Author Archives: Jim

Fixing B&D Cordless Broom

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Jim

I’ve used my 18V B&D cordless blower to clean grass clippings off the sidewalk after mowing for many years.  It’s great.  The 15 cell sub-C NiCd battery packs didn’t last for a whole cleanup – but I had two, rebuilt … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Repair, LiPo Conversions | Leave a comment

Dell laptop battery test / rebuild

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Jim

My dear (7 year) old Dell Inspiron 700m with extra capacity 8 cell battery has been running out of battery more quickly than I think it used to.  Since Bob G recently bequeathed a couple of laptop batteries to me, … Continue reading →

Posted in Battery Rebuilding, LiPo Conversions | 3 Comments

Drill press squeak fixed!

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Jim

I think since the day I got it several years ago, my drill press has squeaked.  It happened – every time – when I turned the chuck by hand a little to orient the hole for the chuck key to … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Repair | 8 Comments

Sump leak from new disharge line

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Jim

The morning after the first rain after installing a new sump discharge line, I was greeted with a loud water flow kind of noise.  It was a big leak, but thankfully (if amazingly!) confined within the sump, with no water … Continue reading →

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Home page speedup

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Jim

This has been annoying me for years, and is finally very much improved. My home page would parse through the several megabytes of ascii sensor data to find the last typically 5 days’ data and generate the 5 graphs – … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Automation | 2 Comments

Oops

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Jim

While working on stuff for the upcoming Tiny85 class, I accidentally plugged one in backwards.  After I heard the little “poof” I unplugged it and tried to pry the chip out before I realized it had gotten hot enough that … Continue reading →

Posted in Tiny 85 stuff | 2 Comments

Rain gauge repair

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Jim

The rain gauge hardware out on the garage roof feeding info to my home automation system is pretty old.  It’s been in service I dunno – six years?, and on a shelf waiting to be installed for maybe 10 years … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Automation, Home Repair | Leave a comment

AC line current sensing (and logging)

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jim

I’ve been interested in (cheap) AC current measurement/sensing for a few years now.  The first driver was wanting to add whole house energy usage to the home monitoring system.  (I even got a Black & Decker EM100B strap-on electric meter … Continue reading →

Posted in toroid winding | 7 Comments

Toroid winding (cheating method)

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jim

Toroids with many turns of secondary winding are very useful for AC current sensing and measurement because you can just pass the wire carrying the current to be measured thru them.  (We’re not talking about coils with a couple of … Continue reading →

Posted in toroid winding | 17 Comments

Fridge coil cleaning and attendant yak shaving

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Jim

While looking at dirty filter pictures for a future project to put a larger air filter in my furnace, I stumbled across an article about cleaning the main condenser coil under a refrigerator.  The before picture of the coil with … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Repair | 2 Comments