Daniel's ramblings
I’m done tweaking the functional aspects of the Site Content Calendar for now. It functions in webkit browsers (Safari, et. al.), Mozilla browsers (Firefox and friends) and Opera.
I like it, it’s useful to me. It will probably be largely useless to visitors, but I enjoyed creating it.
is not completely unlike Qt, and that’s a good thing. It’s nice to be able to write sane C++ code for web development.
This weekend I started working on a simple page to allow browsing content on my site by last modification date. I don’t expect this to be very useful to visitors. Its main intent is to let me keep track of what I’ve worked on recently.
has a WCalendar widget that I’m using as a base class for the calendar. I extend the WCalendar class and add my own loading (in the constructor), cell rendering to highlight dates on which content was modified, and of course I connect selection signals to my own slots. When a date is selected, a WTable below the calendar will display links to the content that was modified on that date.
I save a cookie holding the last date selected, so that when a user returns to the same page within 24 hours, the calendar will load the month of the last date selected and will select the last date selected. The WTable will be updated appropriately.
Since my indexing code already saves a last modified time as a document value when I’m indexing the web site, and I already had C++ code to pluck document data from the database, it was not difficult to have my application load the data that’s behind the calendar. I spent a great deal more time getting the calendar to look the way I want than I spent writing functional code.
You can see the new calendar here. It’s not finished, but it’s functional.
The replacement motor for my old Hoover F5853-900 arrived today from an eBay seller.
By looks alone, the new motor won’t hold up as long as the old one did. However, looks can be deceiving. And I don’t expect to get another 15 years out of this carpet cleaner anyway, at least not as my primary cleaner.
I installed the new motor. An interesting side note… on the impeller end of the new motor, there was a guard. This part isn’t used in my SteamVac, and is easily removed without tools. However, I can envision why it’s there on newer units. One of the things that happened with my old motor: once the bearing had too much play, the impeller rubbed and melted some of the housing in the vacuum base. The guard that’s unused on my SteamVac would serve as a sacrificial part when the motor or impeller fails. It would also prevent large foreign objects from ever hitting the impeller.
After reassembly, I ran the cleaner on the rug in the kitchen. It’s running almost like new. No unpleasant motor noises, no leaks. Hooray for getting my carpet cleaner back in working order for $60!
If I wind up with a functioning carpet cleaner for a year, I’ll be a very happy camper. With the original motor having gone bad, this carpet cleaner was rescued from the landfill.
No pictures taken because I’m still under the weather and just wanted to get it done. The motor I bought was listed as “Genuine Hoover Steam Vac 7.9 Amp Motor 43576202” and came from seller glenmullet.
For about 15 years, I’ve had a Hoover F5853-900 carpet cleaner. It has served me well up until recently when the motor started screeching and emitting a bad smell. I disassembled it, and found the main motor shaft bearing to be worn out. It looks like the bearing housing is pressed onto the shaft, then the housing flanges are riveted to the main mounting plate. Hoover doesn’t make any of the individual parts available; you have to buy the whole motor assembly. Lubricating the bearing provided only about 20 seconds of improvement. The bearing is worn out, there’s too much radial and axial play.
I ordered a replacement motor from eBay, since the new SteamVac models look like they’re less robust. However, my SteamVac should probably not be counted on for serious work going forward, even with a new motor. The gaskets have all seen better days, and I don’t know how many more uses I will get from the brush assembly before it will need replacement. I broke off one of the hose holders many year ago, which can make it a pain to transport. Everything has loosened over the years.
I have needed something beefier for a while. I’d prefer one that works well on the cars (various crevice accessories), requires fewer solution refills and waste water disposal each time I use it, and is built to last. From research, it looks like there’s really only one model worth my consideration: the Bissell Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine. It is a commercial-grade machine, with several hose accessories available.
The main part of the Big Green is significantly larger than a typical consumer carpet cleaner. It’s not much smaller than the Rug Doctor you’d rent at your local store. Size is a tradeoff… a larger unit is heavier and more difficult to maneuver, but is generally more powerful (greater suction, more vigorous brushing) and faster to do a full room because the solution and wastewater tanks are larger (requiring fewer stops to empty and refill tanks).
The handle folds down over the top of the base unit to allow easier storage. There is no provision for storage of the hose or any hose attachments. However, given its color scheme, it makes a lot of sense to me to use a Festool Systainer T-Loc V to hold the hose and some attachments. A second Systainer could hold more attachments and bottles of cleaner.
The street price… $450. That’s high for a home unit, but it comes with a 5 year warranty and it’s designed to take more abuse than the typical homeowner will dish out. For me, the higher capacity, the various attachments, the greater suction, and the quality of construction make it a good choice for someone who will use it fairly frequently, and often on larger jobs (full room). I don’t clean full rooms very often (I don’t have much carpet), but I do like to clean the carpet in the cars and the ragtop on the roadster fairly regularly and I haven’t been able to do that recently due to my SteamVac being out of commission. If I’m not taking the seats out of the car for the cleaning, I need really good crevice tools (I didn’t have one with my SteamVac). To clean my cars’ carpets today is more work because I’ve not had a carpet cleaner that lets me get all the water out of the tight spots; I have to drag out the small ShopVac with crevice tool. That’s a bummer when I’ve just used it to vacuum the car, since I use a bag. To use it for water, I have to take the bag out, which is a dirty job. And applying water with the SteamVac and removing it with a ShopVac is clumsy.
Finally, truth be told… I’d like to clean mom’s carpets for her.
Here’s a picture of the 204-6655 spraying crevice tool.
A picture of the 203-0116 spraying sliding brush crevice tool. This would be a huge boon when cleaning car interiors.
A picture of the 203-6654 4″ upholstery tool. This is the tool I’d use on ragtops and cloth seats, and of course home upholstery.
A picture of the 203-6654 6″ stair tool.
A picture of the 203-6652 TurboBrush tool.
I spent a little time this weekend tweaking the web site.
First up was to deal with some Wt problems in Wt::Chart classes that I use for my Site Health and Site Traffic pages. I updated from wt-3.1.8 to wt-3.2.0 in hopes of some issues being fixed, particularly rotated x-axis label issues. However, things got a little worse… rotated axis labels no longer work at all with canvas display. So I tweaked my chart applications to not use rotated x-axis labels. In the process I customized the display of the x-axis title a bit. For daily plots, I show hour and minute. For all others I show month and day.
I also restyled the chart background and date range selection buttons.
I completely refactored my blog. New theme based on wallow, and a lot of widget and CSS changes. I think it looks cleaner while still having everything I need on the screen.
The styling of everything else was also modified significantly. I’m trying to produce a fairly consistent look everywhere, but have not yet tackled the gallery3 stuff under Gallery. To be honest, gallery3 is spaghetti code at best. Writing my own gallery code using Wt is becoming a more appealing idea.
I made these back in September of 2011 but forgot to post about them. They now have handles on them which are not pictured. I’ll post in-use pictures in the future. The handles make the trays easy to hang on pegboard hooks and make it easier to the trays them around when they’re under the car with me.
These trays allow me to easily move tools and parts around with me when I’m on the floor. Whether I’m under a car or not, it’s nice to have a place to gather tools and parts on something that’s easy to reach and easy to move. If I’m at floor height, I want my tools at floor height. These also come in handy for keeping home flooring clean if you’re doing a repair near the floor, say replacing or installing an electrical outlet or doing some plumbing work inside a vanity.
I made two of these, exactly the same. A 12″x24″x1/2″ piece of birch plywood is trimmed with 1.5″x.75″ poplar, with reinforcing pieces of poplar underneath the entire outer edge of the birch plywood. Four small swivel casters are attached to the bottom (hidden in the pictures). The plywood and trim was sealed with polyurethane, the trim painted red, then raised-disc rubber flooring materlal was attached to the top of the plywood with carpet tape (and hence can be replaced with little work but will not move under normal use). I like the rubber flooring; it’s not easily affected by fluids, it can’t rust, it’s quiet, it’s not abusive to tools, and it’s easy to clean. It also matches my gray raised-disc BLT G-floor garage flooring, and the top of some of my carts where I’ve used the same rubber flooring material. As for the wood… inexpensive, readily available and transportable, and obviously easy to use.
I’ve wanted a 3M Sun Gun since I first saw one. A great tool for paint work and detailing, alongside an LED flashlight (I’m using a Maglite XL200 at the moment). This type of light has a 4700K “daylight” bulb for true color rendering. However, I don’t care all that much about the color accuracy. My intended use is for swirl spotting when polishing a car, and the 3M Sun Gun is expensive. A simple 12V light kit using an off-the-shelf MR-16 bulb should not have a street price of $400, with an extra NiCad battery costing near $90 and a bulb that lists at $504 for a case of 6!
Thanks to several Internet forum posts in various places, particularly the post from Starscream88 on Bimmerfest, I created my own for a LOT less using a 12V cordless drill as the base. Ordering parts from Amazon, I spent $92. That includes the drill with battery and charger, an extra battery (for a total of 2), a charger, a tailed bulb socket, the correct bulb, a spare bulb and the soft case that was included with the cordless drill. I may add a 40mm 12V fan to help keep the bulb cool, especially since I intend to fiddle with a 50W bulb in place of the usual 35W bulb.
The drill I’m using as the base is a Skil 2240-01 from Amazon which was $40.97. To connect the bulb, I am using a Leviton 80054 miniature bi-pin base, which has wires pre-attached. It was $4.64 at Amazon. The bulb is an EiKO 35003 SoLux True Daylight Flood 35 Watt MR16 Halogen Lamp, 36 Degree Beam Angle. It was $7.95 at Amazon. No additional parts are needed, so you can put together this setup for a total of $40.97 + $4.64 + $7.95 = $53.56. That’s about 87% cheaper than the 3M Sun Gun. I added an extra battery ($32.97) and a spare bulb to bring my total to $92, which is still only 23% of the cost of a 3M Sun Gun kit which has one battery and no spare bulb.
The Skil 2240-01 drill kit, extra battery, Leviton 80054 bulb base and an EiKO 18003 SoLux True Daylight Flood 50W MR16 36 Degree Beam Angle bulb arrived today. The EiKO Solux 35W bulbs won’t arrive until next week.
I took the drill apart by removing the eight Torx T10 screws.
I then removed the chuck assembly (it slides off of the motor easily).
I then snipped the wires from the motor and removed it. Testing the bulb fitment, I wanted the bulb to be close to the front edge of the housing. There is a surrounding groove here formed by two ridges that is near perfect, except that the rearward ridge is too small in diameter. This means that the housing won’t go back together nicely as is, because the rear surrounding ridge hits the bulb housing right behind the lens before the drill housing halves are fully seated. The solution is to Dremel off enough of this surrounding ridge to let the bulb install snugly without preventing the housing from going back together. I removed about 5/32″ of it, by hand with a cutting wheel on the Dremel. This allowed a perfect fit of the bulb.
I twisted the bulb socket wires to the power leads, put a bit of solder on them to prevent strand breakage, then installed some small wire nuts. This will make it relatively easy to replace the bulb socket someday if necessary.
For the heck of it, I hooked up the 50W bulb and tried the light. It works fine, though the drill’s current control circuit emits a faint high-pitch squeal when the trigger is pulled less than halfway. I’m assuming it does the same with the drill motor under high load, you just can’t hear it over the drill motor. Given that I’ll only have the light on for a few seconds at a time, it appears that the 50W bulb does not get hot enough to cause problems. However, it’s crazy bright… I’d probably need sunglasses to use it. I’ll try the 35W bulbs when they arrive, which will be easier on my eyes and should be plenty sufficient given that it’s the same bulb that’s in the 3M Sun Gun.
In any event, it turned out nicely.
And it fits in the case with the charger, extra battery and spare bulb.
More pictures are available in the photo album.
March 10, 2012
The 35W Solux 4700K bulbs arrived this week. Today I replaced the 50W bulb with one of the 35W bulbs. I think this will work better than the 50W bulb; the reflection is less blinding. A 35W spare and the 50W both fit in the carrying case. Now I just need to order a Torx T10 driver to leave in the carrying case, probably a Wiha SoftFinish.
I’ve slowly been populating an inexpensive cart to store detailing supplies. It is almost ready for action, though I’ve already run out of room on it. It has my polishes, waxes and microfiber towels in separate bins with lids on a lower shelf. The drawers hold my random orbitals, and pads for the random orbitals. Each pad type (compounding, polishing, glass polishing, waxing, wax removal) is in a separate Flambeau case to keep them free of dust and organized. In all likelihood, I will move some of the polishing stuff to a different cart at some point, since I don’t polish during every detail. That would leave more room for spritzes and the like on my supply cart.
I recently received a Grit Guard dual bucket wash system from AutoGeek. The 5-gallon buckets are on dollies (5 wheels each), and each bucket has a grit guard and a gamma-seal lid. I also received a seat cushion which can be used on top of one of the buckets when the bucket lid is on.
I’ve also purchased the Mothers Wheel, Well and Tire brush kit, as well as the RaggTopp natural horsehair brush to clean the ragtop from AutoGeek.
My most recent polish purchases include Menzerna POS34A (PG 1000) Powergloss compound, Menzerna PO91E (IP 2000) Intensive Polish, Menzerna PO85U (FF 3000) Final Polish, Menzerna PO85RD (UF 4500) Ultimate Finish and both of the Griot’s glass polishes. I still have some older Menzerna Final Polish II, some Menzerna Finishing Glaze, various 3M polishes, plastic polishes, etc.
My most recent sealant purchases include Wolfgang Deep Gloss Sealant 3.0 and Wolfgang Deep Gloss Spritz Sealant. I still have some older Menzerna FMJ.
My most recent microfiber towel purchases…
Two of the large pocketed waffle-weave drying towels from Griot’s:
A 26×35″ pocketed waffle-weave drying towel from Chemical Guys:
Six 24×16″ Fluffer Miracle Supra Microfiber Towels from Chemical Guys:
and three 24″x17″ Big Monster Microfiber Extreme Thickness Microfiber Towels from Chemical Guys:
I will definitely be buying more towels from Chemical Guys; the ones I received are very nice and their pricing is better than any other top brand.
I’ll take some more pictures of the new stuff and post them before or during my first spring detailing.
I’m preparing to a do a full detail on the M roadster in preparation for the arrival of springtime. Given that my ragtop is 10 years old, it has faded a little bit.
I’m going to try using the Renovo black fabric soft top reviver kit to restore the color of the top. I’ll post before and after pictures here.
I’d like to put this debate to rest.
First of all, I’m not a professional detailer. My experiences are my own, on my own vehicles. By no means do I have the breadth of experience of a professional detailer.
But for my money… 303 Fabric Guard wins over RaggTopp fairly handily. Why?
First, let’s talk about protection. I’ve been applying protectant to the top of my M roadster as needed for over 10 years now. I’ve used both products, and have twice split them side-to-side (one product on the left half, the other on the right half). If I’ve seen any difference in protection, the 303 has been better. I don’t have a scientific explanation, and I have not taken pictures. However, even if we call this a tie…
303 Fabric Guard is less expensive. By a considerable margin. A 16 oz. spray bottle of RaggTop is around $20. You can buy 32 oz. of 303 Fabric Guard at that price; that’s half the price of the RaggTopp. And if you care about filling up your local landfill, you can buy 128 oz. refills of 303 Fabric Guard. I’ve never seen a RaggTopp refill. I know that some find the RaggTopp aerosol convenient, but I find it useless. The can has to be thrown out when empty, and to me it’s more difficult to use without getting overspray on your paint, glass and plastic window. Especially if you’re using it outdoors on anything but a completely calm day. 303 Fabric Guard can be applied with a paintbrush if you want complete control over its application, without ever buying a spray bottle.
Scent… maybe it’s just me, but I find RaggTopp fairly offensive to the nose. I’d never consider using it on fabric in the interior, but I don’t have a problem using 303 Fabric Guard on interior fabrics.
Availability… I’ve never seen RaggTopp locally. That means I have to pay shipping when I order it. I can find 303 Fabric Guard locally, which avoids the shipping costs.
Buy whatever suits your fancy, but for me 303 Fabric Guard is the right product for a fabric convertible top.