The community repair thread

Emp_Fab

Is that because all home electricity is free ?

Danny1969

Emp_Fab said:

Is that because all home electricity is free ?

Not free but at 7p a kWh with the right tariff : very cheap 

Danny1969

Nux Mighty plug 2  .. great little device. This is the 2nd one I have fixed and this one is actually mine. The fault is it only works intermittently when the jack plug is swiveled to a certain angle. This fault is caused by the wire inside the jack plug shorting out. 

So to disassemble the unit unscrew the device and then use a thin plectrum to release these clips in the middle of the unit 



Once you have the unit apart remove the silver screws to unbolt the swiveling jack plug and also to remove the circuit board. 

Then unsolder one wire of the battery so the unit has no power on the board then unsolder the jack plugs connecting wires. There's a + sign that marks the hot wire connection pad. Then get a thin piece of shielded cable that's quite thin as it needs to get out of the unit through a narrow ish hole that's there now the jack plug is removed. Prep  the wire and solder it on the pads. 



The wire can go round the bend and exit like this but I've put a bit of heat shrink on mine to stop the cable being pulled out of the unit. 



Put a jack plug on the other end and now the unit will work but there's nothing to keep it in place anymore. I wanted mine to be able to clamp to the guitar strap as I use mine live. Then I remembered I had brought a few rolls of soft metal with holes every inch in a charity shop. I have no idea what these are used for, gardening maybe ? 




So I cut a piece off, covered it in heat shrink and hot glued it to the body of the Nux. It's not pretty but it works really well and it's nice to have it working again as it's my no 1 practice tool. 

Danny1969

Quick DVR repair I did for a CCTV installer. The fault is the unit won't recognize the internal hard drive or any new hard drive. The unit powers up however so the external power supply was considered good and it had 12V on it when it was  measured  with a meter. 




The thing is though, these external power supplies should always be measured with a load. Look what happens when a small load is placed on the power supply via the resistors I'm pressing against the positive and negative connections of the power supply while I'm measuring 



The voltage drops to under 10V when loaded with a gentle 33 Ohms. This means the power supply is faulty as it's supposed to maintain the output voltage up to it's rated max current output which is 3 amps at 12V.  So I sort out another 12V 3A PSU and all is well again hard drive wise. 



I thought this was worth pointing out as many people think a PSU or DC connector is fine if they measure the correct voltage on it. You really need to load it a bit and then measure it. With a lot of electronic items the incoming power is only going to a MOSFET,  which is open circuit until the unit is switched on and a voltage is put on the gate of the MOSFET by a logic switch ..Then it sees the load of the device.   So the fact the PSU is connected to the device doesn't mean it loaded. 

normula1

I had exactly that issue with my CCTV's DVR a few weeks ago. Luckily I had a spare from an old external hard drive in my box of mystery spares.

Emp_Fab

Not as clever as Danny's ones above, but the pedestal fan in my AirBnB was squeaking and barely turning, so I dismantled it using a phillips keyring screwdriver I have.  The little starting capacitor was buggered but there's nothing I can do with that.  The bearings however were bone dry and dusty.  Not having any oil here, I had an idea and popped out to the hire car with a small plastic cap and got about a quarter teaspoon of engine oil out by repeatedly pulling the dipstick and wiping it into the cap.  Using a steak knife, I was able to oil both motor bearings.

Reassembled it and started it up but it vibrated a bit, so I used the knife held against the fan cage as a runout checkpoint and bent the blades back into alignment.  A couple of minutes for the oil to work through and bingo !  A fan that would blow your wig off !

(I also repaired their bedside lamp and their fridge door hinge).

Danny1969

normula1 said:

I had exactly that issue with my CCTV's DVR a few weeks ago. Luckily I had a spare from an old external hard drive in my box of mystery spares.

Good man, I always keep every power supply too from routers, external hard drives and everything else. I also buy the older style linear power supplies too when I see them as these are getting rarer, and some devices need  an AC rather than DC output. Although a lot of these are DC you can simply remove the internal diodes /smoothing cap and connect the cable directly to the transformer for an AC output. 

Danny1969

@Emp_Fab ;
That deserves a wiz and a lol 

Kittyfrisk

Danny1969 said:

normula1 said:

I had exactly that issue with my CCTV's DVR a few weeks ago. Luckily I had a spare from an old external hard drive in my box of mystery spares.

Good man, I always keep every power supply too from routers, external hard drives and everything else. I also buy the older style linear power supplies too when I see them as these are getting rarer, and some devices need  an AC rather than DC output. Although a lot of these are DC you can simply remove the internal diodes /smoothing cap and connect the cable directly to the transformer for an AC output. 

Phew, thought it was just me that did stuff like this.
When something finally breaks beyond reparability, I'll still disassemble the item & save any parts that can be reused.
Everyone seems to find this highly amusing, until something of their's breaks & I can fix it for them.
Then I'm a fucking genius...

roundthebend

So, onwards with creating a raised and level boot floor in my Nissan Leaf. I'd heard and watched videos about a technique for scribing irregular shapes using a "Tick Stick". I had some left over ply from the base which gave me a long thin piece ideal for the stick, and a rectangle that would fit in the middle of the boot. I cut an intricate pattern into the stick to trace around.



I placed the rectangle piece in the boot and marked it against the subframe so I could reliable repetition it if needs be. Then I began marking off every curious shape by placing the pointy end against the boot edge and tracing around the intricate stick.



It's difficult to see but you end up with a lot of pencil marks leading to a very confusing scribble. In hindsight I wished I'd gone a bit simpler with the pattern on the stick. 



Having trouble with PostImg.cc so I'll follow up when I get it working. Short story, I was able to translate the scribbles into a drawing on a couple of ply boards. One needed a slight adjustment but they fit beautifully.

Emp_Fab

....ignore, I googled it!

Emp_Fab

The alternator packed in on the car - exactly 1 year to the day after I replaced it last time.  It also took the battery with it.  I ordered a new battery and bought a scrap alternator off eBay.  DPD lost the alternator for best part of a week and when it finally did arrive, the bearings were fucked on it.  So, I did a bit of research and tested my existing alternator and found that several rectifier diodes had shorted.  They are all permanently embedded across a pair of plates at one end, along with the regulator.



I tested the diode plates on the eBay alternator and they were good, so I set about seeing if I could swap them over to mine.

There are two stator armatures, each one being a triple-ended star formation, meaning there are six heavy-duty copper wires connected to the diode plates in three pairs.  Unfortunately, these wires are brazed / welded onto the corresponding copper lugs on the diode plates........





So it was out with the Dremel cutting disc......




Leaving the eBay alternator with knackered bearings looking like this....




I did the same to my alternator and swapped the diode plates over.  Luckily I had the sense to buy a monster 170W soldering gun years ago, and it saw it's first outing yesterday !  I soldered the armature wires to the lugs and reassembled everything.

The new battery arrived yesterday, so this morning I went out and fitted the repaired alternator and new battery and........

It all caught fire and by the time the fire brigade got here, it was just a smoking shell.


   No.... it all worked perfectly !!!

Tomorrow I'm planning on having a quick look at the front brake pads as I think they're fag-paper thin.  If they are, I'll change them.  Simple job, pretty cheap.

But that's it......  this was just an emergency repair to tide me over until I find a nice CR-V or HR-V.

(don't... just don't.....   this is the Community Repair thread....   take your "Emp car purchase abuse" to my "Will you all hate me if...." thread.)   

Emp_Fab

I'm very pleased with myself, by the way  

drofluf

My son’s toothbrush was only staying charged for a couple of minutes so I diagnosed a dead battery. A quick google gave me a link for a replacement and instructions for how to swap the battery. It’s now charging and holding its charge

TTony

Emp_Fab said:

I'm very pleased with myself, by the way  

I'm actually quite impressed with your skills there @Emp_Fab!

(The lengths you'll go to, to avoid buying a new car )

Danny1969

Sounds like a 3 phase alternator @Emp_Fab .. most of them are. Top work there, I'm impressed. 

@drofluf ; .. good work. Next time take some pics in case someone else has the same problem. 

Emp_Fab

Well, after the success of the alternator, I went shopping to Tescos (about a 15 minute drive).  When I got out of the car there was a strong smell of burning brake material.  The rear right wheel was too hot to touch.  Bugger.  Stuck caliper.  I managed to get it to back off a fraction with brute force from a screwdriver and did my shopping.  By the time I came out, it had all cooled down, but now I had to try to make it back home without touching the brakes as I was 99% sure that the instant that piston moved, it was going to stay put and overheat again.

I'm very pleased to say I managed it !  Using a combination of engine braking and anticipation at junctions, I got all the way home without touching the brake pedal until I pulled up outside my house.

I spent an hour or so tackling it this afternoon.  I was going to photograph it all but I was getting eaten alive by bloody mosquitos.  I must have killed about 20 of the buggers and it didn't do much for my temper so I wasn't in the best of moods.
Basically, the caliper needs cleaning out and rebuilding with new seals etc.  A rebuild kit is about £15, but a complete new caliper is only £30, so fuck rebuilding it.  It'll be an hour of shitty dirty work when for another £15 I can just slap a nice shiny clean one on.

Once I've replaced the front pads and put the new caliper on the rear, it'll be good to go for a while.  At least it'll be able to stop !

SteveRobinson

Don't you love the way everything clips together these days? 

I've today replaced the document scanner of my HP multi-function printer and apart from one screw securing the side panel and another for the earth connection, everything else just unclipped and pushed back into place. 

BillDL

........ until one or more of the plastic clips snap and you then have to use tape to keep the parts together.

normula1

I had a HP Laserjet from 2000 until last year with bits of paper lodged in various sensors and a big notice written in sharpie to power off before lifting the lid as I'd wedged the laser open.... All the plastics had started to fail.