Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
I have a quartet of nice pin punches with hardened pins in various diameters. I managed to drop the smallest punch, didn’t get my foot under it in time, it struck sparks from the concrete floor when it hit, and the pin snapped.
Not being able to replicate the pin’s neat mushroom head, I contented myself by chopping off a length of music wire and grinding the ends flat. Annealed one end over the kitchen stove, whacked it with another punch to get a flat, and it’s all good.
Replacement pin for punch
The music wire isn’t quite perfectly straight, but you don’t beat on things with a 40-mil punch, anyway.
My PC makes a seasonal migration: to the basement during the summer, to the living room in the winter. Those moves provide an opportunity to vacuum the fuzz out of the fan grilles and heatsinks.
You’d think that, given the trouble caused by blocked air inlets, manufacturers would make it easy to get access to the grilles and trivially easy to remove the fuzz. Not so, alas.
This time, I decided to see what the intake side of the main heatsink looked like. Two screws secure the shell to the circuit board and provide clamping pressure on the CPU heat spreader. The heatsink is a massive affair with liquid-filled heat pipes; I’ve never taken it out before because removing the screws exposes the CPU heat spreader, where you do not want to get fuzz.
Heatsink fuzz
Oops!
A bit of work with the vacuum and a brush greatly improved the situation. I think I kept the fuzz out of the heatsink-to-CPU joint, but there’s really no way to know because, as nearly as I can tell, Dell didn’t include any of the CPU temperature readouts on this system board.
Half a year after replacing the O-rings on the kitchen faucet, it’s dribbling again. This time, the symptom looked like a leak from the top of the faucet, which implied the three O-rings on the Spacer plate rather than big O-rings that seal the spout.
You can see the O-rings look different on the old and new spacers …
Old and New Faucet Spacers
Indeed, the old O-rings are flattened out. It’s most visible over on the right edge of the lower ring; the top ring is new.
Flattened O-ring
Replacing them is no big deal; follow the directions in the earlier post to get everything apart. But: only half a year?
Here’s a view of the diverter on the back of the column.
Diverter viewed in mirror
Notice that the larger O-rings that seal the spout to the column had glued themselves to the column and left shreds when I removed them. A narrow strip of Scotch-Brite scouring pad, applied shoe-shine style, cleaned the O-ring debris off the column and made it nice & shiny. I suppose as long as they slip freely on the spout, then it’s all good, but there are new ones in place now.
I used a bit more silicone grease on the O-rings this time; we’ll see if that makes it better or worse.
The PTT switch for the amateur radio on my bike got erratic: pushing the button didn’t seem to be producing reliable RF. I’d have sworn when I bought the switches that they were washable-during-PCB-assembly: at least moderately sealed.
Wrong.
Turns out there’s only the seal you get from snug-fitting mechanical parts. I carved off the square aluminum bezel and found an ordinary dome switch underneath, with contacts that actually looked better than you’d expect after half a decade on a bike. But, yes, I could see why it was erratic.
Lacking anything smarter, I installed another one, just like the other one, with a square of Kapton tape over the button. Not a great seal, but maybe it’ll be Good Enough.
Here’s what the button looked like in happier times…
After removing the concrete weights from the tub, I saw where the piddle of water was coming from: the stainless steel drum (formally: Basket) had been chewing on the plastic Tub for quite some time. That’s most likely the strange new sound Mary heard, but it’s impossible to see the affected area without gutting the entire washer.
The top left section, below the detergent dispenser.
Outer Tub Damage – Top Left
The top right section.
Outer Tub Damage – Top Right
I assumed the damage was limited to the top section, because the drum would pivot downward under load. That turned out to be incorrect, as I realized when I looked behind the lower concrete weight: the Tub was scored through all the way around.
Here’s a view of the interior, taken after I removed the Tub from the washer and pried off all the clamps that secure the Front Tub to the Rear Tub.
Outer Tub Damage – Inside View
And a closeup…
Outer Tub Damage – Inside Detail
The drum has a ridge around the front circumference where the round perforated shell joins the convoluted front piece that necks down into the opening behind the door. That ridge contacts the plastic Tub and, even though it’s smooth, generates enough friction to burn through the Tub.
Now, this is the point where the repairman turns to you and says that, although he (it’s always a he) can replace the drum and Tub, the total cost will be more than a whole new washer.
Sticker price for the parts, direct from Sears, looks like this:
Stainless Steel Basket: $364
Front Tub: $150
Onto that, reports from various forums indicate that you will have incurred some labor charges:
Labor: $120+ to this point
Parts Service Fee: $50 (I don’t know what that is, either)
A new HE3 washer is $850, more or less.
Ah, you ask, isn’t there a Lifetime Limited Warranty on the Stainless Steel Drum? Why, yes, there is, and that’s a story all in itself …
Before you pull the tub out of the washer, you must disconnect the ground wire from the bearing behind the pulley. This isn’t impossible… it just looks that way.
There’s a notch molded into the pulley that provides access to the ring terminal. IIRC, it’s a Torx T15 screw and there’s just barely enough clearance for a magnetic tip holder in there.
For some unknown reason, the tapped hole on our washer was filled with steel filings that clogged the threads. I ran the screw in until it stopped, backed it out, cleaned off the filings, and repeated until it came out mostly clean.
The picture is after a few cleaning passes; the screw came out covered with filings the first time!
Magnetized Screw
The magnetization comes from the holder I used for the Torx bit, but it certainly was handy.
The instructions you’ll find elsewhere tell you to just twist the head of the shock absorber a quarter-turn to release it. That’ll probably work, although I think you’ll break the two locking clips that hold the head in place, after which you’re depending on friction to prevent the whole affair from shaking loose.
The head is the small bump visible inside the white bracket on the tub. The locking clips are the tabs inside the square shape just under the bracket. It’s obvious when you see it, if you know what you’re looking for.
The trick is to use a small screwdriver to pry the locking clips downward while twisting the head. This is impossibly awkward, but you can get one started, lever the other one out, and then both will suddenly slide free as the head turns.
If you’ve removed the three concrete tub weights, the tub will rise up as you release each shock absorber. Mind your fingers!
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 