Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[Cayman]

Mountainsoft - that is no small feat. Nice job

 

[homestead]

Latest repair might be my digital multimeter. I bought it one year ago at Harbor Freight. It's a Centec 61593. I got it for theMicrofarads it can test on capacitors.



I used it successfully a few months ago to test some capacitors.


Just tried it yesterday and the microfarads read zero on 2 different capacitors. I was expecting a non-zero result on one of them.


The voltage testing still works, and also the ohms.


Could the capacitance part of it go bad while the rest still works?


I checked the 9 volt battery with another tester and it read 9.1 volts, so it is OK.



As I move the selector into the capacitance zone, the numbers bounce all around on the screen, then settle down to zero, as they should. I then touch the probes firmly to the terminals of the cap, and the reading stays at zero. Same thing for both capacitors.



A zero reading in capacitance across the capacitor terminals implies a shorted out capacitor, I think. I know one of the capacitors was reading 5 microfarads last time I checked it. Now zero.

The instruction manual says you can remove the back of the meter to look at any fuses that might be there. I tried to do that but the screws seem to be cemented in. Got a good bite with a small phillipshead, but the screws aren't budging. A note on the back of the unit says there are no customer-serviceable parts inside, though.

Clues welcomed!

I have the same meter, was able to use it to troubleshoot our RV AC to find the bad capacitor. Last time I used to test voltage on my truck battery the meter was dead. Replaced the 9v battery as it was too low, I think I saw the fuses inside when I changed the battery. Like someone else said make sure you short out the capacitor beforehand when testing caps.

 

[mountainsoft]

Gutter Replacement

A large limb took out the gutter on our storage shed, so I had to replace it with a new gutter today. Unfortunately, a large tree root is slowly lifting the shed on one end, and I needed the gutter to slope to the opposite end. It looks kind of goofy but the finished gutter only has a very slight slope now. It's the shed that's out of level.

Someday I'll probably need to replace the shed, but that's a project for another day...

 

[Time2]

We had very likely a tornado come through our neighborhood about 3 weeks ago. One neighbor had a one car attached garage, fly up over the house across the street and land in the neighbor's yard. Many fences were down, shingles missing on some roofs. It caused my carport to be demolished. Tore it loose from my garage, wrecking the soffit and fascia, damaging several pieces of aluminum trim in other places around the house.
The carport feel apart and broke two of our windshields, all four post broke, all the pans were bent up, all I salvaged were eight 1/2" nuts and bolts.
Friday, I received the new carport kit. I started putting things together on Saturday about 6:30 am, my neighbor came over about 10am and my son, got up about 11am, we were getting things done and about noon my neighbors nephew showed up. The 4 of us got the whole thing completed, even had the concrete in around the poles by 3:30 that afternoon. I had expected two days to get it up. Thanks to the neighbors it went very quick.
I have felt it all day Sunday in my aching muscles. But so glad it's up and finished.

 

[John Galt III]

I have the same meter, was able to use it to troubleshoot our RV AC to find the bad capacitor. Last time I used to test voltage on my truck battery the meter was dead. Replaced the 9v battery as it was too low, I think I saw the fuses inside when I changed the battery. Like someone else said make sure you short out the capacitor beforehand when testing caps.

All the other functions still work. I gave up trying to get the cover off. Feels like it's going to break. I can change the battery easily. Just a small door comes off for that, but no fuses there. My 9 volt battery tested at 9.1 volts, so is OK apparently.



Fortunately, I don't currently need the Farads section to work. May have to buy a new meter if and when I need to test Farads.

 

[mountainsoft]

The last time I changed the water filter in our pump house I noticed the (new) pressure gauge was stuck at 40psi. So yesterday I drained the system and replaced the pressure gauge with a new one. The old gauge was completely clogged with sediment, despite having the filter ahead of the gauge. I should change the filter more often, but I tend to forget. Out of sight, out of mind.

While I was working on the system, I adjusted the pressure switch from the original 30/50 range to a 40/60 range and added more air to the tank to bring it up to 37psi.

Maybe a 30-45 minute job tops. The hardest part was carrying the air compressor up to the pump house.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Started my replacement and insulation of outlets in the basement. Minnesota house built in 1979 has Styrofoam board for insulation in the basement. I replace the outlet, carefully spray expanding foam between the outlet box and the cutouts in the Styrofoam board, and finish by placing an outlet cover insulation gasket inside the new outlet cover.

Previously the air entering the outlets when the wind was blowing would darn near blow out a lit match. Now there's barely a whisper of outside air getting in.

 

[John Galt III]

Fixed my HVAC air handler blower motor (again). I fixed it last Winter by testing a lot of connections, but not intentionally changing anything. It just started showing voltage in the right spot suddenly. I may have jostled something to make it work.


I left well enough alone, and the blower worked until a few weeks ago. I got out my notes, and retraced my steps. Voltage here, ohms there, less voltage here when this thing is flipped on, etc, etc.



I went farther inside the beast this time. Had to, to test things. Removed metal boxes within metal boxes, unfurled masses of wires, gently twisting to move the small relay box they were attached to, to get it at the right angle to get a probe on a certain contact. All without breaking anything, of course !


I found a contact on the relay that wasn't showing 120 volts when it was supposed to. Contact looked very clean, just gray instead of the usual silver color. Just for kicks I rubbed the gray area with a clean piece of typing paper and got a trace of gray color to rub off. After rubbing, I got 120 volts there. Eureka.


So it's working again.


If it stops a third time, I will replace the relay. It has a number on it, fortunately, so I may be able to find an equivalent.

 

[GenXguy]

My recent (following the refrigerator freezer rebirth) was repairing a really nice Kitchenaid combo convection/microwave.

Hey, I had one of those same type of switches fail in my old Tappan microwave. I bypassed it temporarily so the microwave would still work but went ahead and ordered a new Toshiba microwave because the old one was from 1992 and lower powered. But I might go ahead and order a couple switches and fix the old one for backup.

 

[sengsational]

Despite Black and Decker making it near impossible, I was able to get the "bread drier oven" (aka toaster oven) working-ish again. I call it a bread drier because over time, it seemed to take longer and longer to toast bread. It's a big toaster oven and it always bugged me that it has huge elements, far from the bread. But at least when new, if you were patient, you'd get toast. But it started turning off the elements before the bread toasted. The way it works is the thermostat goes up to 450 and after that is the toast setting. But the thermostat was cutting off too soon.

They had one way metal tab in slot connections, so almost impossible to wrangle apart. They had star screws (just two of about 16, so designed to keep people from fixing the thing). Those don't slow me down. They glued on the knob, so you can't replace replace the thermostat switch without breaking it.

Anyway, I was able to "recalibrate" the thermostat (bent it) so the thing toasts again.

If it wasn't such a good plate warmer, I would have thrown it out.

 

[Winemaker]

Between myself, DW and DS, we spent 18 days cleaning, stripping, patching, caulking, painting, polishing, refinishing, and recarpeting DS's rental condo, prepping it for sale. The realtor and photographer came Friday, listing goes up soon.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Despite Black and Decker making it near impossible, I was able to get the "bread drier oven" (aka toaster oven) working-ish again. I call it a bread drier because over time, it seemed to take longer and longer to toast bread. It's a big toaster oven and it always bugged me that it has huge elements, far from the bread. But at least when new, if you were patient, you'd get toast. But it started turning off the elements before the bread toasted. The way it works is the thermostat goes up to 450 and after that is the toast setting. But the thermostat was cutting off too soon.

They had one way metal tab in slot connections, so almost impossible to wrangle apart. They had star screws (just two of about 16, so designed to keep people from fixing the thing). Those don't slow me down. They glued on the knob, so you can't replace replace the thermostat switch without breaking it.

Anyway, I was able to "recalibrate" the thermostat (bent it) so the thing toasts again.

If it wasn't such a good plate warmer, I would have thrown it out.

"Bread dryer"--love the description! You're more patient than I am. I had a Cuisinart toaster oven with same symptoms which I figured needed a new temperature control, which is a mechanical rotary type device. Expensive part to replace, impossible to access, soldered in place, etc. I had gotten 6 years out of it, I figured that was pretty good, therefore I junked it.

 

[MC Rider]

"Fixed" the clothes washer by deleting the purewash thing that decided to leak all over the wall and floor last night. We were lucky to notice the gushing water right away. Supposedly it oxygenates the water and cleans without laundry soap. Reports of testing says it does about as good as plain water so it is not getting replaced.

 

[skyking1]

I changed the lock and deadbolt set for a co-worker a week ago.
Her husband had pancreatic cancer, only 4 months from diagnosis until he was gone this week.
I said I can do anything you need and that was her ask. It was falling out of the door. He was right there in the living room in a hospital bed, I have been there way too much lately with my own family and focused on the task and got it done quickly and hopefully, quietly.

 

[MC Rider]

I changed the lock and deadbolt set for a co-worker a week ago.
Her husband had pancreatic cancer, only 4 months from diagnosis until he was gone this week.
I said I can do anything you need and that was her ask. It was falling out of the door. He was right there in the living room in a hospital bed, I have been there way too much lately with my own family and focused on the task and got it done quickly and hopefully, quietly.

That was real nice of you. How you do it quietly I have no idea. The things are so fiddly they provoke colorful words for me.

 

[Koogie]

Toilet in the main bathroom had developed an anemic flush. We have very hard water so suspected either scale buildup or (OMG I hope not) a blocked vent pipe.

Rather than climb up on the roof in winter here in Soviet Canuckistan I decided to investigate the descaling first instead of the vent pipe. Shut off the water supply, shop vacced out all the water in the toilet and stuck a wire coathanger into the siphon jet.. yup, mineral buildup. Thank goodness !

DW has cleaning strength vinegar (10%) so filled up the toilet with that via the filler tube. Let sit overnight. Voila.. next morning it was working great.

Going to remind myself somehow to do that twice a year going forward.

 

[Sunset]

Got a new internet provider finally hooked up (after 1 month).
Old one was 75 MPS , new one is 300 MPS.
But we could only get 95 MPS.
Installer said my modem and router were limiting.

I changed the router to a TP-Link AX1800 and set it to my current SSID and passwords.
Simple unplug old one and plug in the new one and now we get 375 MPS download and 25 MPS upload.

What I really like was it has a separate network for IOT devices and I can isolate them from each other. (did mean I gave my old 2.4 to those and made a new guest 2.4 network so I wouldn't have to reprogram all the IOT camera's). Then I hid the SSID for the IOT's.

 

[aja8888]

Toilet in the main bathroom had developed an anemic flush. We have very hard water so suspected either scale buildup or (OMG I hope not) a blocked vent pipe.

Rather than climb up on the roof in winter here in Soviet Canuckistan I decided to investigate the descaling first instead of the vent pipe. Shut off the water supply, shop vacced out all the water in the toilet and stuck a wire coathanger into the siphon jet.. yup, mineral buildup. Thank goodness !

DW has cleaning strength vinegar (10%) so filled up the toilet with that via the filler tube. Let sit overnight. Voila.. next morning it was working great.

Going to remind myself somehow to do that twice a year going forward.

Have you thought about a water treatment system to eliminate the hard water scaling?

 

[sengsational]

The TP roll under the sink was severely soggy (weighed a pound) and so had a spontaneous leak. It was the hose between the hot cutoff and the faucet. More specifically, the crimp between the hose and the fitting.

I ordered a new hose ($5 off Amazon) and replaced it.

The new hose said "replace every 5 years"! Ain't nobody got time for that! I have been thinking about water/moisture alarms. They're cheap, but you gotta keep working batteries in them, I suppose. This cheap bathroom cabinet is particle board and swelled up a bit, but not bad enough to replace.

 

[Sunset]

The TP roll under the sink was severely soggy (weighed a pound) and so had a spontaneous leak. It was the hose between the hot cutoff and the faucet. More specifically, the crimp between the hose and the fitting.

I ordered a new hose ($5 off Amazon) and replaced it.

The new hose said "replace every 5 years"! Ain't nobody got time for that! I have been thinking about water/moisture alarms. They're cheap, but you gotta keep working batteries in them, I suppose. This cheap bathroom cabinet is particle board and swelled up a bit, but not bad enough to replace.

Good thing you weren't on a trip

 

[MC Rider]

That is why we turn the water off outside if we are leaving, even for 1 night.
Of course some appliances still have water in them and might leak, but not a flood.

 

[sengsational]

Good thing you weren't on a trip

Yeah. In the old days, we cut the main before leaving, but now she's got drip watering for outdoors and a visiting neighbor for indoors, so "can't" do that anymore. It was just a drip, but those add-up.

 

[Time2]

I was waiting for a guy with a aluminum Fascia bender to be in the neighborhood, and ask him to bend an 11ft piece of Fascia to replace a gable end piece that blew away in our recent tornado. I had a couple of pieces left from the hurricane 5 years ago that made 9'6" a little to short. My wife got a little antsy today and found a piece of aluminum, and she was sure I could bend it to match. (Damn, I have let known too much about my secret skills . )
So, I hauled out my Harbor Freight sheet metal brake and proceeded to make 3, 90* bends in a 30" aluminum piece to match the original soffit pieces. The hard part was installing it while laying on the ribs of the metal roof, pushing into my ribs. The metal ribs won. I still have to add one more piece, but I'll climb back on the roof tomorrow when I'm fresh again.

 

[Sunset]

... The hard part was installing it while laying on the ribs of the metal roof, pushing into my ribs. The metal ribs won. I still have to add one more piece, but I'll climb back on the roof tomorrow when I'm fresh again.

Could you bring up a thick pillow or folded blanket to put over the metal ribs ?

 

[sengsational]

I have been thinking about water/moisture alarms. They're cheap, but you gotta keep working batteries in them, I suppose..

Too late, but I got 6 for $36 on Amazon. They come with the 9 volt battery and they'll chirp when the battery is low. I hope the battery lasts a good while.