Entropy

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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

I didn't have to wait long for next appliance fail....

Last night as I prepared to start my one meal a week overnight slow cook.. (works really well)... but the slow cooker refused to turn on... Display would flash momentarily then go dark. :oops: :oops:

So cooking old school on my stove top today...

Just tested the slow cooker to see about troubleshooting it and when I applied power the display lit up, and it responded to button pushes...

One day last week a nearby lightning hit tripped the GFCI outlet that the cooker is plugged into so perhaps some kind of voltage transient? I was in the kitchen and noticed the outlet trip coincident with the lightning strike (not very close but close enough to trip the GFCI).

Looks like it is working again and is running a couple hour test... :roll:

Can't fix it if it won't stay broken.

JR
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NOON
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Re: Entropy

Post by NOON »

A few years ago I spent MONTHS trying to track down a persistent noise on my bike. It was a regular rubbery squeak, like badly adjusted brakes rubbing on the wheel, but this bike had disc brakes and it only happened when I was pedalling, so I assumed it had to be somewhere in the drivetrain. It only happened sometimes, I couldn't re-create it in the workshop pushing the pedals around by hand and it would usually stop when I looked down to try and see what was happening.
After lubricating and adjusting everything on the bike and almost giving up, one day I looked down and realised it was the side of my boot sole rubbing on the crank arm. If my foot was in a slightly different position, like if I leaned over to look down, it stopped. If I was wearing different shoes, it didn't happen.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

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NOON wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:46 am A few years ago I spent MONTHS trying to track down a persistent noise on my bike. It was a regular rubbery squeak, like badly adjusted brakes rubbing on the wheel, but this bike had disc brakes and it only happened when I was pedalling, so I assumed it had to be somewhere in the drivetrain. It only happened sometimes, I couldn't re-create it in the workshop pushing the pedals around by hand and it would usually stop when I looked down to try and see what was happening.
After lubricating and adjusting everything on the bike and almost giving up, one day I looked down and realised it was the side of my boot sole rubbing on the crank arm. If my foot was in a slightly different position, like if I leaned over to look down, it stopped. If I was wearing different shoes, it didn't happen.
Thanx... definitely a mechanical noise that only occurs when pedalling and applying force to the pedals. Bottom bracket is still my current suspicion. After generous lubrication the whole drivetrain feels as smooth as a babies butt, while it still makes the damn noise.. :oops: :oops: I think the noise is changing a little,,, a clunky metallic noise mixed in with the light chain-like noise... So sounds like chain noise but isn't.

If it's changing the bottom bracket may be deteriorating, could be a single ball in the bearing with a flat spot.

I bought the bike used a few years ago and put >1k miles a year on it, so pennies per mile amortized cost...

JR

PS: I've had squeaky brakes too... when wheels aren't perfectly centered and rims get a little wet... I've even identified one noise from the seat squeaking... I am almost tempted to kluge up a microphone with an ear bud so I can probe the mic around while riding.
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Re: Entropy

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I finally fixed the flat tire on my old riding mower, but it required professional assistance. I easily sourced a (chinese) tube to put in the tubeless tire that wouldn't hold air. I had to take the tire partially off the wheel to fit the tube inside.... Then I couldn't get it back on.... Bike tires are easy, 6" lawnmower tires not so easy... :oops:

After several hours I gave up, and took it down to my local lawnmower whisperer, to see if he knew some secret.... No, but he had a bench fixture that holds the wheel in place... The guy who owns the shop is older than me so he couldn't do it easily either, even with the fixture, but his younger, stronger employee could... best $5 I spent so far this week... 8-)

======

I still haven't fixed the slow cooker because it is working now , while I got it to screw up by turning off power... As long as it is properly booted up and has power continuously it seems to work.... Tempted to leave it powered up (with cooker turned off... processor still running I think). It needs to completely break before i can fix it... Kind of like when you go to the doctor and they tell you to come back in 6 months (if you haven't died) to see if you got worse and they can diagnose. :lol:

---------

Bike still making noise,,, I found a cheap new bike with good feature set, so we'll see what 90% assembled means ... :lol:

JR
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Re: Entropy

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I like fixing stuff.... BUT I really hate having to fix stuff.... Today I went to fire up my hot air work station to do some minor rework on my drum tuner PCBs (swap two SMD LEDs with each other) and no love, the damn thing won't fire up. ARGHHHHHH :o

At this point I don't expect me doing enough hot air work in the future to justify a buying good new one... Fingers crossed it is something simple. If not I'll get an inexpensive chinese special.

JR
[edit- took it apart... repair is not obvious... /edit]
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mediatechnology
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

Since you've been writing about the slow cooker I've been inspired to use mine.

I've cooked two batches of Saint Louis style barbecue ribs.
For the Fourth of July a barbecue brisket.

Starting the slow cooker at 10 AM and walking away from it allows me to deal with entropy in the form of lawns that need to be mowed, downed trees in the woods and the patio needing power-washing.
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Re: Entropy

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mediatechnology wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2017 7:10 am Since you've been writing about the slow cooker I've been inspired to use mine.

I've cooked two batches of Saint Louis style barbecue ribs.
For the Fourth of July a barbecue brisket.

Starting the slow cooker at 10 AM and walking away from it allows me to deal with entropy in the form of lawns that need to be mowed, downed trees in the woods and the patio needing power-washing.
I had a crock pot years ago that fell into disuse... My current one is a larger premium model,,, with multiple temperature settings and even a browning setting (400') that I never use (tried it once but too much extra work)..

I have refined my cooking routine to reduce number of pots used and touches... For a long time I would cook the beans separately on the stove top, and then cook the (brown) rice separately to better control doneness (sometimes the beans and rice didn't completely cook inside the slow cooker....

I would prefer more programmable temperature steps but I use the automatic warming function, where after it finishes the timed cooking it enters a warming mode for 8 hours. Warming is only 130'F so not hot enough to kill bacteria, but still useful.

Most of my dinner meals have a lot of vegetables that I chop up the night before. I even freeze them for a couple hours as an old trick of mine to give them a cooked texture (from freezing disrupting the cell walls) without over cooking.

My current strategy is late at night before I retire, start the roast (or whatever couple pound hunk of meat), and beans around midnight. To completely cook the beans, while being able to discard the bean water, I put the beans already soaked in water, into a sealed ziplock bag inside the slow cooker (squeeze the air out of the zip lock bag so it doesn't expand). I set the temp on low (160' IIRC) for one hour, then let it warm overnight. The next morning I drain off the liquid from the meat into a fat separator, so i can extract any excess fat. I can really see a difference in fat content between different cuts of meat

I then put my dry brown rice into the bottom of the cooker and reintroduce the strained fat-free liquid from cooking the meat. Another hour on low to cook the rice. (Note: the beans are still in their zip lock bag cooking. )

After the rice is done, I dump in all the chopped vegetables and one large can of chopped tomatoes. Sometimes I mix in a package of chili ingredients (like 3 alarm), sometime not. I then set the slow cooker for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. By dinner time it is finished cooking and cruising on warm again.

At dinner time I parcel out into pyrex meal sized servings, one batch makes 7-8 dinner servings. I grab the roast or hunk of meat and cut it into smaller portions. By now it is easy to pull the meat apart with a fork... I rinse the beans, still inside the zip lock bag, drain and then mix them into the rest of the dish.

========
Last week I cooked my salmon lunch meal (once every three weeks)... lots of common vegetables, but since the liquid coming from the (frozen) salmon has almost zero fat. I tried the skinless frozen salmon a few times but it is cheaper with skin on and I don't taste any difference in the final dish. I put the rice in before the overnight session and didn't bother separating out fat (because there isn't any). Same timing one hour on low, then warm for the rest of the overnight. Some people smoke salmon at only 110' but I like hitting it at 160' for one hour. Any bacteria are likely to be on the outside. Last week I made 23 smaller pyrex servings of my typical lunch meal.

------

It's been a while maybe I need to fire up my smoker this weekend? 90s outside will make it easier to hold temperature in the smoker.

JR

PS: I never fixed the microprocessor boot-up issue with my slow cooker because it was still working. We lost power last night, after I was already in my rack. I just checked the slow cooker and it is still working properly so I still need to wait for it to break before I can fix it... :lol:
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Re: Entropy

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JR. wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:41 pm Well in our onward march to final equilibrium and decay, my latest repair adventure was my 86yo neighbors electric wheelchair/scooter.
Image
We got about an inch and half rain storm the other day and the mobility scooter while covered in plastic got wet enough to stop working.

It was a bit of an adventure to get apart and troubleshooting codes gave me a bum steer.... The beep alarm (slow beep) suggested problem was with the wig-wag pot and/or speed control... (they call it wig-wag not me, but that the forward back control...). I wasted way too much time looking for the problem with it and traced the wiring all the way back to the processor, buried deep inside the guts.

At the end of the day I fixed it with a q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. Apparently the rain water and some dirt or corrosion products inside created a conductive path on the processor board where it reads the voltage of the wig-wag pot...making it appear bad.

I found a secret speed pot inside that sets the max speed so I turned that up. :D :D

Now my neighbors chair goes faster too...

I was glad I could fix it for him for free... I suspect some repair depot would sell him a new controller board.

JR

PS: It looks like there are some 15-20 different versions of these with the guts all made by the same company in China (Pihsiang). I hate to admit it but the design seems pretty solid and the troubleshooting help while not literally correct for me looks like it would be useful for most common repairs.
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The last time I fixed this was back in 2014 (i also fixed the battery charger in 2013).... Well it stopped working again, and my sweet 89(?) YO neighbor decided to fix it himself... :roll: :roll: :roll: I happened by while he had it open with wires hanging out all over the place. I asked him to stop and told him I couldn't bear to watch when he ignored me... As I walked away I told him to let me know when he gave up... He said he would never give up. :P Two days later his wife sheepishly called me to ask if I had a minute to look at it... :roll:

I guess I took my time in a little passive-aggressive payback for him not listening to me, but after a day in his car port poking around, I rolled it over to my house and into the air conditioning... The control wiring was really a mess with several wires twisted together... The on/off key switch only had one wire still connected to it, so I knew that wasn't possibly correct. The key switch had a lead with an insulated spade lug on it, but nothing in the vicinity the right size to mate with it. A bunch of wires had insulation stripped off them with a knife (I couldn't get him to explain why he did that but he admitted doing it.)

With my VOM I found the 24v power lead (Brown?) that my neighbor had twisted together with several others. I put a new spade lug connector the right size to mate with the power switch, so one fire hazard avoided ( there is also a fuse in series with the power if the manuals are to be trusted). The scooter innards was too dirty to trace wires back to confirm.

It took me longer than I care to admit to figure out where the mash up of wires should go... The forward-back pot has 5V across it (2.5V midpoint = stopped).. the wiper of that forward/back pot has two different pots (rheostats) in series with the wiper. One hidden under the cowling (as a secret speed control) and the other a top panel external speed control.

As I noted back a few years ago, i am pretty impressed with the robustness of the design with all the wires randomly cross connected and shorted to 24V nothing inside the controller failed.

I just returned the working scooter to my neighbor and very firmly told him to not attempt to repair it himself next time. 8-)

I try to take care of him, because I just see myself in another 20 years, but damn... he made it a lot harder than it needed to be... it was probably only one broken wire that I could have found and fixed in minutes, not days... thanks to his butchered repair attempt.

JR
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Re: Entropy

Post by mediatechnology »

he made it a lot harder than it needed to be... it was probably only one broken wire that I could have found and fixed in minutes, not days... thanks to his butchered repair attempt.
Reminds me of my bench repair days when I had to undo other people's previous repair attempts to get to the bottom of the real problem.

Yesterday after mowing all but one lawn the front wheel fell off the Toro lawn mower.
I had finished for the day (before it got too hot) and the wheel came off - luckily - as I was pushing it back to the garage.

The mower is 15 years old and I've had to change a broken wheel before.
This time was different: The hardened steel bolt that attaches the height adjustment to the deck snapped.
It was a special fine thread pitch shoulder bolt.

The normal hardware store I use in Desoto for small engine repair parts was out of stock.
Luckily I found one at another nearby dealer and was able to finish mowing this morning.
I'm glad it didn't break halfway through a yard.

I do have a backup mower I use to keep the trails open with but I really didn't want to use it to mow the front yard.
That mower has a cracked crankcase and has had a hard life.
I like to use it only when necessary.
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JR.
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Re: Entropy

Post by JR. »

mediatechnology wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 3:31 pm
he made it a lot harder than it needed to be... it was probably only one broken wire that I could have found and fixed in minutes, not days... thanks to his butchered repair attempt.
Reminds me of my bench repair days when I had to undo other people's previous repair attempts to get to the bottom of the real problem.

Yesterday after mowing all but one lawn the front wheel fell off the Toro lawn mower.
I had finished for the day (before it got too hot) and the wheel came off - luckily - as I was pushing it back to the garage.
You must be living right.... both my recent mower flat tires occurred at the start of the cutting.
The mower is 15 years old and I've had to change a broken wheel before.
This time was different: The hardened steel bolt that attaches the height adjustment to the deck snapped.
It was a special fine thread pitch shoulder bolt.

The normal hardware store I use in Desoto for small engine repair parts was out of stock.
Luckily I found one at another nearby dealer and was able to finish mowing this morning.
I'm glad it didn't break halfway through a yard.

I do have a backup mower I use to keep the trails open with but I really didn't want to use it to mow the front yard.
That mower has a cracked crankcase and has had a hard life.
I like to use it only when necessary.
I am down to three lawnmowers (for all of 1 acre. :roll: ). I should count my string trimmer as a 4th mower, because I use it now to cut trim I used to do with my 22" mower. Another thing about hot weather the output from the Lion batteries used in the string trimmer get hot and lose output... Not only that you can't even put them on the charger when they are hot, it won't charge. I use both batteries I have and last week after the second battery was dead, the first battery was still too hot to charge. Not a problem since I needed to stop messing around in the humidity... it isn't the heat as much as the humidity lately that has been brutal.

---
Does Mcmaster Carr carry the odd hardware you were looking for..? not cheap but they carry a decent selection.

My tiny town had two hardware stores when I first moved here 3 decades ago... now there are zero. Walley World < 10 miles away has general hardware but nothing like you were looking for.

JR
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