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In August I was bringing older computers back into operation and wound up needing a newer monitor and picked up a "newer" monitor in the form of a rather old 15 inch LCD that did 1024x768. That got pressed into service as my main monitor for a while as in early September my 19 inch LCD (1280x1024) quit. Before I got to attempting repairs, I wound up upgrading to a nice 23 inch LCD with LED backlight (1920x1080).
Last week I finally got around to re-reading a thread on the Bad Caps forum regarding problematic Samxon capacitors in the Samsung SyncMaster 930B and then ordered some new (and hopefully much better) capacitors.
The new capacitors arrived yesterday. They were installed this morning. The old monitor works again. It took longer than I hoped, but it wasn't anything actually difficult, just a bunch of fiddly stuff. I'm really glad I took several pictures of the monitor as I took it apart those weeks ago. They took a lot of guesswork out of re-assembly.
The repaired bulb didn't last very long. It's not an outright failure, but looks like a heat issue. After a while the base heats up and seems to go into a protective thermal shutdown. Then it cools down and the light starts up again. It's a slow cycle, but still annoying. I've pulled the bulb again and replaced it with a Sylvania-branded CFL.
Yesterday the warranty replacement LED bulbs arrived. I decided that the office needs more light than they provide. The office is now all-CFL again and looks the better for it.
One LED bulb is in a desk lamp that had been sitting all but unused for some time. That's where the Sylvania CFL came from. I put the lamp in the living room at the end of the couch where it makes a reasonable reading lamp. Since it uses so little power, I won't feel too guilty about not turning it off should I decide to take a nap and not feel like getting up turn off the light.
The other is near the back door and lights up the small area joining the kitchen, downstairs restroom, and laundry area well enough. But it also revealed that I need to change the switch (hopefully just the switch!) for that light: Off isn't really fully off. The bulb still glows, if dimly, when the switch is off.
or: Repair Beats Recycling
There were two "burned out" CFLs on the shelf. I managed to miss the recycling day by exactly a day (I kept asking the folks who should have known and kept getting 'idunno' replies, yeah government-level competence makes itself felt yet again) and did not feel like having them there another six months waiting the next event, not did I feel driving all over the place to dispose of them.
I had sent the LED bulbs back under warranty (and I have yet to see any results of that), but these were CFLs and had outlasted the warranty. Also, I'm not sure I still had the receipt and such showing the purchase. I plan to be much more paranoid about recordkeeping for light bulbs in the future. So if I don't chase all over the place to find someone to the things, I don't send them anywhere, and I don't leave them on the shelf, then what?
Repair. After all, these are not incandescent bulbs with a broken filament. They're fluorescent and it was pretty obvious that the circuitry in the base was what failed. The base had that peculiar 'something electronic got too hot' smell. I bungled the first bulb in trying to get the thing apart and wound up cracking the glass envelope. Nothing spilled, so everything is now in a zipped plastic bag. I'm not sure what I'll do with that one. I'd like to give it to some of the ignoramuses at the city office - they well and truly deserve it.
I did manage to get the second bulb base apart without breaking the glass envelope. After a while I managed to get fair if not decent access to the circuit board. It wasn't obviously charred and a big capacitor wasn't bulging. One 330k Ohm resistor didn't look right. It was darker than it should have been and had a spot that looked rather... boiled. I replaced it. I did a quick test and the bulb lit up after a moment. After reassembling the base, I put the repaired CFL back into service where one of the LED bulbs had been (and I had left the socket empty) in the office.
Now one bulb is back to being useful and the office is a bit brighter again. And I know how to get CFLs apart and have at least a chance of repairing any further burn-outs.
Obsolete skills?
21 February 2008 20:28A few days ago there was an article on Slashdot about "obsolete skills" - the things that one has learned but are no longer all that useful most of the time. For example, it has been years since I've dialed a rotary telephone. This started with a blog entry: "Obsolete Skills". As a result of that little article someone started a wiki at obsoleteskills.com and people have been adding to it. Not everything is truly obsolete[1] and some entries are outright jokes.
A couple days ago I did engage in one of the supposedly obsolete skills: small appliance repair. Many small appliances are now generally inexpensive and quite reliable. The result is that it's easy for a person to figure he's gotten his money's worth out of the gadget by the time it fails. Much of that reliability has come from technology that is not easy to repair, so there isn't that much incentive to try. Also the standard warning that there are no tubes to be changed (a once common do-it-yourself repair): NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE might dissuade some. So why attempt a repair? Why not? If it doesn't work, no big deal, the gadget was already broken anyway. And if it does work, I get more use of the gadget, don't have to deal with its disposal, and get the satisfaction of having repaired the thing. Besides, I'm old enough that just throwing something away without considering repair just plain offends me.[2]
The toaster I've had for several years was only toasting the bread in on one side, the side facing the center heating element. The outside elements weren't heating at all. Figuring it was already broken and so what damage could I really do, I took it apart and after a while found the problem. What looked like it had been a weld had given, and evidently there had been enough arcing over time to eat a hole in some of the metal that was left. There was enough metal left to fold over to get a good contact again, and the toaster seems to be working right. I expect this repair to be temporary. It's not a proper weld and I expect that the joint will eventually fail and be beyond simple repair. But I don't need to go get a new toaster right now.
[1] While I might not need to adjust a manual choke to start a car, I do need to adjust the choke to start the snowblower.
[2] No, I didn't attempt to repair the old microwave a while back. I did consider it, and safety was a big consideration.
Though Jay may be off to California to be on a TV show and is still getting requests for radio interviews, other things do go on. If problems come in threes, hopefully we have the set now and aren't due another installment somewhere along the line.
A week or two ago there were a couple storms. One Saturday evening pelted the are with hail. The one hailstone I measured was an inch across the major axis (it was not spherical). Sunday night there was storm with high winds. Unusually high wind, even for the Plains. There was no major damage, but there are a few spots on the roof where shingles used to be. Someone was called, but as far I know it hasn't even been looked at yet. Hopefully a quick patch job is all that will be needed. While the roof will need replacement in a couple years, I'd like to be able to wait that couple years.
Last Thursday I noticed that the tab on the mailbox felt mushy, which is not a good way for metal to feel. Sure enough, it broke off on Friday. Friday evening was spent removing the old mailbox, fixing up the post and such that it and the neighbor's boxes are mounted on, and putting the new box in place. It was a typical project: A few too many bent nails and two trips to the hardware store. One positive side effect was that I discovered a rattling in my car was probably due to the migration of tools in the trunk. After putting the toolkit back as it ought to be, things should be quiet again, but I haven't really listened hard yet. I might have caught that sooner, but it's been a few years since I've had use the toolkit I carry in the car.
This Saturday I went into the basement for something and found water on the floor. Fortunately it was not all that much water and only in the unfinished part of the basement. I followed the water to the prime suspect: the aging water heater. I just took four hours off work to be around while that was replaced and to see the inspector who signed off on the installation. To cap it all off, the installer pointed out that who ever installed that old water heater had connected it backwards, which would result in running out of hot water quickly. The new installation is much cleaner, without cross-ways piping. Whoever put in the old heater wasn't just lazy, but evidently actively stupid.
The last 18 hours or so went better than those before them (as described in the previous post). The server could boot from a CD, and with the right CD and a bit of guided prodding it was in a condition such that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jmaynard could patch it up remotely.
While he did that, I looked at the furnace. It wasn't the motor that circulates air through the ductwork. It was the motor that blows exhaust gasses outside ("high efficiency" furnace - no chimney as such). There wasn't anything I could do but clean up a bit and make things easy for the repairman.
Once the server was back, conmicro.cx wasn't resolving, but it was reachable by numeric IP. I didn't do anything there, at least not beyond answer a phone call from someone wondering where Hercules went.
Without the furnace working, it was a night of thick quilts, an electric heating pad, and a Santa hat as a nightcap - hey, it works. The temperature in the living room had dropped to 55 F when I checked it this morning. It was a bit warmer upstairs. At least this happened in late March and not January.
There's heat on in the house again, and not just the blinds open to the south. It didn't take long for the repairman to replace that motor.
It's very unusual for me to take the car to the mechanic for something other than an oil change. But I did today.
I finally had enough with the slow leak of one tire and took the car to a local mechanic who does tire repair. He said it was a very slow leak and he had to look a while to find the problem. But find it he did. Removed a nail, plugged the hole, and that was that.
And since the car was there and I thought I'd heard some noises on a hard turn I asked him to check out the CV joints so if there was a problem it could be taken care of before it got bad/worse. Everything checked out good, and test driving didn't reveal any noises on hard turns.
The best part of all this is that it cost a mere $12. And now I feel much better about things. There's still a few thousand miles worth of tread on the tires and the Corolla is living up to its reputation for being a long lasting, reliable car.
