mending things

A gadget which I think goes largely unnoticed by consumers and plumbers alike is the programmable thermostat. I have a Honeywell CM67 but the model has been superseded by the CM907. Worcester do a similar model- I'm sure there are others as good. You can get them for around £50 online at plumbing shops. There is a range called Heatmiser too, you can find these on Amazon.  These devices replace the room thermostat, which in many cases is the classic "clunk-dial" based on a bi-metallic strip. These old style stats are based on 19th century technology. Their strip is made up of 2 thin layers of different metals, bonded and when it heats up the strip bends due to the differing rates of expansion of the two metals and this forms the pole of a switch. Because of the phenomena of hysteresis, these types of system are slow to respond, and take too long for the stat to switch on or off. To compensate , they actually have a tiny heater in them and actually consume some power. The h...

I emptied out one of our compost bins, and at the same time took delivery of a couple of old leaking water butts which I cut the bottoms off to use as compost bins. The bottom of the water butt and the LinPac composter just seemed to suggest one shape to me .. a DIY Dalek ! The eye is one of those old adjustable legs from a fitted kitchen cabinet carcass with a CD stuck on the end . Two brass cup hooks support the limbs - in this case a plastic compost 'spike' (Found in France - a handy device to push in and aerate the compost) and a tool for clearing a shredder, but any garden tools could do. Shame no body makes an Official BBC Dr Who Dalek shaped garden compost bin It's for the kids you understand ..... Update September 2009 this one constructed in the same way, except the waist section is an old washing machine drum, which I use as an occasional incinerator/ tree stump burner. The original has moved and now has a motorcycle tyre adding some stability to it'...

"What a piece of junk!" "She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself." Luke Skywalker and Han Solo In 2002 I bought a Dell Dimension 2350 P4 2.6Ghz PC for my young son. His older brother had a PC, and it seemed right that he should have one too. I didn't know much about PC's at the time and assumed "Integrated Intel Graphics" meant that it might be a bit slower than a dedicated graphics card, but the price was good. Alas I learned the hard way that if you (or your kids) want to do serious gaming on a PC you need a dedicated graphics card slot , typically AGP or now PCI-Express aka PCI-E. The dimension 2350 did not have one, only 3 humble PCI slots . Thus began a long and enjoyable exploration of how far I could push this entry-level PC toward serious gaming , and along the way I learned a lot about PC's a...

We have had an AEG Lavamat washing machine for 9 years and it's given very good service, probably running on average, a wash load a day for a family of four, including two teenage boys. I'd started to notice that the spin was gradually getting louder , and recently some extra random bangs and knocks were introduced into the cacophony. It looked as if the main bearings were worn out, which was confirmed by some play in the drum when pushed up. I maintained an old Servis washing machine which we had before the AEG, and it was forever breaking down with either clogged filter (nicely placed underneath the machine for zero accessibility) or the brushes wore out in the motor. I had arrived at the opinion that a washing machines bearings were the equivalent of a cars "big end" i.e. something that when it goes is considered terminal and I had no experience of replacing them. But I decided it was worth it as a new set cost around £20 and the machine should go on for som...

If you have an old Sony Playstation 1, especially the first variant (there were several iterations ) they do make pretty good stand alone CD players. Sony incorporated the ability for the Playstation to play normal audio CD's into the device and it turns out it does it rather well. Talking to people, it seems lots of them have aged Playstations either gathering dust or that they "gave to their young cousin" but they really do have a new lease of life. Now that we are on the PS3, the aged PS1 is considered by many to be virtually worthless, despite costing around £300 when they first came out. The early model (SCPH-1002) already has red & white RCA sockets on the back, and you can use a regular controller for play/skip/stop functions or you can buy a separate remote (around £5 on ebay) There are some tweaks you can do to them, and especially in Germany , people mod them even adding valve output sections. The best site for modifications is dogbreath.de However they s...

I have an Apple G5 iMac and I use the standard Apple Mighty Mouse with it. This is a wired, optical mouse , with a small tracker ball on top for scrolling. The top ball develops the same dirt build up on the underlying rollers that afflicts conventional ball mice. However the Mighty Mouse is much harder to remove the ball. Mine stopped up scrolling , so I googled this problem and found this excellent site. http://www.linklink.co.uk/apple-computers/cleaning-inside-and-dismantling-the-apple-mighty-mouse/ It's a fiddly job, and the tiny magnetic rollers are best handled with non ferrous (i.e. non-magnetic) tools, so a pair of plastic tweezers are a big help. I followed the instructions above and my mouse is back to normal. Shame it's so hard and involves forcing the "skirt" section away, necessitating super glue to fix it back on though Update May 2010 Well once again the tiny roller ball has stopped working. I really like the look of the new magic mouse which has no sc...

This article is intended to hi light some things you can do if your dishwasher is not cleaning effectively. NOTE : Do not access any of the internal electrical mechanisms of a dishwasher unless you are qualified . The purpose of this article is not to explain how to repair the internal electrical systems of a dishwasher , this is for the service engineer. However if your dishwasher is not performing well there may be a number of things you can safely check to return it to form. Since the late 80's we have owned two dishwashers. The first was a Bauknecht and lasted around 8 years. Our current model is a Bosch. Dishwashers are complex machines, taking cold water from the main, heating it internally and pumping the hot water through various jets at the plates, pans and cutlery etc. stacked in racks. They normally have a number of cycles which make up a program. For washing, detergent from tablets, liquid or powder, is mixed with the water. For the rinse cycle , hot water is mixed wi...