Your recent repair? 2013 - 2020

[travelover]

Fixed my DW's beloved Braun coffee maker. It suddenly just went dead, so our thought was to simply buy another as it is getting old. Alas, they now only make that model in 220 volts, for overseas applications.

I opened it up to find that a previous repair with a new heater element had a poor solder joint that has melted and pulled away. I reconnected it and it is good as new.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

Cleared out the aeration hosing to the dishwasher.

It started to bubble water up the aeration cap on the sink lip making a watery mess the last couple of weeks.

I watched a youtube video on an easy 2 step repair
1) remove the silver aeration cap, pinch the sides of the plastic assembly underneath to release the cap, then place a paper towel tube over the top, seal with your hand and blow. I felt a 'plop' then no resistance.

Thought I was done, but the next load still leaked out.

The vid did say the 2nd hose from the aeration fixture to the disposal may also be clogged.

2) loosen hose clamp underneath sink to aeration fixture, pull hose off, use paper towel tube and blow - much harder effort to clear the hose. No cleaner rod or scraping needed.

Done and done.

 

[jpeter1093]

Replaced the wheels on a sticky sliding screen door. Tip: Get the correct one - don't even bother trying to substitute. Lowe's has them all on their web site - just get the one that looks like your broken one. And if you have a choice between metal or plastic wheels - get the metal.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

Left megacorp for the last day as an employee yesterday. Got home and had to go fix an AC unit first thing at a rental. Welded the trailer this morning. Cleared a clogged line on the mister for our home AC unit this morning as well. At least the repairs aren't stacking up since I can fix them as they come...

 

[NW-Bound]

Where I am, mister spray to cool an AC means that the condenser fins will get clogged up with mineral in a matter of months. The water is that hard. Even mister sprays to cool outdoor living areas like patios will result in white chalky residue coating everything. Arghhh! I guess one can use distilled water, but that is not economical.

 

[ERD50]

Where I am, mister spray to cool an AC means that the condenser fins will get clogged up with mineral in a matter of months. The water is that hard. Even mister sprays to cool outdoor living areas like patios will result in white chalky residue coating everything. Arghhh! I guess one can use distilled water, but that is not economical.

A standard ion-exchange water softener would replace the minerals with salt (NaCl). Salt water is corrosive, but at least it is very soluble and could be rinsed away.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Salt on aluminum doesn't sound too good to me. I wonder if RO water would be better.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

Mister wasn't a problem on my last unit (as far as I know and according to the tech who replaced it). Old unit failed when the controller left the compressor constantly on. I have seen buildup in pipes from older (50+ years) buildings. For an AC the most damage was done when someone's dog used it as a location to mark his territory. Urine will absolutely eat the cooling fins...

 

[ERD50]

Salt on aluminum doesn't sound too good to me. I wonder if RO water would be better.

RO would be better, but at some cost. I don't think the salt concentrations in softened water are high enough to be a problem if some kind of rinse is performed occasionally. My softened well water is ~ 700 ppm (either before or after the softener, the minerals are exchanged for salt). No corrosion on anything. That's 0.07%, versus something like 3.5% for sea water?

With constant evaporation, the salt will build up over time. But that should easily rinse away, salt is very soluble. That's why you are not supposed to use softened water for potted plants. The salt levels in the water are not a problem for a plant, but as the water evaporates the salt is left behind with each watering and will eventually build up to harmful concentrations. Not a problem for cut flowers that only get a few additions or replacements of water.

-ERD50

 

[ArkTinkerer]

The 55" TV that I repaired by replacing a couple of dozen bad electrolytic capacitors failed again about 4 months ago, after working for more than a year. I first described the repair here and here.

Last time it was used, it turned itself off after displaying a message about possibly overheating due to restrictive airflow. So, I unplugged it, and it has been sitting since. We do not watch much TV, and even the smaller 32" set in our bedroom has not been turned on for several months. But lacking of things to do inside the home as I try to stay out of the heat, I pulled it out trying to see whether I should fix it or to throw it away.

Now, the thing would not turn on.

When plugged in, this set will go through a boot procedure, not unlike a PC booting. It takes about 1 min, and a green LED on the front panel flashes during the procedure. After the light blinked about 11 times, the internal processor apparently crashed, and the LED turned off. After a second or two, the process started all over again.

Suspecting a power supply problem, I put a voltmeter on the main 15V rail, and watched it sagged right about the time the boot was aborted. How in the world am I going to isolate the culprit component among the thousand parts in this TV?

To make the story shorter, it suffices to say that researching the Web led me to a tiny 10uF capacitor that sits on the Vcc pin of the main switching regulator IC. What happened was that when the processor powered up the main signal boards during the boot process, the power demand surged, and the weak capacitor prevented the regulator IC from doing its job to increase the power to keep up with the demand. The voltage sagged, causing the processor to crash. The whole thing repeated every 10 seconds.

So, after removing the board, unsoldering the 10uF bad cap and seeing that its value being now only 2uF as measured with a capacitance meter, I replaced it with a new one. The thing is working like new now.

See photo of the set sitting on a pair of work stands. This time, I only had to take out the power supply, and not the more gory processor boards and their zillions of interconnect cables.

Might want to consider replacing it with a better cap! They are rated for lifetime, ripple current, temperature range, voltage. Better specs on any of these--but especially the first 3-- would likely result in a part that lasts much longer.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes. All replaced caps are the best, read most expensive, that Digikey has to offer. High-temperature good stuff from Japan. My labor is not cheap.

 

[Ronstar]

Swapped out my old malfunctioning sprinkler pump for a new one





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[Big_Hitter]

^ nice! that looks like an old one - my buddy had one that was leaking we just pulled it and it runs fine off of city pressure - you must be on irrigation water

 

[Ronstar]

^ nice! that looks like an old one - my buddy had one that was leaking we just pulled it and it runs fine off of city pressure - you must be on irrigation water

Yep - there's a lake about 10' to the right. I draw lake water through a foot valve in a rock filter. My old pump was leaking like your buddy's - and the leaks only compounded the rust.

 

[splitwdw]

Fixed my DW's beloved Braun coffee maker. It suddenly just went dead, so our thought was to simply buy another as it is getting old. Alas, they now only make that model in 220 volts, for overseas applications.

I opened it up to find that a previous repair with a new heater element had a poor solder joint that has melted and pulled away. I reconnected it and it is good as new.

Uh oh, the joint melted and pulled away? That can't be good.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yep - there's a lake about 10' to the right. I draw lake water through a foot valve in a rock filter. My old pump was leaking like your buddy's - and the leaks only compounded the rust.

All the water one can take? Do you own the lake? I wish I got another water source than city tap water for my wife's garden.

I have no lawn left, but my wife likes to drench her plants, no matter that it's a desert here.

 

[Ronstar]

Your recent repair?

All the water one can take? Do you own the lake? I wish I got another water source than city tap water for my wife's garden.



I have no lawn left, but my wife likes to drench her plants, no matter that it's a desert here.

All the water I can take. My property line is in the lake. HOA claims they have jurisdiction, and allow sprinkler pumps drawing lake water.

The pump is a beast. 2" intake, 2" discharge, 2 hp, 69gpm flow rate. Because of the flow rate, I jumper 3 zones together (15 rotors) and still have great flow. So I only run 3 zones.

Like your wife, I like to drench things. 3 zones going 14 mins,14 mins, 20 mins once, sometimes twice a day in dry periods. I run a hose off of zone 1 daily to manually water potted plants, and manually water flowers in ground unreachable by sprinklers every other day. I roughly calculated my water usage at 1400 gallons per day or 2800 gallons on rare days that I run the system twice.

Good thing I don't pay for water, but I think my pump adds about $80-$100 per month in the electric bill. Good thing we had a lot of rain in April through June. I didn't really start watering until July this year.



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[Bamaman]

My house gutters, downspouts and Gutter Helmets are done as of July 15.
No more leaking gutters. They carefully removed and re-installed the existing roof heating wires right into the new gutters/helmets and the valley where the main roof and porch roof connect. No more ice dams ! I placed flat stones under each downspout to disperse the outflow.

I asked the gutter guys to save whatever was still usable for my gardening buddy. He collects rainwater in barrels for his ground garden.

The gunk that had collected in the old gutters was amazing. I wish my neighbor would do something about the line of half dead trees between our properties. It drops all sorts of seeds and tiny leaves with every spring storm.

I no longer have to worry about that clogging up my gutters.

Next up...trimming back the grassed-over edges and re-sealing the driveway. I will contract that out for sure. I ain't 20 anymore.

I just removed 200' of gutters from my house. With 7 sixty foot tall pine trees in the yard, I was growing trees out of my clogged gutters. I'm chopping up the gutters and sending them to the recyclers.

 

[NW-Bound]

Uh oh, the joint melted and pulled away? That can't be good.

But this time, my friend travelover used Gorilla duct tape, not the no-name brand at the dollar store, to hold it together.

I had an electric room heater that got a joint broken similarly. It was a welded joint between a wire and the end of the heating element. As there's no way I could reweld it, I devised a connection using a nut and screw to clamp the ends together.

 

[travelover]

But this time, my friend travelover used Gorilla duct tape, not the no-name brand at the dollar store, to hold it together. .............

Exactly. If you want to fix it right, use good quality duct tape!

 

[Theseus]

Clutch replacement on my motorcycle, required splitting the bike tractor style (BMW dry clutch). Lining the clutch actuator pushrod (about the diameter of a pencil) while muscling things around or teetering it on a hydraulic jack didn’t sound like a good idea; so a few wood scraps, a Harbor Freight mover’s dolly, handful of screws, and a few beers later this invention was spawned. Height set to about a ¼” below motor/clutch assembly so final fit only required a little bit of a bit of fine tuning. Who’d a thunk there could be so many miles of wiring and plumbing on a simple two-wheeled conveyance. Finally finished up last night and all systems seem to be working properly. Will do a number of verification checks this morning before taking it out for a maiden voyage this morning.

 

[Texas Proud]

In the middle of working on two toilets that lost their seal between the tank and the bowl... cannot believe both went out at the same time...

The most difficult thing was finding the right replacement.... the first one I took out was crushed and when I took it in to Home Depot they told me it was 'this one'... well, it wasn't.... took it back to a different HD and they tried to sell me a different one... just kept telling me to keep tightening it down more....

Went to Lowes and found what I needed on my own.... at least I think I did... we will find out soon....

 

[NW-Bound]

I replaced a toilet tank seal recently. After 30 years, one day it failed suddenly and the leak was torrential. When removed, the thing fell apart in my hand. Home Depot had only 2 types and none fitted. I ended up using the closest one, plus a big donut made from butyl tape to seal the gap. What a fiasco!

 

[samclem]

Toilet tanks: Hopefully everyone has gotten the word to stay away from "bowl fresheners" and other products with bleach that dissolve in the toilet tank. They are very hard on flapper valves, riser tubes, and the tank gaskets.

 

[Texas Proud]

I replaced a toilet tank seal recently. After 30 years, one day it failed suddenly and the leak was torrential. When removed, the thing fell apart in my hand. Home Depot had only 2 types and none fitted. I ended up using the closest one, plus a big donut made from butyl tape to seal the gap. What a fiasco!

Yep, ours are about 30 years old... daughters just went quickly like yours... I flushed and my feet were wet immediately.... so far, this is 3 of the 4 toilets... I had one go out a year or so ago....


Interesting, but my HD had maybe 8 to 10 seals... some were pretty large and some were small... the one they suggested had the right ID, but the OD was about a half inch smaller than what I had... Lowe's had what I needed... when I put it on, I was able to stretch it to cover the plastic nut holding the tube.

Just finished it up.... at first there was a leak, but finally found it and it was one of the screws holding the top tank down.... tightened it up and so far so good...