Posts Tagged Repairs
Hiatus
Posted by Ed in Administrivia on 2019-10-10
Several home projects of steadily increasing priority will interfere with writing up Basement Laboratory projects through early November:
Ground truths:
- No barnacles on her foot
- No sea creature eating her leg
I’ll be posting infrequently during the next few weeks.
All remains right with our world …
Raspberry Pi vs. eBay Camera: Assembly Completion
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Machine Shop on 2019-10-09
I picked up a pair of Raspberry Pi V1 cameras, both of which arrived unstuck to their breakout board:
Requiring the customer to peel off the white layer and stick the camera to the PCB helps keep costs low. They’re $4 if you’re willing to wait two months or $7 from a “USA Seller”.
Bathroom Sink Drain: Epoxy FAIL
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-10-08
Apparently, “porcelain chip fix” epoxy survives about a year in a bathroom sink:
It came loose from the drain rim while I was cleaning the sink; I wasn’t doing anything particularly vigorous.
The stain in the lower right goes all the way around the epoxy:
For what should be obvious reasons, I was loathe to scuff up the sink surface to give the epoxy a better grip, so it couldn’t make a watertight seal all the way around.
A closer look at the stain:
I’m reasonably sure that’s iron bacteria colony, rather than actual rust, as there’s no iron to be found anywhere nearby.
For lack of anything smarter, I’ll apply another dose of the same epoxy, although this time I won’t be expecting a long-term fix.
Monthly Science: Concrete Bridge Flexing
Posted by Ed in Oddities, Recumbent Bicycling, Science on 2019-10-01
Riding south on Rt 376 takes us across the Mighty Wappinger Creek on a four-lane concrete bridge built about 1995. This Dutchess County Aerial Access photo shows it in 2016:
A pothole opened up on the south end of the span last year:
NYS DOT patched it a while ago:
This year, we’ve been avoiding a new pothole opening on the north end:
It’s difficult to ride between the right side of the hole and the weeds growing from the curb joint under the guide rail, so we take the lane whenever we can. The extensive vegetation growing in the bridge structure can’t possibly be a good thing.
The bridge deck rests on steel beams across the creek, with plenty of corroded concrete along the edge:
The concrete seems to be failing by tension overload as the beams flex downward under traffic loading and pull the top surface apart. The surface has irregular transverse cracks across the deck width, not all of which look like control joints.
With potholes and surrounding cracks allowing brine into the deck, we expect much worse deterioration during the next few years.
My Professional Engineer license has long lapsed, not that I ever knew anything about bridge design, so this is mostly observational.
Suet Feeder Bracket Painting
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-09-28
The 4 inch column on the rear patio holds a bracket, probably intended for a welcoming sign or some such, which keeps the suet feeder mostly out of reach. It desperately wanted a coat of black paint to match the railing, so I stripped the old paint and applied Evapo-Rust:
The dark areas are iron oxide being converted to loose iron sulfide, which is what Evapo-Rust does for a living.
One could, of course, simply buy new eye screws & nuts, but we’re deep into historical preservation around here.
An hour of soaking and a few minutes of wire-wheeling got everything down to bare metal, ready for some rattle-can primer and black paint action:
It’s a version of what Eks calls a “used car finish”: high shine over deep pits.
Discussion of why one should not paint threaded parts will be unavailing; in this case, paint serves as permanent threadlock. I re-spritzed the eyescrews & nuts after getting everything aligned, so as to produce a lovely two-coat over-all finish.
The birds won’t care one way or the other and, as long as the paint lasts, neither will we.
Cateye Astrale Cyclocomputer Battery Life
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Recumbent Bicycling, Science on 2019-09-27
The display on Mary’s Cateye Astrale “Cyclocomputer” had once again faded to gray, so it’s time for a new CR2032 lithium cell:
The old cell read 2.5 V, well below what it should be.
The notes scrawled on the cell become readable under better light:
Seven years (at 1942 mile/yr) ain’t bad at all!
To replace the cell fast enough to maintain the odometer reading, just unscrew & remove the battery cover, slam the back of the Astrale on the bench, and pop in the new cell.
Maybe I should replace the cell twice a decade, regardless of how feeble it might be?
Branson Ultrasonic Cleaner Switch Cover
Posted by Ed in Home Ec, Machine Shop on 2019-09-25
Back in the early 90s, I bought a Branson Ultrasonic Cleaner for small parts. It turned out to be ideal for eyeglasses, migrated to the bathroom, and has been used at least daily ever since. After nigh onto three decades, this happened:
We tend to push the ON button and let it turn off by itself after a little over four minutes (exactly 255 seconds!), so the gray plastic sheet over the ON switch failed first. You can barely see the outline of the transparent film previously covering both switches, which probably helped waterproof the switches.
The gray plastic disk sits atop the switch actuator, so I punched a slightly larger polypropylene disk (from my stash of clamshell packages), stuck it to the disk with double-sided tape, lined it up over the hole, and covered the mess with Kapton tape:
This is in the nature of an expedient fix, as I’m not sure the polypro disk is flexible enough. The next iteration will cover the entire gray area and I’ll see about a transparent tape covering.
Maybe in another decade?
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