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| Author |
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| 25 new of 848 responses total. |
keesan
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response 765 of 848:
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Jun 11 02:59 UTC 2002 |
Do they also carry bicycle handlebar grips? We cannot find any source of the
non-bumpy wide type that support more of your weight but don't work with the
latest fashion in shifters.
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scott
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response 766 of 848:
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Jul 23 20:48 UTC 2002 |
Got locked out of my house last night, so today's project was to finally redo
the crappy "wood instead of the original window" door panel the previous owner
had done.
I actually had a piece of the original glass, which was fluted on one side
and frosted on the other. Very nice look with the flutes (1" across)
vertical, so I decided to try to find similar glass (I had been thinking of
just doing a better job with wood, but having the window area open while
cleaning out old gunk really looked nice and I decided I wanted to have it
as a window after all). Anyway, did the rounds of the local glass places,
finally ending up at Michigan Glass (3rd place tried) who not only had a big
enough piece of what looked like the *exact* same stuff, but only charged me
$39 for it (including cutting it to the right size). Maybe an hour of putty
knife action later it looked quite nice. Still need to repaint the door,
which is something else which has needed doing.
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rcurl
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response 767 of 848:
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Jul 23 20:56 UTC 2002 |
You might also consider secreting a key outside the house.
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scott
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response 768 of 848:
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Jul 23 22:06 UTC 2002 |
It's a long story, involving the old knob-locks (I have keys to the deadbolts)
and ambiguous locking instructions to a friend.
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keesan
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response 769 of 848:
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Jul 24 02:15 UTC 2002 |
We also found Michigan Glass to be the most reasonably priced glass place near
Ann Arbor, and the owner is extremely knowledgeable and helpful. We plan to
buy patio door glass for our porch glazing project there, after someone who
answered the phone asked why I was not using slightly narrower openings with
standard size panes that would cost half as much. They also sell the glazing
compound/putty type stuff and glazing blocks that you need to put glass in
your own casement windows, and demonstrate how to use it and why. The place
probably wonders why we keep calling once a year for more info on porch glass.
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scott
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response 770 of 848:
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Jul 24 02:46 UTC 2002 |
I want to go back and poke through their patterned/colored glass shelves,
since I spotted a couple interesting looking things in there while they were
cutting my glass. One of these days I need to make doors for that cabinet
I built...
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keesan
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response 771 of 848:
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Jul 24 19:22 UTC 2002 |
My neighbor on Fountain St. makes really nice stained glass and has lots of
different types of glass. Shall I put you in touch with him?
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scott
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response 772 of 848:
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Jul 25 12:41 UTC 2002 |
Someday, maybe. I'm not in a hurry on that project.
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scott
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response 773 of 848:
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Aug 6 20:13 UTC 2002 |
Roughly 8 hours of scraping and sanding, spread out over 4-5 days. Whew.
That's a lot of work. But the first payoff happened today, since I got to
apply the primer. Tomorrow a nice bright red...
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scott
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response 774 of 848:
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Dec 9 23:25 UTC 2002 |
I became greatly annoyed with the high-pitched noises coming from the hard
drive in my desktop computer - even a new disk was noisy, although in a less
"about to fail" way.
So, I made a little internal enclosure for the hard drive. It's possible to
buy a really nice metal unit from http://www.quietpc.com (about $35 after
s&h), but I figured I'd try making my own first. So I dug around in my house
and found some masonite. Low tech, yeah! But it's easy to work with and
likey to do a great job damping sound. I started with an old hard drive and
an old CD-ROM drive (the new ones are in the computer, naturally!) for
measurements. The basic idea was to mount the 3.5" hard drive inside a box
that would mount in a 5.25" drive bay.
So I came up with a basic plan and started cutting. I don't have a table saw
or even room for one, so I've come up with some clever ways to do accurate
and straight cuts with a circular hand saw - but now I can't remember if I've
entered them here or not. If you want to know, ask. I did add a new wrinke:
a pallet (available free quite often) is a wonderful cutting surface since
it supports a big sheet of wood and is much less expensive than a good
workbench - doesn't matter if you cut it up.
Back to the enclosure. I left one of the smallest sides open, which is also
where the connectors would need to go. After cutting out the pieces I glued
them together, then dug into the junk box for a little cooling fan. Sure
enough, I found a couple CPU fans and also scrounged up power connectors.
Cooling matters, as always.
Finally with the glue dried I started fitting the drive into the box. At the
moment it's loose, with a couple sheetmetal plates on both top & bottom to
take up wiggle space and also conduct some heat. I attached a fan to blow
into one side of the opening, and hopefully a nice airflow will take the heat
out. Right now the box is just resting in the bottom of the PC case, with
the remote sensor of an "inside & outside" digital thermometer stuffed into
the side next to the drive. "80.4F" at the moment, about 15 minutes after
booting back up.
Noise is greatly reduced. This level I can stand. :)
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rcurl
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response 775 of 848:
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Dec 20 19:21 UTC 2002 |
The exhaust fan in the shower room was getting very noisy due to
vibration. I took off the grill and found everything was heavily coated
with caked-on dust. Apparently this built up over the years (12?) as fog
from the shower wetted the motor and fan parts and dust was collected by
the damp surfaces. The dust on the squirrel-cage blower imbalanced it,
causing the vibration. It also narrowed the flow channels, including
closing those through the motor itself. I removed the unit from the
housing, took the blower off the motor, and proceded to pick off all the
cemented dust, but couldn't get much out from within the motor windings.
Finally I remembered that one could wash motors, so filled the sink with
warm water with detergent and agitated the parts in that, which removed
all the cemented dust, including in the motor channels. Reassembled, the
unit now purrs like new.
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gelinas
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response 776 of 848:
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Dec 21 01:49 UTC 2002 |
Electric motors can be washed? Cool. How long do they have to dry before
plugging them back in?
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keesan
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response 777 of 848:
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Dec 21 02:43 UTC 2002 |
Jim was going to test this by biking home in pouring rain with a bread machine
but I made him put a bag on it.
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rcurl
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response 778 of 848:
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Dec 21 20:29 UTC 2002 |
I sucked out most of any water in the motor with a vacuum, and put it
back in service immediately. No problems. (Oh..I did oil the motor
bearings through the oil holes before washing the motor, as I knew the
oil would wick in better before water got in those holes.)
I learned about this some years ago when the city sewer backed up and
flooded our basement with 16 inches of sewage. I worried about the
furnace motor, which got immersed in the mess, but the furnace people
said it wasn't a problem - and it wasn't. I didn't even flush out
the motor that time.
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gull
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response 779 of 848:
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Dec 21 22:11 UTC 2002 |
You'll see industrial motors used outdoors with open vent holes all the
time, too. There isn't really much that fresh water can do to a motor,
especially an AC induction motor. (So long as the water isn't persistant
enough to make the steel laminations of the field rust, anyway.)
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rcurl
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response 780 of 848:
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Mar 3 21:39 UTC 2003 |
I have designed and built a power supply for my 80 meter crystal CW
portable transceiver (which I built in about 1952 from a design in the
9/50 QST). It supplies 1.4 volts for the tube filaments and both 155 and
115 volts "B" supplies for the xmitter and rcvr, respectively. The xmitter
final is a 3A4 power pentode - 1 watt output RF.
This was motivated by my wishing to get back on CW but not invest a lot in
a fancy radio. The transceiver used old-style A and B (45v and 67.5v -
remember those?) batteries. I did build a battery power pack some time ago
based on a D and 9-volt (lots of them!) cells, but that gets expensive.
The power supply parts costs about the same as a set of batteries.
The filament supply uses a LM317T 3-terminal voltage regulator for 1.4
volts from a 12.6 VCT xformer and full wave rectifier. The plate supplies
use another 12.6 VCT xformer in reverse and bridge rectifier for 155
volts. The rcvr supply is stepped down with a resistor and a chain of
zener diodes.
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keesan
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response 781 of 848:
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Mar 3 22:37 UTC 2003 |
Jim's antique meter has a B cell in it.
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rcurl
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response 782 of 848:
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Mar 4 21:45 UTC 2003 |
Yes, there are still 45 (and 67.5) volt batteries available, but the one's
I've seen are quite small with, I suspect, not much juice, and are also
expensive ($14 - $30 per for 45Vs). My radio was built for particular A
and B batteries, so the power supply I built (above) is made to fit in the
radio's battery compartment. This caused most of the design problems.
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scott
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response 783 of 848:
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Mar 8 17:22 UTC 2003 |
Found an old musical instrument preamp in a box of stuff which my brother
abandoned years ago. A Barcus Barry "1330 standard preamp", it cleaned up
suprisingly well but sounded bad. I spent an hour or two making a schematic
and figuring out how it worked. Turns out bad design is the culprit - it
probably never sounded good, which is probably why my brother didn't use it
much.
I won't go into the gory details, but setting input bias requires either
careful matching of components or else a trimpot - this design had neither,
had incorrect bias, and was distorted most of the time as a result. Not even
Electro-Harmonix did this kind of dumb mistake.
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rcurl
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response 784 of 848:
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Jul 25 16:25 UTC 2003 |
The pump in the sump that collects both basement dehumidifier and
air-conditioner condensate stopped pumping although it was running (and
the sump was overflowing onto the floor). I found that the 21-foot Tygon
tube to the drain from the sump pump had finally clogged up with dead
algae. This grows in the dehumidifier condensate collection tank and then
overflows into the rest of the system. I cleaned out the tank, sump and
pump, and replaced the clogged tube.
I had been adding algaecide to the dehumidifier collection tank at
intervals, but that was mainly killing algae that had developed between
applications. I need an algaecide feed system that maintains a low
concentration. It could be done with a low-flow feed pump, run off the
sump-pump motor switch, or a gravity feed with an electric valve. I
haven't found a convenient (and cheap) type of either a feed pump or an
electric valve. Can anyone suggest sources for either, or devices that
could be adapted for either?
I have thought of the small submersible pumps used in aquaria or
fountains, but they are high flow with very small head. I need very low
flow with higher head to work with a flow-control needle valve. I have
also thought of an electric valve such as used in refrigerator ice makers.
Where is anything like either available "surplus"?
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rcurl
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response 785 of 848:
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Jul 26 07:05 UTC 2003 |
The bathroom exhaust fan motor that I cleaned just last December (see
response #775) went from running at 3200 RPM to 1600 RPM, presumably
because one of the coils in this shaded-pole motor opened. I found a
source of replacement motors on the web, and at a quite good price, and
have now replaced the "slow" motor with the new.
The new motor was supposed to be the same as the old - same listed
dimensions - but apparently they went to a different supplier so
dimensions were slightly different, which required a little adaptation,
but nothing serious.
I wonder if cleaning out all the dust from the old motor as described
in #775 contributed to a wire breaking: maybe the dust was holding it
together?
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gelinas
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response 786 of 848:
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Jul 26 14:09 UTC 2003 |
Rane, you might find something useful for the project in #784 at UM's
Property Disposition. Oh, for an old-fashioned junk yard. ;)
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keesan
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response 787 of 848:
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Jul 26 18:16 UTC 2003 |
Reuse Center has fans.
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rcurl
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response 788 of 848:
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Jul 26 19:16 UTC 2003 |
I haunt Property Disposition....
I didn't need a fan, Sindi, I needed a motor. Replacing the whole exhaust fan
unit would be a BIG JOB. Replacing just the motor is relatively very easy.
However I did not think of looking for a replacement motor in a junk
exhaust fan unit.....should have done that.
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gull
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response 789 of 848:
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Aug 8 20:34 UTC 2003 |
What you need is a positive displacement pump. The chemical pumps we
use at work are invariably either piston pumps or gear pumps. I don't
know of any cheap ones, though. The ones we use are pretty expensive.
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