Tell us what you have fixed or replaced recently (that might be interesting)

Everything else
44

The multimedia unit on my car was completely dark this morning. Everything else on the dash was functional but I had no radio, no clock, no CD player, and most importantly, no bluetooth connection to my phone.

I’m not a car guy so the idea of it being the fuse did not even enter my head. Oddly though, if you replace car with personal computer, I’d have that on my mental trouble-shooting checklist. I guess it’s a comfort level with stuff I’m used to dealing with.

Anyhow a quick google suggested to check the fuse before doing anything rash like giving my dealership money to look at it. The fuse didn’t look burnt out as it did on the images I saw but replacing it with a spare solved the problem. My experience in car maintenance consists of changing air filters and light bulbs so this has expanded by capabilities.

45

I have that and the the magnetron of a microwave in my collection. I am not a hoarder. I am a collector.

46

I’m glad you solved the problem, and I hope that takes care of it.
But speaking from experience, fuses typically blow for a reason. Something caused it to blow. If you don’t find what caused it to blow, it will blow again, sooner or later. [And if it does, I’m sure you know not to replace it with a larger fuse.]

That’s typically been my experience, anyway. I have also had a few cases where the fuse blew for some reason, I replaced it, and it never blew again. Maybe it was a bad fuse. Maybe some rare combination of heavy-use components stressed it enough to blow. I never found out, because I didn’t need to.

But if you find that you are needing to replace that fuse more and more often, you’ll need to have it looked at. I remember that happening in one of my cars years ago. A tail-light kept going out, at the same time the fuse would blow. I finally took it to a local shop (a dealer would have never taken the time to do the following) where the mechanic noted which fuse was blowing, and then began tracing wires. Fortunately, he found the problem fairly quickly (one hour of labor): The hinge on the trunk lid was pinching a wire. The insulation eventually wore out at that spot, and then it became metal-on-wire, resulting in a short.

Not trying to get you worried or anything. :)
It may have just been one of those flukes.

47

Ha. I’ve been telling that to my critics (aka friends and relatives) for years. They can be very vocal about my “hoarding”.

Yet who is the first one they go to when they need an old part, or a special wire or tool, or a new hard drive or PSU when the stores are all closed and they need it right now? In one case, a buddy of mine, who had previously suggested I simply toss my old computers, had his computer fail. While awaiting his new motherboard, he sheepishly asked if he could borrow one of my old rigs. Of course I let him, and never said a word about it. And he’s been quiet on the subject since. He also ended up giving me a couple hundred bucks and bought the rig to use for retro gaming.

That said, after I pass on, I pity whoever it is that needs to go through all my stuff.
Likely, it’ll all go straight into a dumpster. :(

48

That’s good advice. The failed fuse didn’t look burnt out. To the naked eye, the metal strip looks continuous. Over the past little while, the multimedia unit has gone blank and turned itself back on immediately. I had chalked it up to a software update that had been applied to my car. But it may be that the fuse was bad and had intermittent contact that failed when I hit a bump or something. That’s what I’m hoping for.

49

So I finally got around to replacing the bowl to tank gasket that started to leak awhile back due to age (20+ years). It was brittle and cracked in a few places near the anchor holes, probably where the leak was coming from.

The fluid master universal gasket I bought a was not the correct type so I had to get a Kohler branded one, it was easier to replace than the wax ring for sure. Replaced the water line also, since it was off already. Toilet is as good as new now!

IMG_20171213_160502

50

I fixed an EKG machine yesterday. Paper wasn’t feeding right. I took it apart.

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That’s a motor. The 3 black things are elastometer stuff, very tacky and fun. It’s like that stuff people used to buy to decouple hard drive vibrations from McCaster whatever.

Anyway so the grey thing is a small gear. It drives a bigger gear. It wasn’t coupling. The service manual suggests this motor is supposed to be attached both through those 3 black things and with 3 separate metal clips. I did not see any clips. I opened up a second machine and didn’t see any clips either.

Anyway once this thing is mounted to the gear, gravity makes the black things bend as you can see. That means the gears don’t touch. I have no idea why the problem started happening now and not years ago. There’s no way anyone else here opened up the machine.

The only way I figure is we got refurb units instead of new units, and somehow they were working all these years till this rubber finally lost the power to hold the unit up.

I ended up just stacking up lots of clay and lego pieces underneath the motor to counteract the gravity. It’ll work until someone leans on the machine too hard. This took me most of the day, and until 10 PM at home. Sigh.

51

Had to replace the water filter in the fridge today. $50 and it lasts 6 months. So $100 a year for drinkable water and clear ice. When you think about it that’s cheaper than bottled water and bagged ice for the same amount of time. And before anyone asks, yes the tap water here is undrinkable. I had to clean out my faucet because it was clogged. There was a yellowish granular substance in it. Also some kind of grey slime.

52

I recently fixed the lightswitch on my oven. I wish I had taken pics to explain what was involved. But I didn’t.

When I moved into the house, it was kind of wonky to begin with. It was a little pushbutton on the face of the oven by the dials and stuff. Then, a week or so ago, I pushed it and it just went into the oven, and was gone. “That’s not ideal,” I thought.

So then after a week of having no light in the oven, I decided I should see what was up. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m generally pretty handy, so I figure “How hard can this be.”

I open up the face of the oven, which involves removing a bunch of screws. I don’t totally take it off, I just want to check out what’s going on back there. I see that the back part of the button has detached from the face. Ok. I put the thing back together, and go about my business. In order to do this, I’m gonna have to flip the breaker so I don’t electrocute myself, and I didn’t feel like doing that just then.

Then a few days later, I decide to get it on, so I turn off the breaker, and disassemble the face of the oven. I still don’t detach the faceplate from the other electrical stuff, because I want to try and avoid doing anything that might break stuff worse. But I can get back behind the thing to do what needs to be done. I find a little circular copper ring with kind of springy things on it, a little spiraly plastic thing, and the button. I just now tried to find a picture of it online, but can’t. I don’t really know what to look for. I suspect that you’d never really see these internal parts anyway, as the switch would just be one piece.

What I figure out, is that the spiraly part slides into the button, which has a spring in it. The copper ring sits on little teeth that hold it in place on the spiraly thing, which sits in a plastic enclosure where the wires for the light are. It kind of works like a ballpoint pen, where clicking the button twists the spiraly thing, which turns the copper ring, and causes the two springy parts to either touch the two leads in the enclosure, or not.

The failure seems to be that the screws holding the back of the enclosure to the front have failed or stripped or whatever… the back fell off, and the button and spring and stuff all fell out.

So I managed to reassemble this all, and then I used some Bondic (UV cured epoxy stuff) and crazyglue to reattach the back of the thing.

After that was all done, it once again worked! Huzzah! Now I can see stuff in my oven again. (My oven is dirty)

53

Hey, kind of related to this, I just replaced the lights in my rangetop and dryer and was very surprised to find LED versions of both. **Note: These are NOT lights for the inside of the oven. Still, having much brighter light while cooking on the range and the same while grabbing laundry was a small victory that I wish I had done much earlier.

54

Yeah LED lights are amazing. I probably mentioned this here somewhere, I have a back porch light that would burn out monthly. I replaced it half a dozen times before I decided to try a LED bulb in the fixture. It’s been in for a few years now, no issues. Replaced all of the kitchen ceiling lights with LEDs too. So much better. And to think that I was annoyed at the phasing out of incandescent bulbs.

55

I’m about halvsies on conversion to LEDs , mostly due to jumping to the overhyped CFLs as a huge thing a few years ago. What a cluster. Slow ramp up, and yes, they do fucking burn out way too much.

Anyway, LEDs are awesome.

56

Good lord, yes, I now cannot believe I thought the same thing. My energy usage has gone down, but mostly I’ve noticed that I’m no longer needing to change out any bulbs in the house, which used to be at least a monthly annoyance.

Thankfully LED bulbs seem to be dropping in price too, which was my primary reason for holding out so long.

I thankfully missed out on that, but those CFL reports I’d been hearing did nothing to encourage me to switch to LEDs when they came out either. I became skeptical of any new lighting technology.

57

I bought a new range/oven/stove or whatever they’re called a few years ago, and was amazed when I got it installed to notice that it actually had a goddam LIGHT inside the oven. This blew my mind, as I had never had an oven with a light inside before.

When I bought this oven, it never even crossed my mind to ask about interior lighting because I just figured there was no such thing. I always had assumed that it was not possible because of the massive heat generated inside an oven. I just went in and picked out a nice gas oven in my price range (took me about 10 minutes to pick one - I’m a very fast appliance shopper), took it home and installed it myself.

After I had it installed, I finally opened the manual and had a look at features. “An interior LIGHT?” I exclaimed. “What is this sorcery?”

I use it all the damn time now. :)

58

I’m spoiled with an internal light for quite a while now, but alas, no gas oven. :(

59

I’m still not clear on which is better; gas or electric.
But since my home came with a gas range already in place, I just opted to continue with gas, since the pipe was right there. Also, I’ve always had a gas oven everywhere I’ve lived (going all the way back to living with my parents), so I’m used to it, and have always been happy with it, so I just went with what I knew.

60

Also, why does my refrigerator have a light in the refrigerator, but no light for the freezer part?
I mean, if a high-temp oven can have a light inside, why can’t a low-temp freezer also have one?

61

Mine has both? That seems strange, man. Like @RichVR though, I struggle with my filter replacements.

62

Well shit. I should have bought a higher-end model then I guess (making my purchase decision in 10 minutes didn’t help me there). Good to know they make them though. I have honestly never seen a light inside a freezer though (just like I’d never seen one inside an oven), so again, I assumed there was no such thing. So thanks for the info. I just bought my refrigerator 3 or 4 years ago though, so it’ll likely be after I’m dead before I have need of another. My last fridge went for over 30 years.

63

I’m kind of amazed you haven’t seen an oven light. I don’t think I’ve seen an oven without one (unless broken) in 20 years. Freezers, though, sure. I’ve never had a freezer with one.