After 10 years or so it started to slow down
So I removed the back
That MT416 is not a battery but a backup capacitor so out it came for a clean, I used a wooden cocktail stick to wiggle it out. Use a metal probe at your own risk and don't touch the mechanism with bare fingers. It's 4.6mm diameter so you'll need good eyes or a magnifier
Note the tab at about 10 o'clock
Clean that contact, I used a cocktail stick dipped in methylated spirit. Don't use a cotton bud or you'll risk leaving hairy debris
Then I cleaned the capacitor contact surfaces and bent the brass tab out a smidgen with the cocktail stick
Carefully reassemble with the tab properly orientated and replace the back
Hope for the best
There are a few out there
My favourite is one posted by diktaf at reddit.com/r/icecreamery
Amazingly I can't find any discussion about it but I have learnt a lot from it and always use it.
I find most recipes produce something far too sweet and once you get an understanding of POD and PAC you can develop mixtures that suit your own taste.
It's an Epson ET-2550 which prints, scans, copies and makes tea.
These things use bottles of ink rather than cartridges, are supposed to save 70% of running costs and can print up to 4,000 pages in black and 6,500 pages in colour which apparently saves me thinking about ink for two years. So it was a bit of a surprise to read
Ink life
For best results, use up ink within 6
months of removing the seal from an ink bottle
in the ET-2550 User's Guide (CPD-42914R1), however, this is from "Epson America, Inc." and the manual (NPD5248=00 EN) that comes with this one doesn't say that so maybe we have better ink.
Anyway, you transfer the inks from the bottles into the tanks on the printer and, as you remove the seals, lickle drops of ink stick to your fingers.
Delicate folk might like to try pliers or wear gloves.
After that, you switch on, press some buttons and wait while the system primes itself. In the meantime, you can install the software, there's a cd in the box but I used the weblink. It all went well until it tried to update the firmware. You turn the printer off which takes a while then turn it back on. The software couldn't find the printer so I pressed the OK button, tried again and it worked.
Test print was fine so I ran the head alignment check, although this was not mentioned, and it needed a bit of adjustment; the nozzle check for clogged nozzles was perfect.
Scanning A4 goes as follows:
Printing an A4 photo' on glossy paper with maximum quality took about six minutes. First go with no colour correction was a bit drab, second attempt used the PhotoEnhance/ Landscape option and was very good given that this is not a photo' printer and only has CMBBk inks. Paper was Fujifilm Multijet that I've had for several years.
Original
Scan of the print
Hmm, that's a bit blue, I suppose that I need to calibrate it.
Generally you can delete them after a successful hardware or software installation but they are littered all over the place. Puran Utilities is good for finding lots of them but it doesn't find these in C:\Windows\inf.
Here we're going to look at these on three notebooks all running windows 7 Home Premium.
This is a screenshot from Red.
Blue shows the last two files at 14,158,258 & 952,217 which is nuts as there's nothing much on it. What is even nutser is that Black only has setupapi.app.log and it's 159 bytes.
Well I dunno about that but changing the value of
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\LogLevel
certainly has an effect, to whit:
The verbosity of the log report is set by that registry key, in the old days it was 20000FFFF, the article above suggests using 20. I have no idea how Black ended up with 101 but it works and boots in 45s so it's staying as it is.
Blue now boots in 2¼ minutes rather than 15 or so and is usable again. Same spec as Black, a pretty basic AMD C-60, 1000 MHz, 4Gb RAM.
Red's much the same as before, it's an old i7 but still pretty quick.
If you're not comfortable with editing the registry then don't; the adventurous might like to rename
setupapi.app.log & setupapi.dev.log
to
setupapi.app.logOLD & setupapi.dev.logOLD
reboot and see what happens.
The file size reductions above are after the first reboot, whether they grow remains to be seen.
All machines are using AVG Anti-virus, the free version. Stop press: changing the Blue verbosity to 101 reduces startup to 2 minutes and the log file is now 10,831
I don't know why setupapi.app.20170521_151423.log and setupapi.dev.20150729_121527.log are in blue. They seem to be snapshots from the past but they're gone and not missed.
Puran Utilities - I'm using v 3.0.0.0 from 2013, the latest version may do a bit more. If you install it check the folder for oddities. I've just noticed this massive Temp file
now that's gone too.
Digging a bit deeper, there's a file called AppList which works with Delete History
So that can be edited to add stuff or hide what you never use. Clever or what?
Power Efficiency Diagnostics is a program run by Task Scheduler. It may be useful in helping you set up a laptop but other than that it justs wastes disc space.
In any case you have to check the results yourself, there is no automation.
In any case2 you have to know it exists.
Below I cleaned out a million or so .xml files but left the energy-report-latest.xml file after reading dire warnings on the web. I renamed the energy-ntkl.etl then manually started Power Efficiency Diagnostics.
So it still works ok but let's kill it
Do
Start Menu - Programs - Accessories - System Tools
2018 and a very hot summer has produced an enormous crop which is too much to eat fresh so I decided to dry some.
Preparation was wash, slice about 1/2" (12.7 mm) thick, remove the hard cores.
Various sources on the www recommend using a tray liner to avoid dripping onto the tray below and sticking.
The options:
Excalibur sheets at £7 a pop
9 Chuzy Chef sheets for £10.99 + 4.49 p&p
5 NUTRIDRY mesh sheets for £16.95 + 3.95 p&p
Plastic Canvas from the local craft shop £3 each, probably not food safe
Teflon baking sheet from the cupboard £0.
So the last one won and you can see the result in the graph below.
The absence of airflow on the lower surface reduced the rate of drying dramatically so out it came and that tray went on to more or less catch up with the others.
In the final analysis, sticking wasn't a problem and the tomatoes came off easily.
The dehydrator ran overnight on cheap juice so they were moon dried - a world first.
Some were drier than others so they all went into a sealed container overnight to balance out the moisture then they were wrapped in cling film and frozen in batches.
I tasted one and it was almost a sultana.
Initial weight 3168g.
28 day aged topside not posh rump
Sharpen knife.
Cut out any membranes and nasties
Slice 3/8" thick
Desicate with salt in layers for an hour then wash off
Into cider vinegar bath for a few minutes
Coat with toasted coriander, white pepper, mustard, allspice
Put the dried meat into a container with lid and shake to remove most of the excess spices
Started at 967g, ended at 394, cost £8.00 ≡ £19.6/kg biltong. Shop bought is currently £33-45/kg
Grapefruit and orange, sliced and segmented
Err, the very thin orange slices were like orange crisps and very good. The segments didn't dry homogeneously and the middle was still moist whilst the edges were crisp; likewise the thicker grapefruit slices. Not one to repeat.
Depith the peel, slice into 1/4" thick strips, chop into 1/2" lengths
Into saucepan and cover with cold water
Bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes
Drain and repeat
Drain
Add enough water to pan to cover peel and remove peel
Add equal weight of sugar and bring to boil stirring continually
Add peel and strong simmer for 1 hour
Allow to cool
Remove peel onto a drying tray with very small holes
otherwise use a Teflon™ sheet
It made 108g which would cost a quid in the shops so the the saving isn't much but it's preservative free and tastes great.
This time it's turkey with a couple of bananas
Slice the turkey into, err, slices about 3/8" thick
Cover with salt and leave for an hourish
Wash off and put the turkey into a pan with vinegar/ lemon juice for a couple of minutes
Grind the coriander seeds, add nutmeg, allspice or similar. You can toast the coriander if you wish but it doesn't make much difference to the flavour so it's not worth the trouble
Coat the turkey
and load up the dryer trays
A few hours later and it'll look like this
1kg turkey currently costs £8.65 and this shrunk to 375g ≡ £23.07/kg biltong which compares rather nicely with a shop price of £50+ even ignoring the few coppers for the spices and electricity
Set the oven to Gas Mark 6, 200°C.
Place a deep baking dish on a shelf in the middle.
Boil a kettle.
Using a large saucepan, make roux, add milk, grate in chocolate, stir in beaten yolks, stir in sugar.
Whisk egg whites, stir a tablespoon or two into the mix and fold in the rest.
Fill bain marie so the water's ½ way up the ramekins.
Cook for 10 minutesish.
Hope for the best.
One flat one
One peaked one
And why you should knock the ramekins on a hard surface before cooking to get rid of cavities.
Soufflés are just a white sauce with flavouring and folded in egg whites.
Separate the eggs and add two more whites to the whites.
Beat the yolks.
Butter the ramekins.
Set the oven to Gas Mark 6, 200°C.
Place a deep baking dish on a shelf in the middle.
Boil a kettle.
Use broccoli and cauliflower florets without any thick stalks.
Steam, the cauliflower will take a bit longer than the broccoli.
Cool and mash with a stick blender.
Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add milk slowly, stir constantly and cook for a couple of minutes until smooth.
Season heavily with black pepper and salt
Stir in the mashed broccoli and cauliflower then the beaten eggs and grated cheese.
Add a little cream of tartar to the egg whites and whisk until fairly stiff.
Add a tablespoon of the whites to the mixture and stir in.
Place the rest of the whites on top of the mixture and fold in.
Fill the ramekins about 3/4 full.
Pour boiling water into the baking dish and put in the ramekins.
Target time 10-12 minutes.
Avoid opening the door to check.
They should be risen, brown on the top and maybe cracked open
Beginner's luck or what?
The morning after
and it's sunk a bit
so wake it up for 8 minutes in the steamer, it's not quite as light as before but still pretty good and better than throwing it away
with shaved cheese
and if you don't know hold to fold in egg whites, watch this chap
The garage roof was cracked and leaking but before replacing it, I fortunately discovered thin steel sheets which go over the top. They're available in Big 6 which is what I needed, 0.7mm thick, vinyl coated on the top and painted on the underneath. Using these saves a lot of effort and the cost of a skip.
I dunno how the pro's do it but this is what I did to minimise the need for another pair of hands and the time spent up on the roof.
First draw your roof.
This is a scrap plan done in Excel.
To the North is another garage 14.75" away
To the East is reasonable access from grade apart from the bottom corner
To the South is a garden with all sorts of obstacles including a trellis going further south, a tall clump of bamboo, a pond, various junk and more junk.
To the West is a workshop, roof is about 18" lower than the garage so ideal for supporting a board for access.
The sheets come in 10' lengths. I could've bought them in more friendly sizes to match the oddly spaced purlins but at quite a cost penalty so I didn't. This works with 7 sheets, 1 being cut into 1/3rds which are the yellows.
Incidentally, the 1/3rds weighed 7.1kg so the full sheet weighs 23.5kg including a bit for the kerfs.
I used an angle grinder for the cuts and a powerfile for the cleanup but if I did it again I'd buy an air powered nibbler. Quicker, no cleanup and no busted discs.
Next think about how to lift the sheets.
1st thought
Push sheet up ladder and let it tip over
Probably ok if you're tall and don't mind being under the sheet during the lift, but any mistake like a trip and it can slide back and take off bits that you'd probably sooner keep. Think on.
Then I discovered the combination ladder
It's pretty versatile with stabilisers
that can be offset to get closer to an obstruction like a wall
or you can add a wedge if the ground is sloping. Hopefully it's obvious that the Stanley knife was used for the purpose of illustration; if not, I'd recommend you stop reading.
but I digress
I'm interested in using one of the hinges as a hinge.
3rd thought
Lift and support by prop clamped in workmate
then hop up onto 2nd workmate and slide the sheet onto the roof from the side.
So here it is, imagine a sheet on the top, also imagine the door painted whilst you're at it.
Hereinafter, this shall be called the front for reference purposes.
Incidentally, the vertical strut and the beam it’s supporting are repurposed ladder stiles. I needed another ladder about 2m long for the job so I cut down my extension ladder – seemed a shame but it hasn’t been used as a double in 25 years so rather than buy something new I angle ground it.
The rungs of the offcut were cut off which resulted in two useful lengths that were used to replace the original wooden bits, much stronger and stiffer.
Detail of the anti-slideback device on the original wooden setup, it's hinged so the sheet slides over then it flicks back and the sheet is lowered onto it before lifting.
How to move the sheet once it's on the roof?
A trolley
made from 2 - 2"x1"s, 2 - 2" plastic pipes, 1 - broom handle and a few holes. It's 5' long as I hoped that the sheet would land just past the pipe at the back once it toppled over. Grade access at that side is restricted by a fence which runs on an angle from the corner of the building so the sheet had to be positioned more to the centre of the roof then slid sideways into position
It worked
This is after lifting and pulling it over into position. The plastic pipes are so effective that the sheet runs back down the roof gradient by itself and needs jamming or a brick to prevent it falling off.
The Mole grip indicated the edge of the trolley so I knew where the sheet needed to be aimed, the ladder's used as a duckboard so I could pull out the rollers.
I bolted a castor to one of the stiles which helped moving it along the roof.
Next up was the 1/3rd sheet which I did from a side ladder.
Next was to be the back sheet. The trolley wouldn't survive the journey without falling apart and I needed a rope to pull it from the back end so
this shows a pipe roller at the back with the rope going all the way to the front and a bit further.
Detail.
The rope goes through the pipe and is secured to the G cramps with clove hitches.
After lifting, the rope is thrown to the back of the garage and the sheet pulled into place. No video I'm afraid but it worked well, in fact, the last two sheets took an hour from ground to final position.
Have you spotted the mistake?
Yes, I should've worked across the width first then moved backwards but I realised in time and got away with it as the first three sheets were fixed only at the left edge and the middle one was short.
Safety
Do it wrong and you can hurt yourself
Do it very wrong and you can die
However you lift the sheets don't stand under them
Don't work if it's windy
Don't do it unless you're very diy experienced and skint
PPE:
Shoes not sandals
Bins - eye protection when grinding
Ear defenders
Proper work strides with knee pads in leg pockets just at knee height, a gift from the gods when crawling along a horizontal ladder. Don't use strap on pads, there is no comparison.
Gloves when handling the sheets
Cleaning the old stuff
I may have gone a bit overboard but I scraped off the moss and crumbly bits with a shavehook followed by vacuuming. If any detritus is detached during the lift/ positioning then it will probably fall into the valleys and rather spoil the profile of the sheeting. You'll only get one chance.
Fixings
The existing roof was fixed with hook bolts which were all the rage at the time. The supplier couldn't supply them and advised that they weren't used much anymore. He suggested Baz fixings which are self drilling, thread cutting screws with a waterseal.
Well I'd never heard of them and didn't really fancy drilling the purlins but a quick search found a video clicky which was very impressive showing a quick operation from the top only whereas hook bolts needs someone inside the garage. Anyway, I was hooked, or hookless, depending on your viewpoint.
So I had a practice with a piece of scrap rsa similar to the steel purlins on the garage. To be honest, I lost the will to live during the drilling as it took so long then my girly drill didn't have enough puff to cut the thread.
Actually, it's pretty good, 430W but no gearbox so it failed.
Plan B
Pilot drill first with the girly then use a mans drill for the threading.
I've had this for years, it's brilliant, 750W, two speed gearbox, soft start, variable rate hammer.
Bingo, that's the way to do it.
So I bought two nice new cobalt tipped bits. One did four holes before it blued, the other did the rest. Not sure if it was variation in quality or whether I drilled a couple without enough lubricant, the cement fibre is pretty abrasive so maybe it was that.
Talking of lubricant, I used this stuff
and it's very good.
Top tip - don't bother with a centre punch, run the drill slowly backwards for a few rotations, it'll make a little crater through the vinyl and slightly into the steel. Then spray crater and bit with lubricant, change to forwards and go. The bits are a little short and need minimum chuck engagement, even so they couldn't get all the way through the purlin but the Baz screw eventually penetrated it.
There's something called a Bosch Multipurpose Drill Bit which looks like a better bet than the cobalt jobbers.
Which reminds me of my set of ASBO drills that I'd forgotten.
It's slightly longer which would've penetrated the purlin, I'm a bit cross about the memory lapse.
Update: It wouldn't have mattered, the ASBO and Bosch Multipurpose Drill Bits aren't sharp enough and skate all over the place so you need to use a steel cutting drill first. Ideally use the steel cutter to penetrate the, err, steel then a masonry drilll to go through the cement fibre then the first to go through the purlin then the third drill to drive the Baz screw in. It's bad enough with two drills and their cables up there let alone a third.
Something old, something new
Self drilling, self threading Baz screw is of plated steel, the washer is stainless and the plastic cap goes on the top. The wings cut a clearance hole to allow for thermal expansion Graeme ;-).
Supplier
Tinman Steels Ltd of Tamworth. A smashing company to deal with, fair price, good delivery and very helpful over the 'phone and email.
Crikey, how did they know this?
A bit more on ASBO drills
The tips are welded in rather than brazed like a masonry bit so there's no braze to melt and the tips won't fall out. I bought these from ASBO in Teddington years ago, the chap there demonstrated them by drilling through a file at high speed with it all glowing red. They're not much cop on wood as the timber is torn out rather than cut but they're great on concrete and will go straight through any rebar.
Sadly they seem to have packed up.
A bit more on the combination ladder
Absolute bargain at £36 and a few coppers at the local Homebase. It also has steel sheets to turn it into a platform.
Anyone want to buy it, one careful owner, limited use, only a few holes in a couple of the treads?
Leak test
It's hardly a monsoon but it's good to look at the cracks in the old roof and see nothing dripping through
Wow, according to word there are 1648 words, did anyone get this far ;-)
Front fixings
It's a concrete lintel that I don't want to drill. Can't buy hook bolts locally so I modified the u-bolts used to support the roller earlier. Originally from a satellite dish mount, they're well galvanised, now waiting for the paint to dry.
Top seal digitally tooled with spit.
Penultimate task
Infill below the old sheets to the lintel. It was originally done in some black gunge which perished, polystyrene eaves fillers are avaible locally but not in Big 6 so I bandsawed them out of 3/8" ply.
Last task
is to mastic the joints and add further bolting to clamp the front of the blues to the yellows and the front of the yellows to the pinks because of the odd purlin spacing.
Being tight, I wanted to use up the Baz screws so I reused the anti-slideback device.to make 'nuts' to go underneath.
Eagle eyes will spot the rust from the staple that went through the label
That MT416 is not a battery but a backup capacitor so out it came for a clean, I used a wooden cocktail stick to wiggle it out. Use a metal probe at your own risk and don't touch the mechanism with bare fingers. It's 4.6mm diameter so you'll need good eyes or a magnifier
Clean that contact, I used a cocktail stick dipped in methylated spirit. Don't use a cotton bud or you'll risk leaving hairy debris
Then I cleaned the capacitor contact surfaces and bent the brass tab out a smidgen with the cocktail stick
