Category: around the house

Successful Ceiling Fan Modification

Published December 21, 2010

For the last two or three works the ceiling fan in my bedroom hasn’t been responding to signals sent by the remote control leaving us with only a dim table lamp to illuminate the room. Not long after cleaning the contacts in the remote the fan would occasionally fail to respond to signals from the remote unless its power was cycled by the light switch under the remote holder. After flipping the switch off then on it would then work for a few days before needing another reset, but this failing state only lasted for a few weeks before the system simply failed leaving neither the light nor fan usable.

Frustrated by this I decided to bypass the wireless entirely and switch the unit to a typical fan/light dual switch setup on the wall. I figured that the light kit and fan motor itself were still fine so I set to work eliminating the failed fan control module. Having a spare dual-switch for the wall and a third (red) wire already between the electrical boxes made the house wiring part easy, but I still had some work to do modifying the fan. By reading Ken L. Klaser’s article Ceiling Fan Capacitor Solutions I was able to understand the basics of fan speed control, but this this schematic which he linked to was most helpful.

After looking over the control board to understand how the wires to the two coils in the motor were connected I came up with this schematic of how I felt the fan would be powered when set to run slow and in reverse. Removing the capacitors and building a test assembly showed that my initial thought was right, and this resulted in my building the assembly shown above. The fan now runs in reverse and on slow speed when powered and the wireless circuitry has found its place in the trash.

I could have purchased a new selector switch and capacitor assembly to have variable speeds and fitted both it and DPDT switch into the housing to offer the original control selection, but throughout its life the fan was almost exclusively used on low and in reverse, so I didn’t see the need. The fan also looks as it originally did with no new switches sticking out of the side or bits hanging off. I may add these selectors in the future if they are needed, but I don’t see that happening. Thus this was a $0 modification, costing only a few hours of time to learn something new and then redo the wiring.

(Yes, I realize that I should have used a longer piece of clear shrink tubing to better facilitate potting the ends. By the time I realized this I had most of the harness together and decided that simple stress relief and a bit of insulation should be sufficient.)

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Snow! (Late Autumn 2010 Version)

Published November 25, 2010

Well, there it is; the first that I’ve seen near home this season. En route to Traverse City for Iceman we drove through a quite-strong snow squall between Kalkaska and Acme, but this is the first bit here. It won’t be long before it’ll be time for winter biking season and cross-country skiing! Yay!

(Hmm, I should get those 29er Nokians broken in soon. I keep putting it off. Maybe Saturday…)

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Ceiling Fan Light Working Again

Published October 26, 2010

The ceiling fan in the bedroom has a remote control to turn it on and off. Over the past few weeks it’s become increasingly hard to turn it on and off, with the switch inside the remote feeling like its failing. Taking apart the remote tonight I found that instead of small tactile switches (like I thought it had from the feel) it instead has cheap, printed contact switches actuated by conductive rubber on the back-side of the buttons. As common with switches like this some of the rubber had worn off on to the PCB, fouling the copper and causing the buttons to not work well. A bit of quick work with a pencil eraser and alcohol-soaked paper towel cleaned the contacts up nicely and everything is working great again.

Click here to see a high-res version of the photo above, clearly showing the bits of rubber stuck on the PCB.

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Found an Extra Paper

Published October 25, 2010

My mailman is great. Apparently he found a copy of October 6th’s local newspaper (the one I was on the cover of) and saved it for me, dropping it in my mailbox with a note on some junk mail saying that he found it.

This shows some interesting things, like that the mailman recognizes my name on newspapers and such and knows where I live, but I guess that’s expected since his job is to pay attention to names on mail and where things go and such. I know that I’ve waived to him while biking, so I wonder if he associated that, receiving cycling catalogs and magazines, and this.

Either way, I think it’s really nice and I appreciate it.

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Relay Failure Means Fridge Failure

Published October 12, 2010

Three days after defrosting my freezer to get the whole refrigerator working Danielle noticed that the fridge was no longer cold. The evening after Danielle rushed most of the food stores over to my parents house I set out to try and diagnose the fridge. After I’d spent a few hours fruitlessly looking it over without any documentation I decided that the best thing to do would be to call a repair person. I normally don’t like doing this, but not having a fridge makes things somewhat difficult, and it likely would have taken a few more days for me to figure out what was wrong.

Doc’s Appliance Service (warning: auto-playing video) came out to do the repair and $210.21^† later the relay on the compressor was replaced with a new, compatible (but non drop-in) replacement that required cutting the wiring harness to install. As this was the only part the repair person had readily available it was the only choice to get the repair done at that time. While talking to the repair guy (who was quite friendly) afterward and detailing everything I’d looked into, he showed me that Maytag actually ships block diagrams and technical troubleshooting guides with each fridge, sticking them to the bottom of the fridge in a small plastic bag, folded up to about the same size as a deck of playing cards.

I wish that I’d known about this diagram before calling, because that would have allowed me to do all the troubleshooting myself, including finding the failed relay. It also would have saved me the time spent looking at the fridge’s main control board for issues, as the automatic diagnostics would have eliminated the control board and other items that I fiddled with. I would also have then been able to order part 67005560 from Sears for $27.33 and do the replacement myself for 13% of the cost.

In the end I suspect that the relay was failing, keeping the compressor on long after it should have, resulting in the coil freezing up. It’s even possible that the fridge had been running near non-stop for the last few weeks. Turning the fridge off for a while and then putting it back in normal duty cycle then likely caused the relay to fail completely, after which it no would cool. If you’d like to see more photos of the failed relay, part 3ARR65P4E3A6, they can be found here: Failed Fridge Relay (3ARR65P4E3A6).

^†$69.95 diagnostics charge, $80 labor, $56.85 in parts, and $3.41 in sales tax.

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Surprise Freezer Defrosting

Published October 1, 2010

When Danielle and I returned from the grocery store this evening we found that the fridge (a Maytag PBF2253HEB) was much warmer than it should be; somewhere around 60°F. When it was still this temperature after eating dinner it was time to try and figure out what’s going on. As the compressor was running and the freezer was still perfectly cold I figured that the duct between the freezer (where the cooling coils are) and the fridge must be misbehaving.

Investigating the fridge portion of things showed that the servo which opens a damper in the fridge (allowing in cold air) was operating, so I started to look at the freezer. Just when I noticed some unexpected frost through the slats at the rear Danielle found this article explaining how the freezer can frost up, leading to no airflow to the fridge and thus no cooling up there.

It suggests replacing the control board to resolve a problem with Adaptive Defrost Control. Before that I decided to do a manual defrost and see if that resolves things. I’ve had the fridge for just under five years with it running non-stop the whole time with a fair bit of ice sublimating in the freezer, so I figure that maybe enough frost could have built up in that time that the automatic defrost couldn’t overcome it.

If the frost issue comes back quickly I’ll look into actually repairing it. I found a copy of the service manual here (mirror) and will just run through the diagnostics and replace the needed bits.

The photo above is the evaporator coils inside of the fridge completely packed with frost. The part that appears to be a frost bottom shelf was a solid block of ice. Here’s a handful of photos taken while defrosting things, including what Danielle feels is an extremely dorky photo of me:

· Wearing a head lamp and defrosting the evaporator coils in my fridge after the fridge stopped cooling.
· Inside of my Maytag PBF2253HEB after the evaporator coil frosted over.
· Partially defrosted evaporator coil in a Maytag PBF2253HEB.
· Defrosting the evaporator coil in the Maytag PBF2253HEB with a hair dryer.
· Shiny, dry, defrosted evaporator coil in a Maytag PBF2253HEB.

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Big, Heavy Rock

Published September 26, 2010

In the grass at the end of the driveway leading to my condo is a rock. It sits on the dirt and grass along side the pavement as a negative deterrence designed to keep people from cutting the corner and driving on the lawn. Whenever this rock isn’t moved back people will cut the corner, driving on the grass and killing it.

Some time between noon and 5pm today someone didn’t pay enough attention to where they were putting their car, cut the corner, and dragged the rock to the next driveway before pushing it out of the road. Due to the intensity of the scratches on the road surface I suspect it was stuck under the car, likely somewhere along the rear end as people tend to cut the corner sharply and hit the grass with their rear right side tire.

Hopefully next time they’ll pay more attention to where they are putting their car when leaving the driveway. I’ll put it back in place later this evening when I take out the trash.

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RTV Explosion!

Published August 27, 2010

While filling a syringe with RTV I accidentally squeezed the tube in the middle instead of the end, applying enough force that the end of the tube burst all over my arm. Oops. at least I had enough silicone in the syringe to finish up the Garmin Edge 305 that I was fixing.

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Stuff For Sale: Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er and Wet Saw

Published August 10, 2010

I have some things for sale. Anyone want to buy them?

The first is the wet saw seen above, which I used to tile my kitchen, laundry room, and foyer. I no longer need it, so I’d like to sell it. Asking price is US$30.

One is my sister’s Gary Fisher X-Caliber 29er, size 17.5″ / medium. Asking price is US$1000 or best offer. It’s barely used, and has seen very little time on trails since she has found that she prefers road biking. Please check out this post on the MMBA Forum for more details and photos.

UPDATE: Both items have sold.

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Sigma BC 1609 and Maybury

Published July 28, 2010

After having a bunch of issues with my other computers^† I came across the Sigma BC 1609, a well-featured wired computer that comes with an optional (and thus detachable, as its not useful for mountain biking) cadence sensor. Costing roughly $35 at a local shop I’m really happy with it thus far and anticipate it performing well for a while. Beyond the online computer emulator/simulator which let me get a feel for the device’s UI and the standard speed / clock / elapsed time / odometer / average / trip computers, here’s what sold me on it, in no particular order:

· Wired.
· Thermometer.
· Weatherproof.
· Bike 2 Cradle Available. (Auto-switching to other wheel size.)
· Stopwatch. (Easy ad-hoc segment timing.)
· Count-down Timer.
· Quality Backlight. (Toggle it on, then it illuminates briefly at each button press.)
· Nicely small wheel sensor.
· Wheel magnet is very low profile and locks on with a sliding clamp.

The only real downside is the slightly thin wire, but hopefully it’ll be durable enough to last. If I’m really concerned about it I’ll just armor it with some spiral wrap or maybe cable housing.

After visiting the shop to pick up a new headset and chain for the singlespeed and random other things I headed over to Maybury State Park to ride the bike trails there. The last time I was there I wasn’t feeling too well and coupled with not knowing the trail I didn’t enjoy the ride. Today I did two laps and while on the first I wasn’t comfortable with the trail and didn’t enjoy it much, part-way through the second I began to feel comfortable. I had a feeling for what was coming up and was able to relax and allow the bike to roll faster and enjoy the trail. I’m now looking forward to going back out here another time, and maybe even racing in the Maybury Time Trial on August 21^st.

Oh, and the Sigma BC 1609? Just kept on working, just as I expect. No weirdness at all like I’d had with the other computers.

^† 1) Cateye Strada Wireless that had sample rate issues around 30 MPH, an iffy sensor, and interference problems. Batteries were changed, but things still wouldn’t work right.
2) NiteRider Rebel 1.0 which has UI issues where it takes up to three seconds to respond to a button press (longer when moving) and a very sloped face and thus a poor viewing angle when stem mounted. The button latency is terrible if you’re riding along and want to check the time or some other data. It’s also physically much larger than it needs to be. Not bad for a first generation computer from a company that normally doesn’t make them, but I expected more.

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