I disassembled 10 hard drives over the past two days. I scored 26 “rare earth” or neodymium iron boron magnets. I’ll use the magnets for anything from keeping track of small screws during a project to hanging a blanket over the window of the front door for the next movie marathon. There were 21 hard drive platters. I’m not sure what i’ll do with these. I probably have almost thirty of them now. I’ve become particularly excited about the aluminum spacers used between the platters. Save those for me if you ever take apart a drive. When i get around to making my first project with them i’ll share it on here i’m sure!
I had been thinking of setting up my projector to watch movies in the living room for a while. Saturday i decided to take it on. I got the projector mounted by buying a wall mount for a small LCD TV.
The plate didn’t line up quite right so i had to use a piece of acrylic mounted to the bracket and then the acrylic attached to the projector. I used a stud detector to try and find the ceiling joists. I thought i found one and put a test screw in but it didn’t bury. I tried another hole an inch and a half away. Still didn’t feel right. After a few more tries i found a joist. I ran some wires along the ceiling and wall and Earl and i watched a movie. I really liked it. We measured the size of the screen and it was 108 inches – 9 feet!
Sunday morning i got up early and decided to make the installation a little more permanent. I bought a couple of wall mount AV plates and some stuff at the hardware store and got to work.
I drew outlines to cut out for the boxes so that the test holes i made would be removed or concealed. I tried my drywall saw but it only went in a half inch. So i had to use a utility knife to cut the drywall, drill holes in the corners and then use my sabre saw to complete the opening. It made quite a mess.
Then i went to the wall. I cut a hole in line and close to the outlet that i would be using for the rest of the AV equipment. There was plywood behind that sheet rock too. I then used some extra PEX to try and run up the wall so that i could figure out where i would need to drill in the attic. The tubing ran up about 5 feet and then stopped suddenly. A board run horizontally between the studs!
So i took measurements from the floor to where i thought the board was and from the outside wall to the hole so i knew about where the obstruction was. I went outside and cut a hole in the T1-11 siding with my circular saw above the spot i thought the board was. (I plan on enclosing the carport and will need to put drywall up on that wall anyway.)
I used a spade bit on my cordless drill to bore a hole in the board that was blocking the way. Then i drilled up toward the attic. Twice i struck nails though – there were three or so boards that i was trying to drill through. Eventually i grabbed my longest drill bit and a clothes hanger and drilled a pilot hole and ran the hanger through it so i could find the spot in the attic.
I went to the attic with the wires that i needed. I ran the electric and video signal wires through the openings above the projector and then used my drill and spade bit to open a larger hole to drop the wires through.
I grabbed the piece of PEX tubing and ran it through the wall, duct taped the end of some parachute cord to the end and then pulled it out into the carport. I tied the cord to a wire, pulled it through and repeated for the other wire.
Then it was just a matter of making the connections…
Here is a letterbox movie. If you look closely you can see the whole area the projector covers – 108 inches (nine feet)!
The completed projector installation.
This is a little exciting for some of the cats. But the novelty wears off after a little while.
Next will be running wires for surround sound speakers through the walls…
For those that don’t know, a Japanese TV show flew me to San Francisco last month and filmed me connecting a shopping cart to a bicycle and then riding it around. Of course, i asked for a copy of the footage – and also asked if i could post a snippet here. They said they would send me the program but that i could not post a clip online. Bummer. If you want to see it you’ll have to come over!
Dear Ryan,
I hope this email will find you well.
I got a copy of the show and I’d like to send it to you.
Could you give me your mailing address?Thank you,
Mieko
If they produced and aired the show already then i’m really impressed.
A while back I won a caption contest (where the best or most humorous photo caption is submitted) on Instructables. They sent me this very nice tape measure. I never seem to have enough tape measures – whenever I need one I can’t find one.
That reminds me of someone that I read about that bought a dozen nail trimmers and left them everywhere in their house so they would stop biting their nails.
Except I don’t have a bad habit that results from the inability to measure things with the right tool.
On Monday and Tuesday after work i hired Earl to help me work on the first stage of insulating under the house. We started by hauling out as much garbage (old plumbing pieces, pipe insulation scrap, and cardboard), wood, and rocks out and stowing them outside the crawlspace entrance. The wood will probably end up being burned in the outdoor fireplace. The rock is valuable fill. And the trash will be parceled into the garbage can as space is available. We got perhaps half of the stuff out from under the house.
Then we measured the width of the back of the house and cut some very heavy duty plastic to roll out as a vapor barrier. I also grabbed some zip ties so i could better anchor the wiring that was put in for the apartment and the hot tub. We moved any major debris from the back part of the crawlspace toward the front of the house where the crawlspace entrance is. Earl nailed the vapor barrier in place using large head nails with rubber gaskets – perhaps some sort of metal roofing nail? I grabbed an entire 25 pound box of them a few years ago during the basket sale the hardware store has every year. The thick plastic, rubber washer and wide head on the nails worked great. We had initially thought about using some sort of furring strip to ensure that the plastic did not pull free from the walls. I decided i did not want to spend an hour or so ripping plywood or 1-by material so we initially planned on using staple guns.
On Monday we got the first run of the vapor barrier down – about a 15 foot width – in the furthest back and thus most inaccessible part of the crawlspace. I got almost all of the wiring suspended from the floor so it was out of our way.
Tuesday we cut another length of the plastic and hauled it underneath. We spent some time shuttling more material toward the crawl space entries and then rolled the plastic out, unfolded the two sides of it and then worked on opposite ends to nail it in place. We cut the plastic to wrap closely around the footings supporting the floor. I also spent a few moments to rivet the apartment dryer vent duct together. At some point the elbow below the floor had dropped so the renter’s dryer exhaust was just blowing into the crawl space – not good for the household moisture level.
Next we’ll need to haul the rest of the stuff out from under the house and we have about 20-25 more feet of soil that needs to be covered so we’ll probably have one and a half widths to finish. Then we’ll tape the seams and Earl had a good suggestion – to cut a few drain holes in the lowest spots just in case there is a leak in the water or sewer line. Then we’ll begin to install 4 inch thick rigid insulation around the inside of the crawlspace walls. Finally we’ll lay 4 foot wide sheets of insulation around the inside perimeter to prevent cold from entering the space through the ground. I’m going to need to make a larger opening to access the crawl space to get the insulation boards in there!
I qualified for a reimbursement of up to $5,500 for energy improvements to the house. I spent a bit over $500 on the attic insulation. All this prep work over the past few days will be minor in comparison to the job of cutting and fitting the rigid insulation around the entire crawlspace. And any money spent on this probably does not count for reimbursement. Adding a vapor barrier was not on the energy audit as a recommended action. Fortunately, so far my only expense has been paying Earl. I might buy some construction adhesive to better seal the edges and even the seams of the vapor barrier. We did put nails in every foot and a half and the rigid insulation will be shingled over the plastic – we ran it up the walls part way.
I’m almost sad i didn’t take a before photo. I decided this afternoon to tidy up the coat closet. I cleaned it out and scrubbed the floor. Then i cut and installed base trim. I cleaned the shoe rack that i built a few years ago and went though my shoes and filled a garbage bag with donations to the thrift store. I moved my backpacking boots and in-line skates to the upstairs gear closet and moved Cena’s ice skates and winter boots to her closet. (If she’s not wearing her winter boots now then she probably won’t for quite a while.) We had bales of cat hair accumulated – i think Hex liked to hide behind the shoe rack. We used to keep it pulled from the back wall and kept those lesser-used foot apparel behind it. All they did was collect cat hair.
The highest recommendation made during my energy audit was to add insulation in the attic. Since the second floor has a vaulted ceiling i could only add insulation in the area over the living room, dining room, and kitchen – the front of the house. When i moved in it had a layer of R11 insulation and looked like this.
R11 insulation
The ceiling joists are 24 inches apart and are 2×6s. I found a few bales of R11 insulation and a few years ago rolled them out perpendicular to the joists.
First, i rolled up the second layer of R11 insulation. I figured that the gaps caused by the 2×6 being taller than the first course of R11 would end up being a channel for the warmed air to escape. Then i took the R38 insulation and just laid it out on top of the insulation you see in the above photo.
R38 added.
You can see that there is a vast increase in the amount of insulation. I took care to make sure that seams were pretty tight. I rolled out one of the bales of R11 on top of the R38 – perpendicular to the joists again. But the stuff i have is faced and I worry about moisture retention within the insulation.
There are no eave vents or gable vents. I’m thinking of adding a gable mounted solar powered attic fan. In the spring I’ll work on adding vents to the eaves.
I didn’t bring much to throw in the laser engraver. We used my cell phone and initially tried doing the Zoom Bikes logo. But it had quite a bit of grey (gray?) so didn’t work. I went with the old "Zieak enterprises" standby.
Randofo set up the laser cutter/engraver to burn into the back of my cell phone.
1. Make a mold of a Lego brick.
2. Make candies using the mold.
3. ?
4. Profit!
