Interested in how to make gardening tools at home? Need a seedling planter for your garden? Want to make a simple DIY project for your gardening enthusiast? In this episode in the House of Hacks series' on DIY gardening tools, Harley shows how to make a handheld dibber, also known as a dibbler. Springtime is upon us and making homemade gardening tools can be an easy workshop project for either yourself or a loved one. The dibber is an especially easy-to-make DIY tool to help plant seeds and seedlings that requires minimal tools and time and is particularly suited for kids and beginners. These simple tools make great gifts for the gardener in your life.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Chipper"
Transcript
Are you looking for an easy to use gardening tool to plant seedlings?
Do you need a simple to make gift idea for the gardener in your life?
In today's episode of how to make gardening tools at home, we're going to make this handheld dibber.
With spring in full bloom, DIY gardening tools are a popular project for either your own use or to give as gift ideas.
In an earlier House of Hacks episode, I showed you how to make a long dibber out of a rake handle.
A long dibber is useful when planting seeds and seedlings in large beds at ground level.
This handheld dibber is useful in smaller areas, such as raised beds.
Before making the long dibber, I cut off about 12 inches from the end of the handle in order to make this smaller handheld dibber.
Conceptually the idea is the same.
We're going to be putting a rounded point on the end to make holes in the soil for seeds and seedlings but we're going to be adding a few extra features to this one.
In this project I'm going to use a lathe, just to show a different way of doing the same thing, but if you don't have access to a lathe, you could do the same thing as I showed before with a sanding station, or by hand with sandpaper, files or a rasp.
Today, I'll also be connecting two round objects to each other at 90 degree angles.
Stick around to see how I do that.
Welcome! If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where we make stuff out of wood, metal, electronics and other similar materials in order to inspire you on your creative journey.
For this project, to start, I'm going to cut off about 4 inches from the end of this wood.
I'll set it aside and use it later on this project.
Then I chuck the remainder in the lathe and start cutting it down.
The idea is to reform the end from the slight taper to more of a point with a rounded end.
Once I have it to the shape I want, I'll use the marks on the tool rest to inscribe a couple lines an inch apart.
These allow the user to gauge the depth of the hole they're making.
The last lathe operation is a bit of sanding to make everything smooth.
Remember that 4 inch cut-off from earlier?
That's going to be a handle for this piece.
I used the sanding station to put a slight chamfer on each end.
So now that I've taken the dibber out of the lathe, the next operation is to attach the handle.
Originally, I was going to use a hole saw and put a radius on this end for this to sit down inside.
But I don't have a hole saw the right size for this radius and so the next idea I came up with was to use a Forstner bit to put a flat on here and a dowel to join these two together like so.
Overall I think this is going to be a much easier operation.
All that's left is a bit of oil to protect the wood.
It's ready for use.
I'll see you over here in this video where I show you how to make the longer version of this tool for use standing up.
Need to easily hang your moving blankets for sound absorption? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley shows an fast hack to make moving blankets easy to hang for acoustic treatment.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Transcript
Want to see how to make it easier to hang cheap moving blankets to absorb sound? Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to do exactly that.
Hi. If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where we use our God-given creative talents to make things in the workshop out of wood, metal, electronics, photos and other things of this nature.
In this earlier video, I looked at how surprisingly effective cheap moving blankets were for an acoustic treatment for a room. I measured the echo in my workshop before hanging them and then hung them and then measured it again and found that it worked really, really well.
Now I need a way to easily hang them, move them around and put them to use.
In that video, I used some spring clamps to hold the blankets to some overhead joists here in the workshop. It worked well enough but it was kind of cumbersome since the blanket was held in place by the jaws of the clamps.
As I showed in this other video, I put 1/4-20 bolts on spring clamps in order to hold photography accessories.
One such accessory are these. They're studs that are a couple cents apiece when bought in bulk and are designed to hold studio lights. But of course we don't need to use them for that.
At the hardware store, I picked up a grommet installation kit with some large grommets and some paracord. We'll use this to hang the moving blankets.
The installation kit is designed for two sizes of grommets and so it comes with two cutters for material to make holes the right size and a piece of wood to back those cutters up when cutting the material. To install the grommets, the kit comes with an anvil for one side of the grommet. This is two sided. One for the large size and one for the small size.
And it comes with two punch heads. These are used to crimp the two halves of the grommets together.
To be able to hang these blankets, I'm going to put three grommets on one edge of each blanket.
Starting with the large cutter and the wood, I used a hammer to drive the cutter through the blanket and into the wood. This gives me a hole the right size for the grommet.
The grommets come in two halves. The first half is designed to go through the hole and the second half goes over the top of this with the material sandwiched in between and then it's crimped together.
Place the grommet that goes through the hole on the bottom anvil and then place that under the blanket through the hole.
Place the other half of the grommet on top with the curved side up.
Use the punch head and a hammer to round over the center part of the grommet, crimping the two halves tightly together.
Once the grommets were in place, I then cut the rope into nine inch long segments and sealed the ends. I show in this video how I like to seal the ends of kernmantle rope and paracord.
The rope is looped through the grommets and held with a knot. I used a square knot but you can use whatever you like.
The loops of rope can now slip over the studs on the spring clamps and I can hang a blanket where ever the clamps can be placed... On shelves... On equipment... And it's easier to use on the joists too.
Thanks for joining me on this creative journey that we're on.
I'll see you over here in this video that YouTube thinks you'll like.
And while making things, remember: Perfections not required. Fun is!
[Beep]
OK! We got the audio running this time.
Last take I did the entire video and didn't have the audio on.
Today at the House of Hacks, Harley shows the overhead bin storage that's part of his workshop organization systems. This is a quick and easy do-it-yourself system, taking advantage of scrap materials, to use under-utilized area for shop organization of small items in overhead bins.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: Hot Swing
Transcript
In the comments of a previous video, STLABC requested that I show the overhead bins that are part of my workshop organization systems.
We're going to look at that today at the House of Hacks. Coming at you.
[Introduction]
Hi. Harley here.
Today we're going to talk about one of my workshop organization systems that I use here at the House of Hacks.
STLABC noticed that I had some overhead bins and requested some more details on that system.
My workshop is down here in the unfinished basement in our house and I've got joists for the floor above me that are exposed because it's unfinished.
One day I noticed that the distance between the floor joists is a little bit larger than the width of one of these plastic shoebox sized storage containers.
It reminded me of an idea I'd seen somewhere as I was wandering around the internet.
So I went down to Target and picked up a couple of these containers just to see if it would work.
I had, fortunately, in my spare wood pile, some of this tongue and groove paneling that was left over from a remodel project.
It's the perfect width to just be able to tack into place underneath the floor joists and the handle will rest on each side. I didn't have to do any cutting.
Now, depending on your application, if you have some scrap wood, you can cut it to width after measuring to see how much you need and it's a real easy to put in place storage system.
Using this is really simple.
All you do is lift up, tilt it, and it drops right out.
To replace it, it's just the reverse operation.
Push it up at an angle and it drops into place.
Now, I'm standing on a step stool to be in frame and demonstrate this on camera but because my ceiling is a couple inches shy of eight feet, it's easy enough to do this while standing on the floor normally.
To easily tell what's in each box when I'm standing on the floor, I just have a label that I made with a label maker on the bottom of each container.
I hope that gives you enough details for this particular storage system.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.
There's another video up here where I talk about other organization tips that I use here at the House of Hacks.
Down there are some videos that YouTube thinks you might enjoy.
Binary number division is simple and easy! In this short episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to divide binary numbers. This is one in the Bits of Binary series on binary arithmetic.
Are you interested in making things around the home and shop? You’ve found the right place. Here at the House of Hacks, we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
In this previous video, we saw how multiplying binary numbers is almost trivial compared to multiplying decimal numbers.
In this episode of the House of Hacks, I'll show how division is just as easy!
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
Here at House of Hacks I hope to inspire, educate and encourage people who like to make things with a mechanical or technical bent to them.
Binary numbers are the foundation of much of our modern world and fall into the technical side of things.
This is one in an introductory series on binary numbers where I talk about how to read them, count in them and do basic math operations on them.
In this video we're going to be looking at division.
First a refresher for terminology.
Division involves dividing a dividend by the divisor and getting a quotient.
Remember in grade school how we had to memorize this multiplication table to know how to multiply and divide decimal numbers?
And remember how in the last episode we found out binary number multiplication was just these four elements of that table and how that made multiplication really easy?
Well the same thing holds true for division.
Let's get into this with some examples.
We'll start with 21 divided by 7.
Written as long division that looks like this.
Because our multiplication table only has two result values, one number can only be divided by another one 0 or 1 times.
This means a simple size comparison is really all that we need to look at when calculating the quotient.
Working through this, 111 is obviously larger than 1 so we start with 0.
111 is larger than 10, so we write down another 0.
111 is larger than 101. And again we write down 0.
Finally, 111 is less than 1010, so we write a 1 in the quotient, put the 111 under the 1010 and subtract.
The subtraction result is 11. Now we bring down the other 1.
And 111 is equal to 111 so we write a 1 in the quotient, put the 111 under the 111 and subtract.
Of course this is zero and we're done.
The resulting quotient is 11 which is three.
We know 3 times 7 is 21, confirming that the process works.
Let look at another example of 1011 divided by 10.
10 is greater than 1, so we start with a 0.
10 is equal to 10, so we put 1 in the quotient and 10 underneath and subtract giving us 0.
We bring down the 1 from the dividend.
10 is greater than 1, so we put a 0 in the quotient and we bring down the next 1.
11 is greater than 10, so we put a 1 in the quotient and 10 underneath, subtract, giving us 1.
There's nothing left of the dividend to bring down so we have a couple options that are the same as we have with decimal remainders.
We can either write the remainder as part of the quotient.
Or we can write the remainder as a binary fraction.
Or we can place a radix point and continue the division.
If we do this, we place a dot in the quotient and bring down a 0 next to our remainder giving us 10.
10 is equal to 10 so we place a 1 in the quotient and subtract the dividend from the working value.
The result is zero and we're done.
If the result was greater than zero, we'd bring down another 0 and continue expanding the radix part of the quotient, just like we do when working in decimal.
In the next episode of Bits of Binary, we'll take another look at subtraction by introducing negative numbers.
If you're interested in making things with a mechanical or technical bent to them, consider subscribing for future videos showing DIY projects, home and shop tutorials and other things related to wood working, metal working, photography, electronics and similar materials.
Thanks for joining me on our creative journey.
Now, go make something. Perfection's not required. Fun is!
Need abstract photography ideas? Light bulb without glass? In this tutorial, Harley shows how to photograph a burning light bulb filament. A burning light bulb filament creates a dramatic abstract image. This video covers how to setup the photo how to prepare the light bulb without breaking the filament, how to configure the camera, how to take the shot and how to do the post processing. Inspiration of this photo came from an article on the DIYPhotography.net web site.
Are you interested in making things around the home and shop? You’ve found the right place. Here at the House of Hacks, we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Are you interested in making some abstract photos of lightbulbs burning up?
Today at the House of Hacks, we’re going to look at creating these types of photos.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Photographers. Harley here.
Today I’m going to revisit making a photo my buddy Rich and I first did just over 10 years ago.
In February of 2007, I ran across this idea in an article on DIYPhotography.net and knew I wanted to try it.
I had some spare parts in the basement, threw them together and called Rich.
He came over and we made some pretty cool images that ended up on the front page of Digg.
Today I’m going to show:
What’s needed for the shot
How to setup the shot
How to prepare the bulb
How to setup the camera
How to take the shot and
How to do the post processing
I’ll leave links in the description to each of these areas if you want to skip directly to one section.
And you’ll want to hang around to the end to see some images from this session as well as some slow motion video of the burning bulb.
If you want to learn and be inspired to make things out of items such as wood, metal, electronics and photos, subscribe to the House of Hacks channel and ring the bell to get notified of more free videos in the future.
Before we get into the details of the shot, let’s talk a minute about two things that are happening.
First, fire needs heat, fuel and oxygen to burn.
incandescent light bulbs work by running power through a small wire, causing the metal to glow white hot.
To keep the wire from burning up, light bulbs' glass bulbs keep the oxygen from the hot wire.
If oxygen gets to it, the wire will quickly burn up.
We’re going to remove the bulb to allow oxygen to get to the wire and capture the briefly burning wire.
Second, the exposure.
When dealing with things that use bright flashes, whether it’s studio or strobe lights for photography, or in this case, burning light bulbs, there are two exposures involved.
There’s the exposure caused by the flash of light and the exposure of the area we’re in, called the ambient exposure.
If there’s enough difference between these two, the ambient exposure can be ignored because it’s not providing any light to the image.
This can be used to our advantage, both in the studio and in these shots today, so we don’t have to work in the dark.
With those explanatory details out of the way, the items needed for this shot are
An area without much light.
We’re going to be using an exposure that needs a fair amount of light so an area that isn’t too bright allows us to work without the need for pitch dark.
A room lit just with lamps at night or an interior room without windows work well.
A light base.
This could be a table lamp with the harp removed
or I took an inexpensive bare bulb holder that you can get at a home improvement store and screwed it to a piece of scrap wood.
Then you need a way to plug the light base in.
If you’re using a pre-made lamp, it will already have a plug attached.
Since I was using a light holder, I took a piece of romex and wired it between the lamp holder and a switch.
Then I took the plug end of an extension cord and wired it to the switch.
A plug strip with an on/off switch or an extension cord.
You need to plug and unplug the lamp between each shot, so having an outlet near the setup makes things much easier.
And you need to turn the lamp on while pressing the shutter, so having a switch somewhere makes things much easier.
Several plastic bags.
They need to be on the larger size, so not sandwich sized lunch bags.
Plastic grocery bags work well.
They will contain broken glass, so make sure it has no holes.
A way to break a light bulb.
Slip joint pliers work best for this as they’re adjustable and have long handles.
Large Vise-grips also work.
In a pinch, a hammer may be used, but it’s not as ideal as it’s easier to break the bulb’s filament and ruin the bulb.
Gloves and safety glasses.
You’ll be breaking glass, so personal protection for your hands and eyes is a good thing.
Bulbs. You want to be sure to get incandescent bulbs with filaments in them. LEDs and fluorescents will not work.
Get the cheapest ones you can find. You’re going to be destroying them, so you don’t want to invest a lot of money in them.
As far as wattage is concerned, there are two things to think about.
Lower wattages burn faster giving a more dramatic image whereas higher wattages burn slower giving you more images per bulb and a greater chance of getting a good image.
So it’s sort of a trade off.
If you have a camera with a slower frames per second in drive mode, a higher wattage might be better.
If you camera has a higher frames per second in drive mode a lower wattage might give a more dramatic image.
Or you could get some of both and experiment. I’ll leave a link to Amazon for some we used in this session.
A camera that can be set to manual exposure and has a shutter release drive mode.
A tripod. The camera needs to be on a sturdy setup.
Optional: a trigger release for the camera.
To setup the shot, you want to prepare the light bulb holder.
A table lamp with it’s shade and harp removed is one option.
As I showed earlier, I put a light socket on a piece of wood and wired it to a switch and plug.
In a room that doesn’t have much light, place the lamp on a table at working height.
Run an extension cord to be near the setup and plug the power strip into it.
Plug the lamp into the power strip and put a normal light bulb in the lamp.
Turn on the switch to make sure the light works and everything is ready to go.
Turn off the power switch and unplug the lamp.
Setup the camera on the tripod so the base of the light bulb is at the bottom of the frame and there’s enough space above the bulb to capture the flame and smoke.
Vertical orientation works best with the top of the bulb just below the half way point of the frame.
And now remove the light bulb.
To prepare the light bulbs put on the gloves and safety glasses.
You’ll need the plastic bag and pliers for this operation.
Adjust the pliers so when the jaws are closed, they are just a bit smaller than the base of the light bulb.
We want them smaller than the outside of the bulb but larger than the glass support with the wires running through it on the inside of the light.
Put a light bulb between the jaws of the pliers.
Wrap the plastic bag around the bulb and pliers and squeeze the pliers closed.
The bulb should shatter inside the plastic bag without breaking the filament.
Carefully remove the pliers and light bulb remains from the bag.
Take care not to break the filament or spill the broken glass.
Alternatively you can put the bulb in the plastic bag and strike it with a hammer, but this takes much more finesse.
The goal is to break the outside glass without breaking the internal structures of the bulb.
It’s more efficient to break a number of bulbs all at once.
Now we’re ready to configure the camera.
Put it in manual mode.
The exposure settings I used as a starting point were f/4 at 1/640th of a second and ISO 100.
Start with this and adjust as desired.
Then set the shutter release to Drive mode.
This will allow us to take multiple shots in rapid fire succession.
If you’re using a shutter release, configure your camera to use it.
Make sure the power switch is off and the lamp is unplugged.
Put one of the broken light bulbs in the lamp.
You don’t need to screw it in tight, just enough to make electrical contact.
And be careful not to cut yourself. Using the gloves might be a good idea.
Focus on the filament either using auto or manual focus.
Once you have focus, make sure the camera is in manual focus mode.
We don’t want the camera hunting for focus when we actually take the shot.
Now we’re ready to make the images.
Double check that the power switch is off.
Plug in the lamp.
Simultaneously press and hold the shutter release button and flip the power switch to on.
The light will briefly burst into flames and then burn out.
This will take about a second to a second and a half.
Let go of the shutter release button and turn the power switch off.
Unplug the lamp.
And review your photo and make any exposure adjustments as desired.
The histogram is a good way of evaluating exposure.
I have a video explaining exposure and the histogram up here as well as a number of other histogram related videos in the playlist.
To reset for the next shot, verify the power switch is turned off and the lamp unplugged.
Carefully remove the burned out filament from the lamp and use one of the plastic bags for waste.
Put in another prepared bulb.
Double check the power switch is off.
Plug in the lamp.
And make another image.
After you’ve done this to your heart’s content or you’ve run out of light bulbs, you’re ready to process the photos.
Let’s go to the computer and see what we can do.
I’ve copied the photos off my card into my computer and am now looking at them in Bridge.
As you can see, there are quite a few black ones. These are the images where we’re just getting the ambient exposure.
There are two cameras and two types of bulbs here.
These exposures are with my slower 5D and a quick burning 25 watt bulb. You can see I only got one or two shots per bulb.
These exposures are with my faster 77D and a slower burning 70 watt bulb. Here you see I usually got several more shots per bulb.
I’ll quickly go through and mark the images that are not black so we can look at just the ones that have some interest to them.
Now I’ll look at each image and decide which ones I find most interesting and want to process.
These I pull into Photoshop to do final post processing.
I shoot in RAW which is typically a tad bit soft. So the first thing I do is add a sharpening layer.
There are a number of ways to sharpen an image.
Personally I use a high-pass layer. I feel it gives me more control over the process.
Leave a comment below if you would be interested in a video detailing how to do this.
Next I add a layer to adjust the contrast. I like using a Curves adjustment layer for this.
The brightest portion of the image is already slightly blown out and we don’t want to blow it out any more, so we won’t change the top right corner.
But the smoke part is in this mid-range area so I’ll pull that up a bit to make it a bit more obvious.
Finally, I want the blacks to be darker to increase contrast and so will pull this lower part down.
Next I add a layer to increase saturation. I use a HSL adjustment layer for this and just bump up the global saturation a bit.
Those are my standard adjustments. You can either leave it as is if you’re happy with it or start adding additional effects.
One thing that can be done is add some color to the smoke.
One way is to add a color layer and change the blending mode to only color the white areas.
Then a layer mask can be used to only color the smoke area.
Another thing that can be done is change the flame color.
Add another HSL layer and move the hue slider. It will change the flame, that is typically in the reds and oranges to other colors.
Or you can combine these effects or do your own.
If you make some images like these, please share links to where I and others can see them in the comment section below.
I’d love to see what you come up with.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here and would love to have you subscribe.
I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.
Sometimes this manifests through making things with a mechanical and technical bent.
Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage you in your creative endeavors.
Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photography and other similar materials.
If this sounds interesting, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Need to replace a dishwasher? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to install a Bosch 500 series dishwasher after first removing the existing dishwasher. Knowing how to remove and replace a dishwasher is useful information for a home owner. It’s not intimidating once you see how easy they are to install under a counter top.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe on YouTube.
All music by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com and under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: Hot Swing
Incidental: Beach Bum, Guiton Sketch, Happy Alley and Pump Sting
Transcript
Need to replace an old dishwasher with a new one?
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to do exactly that!
[Intro]
For the last six months or so, every once in a while we'd come home and the dishwasher would have leaked. It was a random occurrence. It only happened on rare occasions.
It was pretty frustrating to find. I spent quite a bit of time trying to track it down. I actually went so far as to pull the dishwasher out from the cabinet and put it up on 2 x 4s for a week and we ran it that way to try to isolate where it was leaking. And of course, in that time it never leaked and my wife finally got frustrated with having it out in the middle of the kitchen and asked me to put it back.
Last weekend we came home from running errands and found it had leaked again. It had finished shortly before we got home and I thought maybe it was still wet where it had been leaking and so I immediately pulled it out from the cupboard. I couldn't find any leaks. I was able though to trace the water back from where it was wet on the floor and where it wasn't wet on the floor to kind of get the general region and did some more investigation. I pulled a flashlight out and I did find the tell tale signs of leaking water where you have that white, dried, crustiness from dried water that had been leaking and had since dried. And in tracking it down I found a seam in the tub that had some discoloration in it and that was right where the water was coming out on the other side. And so obviously there's rust through in that seam and there's really no repairing that kind of thing from a practical standpoint. I could kind of hack it with some epoxy or silicone gel, but that's just sort of a stop gap measure and eventually I'm going to have to replace the dishwasher. So I decided to go ahead and do that.
To do this project, I think it's going to require three tools. I may be wrong, but thinking through the project, I think there's three things we're going to need. There's a screwdriver that we'll need to disconnect it from the counter top and also, if there's electrical connections that have screws, they're probably going to be Philips. I think that's the only thing we need Philips for.
The water inlet is probably a compression fitting which will use a 5/8ths inch open end wrench. If it's not a compression fitting, it's probably a hose clamp which again will use the screwdriver.
And finally, I believe the drain has a spring clamp that we'll remove with pliers.
I think that's all we need. Three tools.
If any more are required, when I get into it, I'll talk about that in the process of needing them.
The way this model dishwasher is held in is there's two screws on the top that hold it to the counter top and there's a dust panel on the bottom by the floor that needs to come off so we can move it around.
A total of four screws to pull out and then it should just be able to slide right out.
Let's get to it.
[Turn off the water]
[Turn off the power]
[Loosen dust cover]
[Remove screws]
[Double check there's no power]
[Disconnect drain]
[but put down a towel first]
[Disconnect water supply]
[Access electrical]
[Disconnect wires]
[Remove old machine]
So you saw with the old dishwasher, it had a built in junction box in the bottom front corner that the electrical ran into.
The new one has a separate junction box that is supposed to be mounted away from the dishwasher and then it has this cord that has an end that plugs into the dishwasher.
From a mechanical standpoint, this is a lot easier because I can... I'll have to cut off the old knarly ends and get some new wire here, but there are some screw terminals in there that I'll just screw right into. It'll be quick and easy. But I don't have a good place to mount this. The way the cupboards are designed, the closest place to mount this where it's going to be accessible is further away than the length of this cord. And so, it's just going to float around in the back there.
Let's get this hooked up.
[Trim off old wire]
[Strip insulation]
[Affix strain relief]
[Attach wire to terminals]
[Tighten screws]
[Put on cover]
The water hook up has been a little bit more challenging than I expected.
The dishwasher has a 3/4" MPT fitting on the back of it and my plumbing has a 3/8" flex pipe. So it didn't work directly in there obviously. So I had to go buy a fitting specially for this project that is a 3/4" MPT fitting to a 3/8" compression fitting.
I'm going to put this on and first of all I need to cut off the old compression fitting on the piping because it can't be used again.
[Install fitting]
[Connect water supply line]
OK, now we're going to connect the drain.
This comes from the dishwasher and it has a section for either 1/2" or 3/4" drain pipe.
This pipe is 3/4" so we're going to put the hose clamp on the 3/4" section and push this in there until it's good and seated.
And that's I think as far as it's going to go.
It seems like it should go a little bit further... but maybe not.
Now we put the hose clamp on.
And tighten it down.
I must say I really like the old hose clamp where it was a spring clamp.
It was so much more convenient.
[Install the mounting clips]
[Push the dishwasher under the counter]
OK, now we get the joy of leveling it.
It seems to be in there OK.
All the water and drain stuff, electrical seems good.
It's pretty well centered.
Now it just needs to get leveled and needs to get lifted up actually.
I've got probably almost an inch gap here at the top.
But that's what the leveler feet are for.
OK, to turn this, turn the feet on the right and left to level it side to side.
And to level it front to back, there's a screw right here in the middle you turn to get the front and back level.
[Screw in mounting screws]
[Attach dust panel]
OK. Well, I finally got it done and in.
That was a lot more work than I expected.
The last dishwasher that I'd taken out was one I had also installed 10 years ago or so probably. Maybe 12 years ago.
It was really pretty simple. It was just straight forward: take out the old, put in the new and it was done.
This one there was "some assembly required" as they say.
I had to pick up that part from Home Depot.
I had to wire in things, it was just a little bit more involved.
It was just more work.
It took a lot longer than I expected.
And it took more tools than I expected.
So the final tools:
Scissors to open packaging.
Level to level it.
Tube cutter to cut off the old compression fitting that I didn't need.
A couple adjustable wrenches to level it.
A Philips and a straight screwdriver.
Wire cutters to trim up the wiring.
And a box knife to trim the insulation.
And a 5/8ths inch wrench to tighten up the water connection.
And pliers to put in those little clips. The clips on this particular dishwasher you can put either on the top or on the sides so you had to install those. Use pliers to do that.
That was it. All in all, not a tough job. It just took about 4 hours to do, and that included having to film and setup.
So that slowed it down a little bit. Probably a good 3 hours to do this even if I hadn't been filming.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Do you have a crusty, frozen, broken shut-off valve that needs to be replaced?
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to do just that.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.
Harley here.
Today we're going to remove this old shut-off valve that doesn't work anymore and replace it a bright, shiny new one.
To do this should required just a few minimal tools.
First off, I've turned off the water and drained all the taps so there should be minimal water in the system.
However, there will still be a little residual water that will drain out when we cut into the pipe.
So, I have got a pile of towels to soak up any water that does come out.
We have a couple wrenches we will need.
This is a 15/16th inch open end wrench and this is a 5/8th inch open end wrench.
And we have a tubing cutter that we will use to remove the old one.
And we have our new valve.
Now these valves have compression fittings on them so they just slide on and then you tighten down the nut.
However, once a pipe has had a compression fitting on it, you don't want to put a compression fitting back on the pipe in that same location.
So on the old pipe, we are going to just cut it off since even if we did try to remove it and take off the compression fitting...
First of all it is going to be really difficult and second of all, even it we got it off, we would not be able to use that section of pipe.
So we are just going to cut it off.
It does have plastic lines going into it, so we will remove those plastic lines because those can be reused.
If you have plastic or braided lines going into the output side of the shut off valves, then those can be taken off and reused.
But if you have got hard, solid lines going in there, then again, those need to be cut off as well.
For this particular project, I will be removing the two plastic lines and then cutting off the valve from the main input line.
Put down a towel before opening up the lines to catch any water that might still be in them.
Then a 5/8" wrench loosens the connections until they can be removed by hand.
A small tubing cutter makes quick work of removing the old valve assembly.
Let the towel wick up enough water from the pipe that it won't make a mess when putting the new valve assembly on.
A cleaning brush makes sure we have a good connection to help prevent any leaks at the joint.
Put on the compression nut and then the compression ring.
Fit the valve assembly and make sure it's oriented the way that works best for your environment.
Thread the compression nut onto the valve and tighten it down.
It should be good and tight but you don't need to strong arm it.
Make sure the valves are closed and turn on the main water.
OK. That was a bit exciting.
I made sure before I turned the water on to have the valves all turned off because I have not hooked up the inputs on this yet. Or the outputs.
And I turned on the water because I wanted to make sure that this main input here was tight and did not have any leaks on it.
What I failed to do was turn off the faucet up above and it was turned on in the middle position.
So when I turned the water on, the cold water side got pressurized, went through the faucet, out the hot water side and came out through the unconnected connection.
So, lesson learned: remember, before you turn the water on, to turn off the faucet here if everything is not tightened up and buttoned up down below.
But the good news is we do not have any leaks down here.
And a good way to test that is to use a piece of tissue paper.
Tissue paper soaks up water really easily and just the tiniest drop will cause it to swell up and also change color.
So it is real obvious if there is a tiny leak, even if you can not see it or feel it, it shows up on the tissue paper real well.
And if I run this around here and get it up in the crack of that seal and run it around the top, it's completely, perfectly dry.
There is no change in it whatsoever.
So that tells me that this first connection has a good seal on it.
So let us continue with the last two connections.
OK. A lot of times plastic line on the end here has triangular shaped end on it that is designed to kind of go inside the pipe and provide a good seal on it.
This one does not though.
This one is just straight pipe and then has a compression fitting on it.
You should not really reuse compression fittings once they've been used once.
So I am going to cut this off and then use the new fitting that came with this to connect this up.
And in this case, for the other end, we have braided line, and that has a rubber seal on it, so it can just thread right back on.
And on this rubber stuff, you do not need to really torque it down.
You just need to get it snug.
And again the tissue paper test.
And everything is nice and dry.
And now we have everything connected down below and the valves turned on and we can see we have water on the cold side and water on the hot side, so everything seems to be good.
I didn't see any leaks with the tissue paper.
I like to leave it sit for a couple hours and then test again with the tissue paper because sometimes you have a little bit of seepage that you want to double check a couple hours later just to make sure that there is no leakage.
But I do not think there is going to be a problem with this.
It is rare that I have problems with this side of the plumbing.
Usually when I have leakage problems it is on drain sides, with p-traps, not on pressure sides, interestingly enough.
I am not sure why that is, but that has been my experience.
I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark and this involves making things with a mechanical or technical bent, and sometimes repairing them.
If this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to check out the rest of the channel and see if this is something you are interested in, and if it is, go ahead and subscribe.
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Want to see how to convert fluorescent tubes to LEDs while bypassing the ballast? In a previous video, Harley showed a very easy but expensive way to convert fluorescent tubes to LED tubes. In this video, Harley shows a more involved, but typically less expensive, way to convert a fluorescent fixture to use LEDs involving a ballast bypass.
Ballast bypass, also called direct wired, involves removing the ballast and using LED tubes that run off of line voltage rather than the high-voltage from the ballast. Typically these bulbs are less expensive because they don’t have to deal with the higher voltage used by fluorescent tubes. This video gives instructions for how to wire the fixture to use these bulbs and provides a wiring diagram.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: "Acid Trumpet" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to go from this to this.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.
Harley here.
In a previous video, I explained how to convert 8' long fluorescent fixtures from fluorescent tubes to LED lights in a very quick and easy way.
However, this way was pretty expensive. It involved just getting some ready-made 8' LED lights and those things are really pricey. For some reason, the 8' LED tube replacements are a whole lot more expensive than 2 4' LED replacement tubes. The 8' tube replacement are $60 each whereas I picked up a 4 pack of 4' ones for $24. I have no idea why. And they've been this way for quite a while. I picked up two pair last year I think it was, and they were $60 and I just picked up two pair yesterday and they're still $60. Same price. It hasn't moved at all. And it's pretty much the same price whether you buy it online or retail like I did. There's usually a few dollars off buying online but of course you have shipping and handling costs added to it so it ends up being a wash.
It's a real quick way to do it because you don't need to replace ballast, you don't need to rewire anything, you just plug them in in replacement of the existing bulbs. So, it's really quick. It's more expensive getting the bulbs that are designed for ballast.
However, in the 4' market you can buy tubes that work either with ballast or without ballast. And I have a fixture that needs some work on it. The ballast is making noise and the tubes are flickering and so I wanted to replace them with LEDs.
But because the ballast is making noise, I want to do a ballast bypass and remove the ballast altogether. And so I'm going to be demonstrating that in today's video. It is a little bit more work because you have to take the ballast out and rewire things a little bit, but it's not a whole lot more work and you do remove one more component that could possibly fail on you. So let's get started.
First remove the old bulbs.
It'd probably be a good idea to turn off the power before doing this.
Yeah, do as I say, not as I do.
Now take the fixture down. This will vary depending on how it's installed.
In my case, it's just sitting between the joists on some 2x4s.
Next disconnect the mains power.
Be sure to have the power turned off.
You don't want to be working with live power at this point.
On the bench, the fixture needs to be opened up.
This will vary depending on the type of lamp you have.
In my case, it's just a matter of removing two nuts.
And then the case just opens up.
Here we see where the sockets are connected to the ballast.
Since we're removing the ballast, all these connectors get taken apart.
We need to do this on both sides of the fixture.
And we need to remove the mains wire from the ballast input.
Once all the electrial connections are separated, we can physically remove the ballast.
In this case, there are two screws with nuts on them.
Other designs may have a single sheet metal screw on one side and a slot on the other.
Now we need a short piece of wire to run from the center where the mains are connected to one end of the fixture.
I'm using some scrap 14/2 TPS cable I had in the parts bin.
If you have to buy some, 3 feet should be plenty.
Now I prepare all the ends by stripping off about 3/4" of insulation from each wire and twisting the strands so they don't fray as easily.
I also strip the insulation from the 14/2 cable.
Now comes the most technical part of this project.
Here we see each socket has two wires coming out of it.
On one end of the fixture, we want to connect one wire from each socket to the white wire and the other one to the black wire.
It's probably easiest to see this in a pictoral diagram.
Hit pause on the video if you need to study this.
Because I have four sockets on this fixture, I used some pigtails to keep from having a huge number of wires all in one wire nut.
When it's all put together, it looks like this.
The sockets on the other end of the fixture don't need any connection.
I just put wire nuts over the ends of the wires to keep them from potentially shorting anything out.
And then zip tied them together to keep them neat and tidy.
Finally I stripped the insulation back from the other end of the 14/2 cable.
We can see here, I'm not using the copper ground from the new cable, but the existing ground that goes to the fixture.
And now it's a matter of reassembling the fixture.
And reconnecting the mains.
Again, make sure the power is off before doing this!
Reinstall the fixture.
In my case it's just a matter of dropping it back into place between the joists.
Finally, install the bulbs.
These particular bulbs have only one end that connects to the sockets with power, so if they don't work the first time, turn the bulbs around end for end.
Turn on the power and enjoy your new lights!
So give me a thumbs up if you found that helpful. I really appreciate it.
And I really thank you for joining me on this continuing creative journey that we're on.
When working on electrical outlets, a must have tool is the outlet tester. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley show how to use one of these inexpensive tools to test receptacles for proper power and ground wiring. They are also an easy way to test an outlet to see if the power is off prior to working on the wall plug.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
If you do anything with 110 volt receptacles or outlets and wiring them, you need one of these. We're going to talk about what it is and how to use it, today at the House of Hacks.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.
Harley here.
Wiring 110 volt receptacles or outlets are pretty simple and straight-forward for the average DIYer. There's only three wires to connect and they're all color coded. So as long as the circuit was installed correctly originally, replacing the outlet is really trivial.
But when you do replace an outlet, you do want to make sure you use one of these tools. They're designed to tell you if things are wired properly or if you have safety issues. They're really inexpensive and you can pick them up on Amazon for less than $5. I'll leave a link to a bunch of them down in the description below.
To use one of these, all you do is you just plug it in. It has three lights on it that light up and, depending on what order the lights are lit and which ones are lit, it'll tell you the status of the outlet.
The best condition is that it's lit up as correct and you're good to go.
There are a number of problem that may occur. The first one is open ground. This is where the ground wire is not connected. The ground wire is typically green or copper without any insulation on it at all and in this case you need to make sure it's connected and make sure it's properly connected to ground on the other end.
The next one is open neutral. This means the white wire is not connected for some reason. You need to go in there and trace the white wire and find out where the disconnect is.
The next one is open hot. This means the black wire is not connected properly. In this case nothing will work when you plug something into it because there is no power actually reaching the outlet.
The last two are safety concerns because if you plug something into the outlet with these configurations then you may have power exposed to the user in ways that are unsafe. Which is why one of these tools is really important to use to make sure everything is good.
The first of these two critical ones is hot neutral reversed. And this means the black wire and the white wire are backwards. You just need to take the plug off and reverse those two wires and you should be good to go.
And the last one is hot ground reversal. This means that the hot wire and the ground are backwards which are the black and the green wires or the plain copper one, depending on the wire that's used. And in that case, just these two need to be switched around.
That covers all the error cases and also the good case. So, make sure you use one of these anytime you're wiring up an outlet just to make sure everything's safe for your users.
French cleats can be used to hang mirrors, pictures and TVs. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to make some French cleats suitable for use with heavy items and then uses them to mount a mirror on drywall. They are a simple and strong solution for hanging or mounting heavy objects, such as mirrors, pictures and TVs, in a way that is easy to move for cleaning but are sturdy for an environment where they may get bumped.
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to go from this... to this.
[Intro music]
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to mount this mirror.
It was originally designed to sit on a dresser and so it doesn't have any hanging hardware on it.
Instead of going to a home improvement store and getting picture frame mounting hardware, we're going to use French cleats.
It's in a commercial environment, so that should be a little bit more stable and easier to work with in this environment.
So the thickness of the French cleats needs to be about 7/8" to sit against the wall nicely.
To make the cleats, I’m just going to use a scrap 2x4.
First I planed off an 1/8" to remove the radius from the corners.
Then I marked an inch off to indicate the excess material.
The band saw took off what wasn’t needed.
Now about an 1/8" needs to be removed.
Running it through the planer again.
And it’s right at 7/8".
Next I find the center.
And rip down the center with a 45 degree cut.
Then cut the two pieces into two pair.
A Forstner bit makes a flat bottomed countersink.
And then a hole for the screw goes the rest of the way through.
The other side gets a standard countersink for a flat head screw.
OK, after all those machining operations, I've got two sets of cleats.
These will go on the mirror itself. It's got wood screws in here with a standard countersink.
And I've got... these'll go on the wall and they've got a flat countersink on them with a washer to kind of help distribute the weight.
We'll put drywall mounts on the back that these will screw into.
So these will fit together like this when they're hanging on the wall.
Marking where the pilot holes goes with a couple taps of the hammer.
And then drilling the pilot holes. I used a piece of tape to mark the depth.
And cleats for the mirror are attached.
Again, mark screw locations with a couple hammer taps.
I love these screw-in drywall anchors…
that the wall cleats simply screw into.
I think that's going to work well. It's nice and stable. It's not going anywhere and, yeah, I think it'll be good.
If you are interested in projects like this, or making things out of wood, metal, electronics, other things of that nature, subscribe down below. Or if you're interested in another video right now, YouTube's got something suggested over here to the side.
Until next time, perfection's not required. Fun is!
A contact recently asked "How do I select a power supply for my project?" Once a project moves past the prototyping state using a battery, picking the power supply is a critical element of a personal electronics project. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley discusses the four items to consider when choosing a surplus power supply.
What do turkey basters and power supplies have to do with each other? And why am I in the kitchen? We're going to talk about all this today at the House of Hacks.
[Music]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
I was recently asked about selecting a power supply for a hacked together project. There are four things when selecting a power supply that you need to pay attention to.
The first two are simple. The last two are a little be more complex but not too bad.
First is the input, you need to make sure that your power supply is appropriate for what you're plugging it into. For the most part you're going to be using locally supplied power supplies, probably surplus stuff that you've scavenged, and in that case it's going to work because it's designed for your local environment. In the United States that's going to be 110 to 120 volts AC. Pretty much anywhere else in the world, with a few exceptions, it's 220-240 volts AC. So the first item, while it's there and you need to be aware of it, it's really simple.
The second item has to do with the output. Power supplies can either output volts AC, indicated by VAC or a squiggly line or it can output in volts DC, indicated by VDC or a straight line. And you need to select the type of current that's appropriate for your project. Most, if you're doing low-voltage stuff, most of those are going to be DC, but depending on what you're working on, AC may be appropriate for your case.
The last two items are volts and amps. And these are similar to properties of water systems so we'll look at that here in a minute with the turkey baster and the sink.
But in short, volts have to do with, kind of, the pressure that the electrons are pushing into your circuit. And you need to make sure that this is appropriately ranged for your circuit you're working with. Generally circuits have a minimum and maximum voltage. You need to make sure that the voltage coming from the power supply fits within those parameters.
And finally there's amperage. Amperage is more like capacity. So it has to do with, as long as your power supply meets minimum requirements for your circuit, you're good to go. Your power supply can provide more amps than you need, it just can't provide less. So, make sure you know what your circuit requires and your power supply at least meets that minimum.
For example, a circuit that requires 250 milliamps (ma) would work just fine with a power supply that supplies 250 ma, 500 ma or 100 amps. Any of those would work just fine. However, if the power supply says it's rated for 100 ma, that's going to be too little and your circuit won't work right.
So let's go look at the sink and see how water correlates to volts and amps.
OK. As I mentioned, volts have to do with the amount of pressure and amps have to do with the capacity.
If you think about a water system, there's a whole lot of capacity here. The city has probably thousands of acre-feet of water that are sitting behind these pipes. They can provide pretty much all the capacity that we need for our little simple demonstration here.
It also has a lot of pressure. We control the pressure by the knob here, the lever, and if we put this on here and we give it just a little bit. This would be like not enough volts where we have a really weak stream here and the circuit isn't going to work right because it just doesn't have enough oomph to make it work.
If we increase the pressure to just the right amount, we get a nice flow without overdoing things and we reach a point of equilibrium here where the equivalent of the circuit is going to work just fine because we have the right amount coming in, not too much, not too little and everything's going to work just fine. And this is kind of equivalent to the volts controlled by the lever here.
If we increase the voltage too much though, what we end up with is a lot of leaks. And when you have leakage in electronics, that's a really bad thing. Things tend to blow up, burn up, magic smoke escapes, all that kind of good stuff. So you really don't want to put too much voltage to your circuit. You want to have just the right amount of volts that you get a good flow like that without having too much.
But now in all these cases, regardless of how much voltage I had, how much pressure I had coming out of the circuit, I still had huge, huge, vast amounts of water sitting in reservoirs behind these pipes. And that's equivalent to your amps. Your circuit will only use the amount of amps that it needs, regardless of how much capacity your power supply has.
So in summary, there are four things to look at: the input voltage and current and the output current, volts and amps. Make sure that you have the sufficient volts within the range that the circuit is designed for and that you have at least the minimum number of amps that are required by the circuit and you're good to go.
Replacing the battery on Apple Macbook Air is really simple and only requires a couple minutes work. In this episode, Harley shows the couple steps needed to change the battery in an mid-2011 MacBook Air and restore it to its original capacity.
Rechargeable batteries have a finite lifetime, wear out as they’re used and need to be replaced. Unlike PC laptops, MacBook’s give a warning when the battery approaches end-of-life and needs to be replaced. Applications like CoconutBattery give additional information.
Rechargeable batteries wear out over time. MacBooks will give a warning when their battery is approaching their end of life and won’t hold a charge. Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to see how easy it is to replace one of these aging batteries.
[Music]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
If you like to make things out of items such as wood, metal and electronics, subscribe to the House of Hacks channel to get notified of future videos.
My buddy Rich’s 5 year old MacBook Air, of mid-2011 vintage, started acting a bit strange. Instead of going to sleep when he closed the lid it started hibernating. And then, because it was hibernated, rather than coming on instantly when he opened the lid, it took a number of seconds to wake back up. And then he finally got this "service battery" warning.
After calling the local repair depot and finding it was going to be a week or so to get it replaced, and with an upcoming photoshoot in a couple days where he really needed it, he asked me to fix it for him. He got a new battery off of Amazon and brought it to the shop to get it replaced.
This particular MacBook’s battery is model number A1496 and it is available from a number of different vendors. Mac batteries are a bit more complex to replace than most Windows-based laptops, but they’re still not to too bad. Let’s take a look at the simple process.
First, for many models, Apple used security screws rather than the run of the mill straight or Phillips screws, so screwdrivers for Pentalobe screws, as well as the more common Torx, are needed for this battery replacement.
Fortunately, Rich purchased a kit that included all the screwdrivers needed to replace the battery. If you don’t get a kit with the screwdrivers, make sure you have the ones you need already on hand. These screwdrivers are not high-quality things you’ll use forever, but they are sufficient to get the one time job done.
After opening the kit, I used the Pentalobe screwdriver to open the bottom of the laptop. There are two long screws next to the screen’s hinge and short screws around the rest of the perimeter.
Once the screws are out, the bottom just lifts off, exposing the battery.
Now, there are 5 Torx screws that hold the battery in. They are at the four corners and one in the center. Again, the two next to the hinge are longer and the other three are shorter.
When the screws are all out, gently lift the battery up and disconnect it. The connector has a plastic tab to pull on. Gently tug on this straight back towards the front edge of the laptop. Do not lift up away from the laptop’s motherboard.
Putting the new battery in is just the reverse of this process.
Attach the connector and make sure it’s seated. Then place the battery back in place so the screw holes line up and replace the screws. Remember, the longer screws go next to the hinge. Be careful not to cross thread or over tighten the screws. They just need to be snug, not super tight.
And now might be a good time to blow some canned air around the fan and vents to make sure there isn’t any dust bunnies hiding around.
Finally put the bottom back on and replace the screws. Again, the long screws go next to the hinge and take care not to cross thread or over tighten them.
Turn the laptop over, and turn it on and admire your work.
If you use an application like coconutBattery, you can see details of the battery's status. This utility can take a snapshot of the status for comparison. Here we see the before and the after. The old battery was to the point where it only charged to 70% of what it was designed for. And we can see the new one goes to 100%.
The instructions that came with the battery indicated it should be discharged to 5% and then recharged to 100% several times in a row. I’m not quite sure why this is recommended. My understanding of the Lithium based battery chemistry is this isn’t needed. It may be a left-over remnant of a recommendation from the Nickel and Lead based battery chemistries or perhaps it’s to calibrate the battery’s charge controller. In any case, understand this is the recommended procedure.
And now this laptop is ready for another 5 years of service.
Join me in the comments below to let me know if you found this helpful.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here and would love to have you subscribe. I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark. Sometimes this manifests itself through making things with a mechanical and technical bent. Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage these types of makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photography and other similar materials. If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Thanks for joining me on our creative journey. Now, go make something. Perfection’s not required. Fun is!
A pair of momentary switches become a latching on/off switch as Harley expands on a previous video about remote controlling a shop vac. This is the first of several in a modular switching system to remote control shop equipment using the PowerSwitch Tail II.
The central part of this system is the PowerSwitch Tail. It contains an electronically controlled switch to turn things on an off. There are a large number of ways to control this. In this episode, we introduce a modular system to allow different types of switches to be used to control the shop vac (or any other type of appliance).
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Special effects: livingroom_light_switch by AlienXXX at http://freesound.com
Transcript
Last year I showed an easy way to remote control shop equipment using a PowerSwitch Tail, a couple batteries, a switch and some wire.
Today at the House of Hacks I’m going to show how I made a push-on/push-off switch that mimics the way a lot of shop equipment are controlled.
[Music]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
Just a quick reminder, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the House of Hacks channel to get notified of future videos.
Last year I made a video responding to a comment by Rob about how I made the remote control switch on my central shop vac system.
In that video, I showed the core design element: the PowerSwitch Tail and how to use it with a simple battery operated switch.
Today i’m going to show a different way to control the same PowerSwitch Tail by eliminating the batteries and using a switch with two buttons: one to turn the tool on and one to turn it off.
This is similar to how many shop tools are controlled. It also has the additional feature of being able to be expanded upon in the future.
If you recall, the PowerSwitch Tail requires 3 to 12 volts DC applied to these two connectors to cause the tool to turn on.
Batteries are of course one source of power for this but they need to be replaced on occasion.
Since I didn’t want to deal with replacing batteries, in my application I decided to use a surplus wall wart style power supply. I had a bunch of these lying around and figured this would be a good application for one of them.
I plugged it into the same outlet I plug the PowerSwitch Tail into.
I connect the low voltage power supply to two connectors on an RJ-11 jack.
Then I connect the other two connectors on the RJ-11 jack to the two connectors on the PowerSwitch Tail.
This allows me to use a phone wire as an extension cord.
For the switch's end, I put another RJ-11 jack in a project box. This project box can now have any type of switch mechanism in it I want and provides a nice modular way to use different types of switches.
For example, I could put in a toggle switch just like I showed in the last video.
Simply wire the negative side of the power to the negative input on the PowerSwitch Tail and wire a switch between the positive side of the power and the positive input for the PowerSwitch Tail.
However, since we have power in the project box, we aren’t limited to just a simple mechanical switch.
We can build circuitry that controls the PowerSwitch Tail.
The first thing I’ve made is a simple latching switch.
Similar to the switches on many tools, like my drill press and my bandsaw, I press the green button to turn on my vacuum and push the red button to turn it off.
Inside the box is a simple flip flop.
A flip flop is a type of circuit with two inputs, called Set and Reset. It also has two outputs, called Q and bar Q, or also known as not Q. It’s just the inverse of Q.
The inputs receive momentary pulses.
If the pulse is on Set, then Q goes high and bar Q goes low.
If the pulse is on Reset, then Q goes low and bar Q goes high.
If we consider just one output, Q, we can see Set causes it to turn on and Reset causes it to turn off. It just flip flops between the two positions.
Flip flops can be made with a variety of different circuits ranging from discrete components to various types of integrated circuits.
I happened to have a Quad 2-Input NOR gate chip in my parts bin so I used that.
But I could just as easily have used NAND gates, a chip with a dedicated flip-flop circuit in it, or a couple of transistors and resistors.
Once I had the circuit built, all I had to do was put it in the box and wire it up.
The switches are wired with pull down resistors. This allows the inputs to be normally low and go high when the button is pressed.
The green button connects to the Set input. The red button connects to the Reset input.
The negative input to the PowerTail Switch goes to the negative power connector.
Since I’m switching the positive side of the power, I’m using a PNP transistor.
Its base connects to the flip-flops Q output.
The PowerSwitch Tail’s positive input goes to the transistor’s collector.
And finally, the transistor’s emitter connects to the positive power connector.
In this configuration, the transistor acts as the switch for the PowerSwitch Tail’s power.
When it’s all put together, pushing the green button turns on the appliance and pushing the red button turns it off.
Since this switch system is modular, I have plans to build other switches too.
The next one is a current sensing switch so the vacuum will automatically turn on when a tool is in use and will turn off, after a short time delay, when the tool is turned off.
I’d love to know in the comments below if the level of detail I presented here was too much, just right or too little.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here and would love to have you subscribe.
I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark.
Sometimes this manifests through making things with a technical or mechanical bent.
Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage these types of makers in their creative endeavors.
Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, photography, electronics, like in this video, and other similar materials.
If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Thanks for joining me on our creative journey.
Now, go make something. Perfection’s not required. Fun is!
Histograms can be found in Photoshop for use in post-processing, not only on the back of our cameras when making the exposure. In this final episode of the Histogram series, Harley shows the different places histograms show up and what they represent within the image.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech
Sound effect: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at FreeSound
Transcript
Histograms are an important tool when making an image in-camera. They also have their use during post-processing. In this episode of House of Hacks, I talk about how they work in Adobe’s Photoshop.
Hi Makers, Builders and Photographers. Harley here.
This is one in a series of videos about understanding and using the histogram. The others can be found in this playlist. I also have a playlist of other topics related to photography.
Today, we'll look at histograms in Photoshop. In this application, histograms tell us the same information as they do on the back of the camera but instead of just one histogram, Photoshop has several because of the different ways to view the image.
First off, if the histogram isn't visible, go to the Windows menu and select Histogram or you can click this icon.
By default it shows a little view like this. Click on this option drop down and select "All channels view" to see multiple histograms, one for each channel.
In many images all the channels will be very similar. But in some instances they might be quite different.
The split channels can be useful in situations where one color is predominant in your image. They help you see how adjustments to the image impact each color to help you know when one channel might start clipping, losing detail in the final image.
There's also this combo box that controls what is displayed in the top histogram. Personally, I like to show luminosity.
These histograms show the information for the image with all the adjustment layers applied. It’s the final histogram for the processed image.
As you turn adjustments on and off, you can see the histograms change accordingly.
Histograms also show up in some adjustment layers such as levels and curves.
The histograms that show in adjustments are the histogram for the image as that layer sees it, taking into consideration the original image and any layers below the current layer. This means adjustment layers above and below the current layer may have different histograms than the current layer.
As an example, this levels adjustment layer has a histogram for the original image.
If we make some adjustments and then add a curves adjustment above it, the curves layer shows a histogram based on the changes made by the levels adjustments.
If we make some adjustments on the curves layer, we can see the main histogram shows the results.
Also, if we make adjustments in a particular color channel, we can see how those changes impact that channel in the global histogram view.
If our adjustments are too extreme, we can see in the channel’s histogram that we start to lose details in this particular channel without the typical clipping showing in the main histogram curve.
In conclusion, I’d love to hear in the comments below about your experiences with the histogram, particularly during post-processing.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome. I’m glad you’re here. We’d love to have you subscribe. Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and inform makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photographs and other similar materials. Thanks for joining me on our creative journey. So subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Now, go make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!
The histogram is a powerful tool for the photographer. In this tutorial, Harley shows how to use this feature found on most cameras to quickly and easily setup lighting to isolate a subject on a pure white background. Properly done, a subject isolated on a white background is simple to cut out to composite into another image.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: "Sweeter Vermouth" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Sound effect: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at http://freesound.org
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks, I’m going to talk about an impulse purchase I made several years ago that’s turned out to be one of the most used tools in my workshop.
[Intro]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
A number of years ago I had an Amazon order that I needed to fill out to get free shipping on. So I ended up purchasing one of these inexpensive digital calipers. It was just an impulse purchase. I figured it’s cheap enough that if I never use it or I don’t like it, no great loss.
As it turned out, this little thing has… I use it on almost every project. It measures up to six inches and anything under six inches I’m pretty much using this to measure with.
It’s just really, really handy.
There’s a whole bunch of these on Amazon. This one I picked up for around 37 or so dollars. It’s one of the more expensive ones. I’ve seen them on, just searching before this video, I was searching and saw them for under ten dollars. They’re so inexpensive, I’ve seen people buy them new, cut them up to use the measuring device in things like jigs and things like that. So, they’re really inexpensive for whatever purpose you want to use them for. Like I said, I use them for almost every project whenever I need to measure things.
They’re great for measuring outside measurements using these big calipers. Using the smaller inside calipers you can measure inside measurements. And on the end you can measure depth.
They have a zero button on them so you can zero it out. You either close the jaws, zero it out and then you get an accurate measurement. Or, you can use it to get the difference between two measurements. Take one measurement, zero it out, take another measurement and that gives you the difference between the two sizes. That can be really handy.
And it’s also good for transferring distances. You can use the ends, they are sharp so you can scribe a little bit. Measure one thing and then use it to scribe.
It does have an on/off switch which doesn’t really work all that well. All it does is turn on and off the LCD display which really doesn’t draw much power. If you’re going to leave these sitting around unused for a week, you really should take the battery out and that’ll give you much longer battery life on it.
That said, the batteries are 357 button cells. Little things that you can get at Walmart, Target, places like that for a couple bucks a piece. They’re much cheaper on Amazon if you buy them in bulk. So I recommend buying them on Amazon because I think they’re less than a dollar a piece whereas the cheapest I’ve found locally is like a buck fifty, two bucks, something like that.
They have a units switch that switches between millimeters, inches as decimal and inches as fractions. So that can be handy depending on what it is you’re measuring and you’re comparing it to other things and what units you’re most comfortable with.
The device also came with a plastic carrying case. Just kind of inexpensive, but it does protect it. And inside it has a foam cutout for the calipers and two places for batteries. So if you’re carrying it around, that kind of protects it and keeps it from getting beat up.
A really, really handy device. I really recommend getting one.
So that’s it for today. I’ll leave a link down in the description for an affiliate link if you’re interested in helping support the channel.
Until next time, go make something. Perfection’s not required. Fun is!
