Category: DIY

I’ve been riding my Rad Power ebike for over a year now. A few weeks ago, I asked Rad Power about being becoming an affiliate, and they said yes. Here is my my new affiliate link !

I’ll be doing a more in depth talk here on why I am a Rad Power fan boy, but if you are thinking of buying an ebike, I strongly endorse Rad Power Bikes. I get asked every week to promote stuff, but I only work with people and products I actually think are good and useful. Rad Power is one of those. 🙂

Curious about their ebikes? Check them out using my affiliate link here.

I never thought I would need an electric winch, until I bought one. Now I’m thinking of all the things I can do with it.

I just did a really cool thing with it, but first some background on how this all came together.

We have a flat torch down roof. Here is a technical explanation:

Its core is a strong, resilient non-woven polyester mat that is coated with weather-resistant, APP polymer-modified asphalt.

These roofs are great, but you can extend the life of your torch down roof by painting it or sealing it. If you paint it white or silver, you also keep the roof and your house cooler. Our roof is painted silver, but the paint is starting to crack and flake off.

I researched the best material to apply my torch down roof, aka a modified bitumen roof. I found that you get what you pay for. (This is a running theme here on Gardenfork) I opted for an elastomeric roof coating made by Henry. It has a 12 yr warranty. To me, that means the sealer will probably last at least 10 years.

Calculating the coverage I would need for a 1000′ sq ft roof, I ordered four 5 gallon buckets of the sealer. Then it occurred to me:

How do I get four very heavy 5 gallons buckets of white sealer up on the roof?

There are no stairs to the roof, only a metal rung ladder that you climb up 11 feet. Fun.

So I do as I always do, I just started thinking about how to get this stuff up there. I thought about using three 2x4s in a tripod configuration with a pulley and rope. But that would not be the easiest thing in the world to use, I thought. I had also been thinking about putting beehives on the roof as well as new air conditioning units, and to get them on the roof would require something more involved. If you want to take this even farther, you could use this to install a solar space heater rig.

Talking to my neighbor one day, he had hauled AC units onto his roof with an electric winch he bought. Lightbulb moment.

I originally set out to somehow hang the winch from the original idea of a tripod of three 2x4s, but it wasn’t working in my head. The winch is long and narrow, and the tripod setup wouldn’t be the best thing. Then the idea of using four 2x4s and build something similar to a kid’s swing set came to me.

I cut down 8′ studs to 4′ and scrounge around for some scrap wood as footers that would hold the angled stud in place. I then set about looking for a pipe or angle iron to hang across the 2×4 supports to hold the electric winch. I had recently been decluttering and had recycled a lot of angle iron I had laying around. So I could not find anything to hold the winch across the roof hatch. Then a trip to my neighbor’s basement yielded a piece of a metal mattress frame, aka, angle iron.

A little right angle grinder work and we are good to go.

This hoist system to get stuff on your roof works best with two people, you need someone to guide the material you are hoisting from below.

The electric winch I bought is quite good for the price. It has 30′ of cable and will lift 660 lbs on the single cable, and if you use the supplied pulley/hook to make it a double line, it will lift 1300 lbs. more than I will ever need. My only issue with it is the length of the cable for the controller. Its only about 3 feet long and I need it to be about 12′. I will order some 14/4 wire cord and extend the cable myself.

Now you are thinking, “What can I use an electric winch for?” Right?

Declutter using Ebay and make sure your stuff goes to a good place and is useful to someone. That’s a huge thing with me. I have stuff, and I want to get rid of it, but I want it to be used by someone who needs it.

I have way too many electronic and computer things, and most of it can’t be recycled well. One example was this two disc set of Mac OSX Install discs. Perfectly good software that I’m sure someone out there needed, and was just taking up space on my desk.

I could just toss them into the plastic recycling bin, but are software CDs really recyclable? Why not allow these discs to improve someone’s life instead?

Enter Ebay!

One thing you have to keep in mind here to declutter using Ebay. Throw profit out the window, expect no windfall of cash. Expect joy of letting stuff go and feeling it wen to somewhere useful. That’s your payoff.

To declutter with Ebay, make sure that the object is what it is. For these software discs, I made sure they still worked, and weren’t damage. You don’t want a negative experience, because decluttering is all about joy, right?

For these discs, I photographed the discs and typed into the auction description exactly what it says on the discs. I also did some research to see what computers these discs would work with. Any helpful info you can provide will make it easier for someone to find your stuff and help you get rid of it. (Again, more joy…)

I listed the auction to start at $1 and set the Buy It Now to $5. Again, not seeking profit, but seeking to get rid of stuff to a good place.

The discs sold in a few hours.

Ebay is hooked up with PayPal and USPS to create this seamless process to print out a shipping label. So in a few minutes the label is printed and the discs are off my desk and my brain has joy.

I was talking to a tech support person about one of my weather stations that was not working. I told them that I had put lithium batteries in the outdoor sensors for winter. The tech person said, in so many words, that using lithium AA batteries in the weather sensors was not recommended unless it gets very cold in your area.

Like sub zero cold more than a few times a winter.

Of course I can’t remember the exact reason, but the voltage levels of AA lithium batteries can affect the electronics in a not good way.

So the not working weather station is on its way back to the company that makes them. And I’ve taken the lithium batteries out of my outdoor weather sensors.

BTW, this indoor outdoor temp display works pretty well. I have yet to find the best one ever, but I have three of them and they work.

From what I can tell from various forums, lithium AA batteries work best in flashlights and other high power drawing devices. Weather station sensors are the opposite, just sending a bit of data ever minute.

Could you fill in the blanks on how lithium batteries affect electronics?

Storm Preparedness – 3 Must Have Tools – GF Video

We do some telecommuting on the drive between the city and the country. And NYC being what it is, the power inverter we had is gone now. Remember to lock your car doors…

So I ended up buying two power inverters. A power inverter is a box of electronics that allows you to plug a 110 volt plug into a cable that plugs into the car power outlet. AKA cigarette lighter socket.

I bought a Bestek 200 Watt power inverter that has this neat design. It has the same shape as a large cup of coffee, and sits nicely in a car cup holder.

Thinking I should have one of these also for our second car, I bought a second power inverter. This time I opted for the more box shaped model.

After using each of these for a while, the box type has become my favorite. While I like the design of the coffee cup model, it is best located in the cup holder, and there’s only two in the front of our car. We usually each have a drink in those holders.

AND I have managed to lose the power cable for the cup holder model. The wire is not permanently attached to the inverter. Not good in my world. I lose small things. They fall out of the car somehow.

So, for the vast majority of you all, the 300W Power Inverter is the way to go. Plug in your laptop to charge, a few USB cables – what more do you need?

I wanted to walk you through the Skil right angle grinder repair  I did this week. A while back, the plastic slide switch on this tool flew right off when I went to turn it on. Right angle grinders are not very expensive, but I hat the idea of tossing out a perfectly good tool just because the switch is bad. Here is the repair I did.

I thought the switch mechanism was right where the switch tab comes out of the body of the grinder, so I took apart the most of the tool to get to the switch.

Its always fun to see how tools are built, at least I think its fun. So in addition to completing the Skil right angle grinder repair, I just like taking things apart to see how they work.

But I discovered that the switch wasn’t where I thought it was. But this was after I pulled the armature and the brushes popped off the commutator. I knew then getting those back onto the  motor would be a challenge.

The switch itself was in the back of the grinder, near the power cord, and a long plastic rod connected the switch button and the switch mechanism. Why did I not first just pop the back of the tool open? It was just one screw holding the case together.

When I first looked at it, the back of the grinder looked like it was all one piece, only after unscrewing the one screw did I see the back end came apart easily to reveal the switch.

After trying to jumper the switch internally, meaning bypassing the switch so the grinder was always turned on, I opted to slide in a piece of plastic wedge to push the switch into its ‘on’ position permanently. Plastic glue holds it in place. The plastic I used is from one of those composite wedges one buys for carpentry projects, I think its a combo of sawdust and plastic. It worked perfectly here. Any piece of plastic would do fine.

With the grinder always on, I wired an inline switch into the power cord. This is the hardest part for me, as you have to cut the wire just right for it to fit into the switch case. Be sure to use the black wire in the switch, and the white wire passes through the switch untouched. If you cut too much of the insulation, you can use quality electrical tape to wrap the wire that sticks out of the switch case.

Now I have my grinder back, and saved some landfill space as well.