This Pillow Is Too Spicy

As discussed on a previous blog entry, the magical pixies that power my Garmin 1030 are starting to escape their enchanted prison.

Ok, maybe it's a little more than just starting to. Anyway, it's time to deal with it and conveniently the expanding battery has given us an easy entry point. As per usual, a careful application of heat and guitar picks is the musical spell to gain access into this electrical dungeon.

Once inside we can get a good look at the pixie containment unit, which is dangerously close to being breached.

And by peeling back a bit of tape, we can lift the flex cable connector and disconnect the screen unit to get it out of the way.

One of the screws we need to remove is hiding under the copper tape, and the one in the bottom-right has a washer on it, but they all come out with the assistance of a T-6 and T-5 torx driver.

And the connector at the bottom pops off with just a little gentle prying, the battery cable lifts off, and we can set this board aside.

The pixie prison is, per usual, restrained in place by an adhesive force the likes of which mankind can scarcely imagine. Still though, persistent prying from the underside will be able to overcome its tenacious grip.

As we can clearly see, the pixies in the new spectral chalice are still quite compliant and well secured, and show no signs of rioting or plots of escape.

And a little square of carpet tape binds their souls to the interior of the infernal dungeon.

Assembly is the reverse of disassembly, and we can even check to see that everything is working before setting the screen fully back in place.

And once the screen is snuggled down into its bed of adhesive, with just enough holes and tears now to ensure it is no longer even remotely waterproof, you might never suspect that anything ever happened.

However it looks like only 55% of the pixies are dancing, so a little bit of electro-shock therapy should rouse the rest of them from their slumber.

I'll be sure to post an update later if this new battery burns my house down. In the meantime, I'll call this a job well done.

Expanding Possibilities

So when I installed the conduit along the west side of my house, I just glued the whole length together with all the appropriate fittings and let it be. As it turns out, PVC conduit has quite a notoriously large coefficient of thermal expansion, and so when the sun started beating down on the wall (as it is wont to do), the conduit expanded and bent into a wiggly noodle.

This is not ideal.

So, the solution is to install some sliding expansion couplers.

These ones will expand by up to 4 inches in length, which is, honestly, quite a lot. Way more than I'll need for this length of conduit, but that's the size they come in.

As we can see below, it was slightly warmer outside when I initially installed this conduit, judging from the gap that was left after I sliced through it.

But I think we'll have enough range to accommodate it with the coupling set to about half its stroke.

And if we don't, well... I'll be concerned.

Since I have a box that somewhat anchors the middle of the conduit, I installed one expansion joint on either side.

I actually bought a third joint too, to install along the front of the house, but that run is always in the shade and close down to the soil, so I don't think it'll expand and contract as much. Also it has a bend on one end that can take up a bit of the motion.

But mostly I haven't installed it because it's much more of a pain to physically reach it.

If it proves to be an issue, I have it if I need it.

Summer Comes Again

With the changing of the seasons comes the changing of the sealant. The tubeless tire sealant, that is.

Hmm, I thought I had tubeless tires but these are clearly tubulars.

It's also worn out, as tends to happen with the rear tire on my gravel bike after one year.

For reference, it's supposed to look like this.

So with this tire replaced and the tubeless sealant refreshed on all my tubeless bikes, it's also time to do the summertime conversion on my gravel bike.

Since the rain is done for the year. I hope. It did actually just rain on Monday, which is highly unusual.

Speaking of things that are inflating, the battery in my Garmin 1030 is looking a little spicy.

So that's not real good. But the solution is pretty easy.

I'm actually planning on replacing the battery in the 1030, but that generation of Garmins have an absolutely sluggish, underpowered CPU in them leading to a really laggy, slow UI.

So I'm not really sad to see it go, I'll probably pass it on to a cow-orker for cheap once the new battery arrives.

In the meantime, I've got a new toy to play with. The 840 is a bit smaller than the 1030, which actually works out well for me because I have a few mounts that are really designed to fit the 840-sized devices.

And as an extra bonus, the 840 generation now has USB C charging, which is a great upgrade over the micro-B.

Lucky for me, Garmin has made the migration process a lot easier recently, so all my data screens and so on synced over automatically.

They're even generous enough to throw in an out-front mount, which is actually sized to fit the 10x0 series devices.

But I already have plenty of extra mounts, so I'll probably toss this one in with the 1030 when I get rid of it.

So stay tuned later for the battery replacement adventure.

Super Freak, Super Freak

So we now turn our attention back to the Arturia MicroFreak that I had picked up on a whim. After a bit more investigation I was able to determine a few things.

First off, thanks to the thermal camera I picked up, I was able to narrow down the failure of the 6v +/- supply to the regulator itself, and not any of the chips it powers.

Secondly, I was able to figure out that it's actually just a 6v supply, not a 6-7v supply. I misinterpreted a page on the datasheet regarding how the positive and negative voltages are calculated across the sense resistor bridge.

Thirdly, I discovered that the supply actually only powers three chips in the VCO and VCF circuits, not the audio output. The latter is actually driven by a 1.8v linear regulator, which is apparently sufficient to drive low-impedance headphones. Go figure.

Anyway, the full repair is documented here:

And I'm glad to report that the fix worked great. The synth has actually been performing solidly for a few weeks now and shows no signs of failing again, though who knows how long that'll last. Hopefully forever.

Also the rose bush is in full bloom

Which is nice.

I See A Red Door

This is the door to my car hole.

And let's just say it's seen some shit. Part of the problem is that it's just a basic wood door exposed to the elements, with no awning or overhang to keep the rain off of it. Part of the problem is that it was just never installed correctly from the get-go.

Part of the problem is that it's been literally chewed to pieces and (barely) cobbled back together with whatever bodge was closest at hand.

The frame is in no better shape of course, having rotted out at the top and definitely at the bottom.

On both sides, of course.

So a simple slab-swap isn't going to do here. Instead, we'll need to get much more invasive.

This is a long one, so click through to read more.

Grease Thy Hammer

This is my Boschhammer.

It's a rotary hammer, which is basically a hammer drill that put its big boy pants on. What I didn't realize about it, because I probably never read the manual, is that you're supposed to grease the chisels/bits that you insert into the chuck. This is a rather peculiar act for someone who might be more used to standard drills with Jacobs-style chucks, but the SDS+ chuck is a peculiar beast.

The lubrication of the bit against the chuck isn't really the goal here, though it's a nice-to-have element given that the bit is expected to move within the chuck when in use; unlike a hammer drill the hammering action is transmitted directly to the base of the bit, rather than hammering on the whole chuck itself. We'll see how that works in a bit.

The real goal of greasing the chisels is to keep the inner workings of the chuck fully lubricated, as it does have a number of moving parts that are frequently exposed to dust and grit. If the lubrication runs out or cakes up and gets sticky, the hammering action can become sluggish and you may have to apply excessive force to the drill to get it to hammer properly. At worst, the anvil can seize within the chuck, rendering the hammering action completely inoperative.

So with that in mind, let's pull this chuck apart to give it a nice grease-bath.

First up, we pull off the rubber end cap. This just seals the dust out of the chuck (as well as can be expected) and fairly easily pries off the end of the chuck.

Next up, we spend 30 minutes stabbing our fingers while trying to pry off not one but two retaining rings. Ugh. The topmost ring holds a washer in place, while the one below it holds the bit release collar.

The collar holds basically 90% of the chuck together. With it removed we can pull out the ball bearing that retains the bit, as well as its spring and washer, and also slip out the four pins that hold the bit holder into the base of the chuck.

With the pins removed, the bit holder slides out, and the anvil should come with it. This is what gets the bulk of the grease every time you slip in a well greased bit.

The rest of the chuck doesn't disassemble from this side, and shouldn't need a lot of attention. However, we can pull the nose of the drill off by removing 4 T30 screws with an extra long bit.

And then we can peer inside to ensure that the grease here is still present in copious quantities.

The shaft on the upper right is what transmits the drilling action to the chuck, while the hollow sleeve on the left is what holds the chuck itself on the other side, and the hammering action is transmitted through to the anvil through the hollow center.

And all that mates up with this pile of greasy mechanics.

I moved a bit of the grease around from where it had collected in nonfunctional places, but I didn't see any need to mess with this stuff any further.

The rest of the chuck, though, was going to get a nice coating of fresh grease. This is probably not the correct grease to use, except that it's the grease I happened to have on hand at the time so it was absolutely the correct grease to use.

Anyway, the chuck just reassembles in the reverse order of disassembly, with the appropriate care taken to grease things up along the way, and then it's all back together ready to poke holes in impossibly hard materials again.

Though ironically the reason I thought to service this was actually because I'm ordering a mortar mixing paddle that fits into an SDS+ rotary hammer (in rotary mode, not hammer mode). I figured it made sense to get that rather than burning out my regular drill trying to use one with it, or spending $50 to get a standalone mortar mixer that I'd only use once or twice ever, and which would probably burn itself out immediately because it's a $50 mortar mixer.

But that mortar mixing will be a story for a future blog post.

Stomp Around

So my Arturia Microfreak synthesizer is up and running, which is a story I will recount in a future blog post. I've been enjoying it a lot, but one thing that the Microfreak is lacking is any built-in effects. Usually for almost any instrument you want at least a certain baseline collection of effects, starting with reverb and delay. For a synthesizer in particular, especially a non-stereo synth like the Microfreak, a stereo chorus is really helpful for opening up the sound. From there, other effects are icing on the cake.

Now I could get 3 different effects pedals to chain together to give me my reverb, delay and chorus, but the setup I have with the Microfreak is very compact and I'd like to keep things that way. So, enter the Zoom MS-50G multi-effects pedal.

This unit is basically an entire pedalboard-in-a-box, where you can digitally chain together 6 effects of your choosing from a broad library of built-in effects, or even load it up with custom effects via USB, which is pretty cool. This particular model is mono-in and stereo-out, which is perfect for my Microfreak.

Now I could have gone with a different model that has both stereo in and out, or even the updated version of this model, but from the research I've done, this specific one is, curiously, the most compatible with sideloading homebrew effects... And it's also cheaper because I picked it up used.

However it's only barely used. The seller said that they bought it and never used it, and I'd believe it. There really wasn't a single scratch on it, and only a tiny bit of dirt stuck to the little rubber pad on the underside that keeps the pedal from sliding across the stage when you step on it (like most pedals it's technically designed for guitars rather than keyboards).

Really the only complaint I can come up with is that there's a tiny bit of background noise when I'm running it off USB, but the noise gets drowned out completely once I start playing so I'm not particularly bothered by it.

In all it makes for a delightfully compact and sweet sounding setup.