49-cent Dimmer Fix

The dimmer switch controlling our family room lighting started making sizzling noises when you flipped the switch, and finally died. This type of dimmer has an on/off switch and a brightness slider. I took apart the switch and found the little rocker switch inside failed a simple resistance test with a multimeter.

The Lutron S-10P dimmer switch is $76 at Lowes, $65 at Home Depot, $50 online, as it does handle 1000W loads (that's the largest size offered by Lutron.) The simple rocker switch shown above is $0.49 at Jameco (Jameco.com part number 1945284) and is rated 10A @ 125VAC. The switch is black instead of white, but we think the install shown below doesn't look too shabby.

Not much to tell about replacing the rocker switch. Using a soldering iron, you remove the defunct switch and solder on the new one. The trick is finding a replacement having the correct dimensions. This one isn't a perfect match, is a little bit recessed and doesn't have quite the curved switch as the original.

White Noise in a Can

Visiting family for the holidays, with kids out of their normal routine and home comforts. One thing we can still bring with us is the familiar hum of white noise. Our just-about-4-year-old still loves the sound during nap time (yes, we still got it!) and bedtime. We like to think it drowns out surrounding noises too, for a longer nap.

The key ingredient here for making a White Noise in a Can is this small white "turn anything into a speaker" Rock-It 2.0 portable vibration device (yes, despite the description, it's a speaker, people) which I received as a conference promotional item. It uses two AAA batteries and plugs into a music source. (They even have a Rock-It 3.0 with built-in rechargeable battery.) The "rock-it pod" sticks to something and vibrates it to make noise, so the chocolate-covered-cherry can becomes the speaker!

You probably have an old MP3 player lying around. Smartphones seem to have made these little guys obsolete. Upload a white noise MP3 file to the player, and put it on the repeat-one play mode. Our favorite track is a vacuum cleaner sound we found somewhere on the web for free.

Ingredients:

1. Rock-It 2.0
2. MP3 player
3. Chocolate-covered-cherry can (cherries consumed)
4. White noise MP3 track.

Yes, they have smartphone apps for white noise, but during that nap or bed time might be just the time you want to use your phone. And when traveling, you may want to keep your precious smartphone battery life too.

You can also power the Rock-It 2.0 via USB cable. Shown above, an optional USB AC adapter fits nicely in the can too, so you don't need to use as many batteries!

The Caboodle

Upon first inspection to the unsuspecting male, this might seem to be an ordinary, albeit pink, little box.  But any female born circa 1980 would beg to differ.  When I found my old Caboodle tucked away in a bathroom at my parents' house, I was instantly transported to the time of  scrunchies, crimping irons, and Aquanet hairspray.  Oh to be a girl in the 80s!  Home perm?  Oh yes.  Gravity-defying bangs?  You betcha.

I had no immediate use for my Caboodle, yet I couldn't bear the thought of throwing it out.  By happenstance, around the same time, Jeff let drop that he was looking for a storage bin for his soldering supplies.  But could he really bear to store his manly tools in a box that once held a collection of Wet n Wild nail polish?



Good thing he is secure in his manhood.  And I love him for it.

AC Powered Baby Swing

In my childhood home, certain otherwise nondescript items were treated as precious commodities (tape, thumbtacks, postage stamps), but none more highly than batteries.  Oh, the coveted battery.  In fact, my dad even charged us for each battery on the order of 50 cents, if my memory serves me.  So it’s only rational that this vaunted view of batteries persisted to my adulthood.  Jeff is equally stingy with batteries, and until we had kids, we never thought a thing about it.

Enter parenthood, and suddenly battery-powered doodads are everywhere.  The cashiers at Babies R Us even seem to be required to ask, “Would you like some batteries with that?” even if you are just there to shell out cash for an overpriced diaper pail refill.  For the most part, we tried to do without.  Mobile with battery-powered lights and spinning toys?  Replaced by a hand-crank mobile.  Bouncy chair with battery-powered vibrating?  Became bouncy chair with manual vibrating (aka jiggle it with your foot while you try to eat breakfast).  Battery-powered bear that says a bedtime prayer?  Well, there was just no salvaging that one.  We celebrated the day that bear ran out of batteries.



However, certain pieces of baby gear were too essential in the early days to go power-free.  Like the baby swing.  But could I really spring for batteries, and not just batteries but multiple D batteries???  I think not.  Time to bust out the trusty soldering iron.  Using a spare AC adapter from an old cell phone, Jeff converted the swing from battery-powered to plug in.

Instructions: (pictures to come soon.  We loaned the swing to our good friends Matt & Brenda, who had a new swing-loving baby on 9-10-11.)

• A 5-volt DC charger replaced four 1.5V D cells (6 volts).


• Cut and remove the phone plug end and strip the two wires found there.


• Temporarily connect the red wire to the positive battery terminal and black wire to the negative.


• Plug in the adapter and see if the swing operates sans batteries.


• If all goes well, solder the connections to make them permanent.

the Mouse Frother

Our milk frother, for making lattes/cappuccinos/etc., gave up after years of use. A replacement usually runs $20. That didn't seem right to pay that much for what is essentially a battery holder, switch, and electric motor. So I created the mouse frother using a wireless mouse from the Goodwill for $2.99. Click the mouse button for frothy goodness!



Ingredients:

• old wireless mouse, $2.99 from Goodwill


• frothing wand, salvaged from defunct frother


• electric motor, in parts bin (from Arduino starter kit)


• two AA batteries

My first step was trying to salvage the old frother. I used a Dremel cutting wheel to open up the stainless steel casing, only to discover a dead electric motor within. At least the shaft of the frothing wand pulled off easily from the motor, and happened to fit exactly onto a spare motor I had from an Arduino starter kit.



With the shaft from the old frother, plus the electric motor, the Logitech wireless mouse had everything needed for a frother: a hand-holdable casing, battery holder, and push button switch. My $2.99 mouse even came with a bonus rechargeable battery.



I removed the left mouse button switch and mouse wheel to make room for the new motor. The actual button cover that your finger presses will flex upward to make room for the new motor. The fun part was removing various components from the mouse PCB. Capacitors, resistors, optical encoder, "laser", and the like. With the left mouse button removed, a right-click will activate the frother. The idea here is to disconnect all components from the switch while leaving the switch intact. A multimeter testing resistance to ground will tell you when you've electrically detached enough, should have infinite resistance with the push button open or closed. Then you can solder the motor wires so the right-click delivers positive voltage.



One side benefit of the mouse frother is that the batteries seem to last much longer powering this new motor. Another nice mod would be making it rechargeable with a charging stand.

perpetual pendulum

The lightbox in my office could benefit from a geeky gadget decoration. The perpetual pendulum combines two things: a Random Oscillating Magnetic Pendulum (ROMP) and a solar engine.



With the solar engine, light strikes a solar cell, feeding voltage into a capacitor. Once the capacitor climbs to a certain voltage, a voltage trigger releases current into a cassette motor. The motor turns a striker that pushes the pendulum rod, pushing the ROMP into a swinging motion. Magnets at the bottom of the ROMP can be arranged to adjust the chaotic motion.