Throne MRO

That's Maintenance, Repair, & Operations for those of you who, like me, hadn't come across this TLA before. Well the repair to the Family Seat lasted only for a while, first the fake screw head came away, then the bracket holding the large toilet seat started pivoting and coming off the hinge bar at one end, leading to a seated experience akin to riding on a tea tray. The Codger had a go at it and put in a new screw but, despite his confidence that it would work and my speculation that the stump of the old screw meant it wouldn't, it was in the end a very temporary fix (2 weeks max). So I should be junking it….

But, it hasn't come away completely and is only pivoting on the good screw, so if this could be prevented the whole thing might well last a while yet. Bargain!

The first job was to decontaminate the whole thing (ten minutes of surface cleaner to clean it up and some vinegar to shift the verdigris that had formed on some of the metal parts). The business end of the job was one hole to drill and one screw to fix; forgetting to refit the brackets for attaching the seat to the toilet before capping the hinge bar made that two screws to drive. An M4 12mm zinc-plated self-tapping screw makes a stud to stop the main seat hinge from rotating off the bar. Not a pretty repair by any standards but who takes that much notice of the underside of a toilet seat. All worked as planned but the single screw holding the hinge onto the seat is somewhat shaky.

If it breaks it's the bin, or perhaps a stainless steel bracket could be made that would hold it for a bit longer…

Either way, JOB DONE.

With knobs on!

The machine screws arrived, and little gems they are! All freshly machined edges and bright brass. The screw threads fitted as expected but the heads were too large for the opening in the handles so two of them were filed down with a flat needle file. Everything went together neatly but at 0.5" the screws were a little too long to be fastened tight onto the spindle. They were left flush at either side of the opening as this looks neatest. If they become loose I'll trim them down, which is probably simpler than making a collar to keep them at the preferred height (don't have any brass tube stock to hand).

JOB DONE

Knobs!

I'm having multiple issues with door knobs at the moment. On the back door of the house the screw holding the doorknob to the spindle has vanished leading to it parting company with the door with you stood outside. The knob is antique by the look of its design and construction and searching through the spares box for a replacement only gave only a single metric machine screw with a partial fit. It was OK for a patch to keep the thing from falling off every time it was used but wasn't a neat solution. A quick spot of caliper work suggested that a 4BA screw would probably be close to the correct fit in the absence of a thread gauge. Not letting the opportunity for a small tool purchase pass me by an order for a set of thread gauges for the major thread standards (imperial, UNC, BA, BSW) is waiting to go out.

So as The Major was heading past one of the local hobby stores I explained the requirements of the part to her and pressed the doorknob into her hand with instructions to obtain half a dozen cheese-head brass screws if they had them. She duly returned with half a dozen round-head BZP steel screws which were woefully short, and all for the princely sum of £2 (ie 33p each)!

Now I didn’t expect her to be able to work out what I wanted from my description (the only sure way would have been to go with her) but I assumed that the chap in the shop, when presented with a request for brass screws and the doorknob, would have been able to sort out the right thing if he had them. As it was it appears that he was more interested in making the sale then getting the right part. He's off the Christmas list then. I'll leave aside the outcome of leaving zinc and brass in close proximity outside. While I was after the last link I noted that the Wikipedia section on materials for Screw was a bit confusticated so I updated it putting in jappaning for a larf to see how long before someone tackles a link.

So back to shopping, eBay came up trumps with 10 screws for £2.90 inclusive of delivery and as I don't need 100+ that was the best price going. The company is GWR Fasteners. Just need to wait for them to arrive and tidy away the unwanted BZP screws for future use. More on the other problem when I get a round tuit (not looked on Amazon for one yet).

Noah's Ark: Anchors Aweigh!

OK the tools are in. The plan is to drill two small holes then screw and glue the ramp back together. I made some measurements with the newly acquired caliper which gave the following layout.

Once the required points for drilling had been located on the door and hinge a search of the toolbox returned two screws of about the correct length that wouldn't need to bite into the hinge more than halfway. I would have liked to use countersunk brass screws but they were 'gud enuf' and the tikes' wooden animals would just have to negotiate then as best they could. I used a Dremel with 3mm and 2mm HSS bits to drill through the door and into the hinge respectively. After that it was just a matter of using PVA to form the joint and screwing the pieces back together. Wipe away the excess PVA with a damp cloth and leave to set for 24hrs.

A final file down with a needle file of any edges on the screws sharp enough to catch little fingers and JOB DONE.

The Loft Datacenter: IV

With the prepared extension to hand the final step was to mount it onto the shelf that had been fixed into the loft. In order to leave as much space as possible for the laptop I chose to mount the extension lead on the underside of the shelf. This was accomplished by drilling four 5 mm holes to accommodate a pair of 300mm cable ties that could secure the box to the underside of the shelf.

After about thirty minutes of hefting stuff up into the loft and plugging it in everything was installed. Once switched on it all functioned as per spec. I decided not to test the UPS auto-shutdown of the NAS box as I had confirmed that it would work when the system was set up on the workbench.

Not pretty, but JOB DONE.

The Loft Datacenter: III

The extension lead had been cut previously and was bodged together with a terminal block. Fitting the IEC 60320 was a matter of removing the terminal block and fitting the C14 connector. Then taking it off again once I had measured the distance from the shelf to the rear of the UPS.

So back to the other piece of cable on the other side of the terminal block which was of the right length. Using this cable would mean opening up the extension box to swap the short cable for the longer piece. While doing this I decided to replace the burnt out neon indicator lamp as the light switch under the new shelf is quite shadowed and it might help shed a small amount of light into the area. After a bit of searching I decided to use components from Maplin, which is local, that could be had for the princely sum of £0.93 plus P&P.

The circuit is a simple one (simple enough for me to understand!). By Kirchoff's 2^nd law the high value resistor (ballast resistor) takes most of the voltage. I would have liked to work out all the values but a query to Maplin on the max working current and voltage of the neon lamp fell on deaf ears.

I also looked at fitting an LED instead of the neon lamp as the lifetimes of LEDs are 50,000 hr as opposed to neon at 20,000 hr. Although you would not expect an LED to work with AC, it will light on the positive phase of the cycle and as long as the negative phase isn't greater than its maximum reverse voltage it won't be damaged. But the current draw of the LEDs was too great meaning they would need to be coupled with a large high wattage resistor. There are ways to get round this but I opted for simplicity.

The Maplin site actually specified a ballast resistor to use with the lamp at UK mains voltage. But for my own personal edification I checked it out as well. As usual Wikipedia had the required information and I made a little spreadsheet to help with looking at using LEDs.

The resistor came with more bands than I am used to but I found a neat colour code reader that confirmed that I had the right part.

A small amount of soldering later and all done. The final stage is to put the extension bar and the rest of the IT into place.

The Loft Datacenter: II

OK now for some practicalities.

1. The wireless router sometimes locks out and stops picking up connections from the laptops, so it would be ideal to be able to disconnect and restart it.
2. Access to the NAS box over the wireless network appears not to be reliable so the option to have access to a hard Ethernet connection and power for the laptops is required.
3. The house is divided by a large chimney and the loft hatch is on a wall with access up the side of chimney about 3ft to the loft level.
4. The UPS is heavy and needs to be across a couple of beams to support its weight.

With all this in mind, the IT needs to stay at the level of the loft roof beams but the power and Ethernet needs to be accessible from floor level. I could arrange a neat cable box in one of the upstairs rooms but the work required would be relatively involved and too intrusive on the fabric of the building for a small benefit (a couple of power switches and an Ethernet port).

Instead I've chosen to put in a shelf half-way up that the laptops could be parked on for hard access to the NAS. Also the power can be fed down from the UPS to the 4-gang extension lead, this will give a power point for the laptops and access to the wireless router power for restarts.

Out with the jigsaw and a surplus piece of dismantled cupboard was cut to size. One edge rests on the stepped chimney breast and the opposite edge on two corner blocks screwed to the wall studs. The advantage of this is that the shelf can be lifted out of the way if necessary.

Next the provision of power.

The Loft Datacenter

Most of the HDDs of the various PCs dotted around the house are in various states of filling up or already full. So I've decided to upgrade the network to include some attached storage. Quite a lot actually, 4TB in RAID 1 from Iomega (same as this but without the cloud).

All fine and dandy. But buried in the user guide for the NAS box was the statement that it needed to be protected by a UPS. So back to the web to pick up an APC Back-UPS 350A. I calculated that this, the smallest capacity model that APC produces, would be enough to keep the NAS going for a while. The other benefit of this model is that it can automatically power off the NAS via a USB connection.

In order to make the NAS visible to all the household computers it needs to be attached to the wireless router, which is located in the loft in order to give a good signal across the house. There is also a TV signal amplifier up there and only two 13A sockets. Fortunately the UPS will ease this situation as it has four IEC 60320 output sockets.

First job then is to buy an IEC 60320 C14 shrouded plug and fitting this to an old four socket extension lead that I had lying around. So we will have four 3-pin 13A sockets available all on UPS. The UPS will also surge protect the phone line and the whole wiring set up will look like this.

The Family Seat

Fresh from fixing toys I decided to upgrade the toilets in the house to family seats. These are effectively two seats in one allowing the Tykes to use the loo unaided without having to have inserts lying around the toilet. The upstairs seat was also shot, so a new downstairs seat in white MDF was purchased. Fitting this to the downstairs toilet was no problem apart from a rust stain on the bowl which took a bit of a soak with vinegar to remove.

The stain had come from two screws which had been used to bodge the downstairs seat back together after one of the hinges had come loose previously. There were no stainless screws to hand at the time so new holes were drilled through the chromed brass hinge and in to the seat which was an effective repair, if not a long-term one.

Fortunately as the old upstairs seat and the old downstairs seat used similar fittings I would be able to re-assemble one intact seat from the parts available. The only issue was the original loose hinge.

So all the holes in the seat were filled with wood-filler and two new holes drilled to accept the stainless screws recovered from the dead seat. The next problem was that as the steel screw heads were so corroded that they basically fell apart and left the shank of the screw embedded in the MDF seat. One hole drilled OK but the other hit steel, but only on part of the hole, which caused an off-centre mess that wouldn’t allow the stainless wood screw to bite into. I fixed the good screw into position but had to cut down the other screw until it was just the head which was superglued into place for cosmetic affect.

The next time it comes apart ‘tis for the bin.

JOB DONE

Noah's Ark: Provisioning

Measuring out for the flat door will be easy but attempting to measure the thickness of the door hinge is going to be a bit more difficult with only a steel rule. As I was buying a Vernier caliper for work I also indulged in a bit of overkill for this job and bought a Draper caliper, let's call it an investment for the tool box.

Also something to grip the door while drilling would be useful, so another investment was made for a small bench vice.



They arrived all ship-shaped and I have the drill and bits, PVA, and screws required so full steam ahead.

Noah's Ark: In The Beginning

The final toy in this batch was a wooden ark with a busted ramp. It has been a sturdy toy, mostly, but expecting glue to stand up under the combined assault of the tykes was an optimistic assumption on the part of the manufacturers. So, inevitably, the door parted company with the hinge along the glue line.

Obviously what is needed is a bit more strength in the joint which can be supplied by a couple of suitably placed woodscrews. On inspection drilling a pilot hole through the door should present no problem. The hinge however may or may not depending on how far through the steel pin runs through the hinge.

Either way pilot holes will need to be drilled and the screws countersunk. In order to do this a spot of shopping is in order I think.

Inspection kit

Bought this 3 piece inspection kit on impulse, mostly for the magnetic dish but I thought the posable mirror would come in handy. Plus the whole thing was only £6. It appears to be a bit cheap and nasty but it will do the job for occasional use, and how many features can a magnetic bowl have?

Franglais Farm

Broken toy number two. More Early Learning Centre, this time an English-French farm toy which died within two weeks of receipt but we didn’t get round to returning.

The thing wasn’t completely dead though, but stuck on same tune. Pressing its buttons lead to very brief halt and restart as did switching between English and French. Also the farm scene was stuck and wee man on tractor was static rather than merrily rotating round scene.

Obviously this was going to be more complex inside than toy #1. On opening up there were a variety of PCBs and a motor unit. Testing the switches, motor, lights and mechanics revealed no obvious problems. Reassembling it got the wee man rotating and tune working but I could not resurrect the interactive component. I guess that this probably means the chip/main PCB is duff. Admitting defeat I stripped it for parts (couple of switches, electrolytic capacitors, transistors, a light (or maybe IR) activated switch, the 6V DC motor and its gearbox, pair of PCB-mounted LEDs, and a ton of screws) and consigned the remains to the recycling bin.

So 1 for 2 on toy fixes, the next is pure carpentry so I’m hoping to pull back my success rate.

Anglepoise Lamp

The playroom tidy has brought forth a Model 90 Anglepoise lamp, and as the workbench is in a dark corner of the room a spot of illumination would seem to be in order. The only problem was that it had a broken elbow joint.


The small square hole on the lower limb is a socket for a plastic lug which had snapped off leading to the lamp disassembling itself every time it moved.

Remaking the part was out the question but, after taking a few measurements, I realised the square hole was just about the perfect size to accept an M4 bolt (I knew it was worth buying 100 of them!). With a bit of trimming a socket could be formed in the plastic to accept an M4 nut and that should stop the elbow joint from coming apart. But no M4 nuts were to be found in the toolbox so back to Screwfix again as a side trip while going to the cinema.

On return 10 mins with a scalpel provided a socket and once the screw had been cut down to size with a hacksaw and checked for any sharp edges the elbow was fixed.



It wasn’t perfect, note the gap between the black plastic elbow and the red metal arm, but it was functional again. If it really starts to bug me I think I will have to go back and trim some more plastic and insert a rectangular metal plate into the area where the nut is. With a hole drilled in the correct spot it should be possible to locate the joint more correctly. But as behoves my stated functional/utilitarian bent, ‘tis gud enuf.’

A quick check with a continuity tester to make sure nothing had come loose or whether the bolt was causing any problems which would lead to electrocution of any of the family members and JOB DONE.

Babushka

More toys to fix, this time a broken pivot hinge on a doll's house. The two year old got her paws on the door and off it came. The trouble was a snapped hinge, which had been made out of uber-thin wood dowels (0.05"). The top hinge had parted leaving a stub in the door and an empty socket in the door casing ( the bottom hinge is shown below).

The quick fix was to drill out the remaining dowel in the door and replace it with brass rod. The sockets were 0.08" so 1/16"rod would do, or 1.5mm. A foot of 1/16" was duly purchased and a 7mm length cut. The socket in the casing was deep enough for the rod to be pushed up into it and then held with a strip of card while the door was replaced. The card was removed and the rod dropped down into the socket in the top of the hinge stile forming the hinge and locking the door back into place.

JOB DONE

Batteries Galore!

One of the first things out of the pile and onto the bench, I mean desk, was yet another battery powered toy. It seems that every other toy needs to flash and beep, the consequence of which is that the house eats AA batteries by the handful. We had brought a recharger from Pkgreen that should have been able to deal with standard alkaline cells, but it didn't. However it does work with rechargeables even if the screen is partly broken now.

With this in mind I decided to cease feeding the house's habit and buy in a chunk of rechargeables in one go to provide a maintenance dose of AA power. A search on t'internet led me to the eBay website  of RechargeableBatteries.co.uk who had 40 2000mAh Sanyo Eneloop batteries on offer for £65. These are low self-discharge batteries which should be good for the low-use low-drain toys that are scattered around the house. As I'm always a bit wary buying off the web and the eBay shop has only been running since 17/12/10 a quick Whois gave the domain registrant as Supreme Imports who, according to their website, is the largest battery distributor in the world) so that's OK then.

Batteries arrived within 4 days of ordering. JOB DONE.

Did someone say Project?

We are supposed to be having a major clear out of the junkyard that is the kid’s playroom. As is to be expected this should generate small fix-it jobs on a large scale . It would if it was being done with any speed, that is, but the Major is far too busy to progress her first project of the New Year. Hence it can be carried out at my more reasoned and logical pace, which also happens to be quite a bit more leisurely…

Anyhoo the first quarter of the room (also the one which the least in it) yielded enough floor space to fit another small desk into the room. I managed to swing it past the Major on the grounds that the current ‘70s office surplus desk could be used as messy/craft area for the kids  (ie code for a small scale indoor workbench for me,  mwhah-ha-ha-hah!).

At the moment the world and his wife are ditching their computer desks when they get a laptop and they are frequently available on Freecycle. As I am of a functional/utilitarian bent I don’t care what it looks like just as long as it fits into the space  and does the job so that suits me. A day later we had a perfectly reasonable pine corner desk. Result.