Stuff you have fixed today

Smallfry · 2026-03-05T09:17:39+0000

So now you are grubby as well as hungry ?

I'm laughing, but this to be the normal state of affairs whenever I try to any of this supposedly simple jobs.

I had one of those detectors, it would flash merrily away while holding it a metre away from a light bulb or the consumer unit, but anywhere near a wall, hopeless. After I had binned it, it occurred to me that maybe whatever is fed by the buried cable, should be switched on ? Circuit completed. Shouldn't make a difference with AC, but does it ? :dontknow:

Craig-SM · 2026-03-05T11:05:01+0000

I watched the videos, placing a hand on the wall to ensure an earth etc, and found the cooker cable quick but I was expecting it to be there. Placed a few marks on the route and it was 90 degree as assumed. Checked the rest of the area a few times that I needed to chisel out and all green light so thought it was safe so hit the wall hard with the SDS chisel and was only 6 inch away from the cooker cable when bang. Normally I would just go a 1cm at a time with the hand chisel just in case of hidden wires and if you’re unlucky it would just bend the cable but not cut it.

By the end of the night I was grubby, hungry and very grumpy.

badabec · 2026-03-05T12:37:39+0000

By the end of the night I was grubby, hungry and very grumpy.

How was your luck with SWMBO?

Craig-SM · 2026-03-05T17:53:49+0000

and now we’re cooking with gas :thumbup:

qwakers · 2026-03-05T18:53:16+0000

fitted the aircon unit and air horn to the lorry

going to be much cooler in the summer.

Windy Miller · 2026-03-05T21:36:53+0000

Not today but at the weekend, I fixed the plasma cutter. It’s been out of action for a couple of years now, and it’s one of the broken tools that I’m finally getting around to sorting out!

The issue was a lack of compressed air at the torch. Shorting out the contacts on the 2pin socket didn’t help, so I figured it was either the the solenoid valve or the circuit that controlled it.

When I pulled it out, it read open circuit across the coil so it was pretty obvious that it was indeed farked!

They’re less than a tenner on Amazon, so I thought it was worth a punt - not too much to lose even if the dodgy solenoid had taken out the control circuit

I connected it up to the board and pressed the button - bingo! I can’t figure out how to upload the video of it, but all working as expected!

So that’s another job ticked off my list. The next instalment is my Clarke Cold Saw. Since I fitted a new blade it absolutely screams whenever I cut anything. It’s been sat on a shelf for about 5 years so it’s high time I looked into it.