Nissan March/Micra Stuck Shift Lock Repair

The shift lock is the mechanism that keeps the gear shift stuck in PARK unless the ignition is on and the foot brake is depressed.  There is also a manual override button, I guess intended for allowing the shift to neutral for towing etc even when the car is switched off. For some time now,…

Reflash Asus WL-520GU

Reverting my old router to DD-WRT because current LEDE is too heavy for its old brain. This is a reminder for me about how to do it. Power up with the black reset button held in, keep it in until the power led starts flashing. The router is now in TFTP recovery mode. It has…

HP 245 G6 laptop linux – multiple problems

Time to get a new laptop for a family member.  Something pretty cheap.  These days (Feb 2018), linux "just works" right? (It does on 5 older laptops).  Not on the HP 245 G6!   I am installing Linux Mint 18.3, but don't doubt that similar problems would occur with other distributions of the same vintage. With…

Kenwood HB720 repair

Our Kenwood HB720 hand blender suddenly stopped working. The punchline of this post is that inside its excruciatingly-difficult-to-dismantle mechanism (i.e. never intended to be repaired), it includes a fuse, which had blown.  This post will be updated to give the details about how to take the machine apart, and whether I managed to reassemble it…

5th Anniversary of Christchurch Quake

Today is February 22nd, the 5th anniversary of the (first of many) earthquakes that devastated Christchurch. There has been plenty written about the big picture so I'll add a few words about the little picture I see around here. I'm still in the same house I was in on that day.  It was repaired over…

Repair of Kenwood FP481 Food Processor

This is a follow up to my previous post. Thanks to need a part, I got the spare parts I needed to repair the food processor. The price was enough to make me wince! : Upper drive belt $19.95, Upper cog $18.95, P&P $7, (+ Hand Blender geared lid $19.95).  But a combination of bloodymindedness…

Crappy Kenwood plastic gears!

Expensive (yet crappy) Kenwood FP481 food processor strips its drive belt and gears when the chopper inevitably gets jammed. I'm not sure what happened first.  Either the belt started to lose its teeth, then the gear started slipping and ground its teeth off. Or the gear wore out first, then ground the teeth off the…

Power consumption hall of shame

Some appliances consume quite a bit of power even when they are switched off. In the following table "soft off" means that it is turned off using the remote control or soft button. "switch off" means it is turned off using the (apparent) on/off switch. ApplianceOnSoft offSwitch off Sharp TV 1452424 Samsung 22 inch TV…

Stupid serving suggestions.

Griffins suggests that you should serve two macaroons, one with a bite taken out of it, along with half of a miniature fresh coconut: Tip top suggests that you should serve icecream by placing a ball of it on the table, and inserting two whole vanilla beans to look like a  moustache.  Then draw a…

A Better Microwave Oven UI

What should a power user's microwave oven interface look like? Not like My panasonic one Two vertical touch strips, one linear power 10% to 100%, the other logarithmic time.  Touch the power to set power,  touch the time to set time and start the cooking.  The controls have lights behind to show current power setting…