Entropy continued

[JohnRoberts]

new entropy incident... all I wanted was a hair cut, but my Flowbee wasn't sucking like normal. The obvious lead suspect was my Hoover "bagless" upright... Apparently they have multiple filters inside that need to be cleaned. It kind of makes my old vacuum with the hepa filter built into the disposable bags look smart. Since I never bothered with filters during over a year and a half in service. I let my fingers do some walking and ordered a new filter set (due in Thurs).

For chuckles I decided to see if I could clear the filters enough to get the Hoover hoovering. I scraped a layer of lint off the bottom filter. The top filter is inside the dust canister. According to the you-rube video the top simply(?) unscrews apart. After refusing to unscrew for me since yesterday (I'm old), I decided to grab a hammer from my tool room and try a little percussive persuasion. Apparently once the Hoover saw that I was serious it released and avoided getting hit. I cleaned the top and bottom filters well enough to get the Hoover sucking and tried to cut my hair again.

Once again no love with the Flowbee. It just didn't suck. It behaved like it was blocked. I took it apart and while there was some oily hair clippings inside the cutting head, no visible blockage, but still no suck. As I was putting it back together, I noticed a huge air gap in the plastic Flowbee hose. The cheap plastic ribbed hose had about a 3/4" long slit near one end. The fix was easy enough, I cut the hose about one inch shorter and reattached it.

My hair is now trimmed better than my rain ditches.

I checked the Flowbee website and they do not sell replacement hoses, they sell a replacement hose with cutter head assembly for around $100 but the hose alone is probably only worth a couple dollars. It is fixed for now but I don't trust the hose.

I will try to contact the Flowbee folks. Apparently this is a rare failure.

JR

After getting zero response from Flowbee about purchasing some replacement hose from them I bought the cheapest suction hose I could find from McMaster Carr. At $3/foot it is probably 10x what that oem hose cost. I added screw clamps just to be extra secure but they probably aren't needed. The hose is a tight fit. It was a little more difficult to repair than from first glance. The power cord runs inside the suction hose requiring complete disassembly before putting it back together again.

JR

 

[MicMaven]

I bought the cheapest suction hose I could find from McMaster Carr. At $3/foot it is probably 10x what that oem hose cost. I added screw clamp

Nice work, old man. While I might have pressed an old vacuum cleaner hose into service, your solution is elegant, super strong, and visually appealing. Overkill can be a good thing, and you get to enjoy that the heady sense of self satisfaction one derives from completing a successful home brewed project for a long time to come. Score one for JR. --- James/K8JHR

 

[shabtek]

I am somehow not surprised by this...Flowbee

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am somehow not surprised by this...Flowbee

Nobody should be surprised, I am not ashamed of being frugal.

I have been using Flowbee for years and it has paid for itself several times over.

JR

 

[shabtek]

when it was advertised on TV it became a 'punchline' --or would be a meme today

I used to be more frugal, and did home barbering--yesterday I paid a skilled person for a haircut and they used a clippers connected to a central vacuum manifold to rough in the 'doo.

 

[JohnRoberts]

when it was advertised on TV it became a 'punchline' --or would be a meme today

Yes I recall that. It works well for very short cuts. Longer hairstyles are more difficult. I don't even try.

I used to be more frugal, and did home barbering--yesterday I paid a skilled person for a haircut and they used a clippers connected to a central vacuum manifold to rough in the 'doo.

I suspect the air leak in the suction hose may have been there for a while. I replaced the blades in January of this year to get it cutting better. I expect the weak suction affected the hair cutting ability. Now it is cutting like new.
===
When I was a kid my mom cut our hair. I suspect it helped her make ends meet. I recall one time in high school my hair was getting a little shaggy and a couple girls said it was looking good. I begged my mother to cut it short again. I outgrew that aversion.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

My Peltier technology room dehumidifier fan has started making noise again. This cheap toy(?) advertised low noise but the original internal blower fan failed after a few months in service. The common 120x25 mm sized box fan used a rather uncommon voltage 18V. I never found an exact replacement so a few months ago I put a 24V fan in place of the 18V original. The 24V fan will not even run at the low speed quiet setting, at high speed it runs proportionately slower than the original 18V fan. This dehumidifier pulls so little water it is hardly worth the trouble, now that the replacement fan has started getting noisy it is one step closer to the junk pile. It works, but yawn not enough to be useful.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

My dodgy GFCI outlet in my laundry room that was guilty of false trips, just tripped agin (yesterday?). I ordered some new replacement GFCI outlets and decided to wait until the next false trip. I ordered these replacements about 4 months ago so it has been behaving since then. These false trips were sometimes coincident with losing mains power, and we did lose power a couple days ago. It doesn't feel like the trip was exactly coincident with the power outage, but we know Gibb's rule #39 about coincidences.

I will replace this one after the dishwasher finishes this load of dishes. Since the dishwasher is plugged into that same laundry room outlet that is generally how I discover the tripped outlet, when the washer refuses to start up.

[edit- done but I had to wedge some plastic between the outlet and metal box to prevent energized screws from shorting to the box. I tried to order the thinnest GFCI outlets but this puppy is tight. Fixed for now, maybe forever. I have one new spare for the next one to hiccup. /edit]

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

===
I just removed the transmitter from my mailbox door alarm to check the batteries. I have been getting almost daily false alarms, often coincident with a noisy truck driving past. Both batteries measured a more than satisfactory 1.25 Vdc.
===


JR

I failed to find what was randomly triggering my mailbox alarm late afternoons and evenings. Today I just put the mailbox alarm receiver on a TOD timer, so it is only looking for mail box opens between 7AM and 1PM.

Not a fix, but a solution for all the false alarms.

JR