Ben Benner’s Blog

Like the satisfying sound a can of soda makes when you pop the top, or the thunderous crack of a strike, or being able to easily open your car door.

I took some time away from the computer (and the TV) this weekend and repaired my beloved ‘Rolla. I was afraid that dismantling the door was going to be more difficult than it actually was. A few years back I had tried to take the inside door panel off a few year back, but was thwarted by the manual window handle, just could not get it to come off.

So a while back, when I had some time to kill, I found myself at AutoZone, in doing so I found there there is a special tool you need to be able to remove the little metal clip that holds the window handle on. I bought it, and some extra metal clips, assuming that I would end up destroying or losing the ones I would be removing.

Needless to say, I am glad I bought the clips, as when I used the tool, I promptly lost the metal clip. Not to mention that it shot off the handle at such a speed that I was glad I wasn’t in it’s path.

The hardest part of reassembling everything was getting the door lock back in the right spot. I had to basically get my arm inside the door frame to move the piece into place, to get a better hold on it all, I had to take a cross bear off, thankfully I remembered to put it back on.

The new door handle is working great, I do think I must have messed something up with the lock mechanism though, as I can unlock the door, but I cannot lock the door (from the outside with the key). Not a HUGE deal, so no worries.

Well I need to get back to coding, I am excited about next weekend, as I will be replacing the front door speakers, given that I now own a soldering iron.

Given the DIY repair projects of the last two weekends, I am also faced with the notion that our culture these days (prepare for gross generalization) is more likely to purchase entire replacement items vs repair a piece of technology or whatever the item may be.

Many appliances, furniture and items of consumer tech are no longer designed to be repaired, particularly not by the owner. Sometimes this is for their own good, BIG capacitors can kill, so I totally get that.

I hadn’t really thought much about this type of stuff until a few years back, I witnessed my father-in-law replacing the ‘fabric’ strips on a beach/lawn chair. The chairs were what one might call ‘vintage’, as they had seen quite a few seasons up at the cottage.

He had the roll of needed plastic fabric and the necessary tools to detach the old strips and secure the new strips. My first thought was, “Wow, I wonder how much a new chair costs vs the materials needed to repair?” eg, is it worth the effort to repair something like that. My next thought was ‘You know, I don’t think I have ever seen a lawn chair repair kit. Do you have to find a specialty store on the Internet?”

Needless to say, I was too scared to ask those questions, I didn’t want to insult my father-in-law or anything, not knowing how he might take those kinds of questions. (to which I am sure my mother-in-law, will let him know I said these things on my blog, so for the record, I think it is cool to repair stuff vs just buy a new one. Hello Brenda and Tom!!!)

But yeah, the thought of just repairing something vs getting a new one is I definitely think something we as a whole consumer culture don’t really do these days. We return it and get a new one, they might fix it back at the factory, but that is all “black-box” to us, “out-of-sight, out-of-mind”.

And, I totally forgot to post an update, the Samsung TV is working GREAT!!!

Gina took some pics of me and John working on the TV last weekend, many thanks to John he did pretty much all the soldering work, I tried to desolder the first capacitor for about 3-4 minutes with no real progress made. Apparently, they offered an electronics course at his High School. I remember taking electricity in Middle School and I think they offered a similar class at Sexton High School, but I don’t remember anyone mentioning an electronics course in the Lansing School District. (If they did offer on, I really regret not taking it.)

Back to the coding grind.

laterz

bdbenner corolla, diy car repair, door handle, repair, toyota

So last year up at the cottage I found two wireless networks.

One was secured and one was not. Neither signal was strong enough to connect to from within the walls of the cottage. The unsecured network was strong enough from the edge of the driveway.

This led me to think about a ‘Pringles can range extender‘, however that typically only works well with a point-to-point network, where both sides are using the same range extending gear (ie Pringles cans).

Then I found some instructions for a uni-directional range extender that uses a “Steamer Basket”.

My DIY project worked and I am able to get onto the unsecured network just fine from the dining room table here. My father-in-law, Tom is already talking about mounting it to the outside of the cottage as to make the signal better.

My mother-in-law, Brenda has made breakfast so I better quit blogging and get eating.

Laterz

bdbenner Technology, diy, travel, vacation diy, diy range extender, summer, travel, vacation 2008, wifi