The good news is that the mower shop did not hurt me to bad on the cost to replace the seized bearings in the chain drive, but they didn't break any speed records on getting it fixed and back to me. In their defense they had trouble getting some obscure seals to finish the repair.
Not so funny story, I tried not to be the typical pesky customer who bugs them every other day to get the mower fixed, so I made a concerted effort to not bother them for weeks at a time. At about 5 weeks in I stopped by and after a while trying to remind them who I was and they they had my mower there for repair, they finally gave me some vague excuse. I volunteered to use their email address to get updates and the red neck princess working the counter said don't worry she would call me when it was ready... So another few weeks later I was over near their shop so dropped in again. It turns out my mower was repaired and had been sitting for a week because they didn't know my phone number???? Which I gave them when they picked it up weeks earlier. Then I found out, the phone number difficulty was because they tied to look up the name of the guy I bought my house from almost 30 years ago??? You have to love the small town mentality where they think they know everyone even when they don't.
The icing on the cake was when they finally dropped it off at my house, he couldn't get it to start. The ball bearings in the rope start pawl drive were stuck and wouldn't engage. So it worked so he could start it to drive up on the trailer, but less than 2 miles later, it wouldn't start to get off the trailer. I told him to leave it and I fixed that myself..
Ignition circuit still is a little leaky... I may need to rewire the whole thing.
====
More stuff broke and repaired but what else is new?
JR
Entropy
Re: Entropy
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Re: Entropy
I have been slack about posting things I fixed...
here is an old wheelbarrow I borrowed from a neighbor to use to move some dirt around my yard. When the state Hwy dept came to remove about 20 years of sediment from my front rain ditch (0n a state road). I told them to leave the dirt behind, since most of it was good topsoil, and I had some low spots that could use the dirt. The wood strut that the wheel axel bolts to, was rotting out. You can see the fresh new piece of wood attached by the wheel... pretty easy repair, once I found the right sized wood. The pan is also rusting out, but this will last long enough for me to finish moving my dirt... I've already moved about half of it (into a back rain ditch that was cut too deep). It takes a lot more time for me to move this one wheelbarrow load at a time, than the backhoe operator did removing it from my front ditch in a few hours.
JR
here is an old wheelbarrow I borrowed from a neighbor to use to move some dirt around my yard. When the state Hwy dept came to remove about 20 years of sediment from my front rain ditch (0n a state road). I told them to leave the dirt behind, since most of it was good topsoil, and I had some low spots that could use the dirt. The wood strut that the wheel axel bolts to, was rotting out. You can see the fresh new piece of wood attached by the wheel... pretty easy repair, once I found the right sized wood. The pan is also rusting out, but this will last long enough for me to finish moving my dirt... I've already moved about half of it (into a back rain ditch that was cut too deep). It takes a lot more time for me to move this one wheelbarrow load at a time, than the backhoe operator did removing it from my front ditch in a few hours.
JR
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Re: Entropy
In my never ending battle against decay, and natural return to disorder, I repaired the curtain pull for the drapes across my picture window in my main room. I can't even remember how long the cord was tangled up and frayed. I had been opening and closing the drapes for years by hand but when I installed my DIY interior storm window, I took down the curtain rod and restrung it. Not heavy lifting, but nice to have it working again.
JR
[edit] It turns out after a couple weeks the toothbrush battery looses max charge again. Another deep discharge cycle gets it strong again for another few weeks. [/edit]
JR
[edit] It turns out after a couple weeks the toothbrush battery looses max charge again. Another deep discharge cycle gets it strong again for another few weeks. [/edit]
Last edited by JR. on Sun Feb 16, 2014 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cancel the "cancel culture", do not support mob hatred.
Re: Entropy
It's the little things, isn't it? So many of them around here to attend...
Best,
Doug Williams
Electromagnetic Radiation Recorders
Doug Williams
Electromagnetic Radiation Recorders
Re: Entropy.. that was easy
This almost doesn't qualify as a repair, but my electric toothbrush was getting puny and I was resigned to replacing it soon, but decided to try an old trick I heard about once. Yesterday morning after my morning brush, I turned it on and left it on to fully discharge the battery.. After a couple hours (I don't know how long it actually took to stop), I switched it back off and put it on the charger again. Last night and this morning the brush was as powerful as when it was brand new... the battery came back to original charge levels.
That was easy....
JR
That was easy....
JR
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Re: Entropy
The best laid plans for even a simple repair do not always work out.
I recently replaced a pair of cheap under counter fluorescent lamps that had burned out tubes, with new LED fixtures. Since I was too cheap to throw the old fixtures away, I need some low use counter light in my laundry room by my coffee roaster (I currently use a drop light). So I decided to buy some replacement fluorescent tubes.
A website called 1001 bulbs sounded promising and after searching through hundreds of fluorescent tubes I found 2 that looked close.
Well the replacement was not very close at all.. Instead of roughly .8" diameter the replacement tube was about .25" and about a half inch longer than the fixture.
The lamps were too cheap to return for refund, and I was too cheap to throw them away, so I cut a round hole in one end of the fixture and soldered the lamp in place. While not pretty. with several layers of electrical tape over the exposed end, I now have a working counter lamp for my laundry room. I don't think I 'll hoke up the other fixture.. I may remove the ballast and throw the rest away. Apparently these really cheap fixtures do not even bother with standard bulbs.
========
At the same time I ordered a new 13W screw base LED lamp for my deak lamp.. this 75W equivalent is a slightly different color temp from my old 60W equivalent LED, but I appreciate the extra lumens more than care about the less white color. I guess after a couple days in use the color is more IC bulb like, FWIW.
JR
I recently replaced a pair of cheap under counter fluorescent lamps that had burned out tubes, with new LED fixtures. Since I was too cheap to throw the old fixtures away, I need some low use counter light in my laundry room by my coffee roaster (I currently use a drop light). So I decided to buy some replacement fluorescent tubes.
A website called 1001 bulbs sounded promising and after searching through hundreds of fluorescent tubes I found 2 that looked close.
Well the replacement was not very close at all.. Instead of roughly .8" diameter the replacement tube was about .25" and about a half inch longer than the fixture.
The lamps were too cheap to return for refund, and I was too cheap to throw them away, so I cut a round hole in one end of the fixture and soldered the lamp in place. While not pretty. with several layers of electrical tape over the exposed end, I now have a working counter lamp for my laundry room. I don't think I 'll hoke up the other fixture.. I may remove the ballast and throw the rest away. Apparently these really cheap fixtures do not even bother with standard bulbs.
========
At the same time I ordered a new 13W screw base LED lamp for my deak lamp.. this 75W equivalent is a slightly different color temp from my old 60W equivalent LED, but I appreciate the extra lumens more than care about the less white color. I guess after a couple days in use the color is more IC bulb like, FWIW.
JR
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Re: Entropy
Time for another pseudo-repair anecdote.
My recent equipment failure is the control board for my big dog coffee bean roaster. This unit has a huge LCD display with multi-color back light for the LCD. I don't use a fraction of the programming features but I use the hell out of my roaster, roasting new batches of green beans every few days. Well the control board still works but the back light has gone beserk, randomly lighting different colors often making the display solid red and hard to read.
The manufacturer is pretty good about DIY repair but in their world the repair is replacing the control board for $200. I could replace the big board with a cheaper less fancy control board for $120, or practice self-help. My initial suspicion was that the LCD was affected by cold temperatures this winter but closer inspection narrowed the fault down to the back light (3 banks of colored LEDs)... I could find where these LEDs were driven by a darlington transistor array buffer, but lost the signal there. The PCB traces were under the array and I had no idea where they emerged. There were two apparent microprocessor or gate arrays. One with maybe 40 pins, another with probably 100+. I tried to find where the buffer array was being driven using the continuity beeper on my VOM but had no luck. Now maybe that was the problem (bad solder on the processor pins driving the darlingtons) but i tried from all three of the darlington input pins and had no success. Way too many pins, and way too fine pitch to just randomly re solder all the processor pins
My Gordian knot solution was to just short the three LED driver outputs together Between the darlington open collector outputs and current limit resistors feeding the LEDs. Now I get a constant color back light so I can keep roasting for now. The different color back light was arguably too much information or too cute, so roaster is fully functional for now.
=====
BTW fresh home roasted coffee using quality green beans is soooo gooood. I buy green beans from http://www.sweetmarias.com/index.php and have never been disappointed.
The Hottop (made in Korea) is like the Cadillac of home roasters, and after years of using them (this is my second) I still like them. The blue square is the LCD display.
If the control board deteriorates further I may replace with the cheaper control board (smaller LCD).
JR
{edit} my brute force solution was somewhat unsatisfying so I revisited this. Digging deeper the 100 pin IC was the LCD ram and driver so not associated with the back light. Digging a little deeper I determined that the darlington array that was driving the 3 color LEDs was actually 3 pairs of two darlingtons wired in series? Perhaps to increase drive current, but looking closer I determined that one of the input side Darlingtons was weak and when it was supposed to be pulling down to 0V it was sitting up around 0.5V so the second darlington was not getting valid on/off logic. The array has 7 darlingtons, so I wired the spare in parallel with the weak one, and now it is working in multi color splendor. I need to order a replacement array, probably a $.50 part in small quantity. [/edit]
My recent equipment failure is the control board for my big dog coffee bean roaster. This unit has a huge LCD display with multi-color back light for the LCD. I don't use a fraction of the programming features but I use the hell out of my roaster, roasting new batches of green beans every few days. Well the control board still works but the back light has gone beserk, randomly lighting different colors often making the display solid red and hard to read.
The manufacturer is pretty good about DIY repair but in their world the repair is replacing the control board for $200. I could replace the big board with a cheaper less fancy control board for $120, or practice self-help. My initial suspicion was that the LCD was affected by cold temperatures this winter but closer inspection narrowed the fault down to the back light (3 banks of colored LEDs)... I could find where these LEDs were driven by a darlington transistor array buffer, but lost the signal there. The PCB traces were under the array and I had no idea where they emerged. There were two apparent microprocessor or gate arrays. One with maybe 40 pins, another with probably 100+. I tried to find where the buffer array was being driven using the continuity beeper on my VOM but had no luck. Now maybe that was the problem (bad solder on the processor pins driving the darlingtons) but i tried from all three of the darlington input pins and had no success. Way too many pins, and way too fine pitch to just randomly re solder all the processor pins
My Gordian knot solution was to just short the three LED driver outputs together Between the darlington open collector outputs and current limit resistors feeding the LEDs. Now I get a constant color back light so I can keep roasting for now. The different color back light was arguably too much information or too cute, so roaster is fully functional for now.
=====
BTW fresh home roasted coffee using quality green beans is soooo gooood. I buy green beans from http://www.sweetmarias.com/index.php and have never been disappointed.
The Hottop (made in Korea) is like the Cadillac of home roasters, and after years of using them (this is my second) I still like them. The blue square is the LCD display.
If the control board deteriorates further I may replace with the cheaper control board (smaller LCD).
JR
{edit} my brute force solution was somewhat unsatisfying so I revisited this. Digging deeper the 100 pin IC was the LCD ram and driver so not associated with the back light. Digging a little deeper I determined that the darlington array that was driving the 3 color LEDs was actually 3 pairs of two darlingtons wired in series? Perhaps to increase drive current, but looking closer I determined that one of the input side Darlingtons was weak and when it was supposed to be pulling down to 0V it was sitting up around 0.5V so the second darlington was not getting valid on/off logic. The array has 7 darlingtons, so I wired the spare in parallel with the weak one, and now it is working in multi color splendor. I need to order a replacement array, probably a $.50 part in small quantity. [/edit]
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Re: Entropy
It has literally been weeks since my last report....
OK last night I noticed that one of my two solar powered driveway lamps was not lit up. This was the one with the better battery too.
I took it apart expecting to find a bad solder connection or insects in the machine...but alas no obvious fault. I saw what looked like tin whiskers but do not expect that to be an issue in a crude through hole design. I reverse engineered the simple design and it looks like solar cells charge a battery through a simple diode, and a charge pump to drive the LED (small cap with another diode). The boost lamp circuit is turned off by a separate Light Dependent Resistor. I guess they made it cost effectively enough, I think I paid $5 or less at Lowes. I would have used the solar panel voltage output to detect when the light level was low enough to turn on the LED, eliminating the LDR and two point to point wires, and labor to mount it in place, etc.etc..
But back to why it wasn't working. I determined that the dark resistance of the LDR was too low keeping the lamp turned off... It barely changed resistance between dark and light. I extracted it from the plastic housing, and it looked like it was sealed within clear conformal coating, so I just tried scraping it's back between it's two leads with a sharp knife, and it started working again.
I suspect humidity and dirt will foul it again,.but for know I have both lamps working again.
Bad design ... next time it fails I may need to hoke up some way to sense across the solar panel output voltage. For example if i repace the diode in series with the solar panel charging the battery with the base emitter junction of a PNP transistor, I can use the collector of that PNP to drive a NPN to turn off the charge pump, whenever the solar array is still charging the battery... Two transistors and one resistor is probably cheaper than the LDR...
TBD if my new improved approach turns on too soon depleting the battery too quickly. Alternately I could directly sense across the solar panel voltage for more light sensitivity. Perhaps needing only one active device....
Don't tell the chinese.
JR
OK last night I noticed that one of my two solar powered driveway lamps was not lit up. This was the one with the better battery too.
I took it apart expecting to find a bad solder connection or insects in the machine...but alas no obvious fault. I saw what looked like tin whiskers but do not expect that to be an issue in a crude through hole design. I reverse engineered the simple design and it looks like solar cells charge a battery through a simple diode, and a charge pump to drive the LED (small cap with another diode). The boost lamp circuit is turned off by a separate Light Dependent Resistor. I guess they made it cost effectively enough, I think I paid $5 or less at Lowes. I would have used the solar panel voltage output to detect when the light level was low enough to turn on the LED, eliminating the LDR and two point to point wires, and labor to mount it in place, etc.etc..
But back to why it wasn't working. I determined that the dark resistance of the LDR was too low keeping the lamp turned off... It barely changed resistance between dark and light. I extracted it from the plastic housing, and it looked like it was sealed within clear conformal coating, so I just tried scraping it's back between it's two leads with a sharp knife, and it started working again.
I suspect humidity and dirt will foul it again,.but for know I have both lamps working again.
Bad design ... next time it fails I may need to hoke up some way to sense across the solar panel output voltage. For example if i repace the diode in series with the solar panel charging the battery with the base emitter junction of a PNP transistor, I can use the collector of that PNP to drive a NPN to turn off the charge pump, whenever the solar array is still charging the battery... Two transistors and one resistor is probably cheaper than the LDR...
TBD if my new improved approach turns on too soon depleting the battery too quickly. Alternately I could directly sense across the solar panel voltage for more light sensitivity. Perhaps needing only one active device....
Don't tell the chinese.
JR
Cancel the "cancel culture", do not support mob hatred.
Re: Entropy
It didn't work the following night, so I tried my two transistor circuit in place of the LDR approach. It turned on a little sooner than the other one still using a LDR but worked fine last night.
I could tweak the turn on circuit to sense directly across the solar cell output, maybe add a diode drop or two in series with that voltage to get sharper turn off, but for now it works.
I think. I need to see if it charges properly through the PNP emitter -base junction today. I used a MPSA56 a 500 mA PNP device so the base should take 10 mA or more of charging current easily. We'll see.
JR
I could tweak the turn on circuit to sense directly across the solar cell output, maybe add a diode drop or two in series with that voltage to get sharper turn off, but for now it works.
I think. I need to see if it charges properly through the PNP emitter -base junction today. I used a MPSA56 a 500 mA PNP device so the base should take 10 mA or more of charging current easily. We'll see.
JR
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Re: Entropy
Well charging the battery through the base-emitter junction works fine, I didn't like it turning on so soon before dark,effectively as soon as the solar cell voltage drops down equal to the fully charged battery voltage.
I added two more resistors to the circuit turning on the NPN to turn off the LED. I added a R to ground from the base of the NPN and another R from emitter to collector of the PNP so when the PNP stops conducting there is still a current path from the solar cell output to the NPN. Now with the tweaks it still turns on sooner than the LDR version but maybe only 15 minutes sooner so not so bad.
Ideally I need to use a mosfet to turn off the LED so I don't steal any current from the charging circuit but now is in the uA range so not bad.
JR
I added two more resistors to the circuit turning on the NPN to turn off the LED. I added a R to ground from the base of the NPN and another R from emitter to collector of the PNP so when the PNP stops conducting there is still a current path from the solar cell output to the NPN. Now with the tweaks it still turns on sooner than the LDR version but maybe only 15 minutes sooner so not so bad.
Ideally I need to use a mosfet to turn off the LED so I don't steal any current from the charging circuit but now is in the uA range so not bad.
JR
Cancel the "cancel culture", do not support mob hatred.