I might end up getting a right angle jack to help with the strain relief. We’ll see how this holds up.
Yeah…
It hadn’t failed, but was heading that way. I didn’t help that I don’t have any heat shrink large enough to go over the end of that barrel jack. I ordered a pack of right angle barrel jacks from Amazon and soldered the wires in.
Didn’t work. The jack wasn’t long enough or the wrong size to make a good connection to the power source. I wish I had checked connections before soldering the wires on. I ordered a different style of jack in two sizes, 5.5 x 2.1 mm and 5.5 x 2.5 mm.
The 5.5 x 2.5, on the left, turned out to be the correct size. After confirming (multiple times) the positive and negative sides of each connection I slipped on some heat shrink, soldered the wires to the jacket, and blasted flames at the heat shrink.
The right angle is a much better connection because of how the battery sits in the jacket pocket and the extra length will help with strain relief. I feel better about having a soldered connection as well. It’s a win all around.
First up was upgrading the power cords on my table saw and jointer to be longer and beefier. I chopped a couple of 15 foot lengths off an old extension cord my Dad gave me years ago, which I still haven’t used. After wiring them in to the switch I installed a new plug on the end.
I also replaced the metal castors I had originally put on the table saw cart because they were horrible. The new ones roll real smooth.
I needed spots for more clamps and had empty space in the clamp storage area. I’ve wanted to redo that area anyway.
I got creative, using a couple pieces of copper pipe saved from the old shower and some old microwave mounting rods.
The shop closet is in need of a lot of love. The lighting has always bugged me and it was a good place to start so I’d be able to see when tackling the rest of the room. The pull string and single bulb had to go.
After wiring, I mounted the lights to a scrap of plywood and that to the joists. I had to add an outlet because my router and other network equipment are in here and they had been plugged in to the light fixture. There was an open ground, so I opened up the light in the adjacent furnace room and connected the ground wires.
What a difference!
It’s very bright in the closet now and the motion sensing works great. I thought about wiring half of the outlet to the switch so I could mount LED strips under each shelf that would turn on with motion as well. Maybe a later project if I think it’s needed. After I reorganize and get everything accessible at the front of shelves I think it’ll be fine though.
The other part of the closet that really annoyed me was the spray paints because I could only see the front cans and had to move things out of the way to get to back rows. It was hard to know exactly what I had.
I cut out the shelf and cross supports above the cans and removed the sheet of plywood that was the can shelf. This allowed me to gain extra height and assemble an entire unit to drop in place. I cut rabbets in the surrounding plywood box and used interweaving hardboard to create the internal compartments.
Talk about a stressful glue-up! With space for 40 cans, it still wasn’t enough storage, but I have a lot of duplicates that’ll eventually get used up.
The rest of the closet is still a mess and an accumulation of junk. It needs a cleaning and complete reorganization, so I don’t have any plans to build anything. If plans change or anything seems useful, I’ll be sure to share.
Today at work our larger Human Resources team had a social activity, which was learning some Origami. When I was searching Amazon for paper, this wood grain pattern pack was suggested and I didn’t hesitate.
From making paper airplanes I remember how hard it is to get proper half folds at the corners, and it was no different here. You also have no idea how something is going to turn out until the end. I love making things, so this was fun. I decided to challenge myself even more by keeping up to make two of each model.
I have a lot of the paper, so when I need to chill out from work, I’m going to try some of the other models. If you’d like to give it a try, check out the Origami Fun site, which has a lot of instructions.
I’m a big fan of Adam Savage and Tested, so when I saw he was writing a book, I preordered it from Amazon.
That was four years ago. I’m embarrassed to say the book had been untouched on my Kindle since it was released in May of 2019. I finally turned the page on the flights to Madrid and easily finished it.
Putting something in the world that didn’t exist before is the broadest definition of making, which means all of us can be makers. Creators.
Everyone has something valuable to contribute. It is that simple. It is not, however, that easy. For, as the things we make give us power and insight, at the same time they also render us vulnerable. Our obsessions can teach us about who we are, and who we want to be, but they can also expose us. They can expose our weirdness and our insecurities, our ignorances and our deficiencies.
If you’re a creative of any type I highly recommend reading Adam’s book. I learned a lot and it felt good to know other people think the way I do about a lot of things.
One of the chapters focused on lists, which is something I use often. Usually I prefer Apple Notes because is syncs between my iPhone and MacBooks (work and personal), allowing me to quickly update the lists. Here’s a list I started partway through my bathroom remodel.
Adam writes out his lists and makes a checkbox next to each item. When something is halfway or mostly complete he splits the box diagonally and fills in the upper left area. On completion, the entire box is filled in. It’s such an important process for him that after the Lists chapter was another titled Checkboxes!
Whenever I put a list to paper I’m going to try this method.
On our recent trip to Madrid, we explored the town of Toledo for a day. It was my first time on a train!
It was a neat day, though I don’t know if Toledo has any flat areas other than the train station. There was a lot of walking up and down hills and we ended up going 10.8 miles on foot for the entire day, which does count more walking when we got back to Madrid.
I think I’ve seen enough places of worship for awhile. haha
My Automattic team had a meetup in Madrid, so I stayed longer and Brandi flew out for us to have a vacation. The weather was chilly, but we had a great time and really enjoyed the city. Pretty much everything is walkable and we racked up over 32 miles on foot in four days, with the longest day being spent in Toledo, which I’ll post about separately. The first five pictures were taken before B arrived.
I’d seen something similar released before with no desire to try it. B brought a bottle home, so I have to give it a try. It’s terrible and I dumped out over half the bottle. You get a little bit of marshmallow smell and taste, but the aftertaste is horrible and it’s very sweet. Only gets a 1/10.
I’ve been keeping my Ryobi cordless 18v tools on some shelves on a wall next to a drain pipe.
As you can see, I outgrew the area. I also had several sanders in the drawers of my sanding cart and even more tools in a box on the floor.
Look at that picture again. Wouldn’t that wall be a great place for cordless tool storage? It’s not in a weird location, is further away from the big tools that make all the dust, and in reach while working at the assembly table.
I took down the vise shelf, chopped and cleaned the plywood, and installed it on the wall entering the shop.
After taking down the nail bins I took the opportunity to spread them out on the backer board since I have more vertical space in the new location. Then I moved the nail bins around the corner, under the rest of my bin storage.
I had a blank canvas.
Before building anything I had to figure out tool arrangement, so I marked out space on the floor to match the area of the wall.
After gathering all of my tools I messed around with layouts and tool groupings.
When I had something I liked, I started making shelves one row at a time.
As you may have noticed from the photos, I kept changing things as I went, and there were a lot of iterations I didn’t get pictures of. When I was about 80% done with everything I remembered I had the rotary tool and my Armor Tool Auto-Jig Pocket Hole System stored in the drill press press cabinet. I definitely wanted both tools out in the open where I’ll be more likely to use them. All of the changes were worth it; every tool has a place and I love it. I’ve been wanting something like this for years.
As I was building, it was so handy to turn around and grab a tool or a battery that was already in its place. No more walking over to the other area and reaching around the corner. Little things like the magnetic strip for bits and accessories make a big difference too. Another bonus is this project used a bunch of odd scraps I had in my wood collection.
Are you a Ryobi fan? What are your favorite tools?
The pocket where you connect the batter is on the back left, which is an awkward position. In less than two months the wire frayed by the barrel jack.
The exposed wires caused a short in the M12 Power Source, which is the red plastic shell that connects the battery.
The part was dead in the water and gives an error status. What terrible designs in the jacket’s wiring and the power source. Luckily, the battery does have fault protection and still worked. I checked the item on Milwaukee’s web site and other people had the same problems. After leaving a review, it looked like Milwaukee reached out to them. So I left my own review with a picture of the wire…
My partner got the jacket less than 2 months ago. The wire frayed by the connector causing a short, which appears to have killed the power source. I read 12.5v out of the battery just fine, but nothing from the power source. Terrible design in the jacket and with no protection in the power source. I can fix the connection and barrel jack on the jacket without an issue, but not much we can do about the power source.
Their social media team sent me an email the next day…
We are sorry to hear you are experiencing some issue with your M12™ Power Source! As a one-time courtesy, our team would like to assist with a replacement!
About a week later they emailed me again, with a return label to send them both the battery and the power source and they sent us replacements. Kudos to Milwaukee for sending the new version of the power source and a 3.0 Ah battery when the previous one was 2.0 Ah. B will be happy about the extra battery life.
By the time we got both items it was exactly three weeks after I had left my review. I isolated the wires with some cardboard between them so I could make sure the jacket worked with the replacements. It was a success, so I separated the two sides of the wire, tested which side came from which part of the jack, and then cut it off.
I stripped back insulation, put shrink tube around each wire, connected a new jack, put shrink tube around both wires, and gave it a couple wraps of electrical tape.
I might end up getting a right angle jack to help with the strain relief. We’ll see how this holds up.
Nick Momrik 