Tag: repair

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Boot Repair with Plasti Dip

Boots repaired

Boots worn out

Remember back in 2007 when I got new boots? Well, they broke. 17 years ago I said “they should last at least 10 years” and they did!

But in the last few years I noticed they were cracking and sort of falling apart. For a minute considered getting a new pair because I am an adult with more than a few hundred dollars in my savings account…

But then I thought, maybe I should try to fix them? So I did. First, the damage… see the photo above and the two below.

Boots worn out

The right boot wasn’t too bad, but the left was terrible. It came apart right below the seam where it is sewn together and in other places the boot had cracked and split open. You can see the white filling on the inside of the boot.

Boots worn out

I’ve had this Plasti Dip since at least 2017 (I know this because I used it for a project) and honestly I think I dipped all the tools I needed to dip. I started the repair by grabbing a cheap bristle brush and “painting” on a coating of Plasti Dip. I let it dry and did a few more coats and called it a day.

I then wore the boots outside, did some walking around, and they split open again. Obviously the solutions was… more Plasti Dip!

Boots repaired

This time I grabbed a popsicle stick and just slathered it on, filling in the cracks and gaps and I did this a bunch of times to build up a good layer of rubber to stick everything back together. (You might notice I also fixed the aglets with some heat shrink tubing.)

Boots repaired

I’ve flexed them a bit and they feel like they’ll hold together, but if not I can always just pour the rest of the can onto them. Seriously though, I hope this does it because I’d really hate to buy a new pair, mainly because I want to cut down on buying new things if I can repair old things I already own. I probably wear these boots less than 30 days a year since we don’t really get that much snow and I don’t spend a ton of time outside if it’s extremely cold outside.

So fingers are firmly crossed that this fix works!

Update: 10 days later the boots are holding up but I lost an aglet.

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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 the following process: 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.