The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Tag: Repairs

If it used to work, it can work again

  • 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator: Maximum Overdrive

    Datasheets loosely associated with the tuning fork resonators in hand suggest 1 μW maximum drive power, which works out to maybe 100 mVrms = 150 mVpk at about 10 kΩ ESR. If you inadvertently apply 500 mVpk = 375 mVrms, the resulting 14 μW does this:

    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator - overview
    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator – overview

    I was applying a precisely tuned 60 kHz sine wave to the first pass at a crystal filter grafted onto the loop antenna preamp and wasn’t paying attention to the amplitude. For all I know, though, the poor thing died from a power-on transient. I’m pretty sure I didn’t break it during extraction, because it stopped being a resonator while in the circuit.

    The missing tine fell out of the can:

    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator - tine detail
    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator – tine detail

    Laser trim scars form a triangle near the tip, a T a bit further down, a slot just above the nicely etched gap.

    A closer look at the fractured base:

    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator - detail
    Broken 60 kHz Tuning Fork Resonator – detail

    The metalization appears black here and gold in person.

    So, yeah, one down and 49 to go …

  • Amazon Packaging: PAR30 LED Bulb

    The second incandescent bulb over the kitchen sink popped and a replacement LED bulb arrived with the by-now-familiar homeopathic Amazon padding:

    Amazon Packaging - Satco LED bulb
    Amazon Packaging – Satco LED bulb

    Turns out the new bulb is slightly brighter than the old one:

    Satco S9415 LED PAR30 bulbs
    Satco S9415 LED PAR30 bulbs

    Oh, and it’s three bucks cheaper, too.

    Eyeballometrically, 5% makes no difference whatsoever, even in a side-by-side comparison.

    Life is good.

  • Eyeglasses: New Nose Pads

    A stray nose pad appeared on the kitchen floor and, after some investigation, it corresponded with the stub in Mary’s oldest reading glasses. Some rummaging in the Bag o’ Eyeglass Stuff produced a similar pair of pads:

    Glasses - missing nose pad
    Glasses – missing nose pad

    Although the lenses have become somewhat scuffed over the years, masking the optics with Parafilm is always Good Practice:

    Glasses - new nose pads - masked
    Glasses – new nose pads – masked

    The split boxes clamped around the pad stems required a bit of delicate opening-up with a utility knife blade before the new ones pressed firmly into place.

    This was significantly easier than the Silhouette frame repair!

  • American Standard Kitchen Faucet: Cleaning and O-Rings

    The O-rings on the spout of our American Standard kitchen faucet wore out again; having described that repair many times, there’s no need to say much more about it. I didn’t want to get into this repair while thinking about the hot limit problem, but I did check to make sure the box under the sink had some O-ring replacement kits.

    A bench vise with soft jaws holds the spout while you remove the escutcheon ring retainer:

    Kitchen faucet spout - in vise
    Kitchen faucet spout – in vise

    Basically, just tap around the ring with a long drift punch and it’ll eventually fall out onto the reasonably clean rag below it.

    The interior of the spout before cleaning shows why you should never look into your plumbing:

    Kitchen faucet spout interior - before
    Kitchen faucet spout interior – before

    After a few hours in a white vinegar bath and a few minutes of scrubbing with a ScotchBrite pad:

    Kitchen faucet spout interior - after - 1
    Kitchen faucet spout interior – after – 1

    Another view:

    Kitchen faucet spout interior - after - 2
    Kitchen faucet spout interior – after – 2

    Obviously, you could do better, but it’s hard to get excited about the last few nodules. For whatever it’s worth, the nodules grow despite our water softener; I have no clue what’s going on in there.

    A few wipes of silicone grease, reassemble in reverse order, apply a firm shove, and it’s leakless again. For a while, anyhow.

  • Garden Y Valve Corrosion: Partial Fix

    The corroded Y valve, minus another failed hose fitting, recently emerged from a heap o’ stuff on the Basement Laboratory Bench. This old photo gives you an idea of what happens to cheap pot metal in a garden:

    Corroded Garden Y Valve
    Corroded Garden Y Valve

    I dropped it Y-end-down into a container of white vinegar for a week, after which a few minutes of scrubbing produced a workable result:

    Garden hose Y valve - after vinegar soak
    Garden hose Y valve – after vinegar soak

    The threads on the left side are pretty much gone. The hose fitting protected the threads on the right, but was corroded firmly in place; a penetrating oil soak and concerted muttering removed it.

    All of the garden hoses and fittings out in Mary’s Vassar Farms plot have survived well beyond their best-used-by date. Given that we salvaged many hoses from the Farm’s end-of-season midden heaps, they don’t owe us much …

    The next iteration will have more brass …

  • American Standard Elite Kitchen Faucet: Hot Limit Safety Stop Mystery

    For the second time in a few months, the kitchen faucet handle stopped moving all the way to the left and the spout stopped dispensing hot water. The last time I did nothing and, after a few days, it resumed normal operation. Having had a while to think it over, this time I removed the handle and saw exactly what I expected:

    American Standard faucet - hot limit ring
    American Standard faucet – hot limit ring

    The installation manual has a useful diagram:

    American Standard Elite 4453 4454 faucet - hot limit stop diagram
    American Standard Elite 4453 4454 faucet – hot limit stop diagram

    The red ring (the “hot limit safety stop”) fits into one of eight click-stop positions; the photo shows it in position 5, with 0 being just to the right of the bottom screw and 7 just below the horizontal notch across the middle.

    The dark gray plastic feature inside the ring connects the metal handle (the out-of-focus silver stud aimed at you) to the valve assembly. The two lugs sticking out to its left and right bump into the inward-pointing red lugs as you rotate the handle leftward = clockwise = more hot. With the ring set to the 0 position, the red lugs overlap similar lugs molded into the light gray valve body that limit the rotation in both directions.

    Observations:

    • You must pry the red ring upward to disengage the splines locking it into position
    • The gray lugs impose a hard stop in the counterclockwise direction = cold
    • There’s no upward force on the ring for any reason that I can imagine
    • We don’t pound on the faucet handle, so there’s no shock loading

    I have no idea how the red ring could disengage its splines and move counterclockwise by five clicks all by itself.

    I reset it to 0, reassembled the faucet with a dot of penetrating oil in the set screw, and it’s all good.

    We’ll see how long that lasts …

  • Multimeter Banana Plugs

    The second banana plug on one of my multimeters failed, so I finally got around to replacing them with a dual plug from the Drawer o’ Banana Stuff:

    Dual banana plug - assembled
    Dual banana plug – assembled

    The bulky test leads don’t quite fit through the convenient retaining ring, so the zip tie holds ’em in place.

    A setscrew at the base of each banana jack tunnel crunches the test lead wire against the plug base, but, alone among the collection, this plug had one missing screw. Rather than toss it away (or, worse, back in the Drawer), I decided to Solve The Problem once and for ever:

    Dual banana plug - improvised clamp screw
    Dual banana plug – improvised clamp screw

    That’s an ordinary M3 screw from the Drawer o’ Random M3 Stuff with its head hacksawed off, a slot crudely hacksawed slightly off-center into the end, then lightly filed to hide the worst damage. With a bit of luck, nobody will ever notice it …