Posts Tagged ‘troubleshooting’
Shooting Troubles
Our first day at the lake for the summer season was not one of total relaxation. In fact, it was a series of mysterious issues that required solving. Granted, some were notably first-world problems of unnecessary convenience. The electric blinds in Marie’s bedroom wouldn’t open. Since Cyndie and I are unfamiliar with this effort-saving phenomenon, she needed to contact her brother to find out how it worked.
The shades needed to be plugged into a USB charging port and then paired to the remote control. The remote needed new AAA batteries, too. There’s always one more step.
More pressing for Cyndie’s temperature sensitivities, we discovered the furnace(s) didn’t bring the house up to temperature overnight. It was a chilly 63° F indoors, which was definitely noticeable after climbing out from under the covers. There are two furnaces because a second one was needed when an addition was built to create a master suite on the main level, when stairs became problematic for Cyndie’s parents. Neither furnace was producing heat.
More calls to Cyndie’s brother, who installed thermostats that he is able to control and monitor remotely. Aah, smart technology. Too bad it’s only “so” smart.
I was impressed as heck at Cyndie’s wily problem-solving research after multiple power resets did nothing to fire up the burners. Speaking of burners, we had used them on the gas stove, so we felt lack of propane probably wasn’t the problem. Just to be sure, I trekked out to confirm the percentage of fill on the gauge on the tank.
Reading down the list of issues Cyndie found online, our memories about regularly changing the filter were triggered, and I was certain this would bring the heat.
Nope. It didn’t.
After the insanity of trying several things multiple times and expecting different results, Cyndie called for professional HVAC support. The best they could offer was emergency service after 4:00 on the Friday of this holiday weekend. She said, “Put us on the list.”
I built a fire in the fireplace and kept it stoked while Cyndie made a run to town for groceries, hoping to beat some of the Friday rush of the Memorial Day weekend vacationers. Her research had taught us what the number of flashes from the red LED on the furnace control board indicated (contact a service person), and she asked me to call the company to report our findings, in case that would help in any way.
I tried and tried, but couldn’t get through. Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window and saw one of their trucks parked next door.
There is new construction underway where the old lodge was torn down, so I assumed they might be installing a furnace. None of the guys working at the new place knew anything about the service truck. I walked into the existing cabin next door and found the man was servicing a plumbing issue. He didn’t do furnaces.
The good news/bad news result of the craziness yesterday was that a cancellation ended up freeing a furnace guy to show up early, but both furnaces needed control boards replaced, and those would need to be ordered.
They should arrive next week, when the temperatures are forecast to be in the upper 80s F, and furnace heat will be the last thing needed up here.
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Error Code
Before the sun came up yesterday, I heard rain falling on the roof. By the time we got out of bed, the precipitation had passed, but it looked like it had knocked the stuffing out of one of the trees over the driveway.
As the day progressed, the wind picked up significantly. In the afternoon, all of that debris was rolling together into large fuzz balls. Nature making a big mess.
Lacking tangible support from the manufacturer of my battery-powered riding mower, I ended up making a mess of my own to troubleshoot the recurring error code.
After determining that the left and right blade controllers were identical, I swapped them. The problem didn’t change. That pointed me to the blade motors, which also happen to be identical. I swapped them next. While I had everything apart, I decided to install some new blades I had on hand when putting it all back together.
With everything back together, I set off to do some test mowing to see if the error reappeared. In a classic situation, which technicians are well familiar with, no error code occurred for the rest of the time I mowed. The only reason I quit was that the batteries needed charging.
It appeared as though I fixed it by taking it apart and then putting it back together again. That is not as rewarding as it seems it should be.
When the batteries were fully recharged, I set out to finish mowing the area where I had left off. From there, I figured I would take as much advantage as possible and mow any area overdue for a trim. A short time later, the PTO shut down with the return of the error code.
I had not fixed the problem. Only bought a little time between failures. However, the error code had changed, following the motor that had been moved from the right side to the left. The problem has been narrowed down to the (formerly, right) blade motor.
I’m expecting a call back from a designated service provider in St. Paul this morning with information on ordering a replacement motor (since the manufacturer shows little interest in offering support after the run-time hours have exceeded their warranty period).
The best part of working on the battery-powered riding tractor is that my hands hardly got dirty. No gas smell, engine oil, or grease. Just turning screws, pulling connectors, and attaching wires to clean, dry electronic components.
It was a real treat to be working in my preferred element.
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Mower Issues
Just when I thought I had figured out how to resolve an error code on my Greenworks riding mower, the problem has now been recurring after about five minutes of use. The code hints at overheating, but I am very suspicious about whether or not that is what is happening.
Service support alerted me to the fact that a single blade of grass can get caught in the space around the motor spindle and trip the sensor. They recommend frequent use of compressed air to blow from beneath the deck. That solved my problem the last time I was having issues.
When it wasn’t helping with the current rash of problems, I resorted to pulling the blade, thinking I was working toward removing four more bolts to get at the motor. What I found stopped me from going any further.
There was a thin plastic line wrapped around and around on the spindle. If a blade of grass can be a problem, that surely must be what was triggering that motor sensor. I bolted the blade back onto the spindle and turned the key. The error message was gone.
I triumphantly set off to resume mowing. A few minutes into it, the PTO snapped off, and the error code was showing on the display.
It was late, I was tired, and lacking the spirit to continue doing battle, I parked the mower and hit the shower.
I’m happy to have the distraction of Mother’s Day this morning, which I can use as an excuse to ignore the mower problem for a while longer. We are headed for a brunch to honor several mothers for a few hours.
That’ll give the mower more time to think about what it’s doing wrong.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Relative Something 