Things I didn't fix today.

U R completely insane.

ak

 

My wife was raised in a well-to-do family. Her dad was a lawyer with little technical ability and less spare time, so the SOP was "If it's broke, call someone to replace it."

I was raised to repair / salvage everything.

In 1989, about 1 year after we were married and bought a house, the dishwasher stopped washing dishes. It made most of the right noises, but the dishes always were dry and still dirty. Opening it in the middle of a cycle showed no water in the basin. At this point the dishwasher was 17 years old, so she went straight to the phone book to buy a replacement. I suggested another path.

She knew I was an engineer, partly because we first met when one of her PC's died. But she also knew I had no training in dish washer repair, let alone that specific model, so she got increasingly more and more nervous as I removed more and more parts.

I laid out each screw and panel on the floor in the order I removed them, with her dog inspecting every part. Behind the access panel below the door were all of the fun parts - the motorized controller, pump, plumbing, hoses, and solenoid valves. Of course she got the mandatory tour of the innards. Since we could hear water going into the washer at the start of a cycle, my thought was that the drain valve must be stuck open. I didn't know if it was supposed to be normally-open or normally-closed, but the coil measured the same resistance as the input valve.

I removed the drain hose, and pulled a cocktail spear (the little plastic spear that you stick through an olive) from the drain solenoid valve. It was holding the drain valve open continuously, so water for washing never collected in the basin. Put everything back together, let her dog inspect my work, fired it up, and enjoyed the sound of splashing. That washer was still running in 2014 when the bottom pan rusted through and we finally had to replace it. Before it was hauled away, I got back in there and removed the pump, all of the hose clamps and solenoids (which I in fact used for a sprinkler system modification), and the controller because of the date stamp - March, 1972 (42 years).

After three years of dating and one year of marriage, I think this was the first time she started to understand just what she had married into.

ak

 

My wife was raised in a well-to-do family. Her dad was a lawyer with little technical ability and less spare time, so the SOP was "If it's broke, call someone to replace it."

I was raised to repair / salvage everything.

In 1989, about 1 year after we were married and bought a house, the dishwasher stopped washing dishes. It made most of the right noises, but the dishes always were dry and still dirty. Opening it in the middle of a cycle showed no water in the basin. At this point the dishwasher was 17 years old, so she went straight to the phone book to buy a replacement. I suggested another path.

She knew I was an engineer, partly because we first met when one of her PC's died. But she also knew I had no training in dish washer repair, let alone that specific model, so she got increasingly more and more nervous as I removed more and more parts.

I laid out each screw and panel on the floor in the order I removed them, with her dog inspecting every part. Behind the access panel below the door were all of the fun parts - the motorized controller, pump, plumbing, hoses, and solenoid valves. Of course she got the mandatory tour of the innards. Since we could hear water going into the washer at the start of a cycle, my thought was that the drain valve must be stuck open. I didn't know if it was supposed to be normally-open or normally-closed, but the coil measured the same resistance as the input valve.

I removed the drain hose, and pulled a cocktail spear (the little plastic spear that you stick through an olive) from the drain solenoid valve. Put everything back together, let her dog inspect my work, fired it up, and enjoyed the sound of splashing. That washer was still running in 2014 when the bottom pan rusted through and we finally had to replace it. Before it was hauled away, I got back in there and removed the pump, all of the hose clamps and solenoids (which I in fact used for a sprinkler system modification), and the controller because of the date stamp - March, 1972 (42 years).

After three years of dating and one year of marriage, I think this was the first time she started to understand just what she had married into.

ak

You have to admit, without the Dog's supervision things would've probably not worked out ...

 

After three years of dating and one year of marriage, I think this was the first time she started to understand just what she had married into.

“If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

― Red Green

 

I was raised to repair / salvage everything.

“If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

― Red Green

I think my wife already knew what she was getting when she married me.

The word has gotten around our neighbourhood that MrChips is also MrFixIt. They drop things off on my front step to be repaired.
If MrFixIt can't fix it then no one else can.

 

They drop things off on my front step to be repaired.

After you. fix them do you give them back or sell them on Ebay?

 

As long as they didn't ask you to fix their marriage

 

After you. fix them do you give them back or sell them on Ebay?

I give them back, no charge. They come and reclaim it.

 

My official uniform!




On the job!

 

I recently noticed two of my quartz clocks would only run on fresh AA batteries, stopping once the voltage dropped to around 1.3V. I also noticed that the clocks stopped with the second hand at the 9 o’clock position.

I deduced this was because at this position the motor had the greatest load, lifting the second hand – with the clock face laid flat the clock would continue to work.

I could either continue replacing the hardly used batteries or thrown the quartz clocks away.

I effected a fix by adding a second battery in series (operating the clocks at a nominal 3V) using a 2x AA battery holder taken from a set of LEDS that I was powering from a USB supply.

The battery holder was glued to the rear of the clock, and attached the wires at the clock’s battery terminals by pushing them between the terminal and the case edge. I’m very hopeful that the clocks will now keep time until each battery is depleted to less than 0.7V.

 

I am often surprised and wonder why many stick to the centuries old technology of mechanical time pieces.
Must be the aesthetics,
e.g. my digital wrist watch is around 25yrs old I think I replaced the batteries 3 times!
Same with the digital house clocks.

 

I am often surprised and wonder why many stick to the centuries old technology of mechanical time pieces.
Must be the aesthetics,
e.g. my digital wrist watch is around 25yrs old I think I replaced the batteries 3 times!
Same with the digital house clocks.

Watch a few of these videos and you may catch the bug.

 

I got rid of the 'bug' a few decades ago!

 

What is a wrist watch? Don’t people have phones that tell them the time?

 

¨$tatus¨
Sorry, pardon me for the 'off topic' The thread is supposed to report repairs...

 

Hi Guys,
The TS requests posts to be kept on his Thread Topic, please oblige.

Moderation

 

I recently noticed two of my quartz clocks would only run on fresh AA batteries, stopping once the voltage dropped to around 1.3V. I also noticed that the clocks stopped with the second hand at the 9 o’clock position.

I deduced this was because at this position the motor had the greatest load, lifting the second hand – with the clock face laid flat the clock would continue to work.

I could either continue replacing the hardly used batteries or thrown the quartz clocks away.

I effected a fix by adding a second battery in series (operating the clocks at a nominal 3V) using a 2x AA battery holder taken from a set of LEDS that I was powering from a USB supply.

The battery holder was glued to the rear of the clock, and attached the wires at the clock’s battery terminals by pushing them between the terminal and the case edge. I’m very hopeful that the clocks will now keep time until each battery is depleted to less than 0.7V.

This is a discovery made over and over by knowledgable people and ignored by clock makers. There are various workarounds that people invent.

Congratulations on being one of the people observant enough to recognize this inherent flaw that has probably caused more battery-based landfill for no reason than any other.

I wonder if this is a puzzle for some kind of subtle recruiting campaign... Maybe if you solve a couple more, a mysterious agency will contact you with an offer you can't refuse...

 

I give them back, no charge. They come and reclaim it.

You remind me of this young lady from China whose YouTube channel I happened across due to a rabbit hole excursion. You two share some spirit of repair and a dose of altruism. This is a random example of her many videos...

 

Not today, but one of my most recent repairs that made me particularly happy.

Thanks to an... interesting... choice made by the designers at Siglent, my otherwise very good bench supply puts a dead short on the outputs for a second or so when powered up. I had been charging an 7AH SLA battery and accidentally turned the supply off. When I tuned it back on, the leads were shorted and the battery literally blew the ends off the minigrabbers and melted the plastic.

I had just replaced those leads, and they aren’t cheap. I do need to get better ones (I had trouble finding Pomonas for a reasonable price) but I needed them to work, so I printed little sleeves on my relatively new 3D printer in PET-G, and voila—a new life for the leads.

The part I printed is only 4mm high, with a 2.4mm hole in it. The 0.2 nozzle with 0.06 layer height did it. I slid the sleeves over the melted ends, reformed the hooks from the flat metal, and put a drop of UV adhesive on there to keep the notch for the hook indexed and it’s all cool—if slightly shorter.

This is one of the reasons I really love my 3D printer. Making replacement and repair parts is such a great capability. Fixing and improving things by, basically, imaging a solution and having it effectively magically appear—what's not to love?

 

Nothing. But I may have destroyed a career for someone.