Tag: repair

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I changed a bike tire!

Hey, I changed a flat tire! I got a flat about six weeks ago and I ended up taking the bike into the shop and they got it all fixed up the same day and I grabbed an extra tube in case it happened again… well, it happened again. I figured I should (re)learn how to change a bike tire, so that’s what I did.

It’s been, oh, probably 30 years since I changed a bike tire, and that was on my Dumpster Bike, so I did a quick search, ignored the AI results, and found this Removing Rear Wheels Is Easy! post from a bike shop in London. Cheers!

My main concern was that I know how to change a tire (as in, remove the tires, replace inner tube, put tire back on) but the “removing rear wheel from bike” part was where I was a little rusty.

Anyway I got the wheel off, got the tire off, put some air in the old tube, confirmed a leak, then inspected the tire to see if there was any visible damage, any bits of metal, etc. The last time I got a flat I could definitely see a large metal staple. This time, upon close inspection… I found nothing. Some tiny rocks embedded in the tire, but nothing that poked through. Also, the hole in the tube was pretty tiny, so maybe it was just a failed tube?

(Note: The photo of the stangely distorted tube may be the result of messing with trying to fill it on the previous day and having it pop out between the rim and tire. Don’t ask.)

I got it all back together, filled the tube, and did a test ride in the alley. Oh, notice anything? In my haste to test it I forgot to reconnect my rear brake! Argh! Anyway, I got that back in place and all was well. It took about 20 minutes total including the test ride and fixing the rear brakes. Not bad for my first attempt.

The one pain in the ass was doing it all without a bike stand. So I thought to myself “Hey, could I build one from PCV pipe?” mainly because I have a shit-ton of PVC pipe connectors from a past project. Well, it looks like people have made PVC bike stands, so I’ve added making one to my list of things to do.

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Fan Repair (Again)

Remember when I made a shelf for my fan? What I forgot to mention is that I repaired that fan back in June of 2020. I should note that I’ve had this fan for at least 20 years and honestly I’m sort of surprised it’s still going. The repair in 2020 involved replacing the oscillating motor which I was able to determine was a “OEM TYJ50-8A19 Universal Microwave Turntable Motor 4 / 4.8 RPM”. I found one on eBay for less than $10 USD and replacing it was pretty straightforward.

And it worked great! For a while… and then the fan stopped oscillating properly again, and I just sort of let it sit like that for a long time. I prefer fans that oscillate but if they don’t I can live with it…

Well, I got sick of living with it so I popped it open again and discovered the gear was missing a tooth. I used the OpenSCAD Gear Library with Customizer to create a new gear that matched the old one and put it in place and it is oscillating again. Huzzah!

I figured if the gear wears out again I can just print a new one. I used PLA but if needed I could do ASA or ABS or whatever else I have on hand. Also, it occasionally “clicks” when oscillating so the repairs might not be completely done, so this is probably not the end of the stupid fan story. Sorry!

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Ryobi Air Pump Repair

I got one of these Ryobi Air Pumps a few years ago, and it worked great for filling bike tires, and I occasionally used it to fill my car tires, though it’s really not great for that. At some point last year it started smoking a bit and I thought the motor was burning up, so I opened it to find the fan (that appears to be meant to cool the motor) slightly broken.

I found a customizable fan blade file and modeled it to fit the motor shaft. It printed well enough and I put it in place.

I did have to ream out the hole with a drill bit, but once I did it pressure fit on the shaft perfectly. I’m not really sure how the original fan broke, but at least now I’ve got a replacement, and can make more if needed. (I printed it in PLA, so it might melt… who knows?)

Oh, and does it work? Well, the pump runs, but it always ran. I did smell what seemed like burned motor winding, so I’ll need to try it out on the bike tires and see if it’s up to the task.

Update: I think it’s all burned up! Probably due to damage before I replaced the fan blade.

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Garage Fix (Again 2!)

I’ve got a new garage door fix. Again. I forgot to explain the last fix, which sort of worked, well… worked fine for years I guess, but now it doesn’t. Oh, start at Garage Fix (At Last!) if you want the back story… The short version is, with a combination of sunlight, snow, and a specific time of day, the garage door will not close due to the electric eye being affected by light from outside the garage.

After the first repair (mentioned in the blog post linked above) it didn’t quite do it so I ended up moving the electric eye sensors to the top of the garage. The illustration above is a view from inside the garage looking out, with the door open. The red sensors are the old location, and the green sensors are where I moved them to. I also ended up making a flag below the sensor because this solution also did not always work. Arrrgghhhh. Oh, I should mention that the sensors where they are will never detect a child running under the door, but the alley kids are all six years older now, so they should know better. ;p

So these fixes worked pretty well (for years actually) until last week, so on to another.

I realized that if you pressed the garage door button (which I replaced years ago with a green arcade button) the door would start to close, then when light bounced off the door and hit the sensor it would stop and reopen. I also realized that if I pressed and held the button, it would close!

Well that’s easy! All we need is a way to press and hold the button for as long as it takes to close the door. While it was -0 degrees out I prepared an Arduino and a relay, a pink arcade button, a chunk of wood, found a 12 volt power supply, and hot glued it all together. I wrote some code that would close the relay 5 seconds after the button was pressed and then open the relay 30 seconds later.

So here’s what happens now. When I leave in the morning I pull out of the garage and use my remote to close the door. If it does not close I get out of my car, go into the garage, press the pink button, and then walk briskly out of the garage before the door closes and crushes me. The door closes as I get in my car, and we’re all good.

This is one of the ugliest builds I’ve done it a while! As mentioned, I literally threw this together as quickly as possible. I did not design anything, did not build an enclosure, didn’t make labels… nothing. I drilled a hole in the wood and screwed it into the drywall and wired it in parallel with the existing button which usually works to close the door.

So now it’s, press the green button to open and close the door, and press the pink one if the green one doesn’t work. If you drive out of the garage and your remote won’t close the door, get out and use the pink button. Yup. Sigh.

Obviously the next step is to design an enclosure, add proper labels, rewrite the code, add status and indicator lights, probably a 7 segment display with a countdown… and then hey, might as well use an ESP32 so I can add remote control via WiFi. Oh, I should probably also add a sensor to check if the door is opened or closed. And also a status web page I can then check with a service running locally on the network, tied into Pushover to send me alerts. Ah, plus a real time clock module so I know when things happen in case I need to correlate times with the security camera.

I expect to have the new version done within 18 to 24 months.

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Vinten Tripod Leg Lock

I was doing a video shoot with Ben Nelson for Brown Dog Gadgets last week and I noticed his Vinten tripod leg had an issue staying locked in place… Seems one of the leg lock pieces had broke in half. It seemed liked a perfect reason to fire up OpenSCAD and get the 3D printer spitting out a new part.

In the photo above you can see the new part in silver, and the two original parts on the other legs, in black.

It took two prints to get an acceptable fit. The first was a little too wide and wouldn’t quite fit in place. I tweaked the file just a bit and the second version worked well. I’ll walk through the process a bit below.

For an organic shape like this I usually start by putting it on a desktop scanner to get the profile. This one is curvy, and I’m not big on drawing curves in OpenSCAD, but I am big on scanning in an object and then tracing it in Inkscape. I did a few scans and even then I edited the image a bit to adjust the contrast.

I import the images into Inkscape, each layered directly on top of each other, then add another layer on top of that to do the drawing. I can then easily switch out the image below and compare things. For a symmetrical drawing like this I really just need to draw half of it, then I just dupe and flip to make the other half and combine them into one.

Once I have a vector file created I export that and then import it into an OpenSCAD file where I can extrude it changing it from a 2D shape to a 3D shape. Creating a solid object is the goal. Once I’ve got a solid object I can start knocking holes in it and adding angles by subtracting with various shapes. (The reddish parts are all subtractions or differences from the main piece.)

And yes, the above image does appear to be some sort of special forces TIE Fighter from the Star Wars universe.

Here’s our final piece, ready to be rendered, sliced, and printed. The original part had some pockets on the top and bottom, but since they were not required for functionality I left them out.

Ben installed it and briefly tested it and it seemed to work, though time will tell if it holds up under stress. (Also, this one is PLA so if he leaves the tripod in a hot car, it might soften and fail.) I’ll probably print a few more for him to keep in the tripod bag in case this one does fail in the field.

If you want to print one of these, you can grab the file from Vinten Tripod Leg Lock and have fun!