on the lower bar to raise / lower the shade. This worked with one hand for the narrower shades on the sides, but the center shade seemed unusually difficult to move, even with one person on each end.
Then, one morning, the center shade jammed in place about halfway up and resisted all persuasion to move in either direction. So I evacuated all the plants, dismounted the shade, laid it out on the quilting table, and found a sticker showing they were manufactured in 2018:
Cellular shade – data plate
They were surely installed shortly thereafter, so they’re the better part of six years old. Although parts are available for some shades, casual searching suggested replacing all three blinds (because color matching) would require more attention than I wanted to apply in the midst of our ongoing real estate transactions.
Gingerly removing the spring released the tension on the mechanism and a vast array of cords, so I could lay things out and see how the shade was supposed to work:
Cellular shade – cord layout
Four cords support the lower bar, pass through the entire height of the shade, and emerge through plastic guides into the upper bar:
Cellular shade – grommet
All four cords pass around pulleys in the fixed block on the left, to more pulleys in the movable block on the right, then back to the fixed block where they are tied off:
Cellular shade – cord snag
The possibility of successfully re-stringing those cords from a cold start is exactly zero, so I knew I must not fumble anything.
The hook on the right side of the movable block connects to the spring counterbalancing the weight of the shade:
Cellular shade – block missing cord
After considerable pondering, I noticed the upper pulley has four cords on its outer side and the lower pulley has only three. Reasoning by symmetry, I concluded that can’t possibly be right.
Gentle poking at the fixed block showed where the missing cord went:
Cellular shade – errant cord
Apparently the loop slipped off the lower pulley in the movable block, distributed several feet of loose cord somewhere inside the shade, and eventually bound tight around the lower pulley in the fixed block.
Removing the cover from the fixed block confirmed the diagnosis:
Cellular shade – fixed block disassembly
Removing the cover from the movable block shows the cord layout, with the lower pulley still missing one loop:
Cellular shade – block cord layout
Gingerly pulling the loose cord from deep inside the shade, I managed to extend the errant loop back around the pulley in the movable block, then, following the “First, do no harm” part of the Hippocratic Oath, I immobilized all the cords in their current positions relative to all the pulleys / pins / blocks:
Cellular shade – block cords sorted
Which revealed how the cord got loose in the first place:
Cellular shade – block side view
Apparently half a dozen years is enough to warp a thin plastic plate. Who would have expected that?
With the cords sorted out, I eased them off the pulleys, freed the block, and discovered the situation was worse than I thought:
Cellular shade – block warp
Now that I knew what to look for, it was obvious the tiny pin molded into the boss supporting the lower pulley had broken, allowing the cord to slide between the pulley and the top plate. You can see the dark hole vacated by the pin in the first picture of the upper block.
Knowing what I had to do next, I snipped the pin off the other boss with flush-cutting pliers.
Line up the drill press using the top plate to center the drill in the boss, drill a hole suitable for a small screw, and repeat for the other pulley:
Cellular shade – block drilling
At that point, the New Basement Shop™ consisted of empty shelves and full moving boxes, but the drill press and tool chests were accessible. The basement has four outlets, one in each far-distant corner, but I have extension cords and know how to use them; I intend to spray-paint the walls with outlets in the near future.
With the holes drilled, I restored the pulleys / pins / cords to their proper locations:
Cellular shade – cord sorting
Almost proper, as it turned out I put the errant loop on backwards, so I had to go through one completely assembly / test / disassembly cycle.
The two new screws in the pulleys, in addition to the two old screws along the midline, hold the top plate flat against the bottom plate, with the remaining pins seated securely in their holes.
Reassemble in reverse order, tension the spring, snap it on the movable block, and reinstall in the window. I don’t have any pix of the completed assembly, but the shade now works as it should: we can raise and lower it from either end with just a bit of effort.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 