Fixing the Dryer

I fixed the dryer last week. For quite a while it had been squeaking a bit in the beginning of cycles with heavy loads, with the squeaking lessening or stopping altogether as the load dried. Recently, though, it started rumbling loudly. The squeaking pretty much stopped then, or at least wasn't audible.

After poking around at it without opening the thing up (I wasn't sure I wanted to do that initially) I saw that the drum was separating from the back panel at the bottom. After a bit of research I figured it was probably a problem with the drum support rollers.

So I flipped off the circuit breaker, unplugged it, and opened it up.

At this point I'll mention that this is a Kenmore dryer, model 110.86672100 electric dryer. I mention this because I was able to find very little on this dryer in my searches and want to make this available for folks looking for help with this problem. The guide I used was an old copy of the Reader's Digest "New Fix-It-Yourself Manual", dated 1996. It was a housewarming gift from around 11 years ago. It's very visual, which helps, but sometimes sketchy and encyclopedic.

So, like I said, I opened it up. I didn't do it with a putty knife like all the dryer opening how-to guides out there tell you. That just didn't work for me. I was able to see the clips, though, and choose more capable tools: large and small flat-head screwdrivers. I pushed the large one into the slot to separate the top from the front panel a bit, the pushed in the center tab of the clip with the small one to release it. Repeat on each side. Oh, and I removed the lint trap and the screws under its cover first. Don't forget that step.

Let me interrupt here to mention that we have a magnetic vent cover we put on top of the lint trap handle. It's designed for heat & air vents, but does help if you get a bit of dust from your lint trap. Anyway, I put that on top of the water heater which is next to the dryer and it made a handy place to put removed screws.

After removing the top I removed the front panel with a box wrench. Then, after a good vacuuming, following the instructions in the book I removed the belt and drum. That's when I finally got a look at the guts.

These machines are pretty darn simple. Other than the heater, blower, and ductwork behind the back panel, and the electronics in the console, it's pretty much a motor, belt, drum, a couple wheels, and a belt tensioner.

There's a fabric ring around the back of the drum that meets up with the back panel to form a seal. Before tackling this I had described what was happening to my brother who then told me about his ring needing to be replaced when it started rumbling. The ring looked fine in ours, though, so I kept looking for the problem. (It's a good thing too, because I think replacing the ring would be a messier and longer job, with the glue involved.)

I poked around and discovered that the lower support roller was worn down so as to be visibly smaller than the right side roller, and it rocked on its shaft while the right side roller turned solidly and smoothly. So we went to the local appliance parts place to pick up a roller replacement kit. The kit included two rollers and four plastic triangular clips. When I took off the old parts, though, the bad roller had only one clip, but places for two. (I suspect the transition to rumbling may have happened when the missing clip finally broke off, and that it was picked up by the vacuum.)

Here you can see the old roller and the three remaining clips. You can see how much the one roller was worn, inside and out. The inside was worn more on one side than the other, and asymmetrically there. It was clearly the source of the rumbling, and the loss of support for the drum which caused it to drop away from the back panel. I suspect the lessening support also caused a loss of tension in the belt over time, which caused the squeaking. After I replaced the rollers the squeaking was gone too.

Here are the two new rollers in place around the back panel and motor. You can see the belt tensioner in front of the motor. I believe the motor also drives the blower behind the back panel. You can also see the wrench I used to remove the front panel and the bottom roller's support bracket, and the point of the small screwdriver. I also used that to pry the old clips off and to gently pry the new clips on. The roller clips fit into grooves around the shafts. The right roller clips are positioned farther apart, allowing the roller to move a bit as you remove and replace the drum. I suppose it gives it a bit of leeway in operation too. The bottom roller is fixed in one position, though, presumably to help hold the drum against the back panel.

And here is a closeup of the bottom roller. You can see where the plastic clip goes. There's one on the other side as well, which of course had to be put on before the roller. The bracket has a metal clip as well, which was also included in the kit. I put that back on by positioning the closed box wrench head over it and rapping it with the butt of the larger screwdriver handle.

After that I put back the drum and belt. A small box under the front of the drum was handy while putting the belt back on the tensioner and motor pully. Then I put the front panel back on. Opening the front door made it easier to support the drum while doing this. It probably would have been less awkward if I had some help, but it really wasn't all that bad.

Before closing the top I turned the drum a bit to make sure everything was fitting together. The fabric seal had gotten folded inside the drum around part of it, but that was easily fixed by pushing it back into place with a screwdriver from the inside of the drum.

I closed the lid, replaced the lint trap screws and the trap, plugged it in and closed the circuit breaker. I tested it and man did it run smooth! It hasn't rumbled since, and I think it's actually doing a better job. I suspect there have been gaps forming between the drum and pack panel that let cool air get in, reducing the drying power. Anyway, there you have it. I hope these illustrations help someone along the way. If you find yourself with the same repair to do and have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Most days I'll be alerted by email within the day, but I can only guarantee an honest answer, not an informed, accurate, timely, or useful one.

Back Online Again

As I mentioned yesterday, we got a replacement modem, but were told that there was an outage in our area. In hindsight, maybe taking the new modem wasn't such a good idea. I'd still make the same choice, though - the old modem could have been bad and if it was that would have cost us another day. We need home access for our business & banking.

Anyway, when we got home around seven or so I hooked up the modem. It still wouldn't connect. Well, they did say there was an outage, so I looked at its diagnostic screen via the web browser to monitor its progress. Almost right away it started progressing through the connection sequence, though much more slowly than normal. Then it reset. It did that a few times then stopped, then finally connected. Yay!

Or not so yay. Nothing would resolve on DNS. Nothing but the comcast.net web site, anyway, which was showing a welcome message and instructions to download installation software. (That link didn't work, by the way.)

I called in and the technician who answered tried to activate the new modem. She said there was something blocking it and she would forward me to billing so they could clear the blockage then send me back to her. I thought that was odd since we currently have a $40 credit on our account, but in a large corporation there's no telling which department will need to stick its fingers in when so what the heck. She transferred me over and after listening to an increasing annoying piano piece that apparently has no ending I got a menu. There was nothing on the menu that sounded like what I was told I was needed, so I hit 0 to try to talk to an operator. After a little while waiting for someone to pick up I hung up and called in again.

This time I had better luck. The woman I got seemed a little slower going through the routine questions, but in a methodical way, not like she was "slow" if you know what I mean. She tried to get the modem activated but ran into an error. Instead of transferring me she contacted the provisioning department and had someone there set me up. While waiting for that to be done I asked where they were located. Turns out she's from New Orleans, but still displaced by Katrina. They're waiting for their electrical system to be inspected so they can put up their drywall. The modem reset itself again, I reset our router and released & renewed my computer's DHCP connection. (See instructions below - much faster than a reboot in such situations.) And it worked! I had my wife release & renew and she was up too. I thanked the woman and wished her luck getting back home soon.

How to release & renew your connection instead of rebooting...
(These instructions are for Windows 2000 and XP.)
1. Bring up the Command Prompt. You'll find it in Start > Programs > Accessories
2. Enter "ipconfig /release" and wait for the prompt to return.
3. Enter "ipconfig /renew" and wait for the prompt.
You're done! You can check your connection by pinging something, like "ping johnssecretblog.blogspot.com"

A Note On Using A 2Gig MicroSD In An LG VX8300 Phone

I just got a pair of SanDisk 2-gig MicroSD cards for my and my wife's LG VX8300 phones. I had some misgivings about buying them, since I had read a review somewhere on the interweb that noted that the phone only can read up to 1 gig. I had also read that they will format a 2-gig to 1 gig and use that. That was okay, since CompUSA had (and maybe still has, as of this writing) 2-gig SanDisks on sale for less than the same brand of 1-gig card, so I was still getting at least the same storage for less money.

Later I read in another review that it will actually format the card with two 1-gig partitions, but that if you format it with another device that supports 2 gig partitions and create certain directories (folders for those of you with no pre-Windows95 experience) it will use the full space with no problem.

When the cards came in I decided to see for myself what the phone would do with them if I didn't format them. Well, lo and behold it just created the needed directories on the existing 2-gig partition and used them without complaint. I checked the card memory through the phone's menu and it's seeing and reporting the full 2 gig. I have all my new pix, flix, and sounds bing recorded to it now, and have switched the camera resolution to its full 1280x960.

Another thing I saw in reviews was that Verizon had disabled playing MP3s on the phone, but that a menu trick would let you switch it on. You then had to create a specially-named directory just for MP3s for the phone to see them. Then others said that later versions of the firmware had disabled that trick. Still others noted that the latest version played any MP3 you care to place in the normal music directory. I am happy to report that on our phones the news is good: they will in fact play MP3s placed in that directory. I'm now listening to a shuffle of the several I've initially loaded on it. (With no headphone and on the lowest volume - decent little speakers for their size. Now playing: Lithium by Nirvana.) The headphone jack takes a smaller size plug than normal, but I should be able to find adapters at Radio Shack or somewhere so I don't have to limit my choice of headphones.

One additional caveat about playing music: if you are playing music and pause it the phone's battery will, for some reason, keep draining as if you were still playing music. Hopefully that's something Verizon can fix in a future firmware update, but meanwhile if you have one of these phones be sure to exit the music player altogether if you're done listening for a while.

What I've been doing...

So... what's up with me since Thursday? Been busy busy busy.

Naturally, I've whipped up a few more designs for cafepress. I'm up to 154, if you include size and layout variations for different items. Most recently I've refined the designs for the mugs, converting many to two-sided wrap-around designs; made a few from some renaissance & other fine art in the public domain (admittedly with a tendency towards nudes - I am what I am); and made a couple to let Katrina and other disaster survivors show a little attitude. The link's still in my links, presumably to your left unless you're reading this after Yahoo does some future redesign.

Last week we ordered new computers for home since the systems we had - still running Windows98SE - were getting a bit long in the tooth and doing an upgrade on them would take too much work. We got them local and when I placed the order I told them we'd stop by with a check so they could get started on building them. It wasn't until Saturday that we had time to do so, but as it turns out they went ahead and built the systems so we took them home sooner than anticipated.

Sunday was mostly spent celebrating my wife's birthday - I'm married to an "older woman" for the next month and a week. We went visit her folks and all went out to Macaroni Grill, then back to her folks' house for cake & ice cream and family time. It was nice. The book I got her turned out to not be a substantial as anticipated - it looks a bit like a trade paperback version of a Time-Life book. Oh well. I guess when you shop Amazon you really have to keep in mind that you really can't judge a book by its cover.

Saturday and Sunday night were spent setting mine up and learning my way around configuring Windows XP Professional. For us, that means switching it to classic mode and tweaking away as much as I can of the random quirky behaviors MS decided to add. (If we could have gotten Windows 2000 we would have.)

The first step was to switch to the classic theme to get rid of the candy/toy user interface. After that it was a matter of exploring all the configuration options offered up by Windows, and research the hidden ones (like the hidden Power User user type) on the ol' interweb. And, of course, transferring over my data from the old PC (whole drive copied over to C:\OldC on the new system for convenience) and installing my software. Let me tell ya... hunting down Y2K patches for legacy software is fun!

It's not over yet, of course. I've got most of the essentials - Agent, SeaMonkey, Miranda-IM, ftp clients, ssh terminal, spreadsheet, VB, PSP7, PageDefrag, etc. Beyond that, and one or two other work-related items, it's pretty much going to be install-on-demand. Then I've got to get my wife's new one set up. Wish me luck.

I'm planning/hoping to compile a list of the tweaks and configuration changes I've made, and my reasons for them. For now, here's a useful little program I used along the way. It makes a lot more Windows components optional than are normally, allowing you to strip out the programs and services you know you don't need, giving you a leaner, meaner, computing machine. There's a free limited-capability/unlimited-term trial version available for download.

Blog Visitor Tracking Map

A recent commenter had one of these visitor maps in his blog. Looked pretty cool, so I thought I'd give it a try myself.



Create your own visitor map!

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin... Keep Those Web Sites Rollin'...

Another trio of links:

Scientific American The latest in science news, and highlighted articles from the print edition. You can, I think, see all the articles with an online subscription. RSS feed available.

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing BOINC for short. Install it and hook up with one or more projects to let your computer use its idle time to help with massive computational projects being distributed in small chunks to participating computers. Projects include:
* Mathematics and strategy games
o Rectilinear Crossing Number
o SZTAKI Desktop Grid
o Riesel Sieve
o Chess960@home
* Earth Sciences
o BBC Climate Change Experiment
o Climateprediction.net
* Astronomy/Physics/Chemistry
o LHC@home
o Einstein@home
o Quantum Monte Carlo at Home
o Spinhenge@home
o SETI@home
* Biology and Medicine
o World Community Grid
o SIMAP
o Predictor@home
o Malariacontrol.net
o Tanpaku
o Rosetta@home

Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites A very important resource if you're trying to rid yourself of or defend yourself from spyware & adware. It not only has a list of good software to use, but also instructions on how to clean your system, and a list of supposed anti-spyware programs that are actually spyware/adware themselves or are at best ineffective.

On A Roll

I recently added a few links, but as it's just so darned easy to miss sitting down there on the bottom I thought I'd highlight them. I visit them all semi-regularly.

Lifehacker
A site devoted to showcasing little ways to make life easier and/or more fun. The leaning is toward computer tech, but it is by no means limited to that. (Book also available: Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better)

Engrish
A daily showcase of misused English, mainly from Asia. Not always family- or work-appropriate, but they do give fair warning in such cases. (Book available too: The Joys of Engrish)

Hanzi Smatter
The other side of the Engrish coin: it's a blog about the misuse of Chinese & Japanese writing by westerners. Lots of interesting tatoos translated here. (No book as far as I can tell.)

I hope you enjoy them. I'll be highlighting future additions as they are additted.

Camera Phone Tips

Lifehacker.com has just posted these interesting tips on using your camera phone.

I don't have a camera phone - I don't even have a color display on mine - but I know some of you bloggers do. Now's your chance to get some tips on how to get better pics out of them for your blogs.

Picture Day!

My wife and I attended a portrait party her sister hosted today. She had a professional photographer there taking pictures of us together, and with her family in various combinations. There were some of their friends there too. (I think my sister in law got a discount on her prints based on how many other sets were ordered.)

We usually don't go in for that kind of thing, so we weren't really looking forward to it. We really just did it for the family. Once we got into it, though, it was a lot of fun. We got a few poses and a lot of "candid" messing around shots. The shots with us and the kids were particularly fun. I ad-libbed some good poses & action there. Our younger nephew is a bit too well-trained by his mother to put on a smile for cameras, though, so I had to resort to tickling him a bit to get a real one out of him. (Parents - don't tell your kids to smile for pictures. Do something that will make them smile naturally or just take the picture of them doing whatever they're doing while paying no mind to the camera. Your pics will come out *so* much better!)

The proofs are supposed to be ready in a couple weeks. (I believe the photographer does a little editing & retouching work before showing the proofs.) *Maybe* I'll post one or two here. If they're really good, though, we may want to use one of them on an "about us" page on our retail site. In that case I'll likely not post them here, in order to better separate my professional and secret identities. I like to have this conduit to be candid with my views & opinions without risking offending any potential customers. (No, the nature of our business does not conflict with any of my views - I just like to keep it professional & neutral.)