Murphy's Day

Today was one of those days when nothing seemed to go quite as easily as it should have. In fact by 5PM despite there were tasks remaining to do I decided enough had been problematic that it was probably time to stop doing anything in case of more serious issues.

The broken switch from yesterday looks very sturdy and is fixable. I won't fix it though. The problem was that the black base plate to the left is secured solely by 4 pieces of folded steel. Very small lugs that aren't going to stop the black plastic base from flexing when pressure is put on a tough locking screw. That's why it popped out. I was going to replace the switch with one that takes blade connectors but since I had only three way switches with blade connectors and one identical switch that I'd taken off the control panel and replaced with a lighted switch, I reused the spare switch. Getting the old switch off was a long process as the locking nut had frozen and each piece of the thread posed a significant challenge.

I did consider using a deep socket but as my deep sockets are rounded at the very end and the lock nut was very shallow there was not much hope of success. Add to that the fact that it seemed not a standard size. I measured it at 14.4mm which is 9/16 but oddly my 9/16 wrench wouldn't work on the nut. Thus I had to spend an age with an oversized adjustable wrench, undoing the nut in fractions of a turn. Eventually I succeeded.

My next problem was that the angled screwdriver adaptor seemed to have frozen. I'm betting it was poorly made and that there's some swarf inside that's jamming the cogwheels. It will make about a 359 degree turn before stopping - in both directions. I do get tool failures from time to time. This is not as many people like to claim "because it was cheap" or "because it came from china" as my evidence thus far is that it does not matter where a broken tool originated nor how much it cost - both cheap and expensive will break.

In my installment of my first DVR a week or so back, I'd used the drill angle adapter successfully.  Today I went to close the control panel and found that the DVR I'd installed on the side of the panel was blocking my closing the lid properly. That was a problem. I needed to drill 4 new holes. When I tried to do that last time without the adapter, the drill bit kept skipping because I was at a slight angle. That was why I'd bought it.

My first issue was that the DVR had been riveted into place so I had to drill the rivets out. That wasn't too hard since they were aluminium rivets. Rather than using the drill to drill the new holes, I used a self-drilling bolt. That was what I've done elsewhere before. This time, however, when it was time to rivet, the rivets would not bite. I ended up using the self-drilling bolts instead. Needless to say it wasn't straightforward as the first time I installed the DVR it was back to front. I had to unbolt and redo it.

I'd already tested the setup. All the required lights came on which was a very positive sign and the picture displayed clearly on my dashboard monitor. Whether the DVR attached to the left of the console still works is unknown as it did get quite some vibration during my work today. 

I thought that since the door lock had been a little difficult yesterday and today that it was probably time to charge the batteries. Thus I unclipped the battery holder and recharged the batteries. It takes 10 AA batteries. One day I would probably be well advised to rewire the door lock controller so that if the solar battery is flat, the lock will operate off 10 AA Lithium batteries. That would mean that I should never have to recharge batteries or even switch them over. 

Needless to say, when I put the batteries back in the battery holder I noticed the contact on the top of the battery holder had come off the holder and was left attached to the contact clip. Fortunately I had a spare 10AA battery holder but even so that was a major headache. I'll have to buy a spare battery holder now. 

The idea flicked across my mind of having some alternate battery setup. Perhaps 6v lantern cells. I wouldn't be able to recharge those which was my goal in using AA batteries. While rechargeable C and D batteries do exist, it's hard to source them and even harder to find a charger for them. Perhaps the way forward will be to have a 10AA holder that holds all the batteries on one side and over which I can fit some sort of bar that will stop the batteries from bouncing out of place if I hit a bump when driving.

Well, to conclude this problem day I decided not to take the trash out in a dodgy pickup truck because something might happen to the truck. It is that dodgy! Later I offered to spray a kitchen item with silver paint. I pulled out my silver paint and ended up spraying the thing bus grey. That is the problem I had before.

I'd been to Walmart and picked up some grey spray paint. When I sprayed the side of the bus I found the paint was actually silver. Thus I'd had to go back to buy grey. The two cans look absolutely identical down to the grey color of the caps. It's only some tiny text that I can't even see let alone read without glasses that differentiates the two cans.

Now you tell me you can tell the can on the right is silver and not grey with anything more than a quick glance! It really has been that kind of day.