DIY Jobs That Taker Longer Than you Planned, Or Just Go Badly Wrong
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Three years ago, I installed solar power on our boat. I innocently thought that this would reduce my requirement for shore-power when in a marina (which, funnily enough is extortionately expensive). Wrong, when shore power is plugged in, it takes priority over any other power supply. This has been pissing me off ever since, and no one I have spoken to has a solution, in fact most of them assumed like I did, that I would be able to use the solar I was generating. All that solar is just going to waste.
As part of our possible upgrade to Lithium batteries on the boat, I have been trying to really understand how everything works. One of the things, I did not have digital access to was the "charger/inverter" (the inverter converts 24v DC current to 240v AC - so we can run 240v AC appliances basically off the batteries). I came across a blue tooth dongle that plugs into the charger/inverter through an RJ45 socket. I got gone and started playing. First thing I found was that the charger was set up incorrecly (thanks boat factory), but then I found a setting called "Island Mode". Basically that means if you enable it, it assumes you are an island, but do have access to external AC power if needed. I thought I had cracked it earlier this week, but it failed. Today, I upgraded the firmware, set some rules up, like, prioritise solar but if battery state of charge falls to 90%, then switch to shore power.
Watching TV tonight and monitoring the app on my phone, it duly switched when the battery SOC fell to 90%.
Fuck me, 3 years to fix that one.
I'll save a fortune over the winter when I run dehumidifiers on the boat.......
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I just gave up on a descale operation on our kitchen faucet. Thought I had planned everything well, took the whole assembly apart and soaked everything in vinegar. Chrome is shiny again, put it together with all new gaskets I bought in advamce. Even bought a very specific tool for removal of the cartridge. Only to find it dripping from the two hoses which are a very specific push-in type only found on that model. Double o-ringed with a clamp holding them in place. They don‘t seal anymore after cleaning. I might have an o-ring assortment in my garage, but that is 30min away. Amazon Prime to the rescue, a new set will be delivered tomorrow. Fingers crossed…
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On our home water system we have filters to catch any sediment from our well, a water softener, and UV light to kill any bacteria or pathogens. Today, I refilled the salt for the water softener, the sediment filters, and went to change the UV light…
I didn’t have a spare and had to run to town mid process to pick up a new light…The first hurdle was finding where they were in the hardware store. It was in isle 8 (the computer said they were there, but it took forever to find. Then the brand that I was looking for wasn’t there and I had to do quick cross reference checks to make sure what I was buying was compatible with our system. Thankfully yes and after a planned 15 minute job, it only took 2 hours to complete
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@steelworker exactly what I was thinking
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I hate to throw away stuff, so I took a couple of attempts to fix the TV in our holiday home.
It's an older Samsung model (2014) and the diffusor lenses over the LEDs tend to fall off once the glue dries out too much.
Tried to glue them back on, and that failed spectacularly. Didn't position them properly, although they have notches for alignment.
Also used too much glue, despite every Youtube recommending to use it sparingly.
That was last weekend.Luckily, I found a (Chinese) seller on (German) eBay who shipped from Germany to the Netherlands.
Taught my daughter what planned obsolescence is, and how to save a couple of hundred bucks for a new TV.
Now they are watching Indiana Jones....
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@tody I too had a tv fail and hate to throw things out without first trying to repair. I looked it up and the failure is a known issue. One specific proprietary part regularly fails on this model. So I tried to buy the part only to learn it was almost as expensive as the TV. Off to the electronic recycling it went.
Don't ask me about the last time I tried to hang a tv on my living room wall.
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This one is going longer than it should, but I knew that before I started.
Whilst we were away, we had a major storm back in UK, with a lot of rain. We have a flat roof over the downstairs cloakroom and entrance hall. An annual job of mine is to go up onto the roof and clear debris from the hole through the parapet that drains water into a drain pipe hopper. Of course, I had forgotten to do this being lulled into a false sense of security by the ridiculously good summer he have had. The flat roof collected water inboard of the parapet until it was higher than the lead flashing, and then poured into the cloakroom through the light fitting. Panic call to @Ian72 , who came around and unblocked stuff.
Light did not work in there when we got home, so today, I investigated......
No idea why it did not work
So new light fitting has had to be ordered......
