Felt as if someone was picking on me last week, as anything technical seemed to turn weird in some way.
Started the week having a return visit to a faulty camera. Like many, it needs major teardown to access anything, but I wanted to check a damaged flat cable, in case it had hidden damage that might explain why one set of switches, all apparently OK, are not recognised when operated. Nothing found, but… the rear screen, which has to be removed and replaced every time, is now dead. No issues with it before, it’s a straight unplug and plug back in operation, but is now black, and stays black no matter what. The signal’s present, as I can see it in the electronic viewfinder.
Oddness when I started grass cutting. My electric rotary/hover mower developed a terrible vibration some time ago. This is so bad I wear ear defenders, and have now switched to noise-cancelling headphones. Assumed to be the blade, I couldn’t remove the vibration by balancing the blade, eventually resorting to merely reducing it a bit by making a new lightweight blade – but it did NOT cure the vibration. Half way through the job, ‘something’ happened. I have NO IDEA what, but the vibration suddenly disappeared, and the terrible noise it makes went away, leaving only the gentle while of the electric motor and belt drive. Inspected motor/belt/blade (there’s nothing else), but failed to find anything different. So, I guess the noise and vibration could come back at any time.
Spent/wasted hours trying to find a thermometer, one of a pair used for test. Had them together at the start of the week, then lost/forgot where one was. Lost track of the number of times I retraced my steps, looking at all the places I could have put it down. Not a sign anywhere, either places I’ve been using them recently, where they’re kept, or even where I might have put one down for a minute, and left. It eventually turned up in front of a clock fitted with a hygrometer and thermometer, almost invisible as it’s the same colour as the clock face. I’d moved it there when I noticed the clock thermometer seemed to be correct, having proven to be almost 3°C out when first checked when new.
That just the silliness I can remember!
What about the washing machine?
Trying not to think about this, as things just get worse the closer I look.
After deciding I might as well plug all the wires back in, even though I’m sure the connections were recorded in error, I found that ‘they’ had apparently reused a few of the wire colours, and not every wire could be identified uniquely. I had checked a sample (but not ALL) and not found the reused colours, so apart from the possible error in recorded connection, now I can ADD possible wrongly identified wires as well.
On top of that (yes. there’s more stupid bad news), even though I (thought I had meticulously) noted each wire as I removed it, having plugged them all in, as per the record, I’m left with two wires that are not accounted for. This was unexpected. While I knew transposition was possible as I lost my bearings, MISSING wires in the records was not something I anticipated.
Back at the start, I complained about the way the wiring had been knitted or woven together, pulling it all into a tight rat’s nest. As I’ve gone through it, I undid this knitting to free the wires and untangle them. I also removed all the switches and controls from the front panel to make this easier.
Guess I now know why these wires were all pulled so tightly together 😦
The switches are placed so close to each other that there is NO SPACE for the wiring now that I have untangled it – I can barely force a space through the unbunched wires to get the switches and controls to their mounting holes on the front panel!
It’s crazy, and I may not even try to get the control for the tumble dryer back onto the panel – I never use it anyway, as it uses so much electricity.
There goes the plan
I had planned to build some gear to let me power the machine up – with its probably erroneous wiring – in a way that wouldn’t keep blowing fuses, or exploding if something shorted was activated. Hopefully I have enough bits lying around for this.
I did some testing, and thought I had confirmed the mains would be shorted out if connected, but realised testing for shorts was done with DC. It’s not unusual to find apparent shorts on AC if testing with DC as AC sees impedance, not simple resistance. I was also forgetting that most testers that sound a tone when they see a short are actually lying. The tone is often triggered by any resistance below 50 Ω (that should really be made closer to 1 Ω). This could be a case where a good old-fashioned battery and buzzer works better than a nice new electronic test meter.
Oh well, what’s another week, given how long this one is being dragged out.
But, I’m determined that I’m NOT going to be beaten by a bunch of about 30 unidentified wires and a mechanical controller – there’s about another 20, but they are, at least, in two polarised connectors that plug into that controller, so can be forgotten about.
Secret Scotland 