Posts Tagged ‘troubleshooting’
Like Dad
Baby, it’s cold outside. The horses had frosty whiskers this morning, to rival all the other deep-freeze overnight lows they’ve endured in their time with us.
While the air was exceedingly crisp outside, the house was toastier than Santa’s workshop with Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie-palooza, Day 1, in full swing. The double oven was working overtime to keep up with all the delectible treats Cyndie and her team of guests were moving through it. The post-bake decorating station was a spectacle this year, with frostings and sprinkles applied to the wafting sounds of a unique mix of Christmas music, courtesy of some algorithm at Apple Music.
Since I was in charge of keeping the fire fed in the fireplace and the dog’s nose pointed anywhere other than at foodstuffs, I let the whole operation pass without taking a single photo. I apologize. That was a total lapse of thinking on my part. I did get a shot of some behind-the-scenes aftermath, though.
I stopped by the kitchen to take a photo of a recent success on my part that had me thinking of my dad. A little of his mechanical ingenuity and DIY solutions were passed to me, along with his exceptional ability to tolerate unfinished projects.
For some 10 or 12 years, Cyndie has begrudgingly lived with a problematic corner cabinet that has a pair of lazy susan shelves where we store pots and pans. When it would get stuck, I assumed it was because pan handles weren’t being oriented logically, or it was being overstuffed. When it became stiff, a confident nudge from my foot would close it just fine.
When the shelves finally collapsed from the top and bottom brackets two days ago, I was forced to figure out how it was supposed to work. How the heck did they install it in the first place? Oh, there are adjustment screws. Hmm.
I discovered there was a detent in the plastic top piece that was supposed to match the springy metal brace. Imagine that.
A Philips screwdriver, ten minutes of puttering with adjustments, and we had a perfectly functioning lazy susan corner cabinet. I could have done that years ago. I suppose Cyndie wouldn’t be quite as thrilled with the results if it hadn’t been an ongoing nuisance for a decade.
The quick fix had me feeling chuffed. Figuring out how it was supposed to work reminded me of my dad’s keen skills in that realm. Realizing I had let something go for years without properly solving it dampened my pride and reminded me that I inherited both good and bad traits from that wonderful, complex, ingenious, troubled man that I both looked up to and feared in the years we were both alive.
I think Dad would have approved of the way I fixed that corner lazy susan by figuring out the way it was intended to work.
I’m going to focus on that and not on how long it took for me to get around to it.
.
.
Busted Brackets
Upon closer inspection of the mounting system on the ATV plow blade, I discovered significant mechanical failures. I completely missed it when I became overly focused on not being able to slide the pin back to change the blade angle. The two brackets that hold a pulley had fractured and then bent.
Oops. No wonder things weren’t working as well as they used to.
I took everything apart, lubricated the pin to make sure it moved freely, and then retrieved the U-bolt that had previously served as the winch cable attachment point. Replacement brackets were going to cost more money than I wanted to spend, so I’m reverting to the old way, with one added trick I’ve learned.
Those brackets that broke held a pulley that increases the mechanical advantage for lifting the blade. I found that I already have a pulley I can use that won’t require a bracket to get the lift I’m seeking. That problem is solved; however, the pin is still getting hung up somehow, so I can’t change the angle of the blade yet.
A little more tinkering needs to happen today. I ran out of daylight by the time I got around to testing the reassembled hardware yesterday. If I can figure out what’s keeping that pin from sliding easily and resolve the issue, I’ll be back in business for plowing snow.
Just in case we get another dose of snowflakes piling up more than a trace amount.
.
.
Custom Solution
We were moving our gas grill off the deck when one of the doors fell to the ground. Cyndie found a bolt with a nut on it lying there, but I couldn’t figure out what had broken or how it had been attached. As far as I could tell, the bolt was just functioning as a post that the door pivoted on. First impression was that a new bolt would solve the problem, but I knew it was more complicated than that.
There wasn’t a way to screw a replacement bolt back on, so the trick would be to mount the bolt in a way that would leave just the threaded portion exposed to mate with the hole in the bottom corner of the door.
Based on the space I was working with, it would likely require a very thin nut. One possibility would be to grind down a standard-width nut to something much skinnier, but I had another idea.
I found a washer with a center hole one size smaller than the replacement 1/4-20 bolt I was going to use. I planned to try tapping threads into that washer. My first challenge was how to hold that little washer in order to cut threads into it.
After a couple of failed attempts to clamp it directly into a bench vise, I pinched the edge of the washer with a vise-grip pliers and then clamped the pliers into the bench vise. The little washer was just thick enough to accept a fraction of threads, and that proved to be enough to spin it on the bolt.
I don’t know if you were able to follow all that, but in the accompanying photo, the little washer I tapped is directly between the bottom of the door and the brown portion of the grill frame. Somewhat to my surprise, it worked to hold the bolt that is coming from below to protrude up into the door.
That’s all I needed. Color me chuffed. I had paused mowing to help move things back onto the deck and then ran into this nuisance of a task. My goal was to find a quick fix and get back to mowing. Given all the steps I ended up taking, it was quick enough and successful enough, and gave me a boost of satisfaction that my ingenuity produced a custom solution that worked on the first try.
The experience acquired from a career in manufacturing continues to pay dividends in my retirement. I bought us a little more time with that old grill, but its days are numbered. It is admittedly well beyond its “Best If Used By” date.
.
.
Conflicting Evidence
One of the more frustrating situations in troubleshooting is the intermittent problem. Yesterday morning, we heated water and filled an insulated pitcher before heading to the barn to feed the horses. Since the waterer in the paddock had frozen up again the previous afternoon when the temperature was relatively mild, we were prepared for the worst after an overnight of extreme cold.
That wasn’t the case. Water was flowing just fine when we arrived to check. It doesn’t make sense to me.
If the water line is not freezing when it gets really cold overnight, the heat tape must be doing its job. That leaves me with the question of why the heat tape wouldn’t prevent freezing when the air temperature moderates into the teens (F) in the middle of the day.
At one point when we suspected the heat tape might be failing, I surmised the possibility that when the horses consistently drink from the waterer, there is enough flow through the line and the valve that it helps prevent freezing. If the waterer is untouched for a length of time, the static state of water in the lines could lead to freezing.
It’s hard to know if the horses are neglecting to drink from the waterer at regular intervals.
We have found the pans of the waterer empty when the line freezes up, so we know the horses eventually get around to drinking after the line is frozen and can’t refill.
With luck, the extreme cold snap we are experiencing for a few days now will be the last of the season. The forecast for a week from now indicates some days above freezing. At almost two months past the winter solstice, the increasing angle of sunshine in the middle of the days is noticeable. Even when the temperature stays below freezing, there are obvious signs of snowmelt around the grounds.
I’m looking forward to the return of warm days when we won’t have to worry about the waterer. If it gets warm enough that the freezing water line is no longer a problem, it will also mean I don’t have to bundle up in my space suit to go outside every morning.
Double bonus!
.
.
No Fix
It’s official. The splice in the power wire to the barn was not the point of failure. Where does that leave things? Right where I didn’t want them. The electricians were unable to tell me where the break in the buried wire might be occurring.
For the time being, I have chosen to continue to rely on one “hot” line providing 120VAC to all the circuits in the barn. That is the way we have been operating since the problem initially occurred in January, and it has proved to be sufficient.
Since we haven’t been able to come up with an explanation for the failure of the one line, I’m concerned about the potential risk of the other line suffering the same fate, which would leave us with no power at all in the barn. The guys said they see this kind of thing with a surprising regularity.
Apparently, there is a lot more going on underground than I realized. The causes they’ve seen include tree roots, burrowing critters, and rocks pushing their way into the wires.
My plan, at this point, is to live with the risk. If the remaining power line suddenly fails, we will run an above-ground extension cord until we can get scheduled to have new wires bored beneath the driveway. I asked for a quote for the expense of this work and learned that although it wouldn’t be cheap, it would be less than I anticipated.
We will be saving up for that eventuality. Hopefully, we’ll have years to tuck away the funds.
.
.
More Digging
What’d you do yesterday? I dug through dry, packed gravel that was as hard as concrete to uncover even more of the AC power wires to the barn. With Cyndie’s participation, we worked together from two ends and met in the middle.
The owner of the Electric/Plumbing company we use for service stopped by in the morning to assess the situation. He was concerned there could be an additional splice and convinced me to dig up the rest of the lines all the way to the barn.
That was easy for him to say and a heck of a lot of work for us to do. At least we now know there are no other splices, at least not in that direction. I have very high confidence the patchwork that was done over ten years ago did not involve any more than the bare minimum repair to solve (and bury) the problem they had created.
What still remains unanswered for now is whether or not the splice is where power is actually being lost. I have notified the company that the cables are exposed all the way to the barn, allowing them to schedule an electrician to (hopefully) verify the splice is the problem and then redo all three splices with a much higher-quality up-to-date process.
I’m looking forward to that work being done so we can put all that class 5 gravel and thick clay soil back where it came from.
I don’t know what today’s projects at Wintervale will be for us, but I’m going to make every effort to avoid anything that involves digging.
.
.
No Worse
Things being “no worse” is not a ringing endorsement of happiness but I’m claiming it as a victory. There was no sign of water on the floor in the laundry room one day after Cyndie had cleaned it all up. Instead of blindly calling any plumber to help us diagnose a potential problem with the water softener, I figured I should at least try to learn enough about it to discuss its functions.
In searching online for a manual, I learned of a company in Red Wing that services our model. Without needing to see it in person, a plumber talked me through testing the “regen” operations over the phone. At each step, he could tell me where to look for the possibility of leaking water.
The good news is that by his analysis, the softener was unlikely to be the source of the leak. The bad news is we are now even more confused about where the water had come from to soak all our throw rugs. The plumber offered his thoughts about other possible causes, but nothing definitive came of it. For now, we are hovering in an observation mode and not returning any rugs to the floor.
Asher kept busy by familiarizing himself with a new pull-apart toy Elysa gave him for Christmas. I think he’s getting the hang of it.
My project for the ethernet cabling to the Wi-Fi repeater faired much better than being labeled, “no worse.” I reviewed the wiring in the last connector I crimped, using a magnifying glass, and deemed it visibly faultless. That led me to dig deeper into the software initialization of the hardware.
In a phone conversation with Julian, we were making our way through the connections and I climbed up to look one more time at the original router and associated hardware on top of the desk shelf in the den. The answer appeared right before my eyes. I had failed to plug in an RJ45 connector that I had disconnected when testing the attic cabling.
2024 is already looking better for us on day 3.
After succeeding with the repeater, my next step shifted to getting the camera mounted and connected to AC power down at the barn. I was thrilled to find the horses curious but not the least bit disturbed by my showing up with unfamiliar tools, making potentially scary sounds, and focusing on my task when they were expecting me to be serving feed for them.
I couldn’t finish last night, but completing the camera installation should be in reach today. Although, I am beyond committing myself to actually reaching such a goal.
At this point, I’m leaning toward seeking to make things ‘no worse’ for two days in a row. I’m on a roll!
.
.
Inauspicious Start
Our New Year started with an unwelcome surprise. It being the first day of the month, I went downstairs to check the date I had written on our furnace filter the last time I changed it. A hall rug on the way to the laundry room was askew and I attempted to slide it with the toe of one foot.
It didn’t budge. The chain of evidence my eyes collected with each successive glance around me triggered increasing alarm. The rug was soaking wet. There was a puddle on the floor in the laundry room. There was water all over the floor in the bedroom but it was dry in between.
I hollered to Cyndie that we’d had a flood in the basement. Luckily, the water was clean. I’d like to know if it was salty, but I wasn’t about to taste it. I’d heard the softener going through its regeneration process overnight. That only happens at long intervals because we don’t generally use a lot of water. My guess is that something related to the water softener was the cause but we failed to find any obvious clue as to where the water had come from.
The more we looked, the more saturated throw rugs we discovered. It was confusing because the floor was dry in places between wet rugs. We couldn’t find any signs of water leaking from somewhere above the floor level. It’s a big mystery to us.
We’ve decided to seek professional advice from a local plumber. Maybe we will help a local business start 2024 with unexpected revenue.
I opted out of the next-level cleaning Cyndie embarked on in the basement in order to try finishing my ethernet cable installation project that involved drilling a hole through one of our log walls. The drilling was a little tedious but once completed, the real challenge remained.
The roof hadn’t dried up at all since the last mix of freezing drizzle and snow had coated the shingles. If I could just make my way to the narrow slope of dry shingles under the eave of the main peak, I figured I could safely stand on the step ladder already straddling the lower peak.
I hadn’t considered the stressful tension I would subject my muscles to for the operation. By the time I made it back safely to the ground again, multiple muscles were letting me know they were not happy with my activity. I was so focused on completing the final steps up there, I didn’t notice the extent to which I was tensing up to balance, hold my position, and avoid losing my footing.
However, the cable routing was done. All that remained was to crimp one connector to finish. With Cyndie’s moral support and willingness to hold a light for me, I lined up those eight tiny wires and crimped the connector.
The WiFi repeater light came on, the named signals appeared in the list of known networks, and… I’m getting no connection to the internet.
Happy New Year 2024, indeed. Humph.
.
.
Continued Cleanup
Picking up on the opposite end of the backside of our house from where I left off shoveling on Tuesday, yesterday I decided to work from front to back in removing the piles of snow that I raked off the roof.
The temperature climbed up above freezing as predicted but we didn’t see a lot of sunshine which would have made a difference in the amount of melting that occurred. Still, the trees began losing some of the globs of snow stuck in their branches. To my dismay, it meant repeatedly getting splotches of sticky snow slapping down onto the walkway I had just cleared.
Every time I start to feel too much satisfaction over finishing a portion of the shoveling, there’d be one of those unhappy surprises of a new dump of snow on places I just cleaned. In truth, I am gaining on the overall snow-clearing job. I’m getting more areas finished than are getting re-trashed.
In the morning I got the drifts on the driveway and in front of the barn plowed away again. From there, I went directly to the spot in the photo above and then forged ahead onto the deck until only a small portion was left to go. I took a break when our kids arrived for a visit and helped carry in groceries they picked up in River Falls for us. Cyndie being able to shop for groceries online is saving me from one of my least favorite pastimes during these months of doing all the walking and driving chores for her.
Julian helped me figure out the workings of getting the new surveillance camera he gifted us connected through WiFi. We needed to troubleshoot some squirrelly operations where it worked intermittently. Once we figured out the camera could only communicate on 2.4 GHz frequency and our router was auto-choosing between 2.4 and 5.0, we started making good progress.
We changed the router to stop auto-choosing frequencies and separated them to allow for the selection of one or the other. The kids saved me another trip in the afternoon by agreeing to give Cyndie a ride to an appointment, but that meant they had to go before we made it to the biggest test of the camera away from the house.
Alas, it was easy for me to do on my own because we had already solved all the other issues. I walked down to the shop, plugged the camera into power, and brought up the app on my phone.
Ta-Daa!
WiFi signal from the house reaches the shop/garage.
Now I need to figure out a precise location to mount it where I can see as much of the driveway as possible and secure a more permanent power cable. Actually, before I do that, I will be interested in seeing if it will be possible for the WiFi signal to reach the back side of the barn. Being able to see the horses under the overhang would be a real bonus.
It will also drive the need to purchase the next camera that will further our vision of improving surveillance of our property from within the house or remotely on my phone.
.
.
Trouble Starting
Despite the ongoing dry state of our soil, we’ve got areas of grass that well deserved to be mowed over the weekend, but I never got the chance. The ol’ Craftsman lawn tractor wouldn’t start. Actually, it tried to start several times until it stopped rotating the flywheel and just made a whiny sound. That set off days of trial and error troubleshooting. I thought it was the solenoid, but I was wrong. Then I wondered if it had something to do with the battery. That didn’t appear to be the case.
Next, I wondered if the Kohler engine might be seized, because I couldn’t move it. Then I removed the starter and discovered the engine wasn’t seized. The starter seemed okay, so I mounted it back in place, and lo and behold, the engine spun again. Twice, in fact, before it resumed doing nothing but whining.
Now I have a replacement starter on order.
Since I couldn’t mow with the tractor, I switched to the Stihl power trimmer and headed for the labyrinth.
Once again, we are finding that the earth is slowly swallowing the stones we placed to mark the pathway. Even with the ground hard and dry, the rocks seem to settle ever-deeper, and the grass gladly works its way to cover their edges, pushing them down even more.
The horses are doing their part to keep the paddock grass beautifully mowed.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It crossed my mind that I could use their expertise on the runaway growth of grass between the barn and the chicken coop while the mower is waiting for its starter.
In the amount of time it would require to install temporary fencing around that area, I could take care of things using the power trimmer. If the ordered part doesn’t arrive on the day advertised, I just might do that.
The starter will be here about the same time the weather is predicted to possibly bring rain. It’s frustrating because we really need the rain, but, at the same time, I really want to get the grass cut.
I may not have trouble starting, at that point, but I just might run into trouble finishing.
.
.
Relative Something 