I recently managed to repair my bathroom extractor fan (low power, circa 30W), it had begun being noisy (bearing on the way out?) and even stalled at times.

I removed the cover and sprayed the innards with WD40 which worked for a few days. After that, I sprayed it again liberally with a heavier oil, it has now been running for at least 100 hrs without issue.

If your extractor fan stops working, try the above before replacing.

 

I recently managed to repair my bathroom extractor fan (low power, circa 30W), it had begun being noisy (bearing on the way out?) and even stalled at times.

I removed the cover and sprayed the innards with WD40 which worked for a few days. After that, I sprayed it again liberally with a heavier oil, it has now been running for at least 100 hrs without issue.

If your extractor fan stops working, try the above before replacing.

The WD40 fix shows that it was a lubrication issue. The long term fix will be to provide a much longer lasting lubricant.

What did I fix today?? Not anything electrical. A spot in a ceramic tiled floor for an invalid. Scraped out the failed adhesive from a prior attempt ant repair and glued it back level with contact cement, and then grouted it in place so it would not be moved and be worked loose again. Then straightened a leaning fence for the same invalid.
Also, I repaired, I hope, an AZDEN PCS-6000H transceiver that has been subject to excess supply voltage abuse.

 

Tank to bowl gasket:

Stream running continuous slowly from tank into bowl, ??

 

Stream running continuous slowly from tank into bowl, ??

Actually, out onto the floor. The washers holding the tank down were shot.

Replaced everything, including filler and flapper.

 

Put a cover over the hole, didn’t work still not running going to diag today hopefully. Not sure if stuff found it’s way into the plenum area inside.

I’ll post findings and also allow you guys to guess my repair. I’ll post schematic later.

 

I recently managed to repair my bathroom extractor fan (low power, circa 30W), it had begun being noisy (bearing on the way out?) and even stalled at times.

I removed the cover and sprayed the innards with WD40 which worked for a few days. After that, I sprayed it again liberally with a heavier oil, it has now been running for at least 100 hrs without issue.

If your extractor fan stops working, try the above before replacing.

Back in the 60's I was taught how to resurrect the shaded-pole motor that was very common in record players at the time. Usually there are two long-ish machine screws (6-32 -ish) that go through the bearing assemblies on each side of the motor core, and the core, forming a 3-piece sandwich.

Scratch lines on each piece so you can put them back together in the right order.

Remove the fan blade.

Remove the long screws.

One of the bearings is an end cap, so it comes off easily.
The other bearing is a through-hole. Remove it and the rotor from the core. Slide it off of the rotor shaft. This is the hard/messy part, because there probably is some crud built up around the shaft against the outside of the bearing. That crud is the problem.

Check the insides of the bearing sleeves for gooey residue. Clean them with a Q-tip or twirled paper towel and a *small* amount of rubbing alcohol. Do *not* get rubbing alcohol into the bearing oil reserves.

Now that both ends of the shaft are exposed. pinch each shaft in a small loop of super-fine abrasive, such as carborundum cloth, and twirl the rotor to sand the shaft evenly all around. Do not overdo this; you can remove enough metal to cause a bearing runout problem.

The bearings often are sleeve type surrounded by a fibrous material that is a reservoir for the oil. Put a couple of drops of 3-in-1 oil into each reservoir. Don't overdo this; any excess will drip out onto the floor when the motor heats up.

Reassemble the motor. The rotor should now spin freely.

Re-attach the blade.

The problem is dust. The fan probably pulls in air across the motor to cool it. Dust collects in the turbulence pockets, particularly the ones that have a bit of motor oil on the surfaces. It also creeps in between the bearing surface and the shaft when things are warm, then cools to a goop that grips the shaft when cooled.

We moved into our house in 1988, but it was built in 1972 and the bathrooms had the original exhaust fans. 35 years later, they still run just fine. The ones that are used the most often get rebuilt about every 6-7 years. The first time one froze up, it was another one of those she-said-this-is-gonna-be-a-huge-PITA-to-replace moments and I said hold on there, sparky.

Use what you know.

ak

 

No voltage on the DVM set to AC as that is the required voltage no DC. I shorted the Test and COM tested voltage nothing. Suspect bad Trans on circuit board or it’s shorted somehow. Additional suspect is no 115vac or 24vac.

kv

 

Found after test point jumper to 24vac com terminal briefly to reset. I powered it up and it ran perfectly. Nothing to do but count my blessing that I can get another season out her.

kv

 

Have a dear friend, a Veteran, who has an extremely old furnace. She can't afford a new unit so we need to get hers up and running. She's existing on space heaters and that scares me. Too easy to start a fire. Also, since the very old heater is gas - that, too, has me deeply concerned. She barely makes it paycheck to paycheck and can't even afford to have someone come out. In fact, someone DID come out just to have a look and they won't touch the thing.

In the next day or two I'm going out to look at it. I happen to have in possession a gas valve with electronic ignition. Possibly that might fix her issue for the time being. Of course when dealing with natural gas I'm deeply concerned about doing things right. The best approach would be to reach out to all our Vet friends and see if we can take up a collection to have her furnace replaced. Here's a picture she sent last night.

Can't make out the name, nor can I for sure discern how many burners it has. LOOKS LIKE THREE! Just guessing but the panel on the upper right looks like where the air filter will be placed. Below that might be the blower. I said MIGHT. I haven't had a look at it yet. But hopefully I can replace that gas valve with electronic ignition. Would save her on the gas bill too. Prices nearly doubled this year for NatGas.

Bottom line - I have to look at it first. Beyond that it really needs to be replaced with a high efficiency unit. Just how me and our Vet friends can rise to the occasion - that remains to be seen.

 

Have a dear friend, a Veteran, who has an extremely old furnace. She can't afford a new unit so we need to get hers up and running. She's existing on space heaters and that scares me. Too easy to start a fire. Also, since the very old heater is gas - that, too, has me deeply concerned. She barely makes it paycheck to paycheck and can't even afford to have someone come out. In fact, someone DID come out just to have a look and they won't touch the thing.

In the next day or two I'm going out to look at it. I happen to have in possession a gas valve with electronic ignition. Possibly that might fix her issue for the time being. Of course when dealing with natural gas I'm deeply concerned about doing things right. The best approach would be to reach out to all our Vet friends and see if we can take up a collection to have her furnace replaced. Here's a picture she sent last night.

Can't make out the name, nor can I for sure discern how many burners it has. LOOKS LIKE THREE! Just guessing but the panel on the upper right looks like where the air filter will be placed. Below that might be the blower. I said MIGHT. I haven't had a look at it yet. But hopefully I can replace that gas valve with electronic ignition. Would save her on the gas bill too. Prices nearly doubled this year for NatGas.

Bottom line - I have to look at it first. Beyond that it really needs to be replaced with a high efficiency unit. Just how me and our Vet friends can rise to the occasion - that remains to be seen.

I always had a thermocouple get one take it with you, they sell them at lowes or homedepot. Take the numbers off the gas valve, the back side of the cover should have a diagram. Otherwise look for the correct cause and possible correction, like flame sensor and over limit switches.

kv

 

Today repaired an audio transducer that I dropped on the floor from my every-day-worse butterfingers. The hard part was opening the typical glued plastic case without destroying it. 'Ironed' the inside of the voice coil with a fingernail and is back to operation attached to a wall. Converts my whole house into a speaker, sort of a full range 'shaker'. Strauss is loud and clear again.

 

Not sure if it was today or yesterday but sometime around midnight I repaired this electron accelerator thingy. It cures some special coating on wire as the wire passes through a bunker and gets bombarded with electron beams.



I didn't touch the spooky parts, just the controls for the winders.

It was a classic case of:
1. Simple part breaks.
2. A "parts swapper" takes on a job that should have been handled by a troubleshooter.
3. A "parameter copier" takes over and finds devices programmed incorrectly (because they aren't the proper devices) and starts overwriting parameters. The problem is no longer localized. System-wide issues manifest and some devices have been overwritten without a backup.
4. Finally a troubleshooter is called in, but isn't very skilled, and just makes some nonsensical changes to code in controllers that weren't even part of the problem.
5. OEM is called but by that time they can't make heads or tails of the situation via remote troubleshooting.
6. strantor flies in from afar, performs crime scene investigation, reverses all changes still possible to reverse, and re-commissions devices with lost programming from scratch. Then troubleshoots actual problem (turns out it was a brake that failed to open).

Can't tell you how many times that's happened

 

I didn't touch the spooky parts...

Yeah. That's @nsaspook's job.

 

Drove over 100 miles with the engine failing and shaking, in fear of not reaching home to my tools and facilities to troubleshoot...

Found the 'boot' terminal of one spark plug with a broken wire end inside. Failed like the core became carbonized from too much arcing gap. From the extreme difficulty to remove the cable and replacing it, (which I have the spares but not willing to remove intake plenum, IAC, harness, hoses and more...) decided to insert a piece of 22awg lenghtwise into the core of the spark plug end wire about 2 inches, wrap it around and re-crimp the termination. Success !

 

Drove over 100 miles with the engine failing and shaking, in fear of not reaching home to my tools and facilities to troubleshoot...

Found the 'boot' terminal of one spark plug with a broken wire end inside. Failed like the core became carbonized from too much arcing gap. From the extreme difficulty to remove the cable and replacing it, (which I have the spares but not willing to remove intake plenum, IAC, harness, hoses and more...) decided to insert a piece of 22awg lenghtwise into the core of the spark plug end wire about 2 inches, wrap it around and re-crimp the termination. Success !

Reminds me of this:

 

Not sure if it was today or yesterday but sometime around midnight I repaired this electron accelerator thingy. It cures some special coating on wire as the wire passes through a bunker and gets bombarded with electron beams.

View attachment 306553

I didn't touch the spooky parts, just the controls for the winders.

It was a classic case of:
1. Simple part breaks.
2. A "parts swapper" takes on a job that should have been handled by a troubleshooter.
3. A "parameter copier" takes over and finds devices programmed incorrectly (because they aren't the proper devices) and starts overwriting parameters. The problem is no longer localized. System-wide issues manifest and some devices have been overwritten without a backup.
4. Finally a troubleshooter is called in, but isn't very skilled, and just makes some nonsensical changes to code in controllers that weren't even part of the problem.
5. OEM is called but by that time they can't make heads or tails of the situation via remote troubleshooting.
6. strantor flies in from afar, performs crime scene investigation, reverses all changes still possible to reverse, and re-commissions devices with lost programming from scratch. Then troubleshoots actual problem (turns out it was a brake that failed to open).

Can't tell you how many times that's happened on spieltimes.com

ahah well, I liked the climax and denouement of the story. Glory to strantor!

 

Felt near shame to repair my shoes; but I really like them and found that under the insole, the heel was like

with those multiple void edges that cut into and deteriorated the foam insole and started to really bother my heels.
Filled those squarish voids with hot melt glue. End to the chinese stupidity of saving 1⊄ of rubber and hurting feet. Done, feet are happy.

-Random image borrowed from the web-

 

I have an old pair of boots I like to wear when I'm working on roofs. The sole of one came off and, in addition to the voids you show, mine had a metal strip. Neither bothered me, so I just glued everything back together.

 

Felt near shame to repair my shoes; but I really like them and found that under the insole, the heel was like
View attachment 307182
with those multiple void edges that cut into and deteriorated the foam insole and started to really bother my heels.
Filled those squarish voids with hot melt glue. End to the chinese stupidity of saving 1⊄ of rubber and hurting feet. Done, feet are happy.

-Random image borrowed from the web-

Be careful what type of glue you use. I discovered a sole coming off my shoes immediately before going on holiday, and quickly glued it back on; and the glue triggered the explosives detector at the airport. (I wonder if it used a peroxide as a hardener)

 

Repairs to a industrial ion accelerator today. One will be back online soon, the others are hanger queens. Training the local techs how to troubleshoot equipment built before they were born. Good people but they don't have the intuition to see the obvious issues the machines have.

What are hanger queens? thanks for your time.