The most horrible noise was coming from my girlfriend’s clothes dryer and she asked me if I’d take a look at it for her. I had recently replaced the heating elements so I was familiar with gaining access to the dryer’s innards. Prior to that repair I had no idea how the dryer came apart. There was a lot of trial and error, removing screws and panels that weren’t necessary. I’m sure there are many other DIY repair people out there like me that could use this video as a guide so this week’s hack is a how-to on dryer repair. This one is a GE but I’m thinking they all come apart in a similar fashion.
Once the front cover is removed you have access to replacing the motor, drive belt, belt tensioner, heating elements, felt seals, drum bushings and give the inside a good cleaning of excess lint.
Follow along now as we discover just what the hell is making all that noise in Lisa’s dryer!
Wow this is the latest blog post yet! A few days late due to my week and weekend time being consumed by building a gizmo and writing a how to article for Make Magazine! The deadline was this weekend so no time for a hack this week.
I thought it would be a good time to give a little tour of my work shop. There IS a small hack, sort of, in the video good for a laugh.
I get a lot of people asking how I keep my work area so clean. Easy. Clean up a mess when you make it, put tools back when you’re done with them and stay organized.
This one was inspired by my girlfriends request to help her out with a hydroponics project. She’s an instructor on the Mobile Launch Pad which is run by the North Carolina Community Colleges. They want to make a hydroponics display that had a hands on feel to it, but there was some concern about time and maintenance. This wouldn’t be like a house plant that you could just move wherever you like… or could it?
So I decided to build a mini-Hydroponics, or Aeroponics set up here at home to test out ideas and so I could give them a report as to what it takes to grow plants in water and how portable this might be. After some research and a lot of learning along the way I have come to realize that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to hydroponics. Since we won’t be using soil, we’ll need some other medium to convey water and nutrients to the plant but how? Soil is easy because it’s where plants just naturally grow. All of the major and minor elements are there ready for the plant to absorb through it’s roots. What if we just put the plant right into water? We would need to add all the nutrients the plant needs to the water.
Water is a bit different everywhere. It can vary in how many dissolved solids are present. Too many dissolved solids in water can quickly become a problem in a small hydroponics setup. The PH of the water is another important factor. It should be between 5.0 and 7.0. Too alkaline (7.0-) and the plant can’t absorb the minor nutrients such as iron. Lack of Iron will show itself as yellowing leaves. Too low (5.0) and the roots can suffer.
This all means that we need a fertilizer that has a good balance of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. These are represented as numbers on the fertilizer labeling. The fertilizer I choose, Jacks Classic, has and even blend of 20-20-20. This means it has 20% Nitrogen, 20% Phosphorus and 20% Potassium. PLUS, it has all the minor nutrients like Copper, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum and Zinc. The minor nutrients are the ones that usually have to be derived from the soil. Most plant foods like Miracle Grow don’t have enough of the minor elements to work well with hydroponics. The plants will start off fine, but gradually fail due to lack of certain nutrients at different stages of it’s development.
One important thing to take note of. I used a clear plastic tub for this project for visual purposes. Once my setup was complete. I wrapped the entire tub in two layers of black trash bag plastic and taped it in place. This keeps out ambient light which will lead to algae growth in the water. An alternative light blocking method is to find a very dark container or simply spray paint the outside of it all black.
This setup is pretty simple and all the parts and materials are readily available at most hardware stores, pet supply stores and plant nurseries. It is however, EXPERIMENTAL> This is a first attempt at hydroponics and I plan on posting updates on this project so check back often.
Enjoy the video… all he info you need to build this is there.
As I was wrapping up the stepper motor project last week I opened the window blinds for more light and thought, “hey… it would be cool to just grab a motor and attach it to the window actuator rod in the same way I coupled the stepper motor to the magnet motor. Instant power window blinds!”
So, The camera was already right there and I had the time so I hacked a motor to my window blinds, pretty much as you see it transpiring in the video. I decided to just let images do the talking in this one.
As for the music, I did what I always do, every week with a hack video. I go to freemusicarchive.org where I enter a keyword in the search bar then listen to the selections. This week I typed “motor” and I found the song you’ll hear, “Behave like motor” from Salakapakka Sound System.
So listen now with your eyes and enjoy the video and music.
Stepper motors are everywhere! They’re pretty easy to find in old abandoned printers. They come in a variety of configurations and number of poles but they all make great electrical generators! Any electric motor will also output a voltage when it’s freely spinning. Stepper motors are much better at this because they have many times more poles to pass next to each other thus generating electrical pulses.
These pulses are actually AC voltage that can be used to directly drive LEDs. I’ve experimented with different LEDs connected in this way on my bike light stepper generator and none of them have burned out yet. This AC voltage can also be rectified and converted to a DC voltage with the addition of a simple full bridge rectifier explained below.
HOW RECTIFICATION WORKS
Below is a full wave rectifier circuit. The stepper motor produces a sine wave whose polarity (positive or negative) changes sign each half cycle. When the direction of the current is from the generator into the bridge at point c, the only available current path through the bridge is cbad, through the resistor from right to left in the diagram. During the next half cycle, the current direction is from the generator into the bridge at point d. Then the only available path is dbac, but again the current direction is from right to left through the resistor. Therefore the current through the resistor always has the same direction.
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WAVEFORMS OBSERVED IN THIS CIRCUIT:
AC SINE WAVE
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RECTIFIED DC HALF WAVE
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RECTIFIED DC FULL WAVE
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As shown in the video below, this rectified DC voltage can be very useful as a power source for LED lights or charging small batteries.
This motor had a peak output of 43 volts at .41 mA.
EXPERIMENT!!!!
Stepper motors are awesome hackable items and they’re easy to come by. Think of all the ways you can get a motor to spin from salvaged energy. If something is moving, that motion can be converted into motion of the stepper and used to generate electricity. Wind, water, wheels, drive belts, hand cranks, treadmills. Let your imagination invent a way! I encourage you to try building this experiment platform and then seeing how you can salvage electricity from your environment with a stepper motor!
