So apparently someone, somewhere, decided that any repair -- no matter how inconsequential in nature -- must develop into a raging pain in the ass before it's completed.  This is why shows like This Old House are "the debbil", and no doubt why a lot of folks just throw stuff away instead of fixing it too.  Be that as it may... this story begins 8-10 years ago when we got a push button soap dispenser for our shower in Colorado.




( Click here to vicariously enjoy my soap dispenser repair odyssey.... )

Remember how I posted about the wood splitter we got in August, and how it didn't require as much maintenance as the old one, or in fact any maintenance so far?  Well, Murphy's Law has struck again!  Some might argue I was even asking for that......




( Click here for moar broken wood splitter goodness.... )

In our house, among various other atrocities committed by past owners and/or contractors, there are several holes through the hardwood floor in the living room.  They were placed there for passing TV and telephone cables, for example, through the floor to a baseboard receptacle right at carpet level rather than through the wall to a receptacle at normal outlet height.  Bastiges!  This particular hole, however, is left over from the old cast-iron radiator system.  You can see the feet marks from the former radiator to the right of the hole.




( Why is this the "cat hole"?... Click Here to Read More. )

Let me start out by saying electric toothbrushes are a Really Good Thing.  Before I got one, my dentists would always claim I was not brushing enough.  Now they even say nice things upon occasion!  However, the batteries contained inside do not last forever.  Mine lasted 4-5 years then suddenly started having only 2 days of life per charge.  Optimistically I set out to change said battery to a fresh one, having observed the batteries cost $5-20 while the unit itself costs $120-175.  "This will be easy," I said to myself.  "Right?"



( So one might think.... (click to read more) )

It's that time of year again... UPS MAINTENANCE TIME.  Uninterruptable Power Supplies that is.  Between my server farm, our individual offices, and different places around the house we use several UPSes and over the years I have bought APC Smart-UPS 900's in order to have only 1 consistent type I have to learn and take care of.  Even though they are all the same, it's still quite a "herd" to take care of.  And a huge drag, though what doesn't kill me... yeah, makes me stronger :-p



These Smart-UPS 900's used to be findable on eBay for cheap, which is how I got started on them.  However this last time I checked, all I could find was a lot of 124 of them for $1200 which comes out to about $9 apiece... yeah no thank you.  Used server stuff definitely has a time window on eBay.  I can no longer find the older Dell Precision Workstations I like for servers either.  Boo Hoo! Guess I'll have to take the plunge into newer ones at some point.



Here's what the innards of one of them looks like.  It's been opened like a clamshell with the top half on the left.  The big black things are lead-acid batteries, which need to be replaced every 2-5 years depending on how hard they have worked and how expensive of batteries you bought.  Beyond those is a large, very heavy transformer.  One of these UPSes complete weighs about 55 lbs to give you some idea.  All the electronics are on the one PC board which means if something goes wacky electronics-wise it's probably on that board, for which no schematics are available.



This round of servicing included 5 UPSes.  My first step was to remove the covers and get all the old batteries out for recycling, then replace them with the 20 new batteries I had bought.  Unfortunately when I popped open one of the units, its old batteries were all swelled up inside (see above).  This probably means they got overcharged since the glass mat lead acid batteries have no room inside for the innards to swell up if they get overheated.  Since I haven't been able to find schematics for the power supply, I went ahead and set that one aside marked "NFG - PARTS ONLY".  I'll leave it up to you to figure out what NFG stands for.



Needless to say any parts pillaged off the NFG unit will have to be tested first prior to going into another, because the batteries are too expensive to waste.  The above picture shows what used to be a .25 fast-on connector, that was melted and burned, and got plastic schmutz all over it due to the hot swelled batteries.  Yikes!



The next stage in maintenance was to let the units charge for 8 hours with the new batteries inside.  As it turns out having a unit I could part out came in handy sooner than I expected; one of the remaining four did not seem to power up at all, and I could not hear a hum of it charging.  While this could equally likely be a PC board problem, I first did the obvious which was to test the power switch (labeled "UPS Enable") and fuse (to the right of the switch) on the back side of the unit.



Here are the same two parts from the back side of the panel.  They are in mirror image to how they appeared in the other picture, so the switch is circled in yellow, and the circuit breaker is the large black block with 2 pale blue fast-on connectors stuck on the back.  I unplugged the other end of the switch, and unplugged the 2 fast-ons from the circuit breaker to isolate the two parts from the UPS and each other, then used a continuity tester (voltmeter in beeping ohms mode) to determine that the fuse was fine but the switch was kaput -- it registered as open whether it was "on" or "off".  I removed it and stole the one from the dead unit, testing it first of course.  All was well!



There's the switch out of its element.  I wouldn't ordinarily expect a mechanical part like that to be the culprit, especially as it probably was rarely if ever used to turn the unit on and off.  I looked up the part in the Digi-Key catalog and found it only cost $1.33 for a quantity of 1.  This is appallingly cheap!



I also stole 3 chassis screws from the dead UPS to replace ones missing off the others, and one of its rubber feets to replace a missing one on a 3rd UPS.  After prying the foot off I found its stickum was dried out, which is probably how the other one got lost.



Nothing some doublestick tape can't fix!  Since it is not my first rodeo (no matter how much it may seem like it) I peeled one side of the tape first, stuck the foot on, and then cut around it with scissors.  Once it was covered with a nice square of double stick tape I was able to peel the other side off and stick it on.



I are an Genius!



The next step after all the working units had charged for 8 hours, was to calibrate them with their new batteries.  This is done by putting a 1/3 to 1/2 capacity load on them, unplugging power so that they go into battery backup mode, and run them until the batteries have drained completely going into shutdown mode.  They are supposed to beep 4 times every 1 minute until there is 5 minutes of power left, then beep continuously until they are dead.  Here is a picture of the load I used, which is a shop worklight (it's off in the picture since it was too bright to photograph).



I could tell by the bar graph on the front of the units that it took up about 1/2 the load capacity of a UPS, and therefore suitable for testing. However for recordkeeping precision I also tested the lamp with a Kill-a-Watt meter which showed it to be 288 watts, 284 VA, and pulling 2.4 amps.  This makes logical sense because the total capacity of the UPSes is 670 VA apiece or roughly twice that.
 


As each UPS passed its tests, I noted down the date and test info on a small note that could be affixed to the UPS for future reference.  Since it could be as long as 4 years before I have to service these again, I can't count on remembering it all!  These little forms were made on Word and I just have it saved in a templates folder where I can print it out whenever I need any.  In addition to showing the calibration data (including minutes of battery power at how much of a load, and whether the batteries are new today) there is room underneath to add any notes such as having replaced the power switch.



Now that the the labels are taped on, there's nothing else to do but wait 8 more hours for them to be fully recharged, and then they can be placed around the home and office.  Until the next batch! :-p  Oh... I did have 4 batteries left over because of the bad UPS.  I went on eBay to find another Smart-UPS 900 but of course there weren't any at reasonable prices, they were either 124 for $1200 or 1 fully restored WITH batteries for $250.  Reluctantly I finally investigated what the newer equivalent was and I learned that would be the Smart-UPS 1000.  At first it didn't look like the Smart-UPS 1000 used the same batteries as the 900, until I looked a bit closer and realized they had simply glued them together in pairs.  Daahahaha!  :: slaps forehead ::

So I've been growing lettuce indoors over the winter for a couple years now, and I think I have learned enough (mostly through trial and error) to be able to pass some of it along.  I'm including some recent photos of my little lettuces, which are completely random :)



Jiffy trays, such as can be bought at Wal-mart for about $2.50 apiece, work well for growing lettuce underneath fluorescent lights.  Two trays end-to-end fit well under a 4' double fixture.  The clear plastic covers that come with the Jiffy Trays are good for the first few days when then lettuce is just sprouting from seed.  Lettuce will grow under regular fluorescent lights but the full spectrum one meant specifically for grow lights are even better and have come way down in price in the last 10 years or so.  Amazon is a good source for cheap ones.  The best place I've found to get the 4' fixtures is a local hardware store that also supplies electricians.  They shouldn't be more than about $25 for a 2-tube fixture with a small reflector.  You want at least some reflector or you'll lose a lot of the light out the sides.  Unfortunately there are some really unnecessarily expensive 4' fixtures out there so watch out.



My rolling grow light rack is big enough to hold 6 Jiffy trays under 3 lights, while rotating a 7th one up to the kitchen counter.  The kitchen is a good place for watering, grooming and harvesting the lettuces.  After some experimentation I have found that the best growth is attained with 3 lettuce plants per 4" pot or 1 lettuce plant per 2" pot.  The larger Jiffy peats that swell to 2" wide and 4" high are the equivalent to 2" pots.  I found the smaller peats that are more like 1" did not work out as well since the lettuces need to get a certain size to start having good sized leaves, and they were also very crowded and hard to work with in the 1" peats.  I mention this because the Jiffy trays come with some peats already in.  I recycled both the small and large peats after using them once for lettuce, breaking them up and mixing them with soil for future batches of lettuce.  I also use worm castings from my red worms that eat kitchen waste, when available.



For me it has worked out best to cut all leaves off that are big enough to eat (about 1" across, or the size you'd find in gourmet mixed lettuce salad at the grocery store) and also any leaves that are hanging over the sides of the Jiffy tray or are too shadowed by other leaves.  The latter will just shrivel up anyway so it is best to get them out of the way.  If there are some shriveled leaves and watering does not restore them, I will cut them off during the tray's turn up in the kitchen.  The worms enjoy the dead lettuce leaves.  I have found, however, that if I play my cards right there will be no dead leaves until right before the plants go belly up.  Extra seedlings, spindly plants, and extra leaves are all edible so I usually eat them as I am going along, setting aside only those meant for actual salad that other people will see.



By far the most difficult aspect of the lettuce care for me has been watering.  In my case and by default it would be lack of watering.  Over the months I finally seem to have figured out something that works.  As part of my regular morning and nightly chores, I mist the lettuce with filtered water every morning and evening.  Then once a week each tray gets watered thoroughly while it is up in the kitchen getting harvested.  One advantage of using the Jiffy peats is you can put extra water in the tray and the peats will wick the water up as needed.  This greatly speeds watering and also makes it far less likely they'll die off between waterings, but doesn't seem to work well with regular plant pots at least not for me.



Sources on the web say indoor lettuce lives 5 weeks but mine seems to be on a cycle of more like 6-8 weeks, getting big enough to be edible at around 3 weeks.  Perhaps the fluorescent lighting makes their life cycle slower or something.  I have found 3-4 Jiffy trays full are sufficient for 1 person to eat a big salad every day without overtaxing the total amount grown.  6-7 trays should work for 2 people at least in theory, though I won't have 2 people here to test that for another couple months yet :D  I have 1 tray set aside for mustard greens, rocket arugula and basil, which I use to flavor tuna fish. 



I need to get more seeds of different types of lettuces that take well to being grown only 4" tall, as I think I've learned all about the ones I have on hand.  Also I need to figure out how to grow spinach under fluorescents.  For being so easy to grow in containers outside it is giving me a heck of a time indoors.  I have tried 4 different types with no luck.  To date I still have to buy spinach from the grocery store.  Boo hoo!

And that is all I know about lettuce for now.

I failed to post these pictures of the Rock Star Iris when they were fully bloomed last summer, and I knew my grandmother wanted to see them so here they are.  These were originally taken on June 15th, 2011.











Enjoy :)

So after having virtuously spent the last 3 days cleaning up and re-caulking my tub enclosure, I realized that I had never finished posting the original installation of my custom tiling there.  The first half of that installation process was titled Heroic Measures in Tub Droopage Mitigation and happened back in 2010.  I drew up a plan to create proper drainage for the droopy corner of my bathtub, and bought and cut the tiles.  Now here's how the installation went -- luckily I still had the photos :)



Here are the tiles glued in place.  Since they needed to slope away from the corner, I stood them up on beads of thick silicon tub glue and used a small level to check for the right amount of slope.  Tim and Sharon may recognize this shower door -- it lived in their shed for like a million years after Tim was kind enough to pick it up for me from the eBay seller I got it off of.



The side view shows the slope a bit more accurately.  You can also see the gaps between everything... the tiles are basically floating on the silicone beads.  This made them pretty adjustable up until the silicone set.



The next step was to mix and apply the grout.  Grout is basically waterproof mortar.  You mix it like cement where there's a container of the dry powder and you add only a little water at a time until it's suddenly the right consistency.  Grout comes in different colors, and we had both tan and white.  I used white for this since the slope tiles were kinda white and I figured it'd help with the visual transition between wall and tub.



Here's how it looks from the top view.  Basically the idea was to make a nice smooth waterproof downhill for the water to run down.  Pooling in the corner was giving it way too much opportunity to seep where it wasn't wanted, including inside the wall and down the front of the tub.



Once the grout was done I rubbed off the excess with a wet rag.  Viola!  Now just to let it cure for a few days, spraying water on it now and then.



Then it was time to apply caulk.  For the end of the trough, I used clear caulk, which looks white when wet as shown here. Also visible in this picture, is tan caulk along the front edge of the new tiles.



Because the grout still needed a few days of curing time when these were taken, the white caulk under the door rails was not quite finished yet.  I left the part where it was going to overlap the grout until that was 100% done.



Fast forward to 1 year later!  Here is the little hill with this year's recaulking job recently completed.  I forgot I needed to use tan around the base of stall upright... oops.



The rail is already wearing its little "hat" again, but if you look closely underneath that you can see the new rail caulk is half turned clear already.

That's all the tub stuff until next year :-p

When we were living in Colorado, so this would have been 7-8 years ago, we obtained a small electric hydraulic wood splitter on the internet.  I guess the technology must have been fairly new at the time because the only thing that was cheap that was for real was this red-painted unit with no brand name, no part numbers, made in China, and sold mail-order by an individual in the Northeastern U.S. and his small web site.  We worked that poor wood splitter pretty hard, as we had huge Ponderosa Pine logs that were very resilient, flexible, and sappy compared to hardwoods even when dried.  For me it was way better than using a huge 13 lb splitting maul as I had the entire previous winter.  Don't get me wrong, I felt virtuously rustic while standing out on the cliffside with the valley laid out below me and Pike's Peak across the way, hoisting the gleaming red maul high over my head while knee deep in snow.  However there was plenty of other work I could do too :-p

Anyway, like I say, I think the small electric hydraulic wood splitter technology was still in the experimentation stage back then.  The red no-name required quite a bit of babying, most of it done by my husband and mostly involving hydraulic fluid replacement, leak stoppage and/or metal shavings removal.  It survived until we got to Wisconsin and a little bit longer, and then one day it died for good due to, if I remember correctly, a motor winding short.  The no-name motor on it was apparently a one-off or cottage industry find on the part of the manufacturer, whoever that was, and replacing it was a complete mystery.  While Mark was still trying to find something suitable, the log splitter exploded all over the floor quite of its own accord and I came downstairs to find it lying in a pool of its own mechanical "blood".  Mark pronounced it kaput.  I just spent a while searching back and trying to find the post I made when our old wood splitter self-destructed.  I'm pretty sure I did, but I can't find it. 

Well, since we were now living in town and purchasing firewood instead of logging our own, I got away without a splitter for some years, but last January I ran out of wood in an untimely manner and had no option but to buy from a supplier who doesn't split the wood just delivers logs cut to length. 






Alas, the 13 lb splitting maul was not usable in the basement due to requiring a good deal of clearance overhead to hold it nearly vertically (it was too heavy to swing otherwise), and our smaller green splitting maul was too lightweight to be effective on the hard maple logs.  It just embedded itself painfully, the maple having too much fibrous integrity to let itself be split that way.  It wanted to rip instead.  Thus I entered into a new phase of my log splitting experience:



I purchased two steel splitting wedges such as the one shown above, and was able to split them using those and the green maul.  All was fine for another month, and then I slipped on the very icy parking lot of the Chequamegon Theatre Association (CTA) theatre and smacked my head, getting what they call a "mild" concussion.  I quickly found out that using steel wedges is pretty much impossible with a concussion, and since the symptoms took weeks to go away, that pretty much ended the wood burning for that year.  This fall while processing the new incoming firewood I went to split the old stuff and discovered that the concussion symptoms tried to come back after all these months when I did splitting with the wedge.  At that point I made the decision to get a NEW WOOD SPLITTER.

So it turns out that lots of name brand manufacturers have these little wood splitters from China now, all essentially what we had before but with official replacement parts and (presumably) with all the theory and design kinks worked out.  There were many names to pick from, all at about the same price point and features.  I ended up going with Grizzly because I had been previously impressed by their ability to supply me with repair parts for a 25 year old Grizzly planer I got on eBay a while back.  We tend to try to hang onto stuff around here!



Here's the new splitter.  It is a Grizzly H8171 Hydraulic / Electric Log Splitter.  Those are 35 gallon trash cans behind it to give you some idea of the size.  You can also click on the name to see the manufacturer's page on it.  I have been using it many times a day for some weeks now so I have some opinions about it if anybody cares. 

Mostly my feelings are good.  I am glad I bought it and haven't been wishing I got a different one.  It's been strong enough to split most hard maple, red oak and white oak logs I've given it, except for those which are almost solid burl or weighed more than 60 lbs.  My favorite feature is the pointed middle of the ram.  I think you call it a ram... the part that pushes the wood as opposed to cutting it.  I was a bit dubious at first but the pointy middle actually lets the ram apply serious force to a larger variety of log shapes effectively without slipping, not just those that are perfectly vertical with square ends.  Also, the splitter has not yet required repair.  Our old one required repair every few days when we first got it, and every few weeks after that.  Since I've only been using it heavily for about 6 weeks, the jury is still out on its long term durability.  I have noticed two small drips of oil on the floor in the last week.  Also I see a little oil down near the back end with the wheels in this picture.  I will need to figure out where that is coming from and why. Hydraulics is totally not my area unfortunately.

Some other comments about the Grizzly H8171: It makes a loud whine or scraping noise as the ram draws back to its rest position after the log is split.  This appears to be just the way it is.  It really bugged me at first, though now I am used to it.  Our old no-name did not make that noise.  The splitter has powerful springs underneath.  Sometimes on particularly brittle logs that snap in half instantly, the spring will recoil causing the two halves to fly across the room (like 10 feet) with explosive force.  Fortunately they always fly away from the operator's end of the splitter.  I learned to keep the splitter aimed away from the water heater.  It is possible for splinters and chunks of wood to fall down between the trough and get into the springs workings.  This does not happen nearly as often as I feared, but it is something that needs to be checked for.  The ram head never gets very close to the axe part, so there is a minimum length of wood you can split.  This can be gotten around somewhat by using a 2nd short log as a spacer, though this has the potential to be unsafe.  As a note, I have found it works best to place the wood against the axe and let the ram come up to it.  If I let the ram push the wood all the way down the trough the aim I set up is never kept, possibly because of the pointy ram.  Finally, although it's billed as portable and has a handle one one end and wheels on the other, I do not actually find it very easy to move compared to other such things -- mainly because the motor is too close to the ground to allow the splitter to roll on its wheels when the handle is lifted to any normal carrying height for me (I am 5' 4" tall). 

So now you know!  Probably more than you ever wanted to :-p

P.S. Regarding having a concussion.  I had never had one before and boy is it awful.  Even what they call a minor one makes a lasting impression.  To this day (10 months later) I still need more sleep than I used to, and I get flashbacks of both the concussion feeling and the feeling of impact.  I also have to use an act of will to go to the CTA's theatre now.  I can't even imagine what people who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious bomb blast concussions must go though :(  Yeesh!