Tinkering and D-I-Y At My Leisure

Changing a shower mixer

2013-02-07T00:59:00.003-08:00

The story goes like this. As I was turning off the water after showering, the handle broke. There wasn't even any warning. The handle just came apart.

Description of the Issue

Original shower mixer was connected to a rain shower.

Rain shower assembly

Finding the answer

I called 1 week before Chinese New Year and the plumber said that he could not come until after Chinese New Year. I initially though this was a big project but on closer inspection and analysis, its not that difficult.

Thanks to a helpful hardware shop assistant, I decided to do away with the rain shower, (used it only less than 10 times in the last 4 years) and just replace with a normal hand shower.

The answer

This cost only $69.90. I did not even want to bargain with the shop. I went round searching for a full rain shower set and the shops quoted me $200 over dollars for the whole set.

I removed the 2 nuts holding the old mixer with a adjustable spanner.

The size between the 2 nuts were quite standard at 150mm.

Then installed the new shower mixer. Just reverse the process. I did go like 10 rounds of white tape over the thread of the pipe opening before I screwed on the new shower mixer.

Use a piece of cloth to cover the nuts when you tighten them to prevent scratching the surface

Then I bought a shower spray holder and installed it by drilling 2 holed on the wall tiles. The wall plugs 5.5mm. The finished product looked like this.

Completed assembly all for $92....

Not that difficult after all and I saved myself about $50 for this job. It was done in 1 hour as I was taking it slow with my son helping me...

Now that I am moving to Malaysia, I do forsee more opportunities for DIY around the house.

Import Permit for Pets to Malaysia

2013-01-30T02:01:00.002-08:00

After staying for 10 years in Singapore, its time to move. The next destination is Malaysia.

One of the items that we have on our minds is....how to bring our lovely Chihuahua along with us to Malaysia? A search in Google revealed similar bloggers who have done so from US and Singapore.

We thronged through many blogs, websites to find out the process. Perhaps in this short blog, I can share the simple steps and even provide my assistance (Going to the DVS office to apply for the import permit in Malaysia) to anyone who needs help.

Steps:

1) Get ready your pet's vaccination certification in (the country of export) which is Singapore.

2) Get ready your pet's rabies vaccination certificate in Singapore

3) Go to the Department of Veterinary Services in Malaysia to apply for the IMPORT PERMIT. One thing to note, the permit is valid for 30 days.....so please time your departure.
i) supply your name in your IC or Passport
ii) supply your address in Malaysia
iii) provide the date of import for your pet

See picture below.

4) In the country of export i.e.Singapore, apply for the EXPORT permit. You do this with AVA in Singapore. This can be done online for $50 dollars using your Singpass.

5) Apply for a certified veterinary health certificate for pet from the government veterinarian of the origin country. In Singapore, I went to the AVA. This must be done within 7 days of export.
i) You have to visit the VET.
ii) Then apply online using your Singpass at AVA website.
iii) You must make a trip to AVA to show them the original documents.
iv) 2 days later, go to AVA and get the "original" certified veterinary health certificate from AVA. This is a watermarked document. It takes 2 days to process.

6) With all your documentation, proceed to Malaysia....we decided to drive to using the TUAS checkpoint.

All in all, its not that difficult. I find that the troublesome part was going to Malaysia to get the import permit myself. This is where I can offer my services. If you need someone in Malaysia to help you get the import permit and courier it to you. I can offer my "runner" services. Just drop me an email : heartlanderdiy@gmail.com

After going thru this process, I would appreciate if someone had offered such services online .....I got a quote from a pet importer. It was SGD$1280 to import my pet to Malaysia from Singapore.

Our lovely Chihuahua Chloe....

A new and exciting door opened in 2013

2013-01-11T22:39:00.002-08:00

December 2012 came and now its 2013 January.

That's it, the induction hob that was installed is finally dead,,,,,and I mean dead. There was a short resurrection in August in my last post.

This time in December I called the Service Centre, MAYER Singapore, to request for a technician to come take a look. As it happened before Christmas eve, the earliest they could come was Jan 3 2013.....but my wife had a Christmas dinner to cook.....what should we do.....

Never fear, Jesus is every so good. A call to my sister and she gladly gave me her portable induction cooker....It's a Taiyo....cost about $160 and it could do exactly what my thousand over dollars induction hob could do. Best of all, it's portable and we even had steamboat dinner using it.

Wow.....why didn't I buy this instead????? A consolation was 4 years ago, the technology of induction hob was no that advanced (consoling myself). Nowadays, the technology is better.

Anyway, the technician came. A Chinese "uncle"....he took a look....commented....".i think you better buy new one.....there are 2 curcuit board, each one cost $350 and after you change that, I cannot guarantee that the others are not spoilt......so you think properly ok??? Better buy a gas stove, only hundred over dollars."

Hmmm....his observation and analysis was that the installation process was wrong. The carpenter should have left more space at the front of the induction hob to allow the air to escape from the unit. The hold cut in the worktop was too small......

I wanted to argue with the uncle that the hold was cut according to the user manual.....why didn't the user manual say to cut bigger hold and leave space in front of the hob????

Anyway, it's wise to show grace in my words and season it with salt....I smiled and asked the uncle how much was the trip to my place....I paid him $60 for 10 minutes of observation.

In conclusion.....induction hob is good to use. Perhaps the manufacturers can indicate their installation guide to leave space in front of the hob for air to circulate.

Now my next task is to buy a gas hob. Its off to Harvey Norman.

Spark in my Induction Hob, Power Trip, Exploding sound!

2012-08-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

It has happened 3 times already.

When my wife turned on the 32amp switch for the induction hob, a spark was seen followed by a exploding sound and the power tripped.

So I called the agent that sold me the induction hob. Based on their technical support's analysis, the probably cause is a faulty PCB unit in the induction hob.

To replace the PCB cost $350 and 2 units have to be replaced in my 4 burner induction hob.

Also, the other cause could be poor ventilation for the induction hob. That one I understand cos the hob sits above my kitchen cabinet. So next time, I will open the cabinet doors when we cook.

Another probable reason is that moisture may have seeped into the induction hob due to spills.

For whatever reason, I am happy the induction hob can still be used.

Just checked out a similar 4 burner induction hob. It cost around $1699.

Seriously, I think I will replace rather than repair.....

Dishwasher Door Lock Replacement

2012-08-08T01:22:00.002-07:00

Yesterday after 4 years, the dishwasher door decided to give up :-(

It simply refused to close. A call to the service centre in Singapore gave me the earliest appoint on Saturday. That meant 4 days without dishwasher.....but I had no choice but to accept it.

That was until my wife checked on Youtube. There was a video that explained the probable reason the dishwasher door could not close. It was due to a broken lock.

Today, I called the service centre and they had the part in stock. I paid $51 for the door lock. But that meant I saved $60 in service charges....and not to mention the ability to use the dishwasher today.

The process of changing the lock was pretty straight forward. The Youtube video did help. The process of changing the door lock is not too intimidating but it helped that my wife was around to assist in holding the partially dismantled door.

The problem with the lock was a broken spring.

Picture of the broken door lock. The spring snapped after 4 years.

It just reminds me of how sometimes we take things for granted. The dishwasher has been dutifully washing the dishes almost everyday. But I only feel the importance of it when I have to do the dishes by hand.....thank God for his grace that I was able to replace the lock today.......and I did not have to do the dishes by hand.

God is Good! I feel so loved.

iPhone, My LCD went dead....

2012-08-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

My iPhone 3GS aw showing signs of age.... At almost 2 years old, the LCD panel started to develops a grey line at the bottom of the display.

So.... I thot perhaps I could get a replacement LCD from eBay and change it myself. After all, YouTube had many DIY videos.

So I ordered a LCD from eBay for 12USD. Waited for 1 month, the LCD arrived.
It looked kind of funny. The packaging was fine, bubble wrapped and the box looked alright but there seemed to be a blot of black on the LCD and there were 3 lines.

This being my first time seeing a real LCD panel, decided to give it a try. I replace it according to the YouTube videos and viola, the LCD was really faulty.

I tried to use back my old LCD unfortunately it was also damaged already.

Lesson learned:
1) I will not buy electronic stuff from eBay in future even if it is very cheap
2) get a professional to fix it

I got the LCD replace at a phone repair shop for $55. Done on the spot in 10 minutes.

I was penny wise and pound foolish.

Why does my electricity keep tripping?

2012-08-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

It has been happening occasionally.

Halfway through dinner, no electricity. Middle of the night, no electricity.
Halfway cooking, no electricity.

I was angry and asked Jesus for help. Should I shift to another place? What can it be? The wiring in my home was re wired 3 years ago. Everything is new. Why does it happen after 3 years?

Later that evening, I was searching the internet and came across a forum. It seemed that there was someone who had the same problem as me.

In the forum, he mentioned that he changed the MCB for the water heater from 16amp to 20amp and apparently it sort of solved the frequent tripping His electrician apparently installed a 16amp MCB for the water heater.

After reading the forum, when I checked my MCB, I also found out that the MCB for my aircon was 16amp. My aircon was a system 4 and from what I recall, the trip occurs when I am using the aircon.

To cut the long story short, I bought a new 20amp MCB the next day. The best part of it was it cost me only $3.30.

The shop assistant was very helpful when he heard I was going to change the MCB myself and advising me to I ensure the main electricity is shut off.

The Job
The job was relatively simple. Remove the old MCB and replace with a new MCB.

But the problem was the metal bar that kept all the MCBs together. I think I had to unscrew about 10 screws under all 10 MCBs just to remove the metal bar.

By the time the installation was over, my palms were tired and sore from twisting the screwdriver. Also there was no fan as there was no electricity. Ha ha. My shirt was soaking wet.

I understand how an electrician feels now and why we pay them so much for their work. It's working under such conditions everyday for them. For me, it's only 20 minutes and I am already feeling hot and sweaty.

Thank God for leading me to read that forum. Everything is running in tip top condition now. There is no electricity trip thus far and I say that there will not be anymore electricity trips in future. Amen!

The old 16amp MCB

Plumbing - changing stop cock ball valve

2012-08-02T23:37:00.001-07:00

This is not the first time that I have had to do this.....the plumber that installed my plumbing used really lousy materials. In the last 2 years, I have had to change numerous stop cock ball valves in my toilets....

2 days back, my wife told me that the toilet is leaking.....and it is coming from a joint. Such comments can be a bit frightening cos you never know what is the cause of it.

When she pointed to the pipe joint that connects to the inlet of the toilet bowl, the picture became clearer. Oh no, not again!!!!

Went to the hardware shop, paid $4.20 and replace it in the evening. Previously, I used to have leakages after replacing it, this round it was perfect. That was because I said a prayer before I started work....Thank you Jesus!

Fibre at Last - Who shall it be?

2012-08-02T23:25:00.002-07:00

August marks an exciting month....things are supposed to go faster.

I made my choice of service provider for my Fibre Broadband service......it was with Starhub. No brainer actually cos I was on their cable broadband service and it meant just switching a broadband service plan.....but still with a 24 month contract.

Well, I did give a thought about going with M1. Considering their $39 a month 100mbps plan was the lowest in the market. But truth of the matter is.....that would mean paying about $20 more a month for me. And what is the point of having cable broadband from Starhub and fibre broadband from M1.

In the end, I chose Starhub because the top up was like $18 more a month to upgrade from 16mbps to 100mbps. In reality, on my iPad, I could get only about 32mbps uplink and 18mbps downlink. But I did feel the difference when downloading files.

The white box is the ONT and the other is the wireless router/gateway

Was considering not to install fibre broadband 2 months back, but I am really happy I installed it now.

Time to chill and watch them swim

2012-07-19T19:55:00.003-07:00

Some people listen to music, some use aromatherapy but for me, its having an aquarium.

The setup was below $100.

Things that went through my mind when choosing an aquarium:
a) Location of power supply - yes, I had 1 power supply that could power the pump and lights
b) Do I have time to maintain - well, I chose a low maintenance tank and my lovely wife is helping with the feeding.
c) Are my kids ready? - yes, all were briefed that no fishing is allowed in the house.
d) What type of aquarium should I buy? - At the shop, decided to go for a all-in-1 tank that had lights, pump and the tank is full covered to prevent suicidal fishes from jumping out.
e) Budget - $100 was the max I was willing to spend.

Learnings:
When my wife and I first started setting up the aquarium, enthusiasm was high. We spent quite a considerable sum of money on fishes. Why? Because the fatality rate was high. It's easy on hindsight when you already have a "seasoned" aquarium to say.....dun buy so much fish......you must let the aquarium get enough bacteria blah blah blah....have patience....please....who can wait so long?

Come on! If you spend almost $100 on an aquarium, you would want to have beautiful fishes inside right??? and immediately too....Duh...

If possible, start with CHEAP and yet still beautiful fish....
After countless retrieval of dead fishes from my aquarium and becoming good friends with the "uncle' at the aquarium shop (cos I keep buying fishes from him), I decided one Sunday afternoon to "invest" in those live fish that the aquarium sell as food for other bigger fishes.

I bought 2 bags of baby carp/gold fishes for $3. Out of the numerous fishes, all died except 2. At the same time, my friend gave me a pair of guppies. The female was pregnant and she gave birth to over 30 babies. From the 30 guppy babies, they multiplied until today.....the population is quite stable.

Seeing my 2 gold fish swimming (Adam and Eve), one Sunday I decided give them more friends by adding an additional bag of live fish into the aquarium. Surprisingly, the fatality rate was very low this time. Only 2 died.

In summary, it seems like the aquarium is quite healthy already.....bacteria, water and all factors.

Can guppies and gold fish live together?
Yes, I have guppies, goldfish.carp, 1 Oto and 1 prawn living together.

Happy after food...

Another pregnant guppy

The goldfish like the bottom half whereas the guppies take the top part of the tank

Fishfood

These are what we feed them.....mixture so they dun get bored.

Happiness
Its not expensive to maintain, yet it brings our family countless hours of discussion, talk and fun just watching them feed or swim around. Indeed, we sort of get the feeling of how happy Daddy God feels when he looks at us.

Home made musical instrument

2012-07-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

One day my daughters came home and said that they needed to have home made musical instruments as part of their school work.

My wife went on youtube and surfed to this video. I thought it was interesting.
With a few snips, an ordinary straw could become a oboe.

No wonder people in the past did not need PSP, DS, phone games to entertain themselves. The video is so refreshing. Why not try it yourself?

Ironic that I took the photo of the straw with the iPad as background.

Close up of the "straw" oboe

Ants! Dun go for the trail....get to the root

2012-07-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

Ants....how to get rid of them.

About a couple of weeks ago.....ants, the tiny ones started crawling on my kitchen worktop. My wife was tracing the trail and it led to multiple "suspected" corners....

Insecticide spray was used. Great, the ants would disappear for 1 day. Then it cam back again....arrrgh.

Finally, after a prayer, I got the prompting in my heart to use ant bait instead. I seemed to remember buying 1 long strip before that had a couple of capsules. After some digging at the storage boxes, I found 1 capsule left.

I sprinkled the bait sparingly along the trail where the ants were seem to be crawling.....then went to bed.

Its been a few days now....no more ants. Yippee.....indeed the chinese idiom is correct "chop grass rid root". Better to get rid of the ant colony than to get rid of the ant trail.

The silent ant destroyer Golden Hammer (Prime supermarket sells it for $2.10 but I bought mine at a hardware shop for $2.50)

2012-07-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Fibre Broadband at last....

Ok what I meant was that I finally changed my mind to let the guys from Opennet come into my home to install the fibre termination point (TP)

When I received the letter from Opennet inviting me to install the TP, I was a bit apprehensive. I HATE any drilling or running wires in my home.

But upon a chance visit to my friend's home, he gave me a good idea on where to install the TP.

So.....the consideration was this.

a) No need to run the fibre from your front door to the electrical points next to your TV. This is because the NIMs project was canned....
b) You can always use a wireless router to "WiFi" your home.
c) Best to install the TP next to an electrical point
d) When subscribing for your Fibre Broadband package, choose a provider that give you 2-in-1 residential gateway (RG) plus Wireless Router device. Saves on getting an extra plug if you need to get a Wireless router yourself.

Finally on the fateful day on 6 July, the contractor from Opennet came to install my fibre TP.

The contractor did a good job at my request to drill 1 small hole through the wall to accommodate the fibre. After which he ran the trunking down vertically to the TP.

This was the final result:

Next project is to choose a Fibre Broadband provider.......so many choices......again

Survellience Camera for home....should I do it?

2012-07-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

Currently considering the available options for *cheep* and workable solution. Why cheap? Because I do not need professional quality as I do not forsee myself using the video in the courts. Its more of just doing it for fun.

30 July - saw that Az***h was having a promotion on ip camera at Challenger. Went to look at their online manual, called their tech support and it seemed its not so simple to setup the camera to view from a mobile phone. Argghh these DDNS and port forwarding are so complicated. So I gave up!

2 Aug - asked the Starhub technician that installed my fibre broadband on how to open the port in the D-link router / gateway. He game me a good answer. Go buy a d-link ip camera as they have already setup the DDNS for you. Sure will work one. And they even have a iPhone app.

I left it as that......

Will post more when I have the time to search around.