Damaged Photo Restoration Service

A few months ago, my friend Don showed me a picture he had of himself as a young boy along with his younger sister and older brother. Don will turn 80 this year and it appears he was about 5 in the photo, so it was about 75 years old. The photo had some damage from creases, missing areas, and a few dark spots and he wanted to get it restored but didn’t want to let go of the original since it was irreplaceable. He had an photo scanner sitting next to his computer, so I scanned in the original and emailed it to Jay Yozviak at Photography by Jay, who is the premier photographer in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I figured he’d know of a reliable service where the photo could be sent and restored to remove the defects it had accumulated over its 75 year life. You can see an image of the original photo here (you can click on images for higher resolutions versions of them):

photo before restoration

I know that Jay is very capable with PhotoShop but didn’t realize that he also does photo restoration as part of his photography business. In a few days, Jay had restored the image and sent back the results. My friend was extremely pleased with how it turned out. As you can see below, the defects are gone.

photo after restoration

He also made up a framed version of the image in black-and-white:

Original image converted back to black and white

If you’d like to get a quote on getting your irreplaceable photos restored to their original condition, you can contact Jay at:

Photography by JAY
284 Dennison Street
Swoyersville, PA 18704
570-288-1706

If you’re curious how photo restoration is done, here’s a time-lapsed video of someone doing it on YouTube. The video is only a few minutes, but it shows about 6 hours of work:

Panasonic Phone Cannot Find Base – solution

We got a set of 4 Panasonic DECT-6 wireless phones (Models KX-TGA931T) a few years ago and they worked beautifully at first. But after a while, the phones began to exhibit an annoying behavior when we attempted to answer a ringing phone where it would display a message that it lost its connection to the base after a single ring, making it impossible to pick up the call. The other phones continued to ring normally. Sometimes repeatedly pressing on the ‘Talk’ key would get it to answer the call, but it became are real annoyance because it always seemed to happen to the phone that was the closest to answer.

Upon searching the Internet, I found many people complaining about the same issue. I read through a number of forums and found that although it was a rather common problem, there was not a consistent sure-fire solution. One solution suggested unplugging the power to the base unit temporarily, but that didn’t fix the issue, at least in my case. Even the Panasonic website was of no help despite having numerous complaints of the problem in its reviews. I had tried replacing the batteries in one of the phones, but even the one with fresh batteries would still misbehave. However, I had used a cheap set of NiMH batteries from Harbor Freight that were a few years old, and so maybe I exchanged one bad set of batteries for another. The amount of talk time available when the phone worked didn’t seem to indicate the batteries were worn out. Sometimes one of the handsets would not charge fully, and it would be warm to the touch when taken out of the cradle. But then later, it appeared to charge to full capacity according to the battery icon.

Eventually, I grew so tired of the problem that I ordered fresh batteries for all 4 phones. I got them from Batteries America, by ordering the high capacity Sanyo AAA NiMH batteries (P/N HR-4U-1000). I’ve had good luck dealing with Batteries America, especially for things like rechargeable batteries for older ham radio and aviation hand held transceivers. They also carry custom rechargeable batteries for equipment that is no longer available even from the original manufacturer of the product.

I am happy to report that by changing all of the batteries, the problem has gone away. Better yet, the new batteries have 50% more capacity than the original Panasonic 650 mah batteries and will last many hours between charges.

These phones have this difficulty when one or both of the batteries wear out, which all rechargeable batteries tend to do after a year or two of use. It’s not unusual for a new rechargeable battery to be weak if it had been on the shelf too long prior to using it so make sure to purchase your batteries from a reliable source only when you need them. The charging circuitry in the phone is not effective at notifying the user of weak batteries. If you experience this issue, I’d recommend getting a new set of high quality NiMH batteries for all of the phones and keeping track of when you replace them, because when they wear out, the phone will not give you any clue about what’s wrong other than this inexplicable problem where its connection to the base becomes flaky along with contradictory evidence that would seem to indicate that the batteries are not the issue.

Fixing a Sony Wega with a 6 or 7 blink code

A few weeks ago I returned home only to find that our Sony Wega TV (Model KV34HS420) was no longer working. It would respond to the remote control and begin to start to turn on, but then it would turn itself off before a picture appeared on the screen. After that, the standby/timer LED would continue blinking 6 or 7 times. This blinking LED is a diagnostic code, but its description of the potential issue provided little value. After reading a few dozen postings on the issue, a pattern began to emerge that made me hopeful that I could repair it myself.

We purchased this TV in 2005 while the jury was still out about which flat panel TV technology would eventually replace the tried-and-true CRT technology. Back then, the LCD and plasma flat panel displays still had viewing angle and reliability issues and cost 2 or 3 times as much as an equivalent-sized CRT model and so we just decided to replace our 15-year-old Sony CRT TV with a more modern HD-capable CRT TV. I was hoping to get 15 years out of this model as well before having to send it to the recycler.

This TV has excellent picture quality along with no restrictions in viewing angle, and other than its size and weight, I found it much better than what was available with newer technologies at the time. It sits in a corner and therefore takes up no more room than an equivalent size flat panel display. So, after only 6 years, I was wondering whether it would need to be replaced or if I could fix it. After a fair amount of forum reading, I found that this 6 or 7 LED blink code was a rather common problem, along with a common solution, namely to replace the MCZ3001DB integrated circuits known as IC8002 and IC6501 on the ‘D’ board. The forums had many people describing their success at making the repair, but pictures of this procedure were non-existent, hence the reason for this blog posting. Also, the level of difficulty and amount of work involved was not clearly described, so I hope to explain and show what I did so the reader can determine whether it is within his or her skill level to attempt this repair.

This TV weighs 200 lbs. I didn’t want to have to move it from its stand. Fortunately, it was possible to remove the entire back shell simply by removing all of its screws and sliding it off. There are a lot of screws, about a dozen around the periphery of the TV along with several more on the back panel, but fortunately, it’s a one-person job although it wouldn’t hurt to have a helper because the shell, although fairly lightweight, is bulky. Removing the shell allows access to the ‘D’ board.

After removing about a 17 screws, the rear shell can be slipped off.

The ‘D’ board is the one shown in the picture below. I should mention that before removing the cover, you must unplug the TV and give it a few hours for the high voltages to dissipate so as to avoid shock hazards. It’s best to unplug it and wait overnight, since if the TV is not working so there’s no need for it to remain connected to power.

The 'D' board shown above is held in with about 8 screws.

It wasn’t clear how to remove the board, or if it would be necessary to undo all of the wiring connections. Some of the connectors were easy to remove, but the 3 high voltage wires that connect to the CRT did not have easy-to-unplug connections. I eventually figured out that I didn’t need to remove those wires at all. There are a number of connectors that need to be flipped upward to disconnect the ‘D’ board from an adjacent board. It wasn’t clear at first how they worked, but if you pull them upward, they unsnap and pivot up 90 degrees. I unplugged all the other cables I could find, removed about 8 screws, and the board came out far enough to let me rotate it into a position where I could access the bottom of the board. It was necessary to use a stubby screw driver to remove one screw that was far forward, hidden between two connectors, and just under the CRT. The board was still tethered by the high voltage connections, but I was able to fix it ‘in place’, by turning it over like shown in the image below.

Bottom of Sony 'D' board shown rotated in repair position. Note, it's not necessary to disconnect the wire with the suction-cup-like insulator on it.

Unsoldering the two ICs is not difficult, if you use a spring loaded solder sucker like the one shown below.

A spring loaded solder sucker like this one works well to remove the solder.

Close up of IC6501 and IC8002 from bottom of board. Note each IC has two unsoldered pins.

Do NOT solder pins 13 or 17. If you're using a socket, it would be best to clip the legs in those holes off the socket.

Be aware that each chip has two pins are not soldered to the board. This is normal and so don’t try to solder those pins or the fix will not work. Take note of the orientation of the chips since there is a notch on one end facing the closest edge of the board. You do NOT want to install the chips backwards. Also, don’t solder the new chips in directly. Use sockets in case you ever need to do this repair again, since having to unsolder these chips is most the work. If they were socketed in the first place, you replace them without having to remove the board at all.

I wasn’t sure of the best way to purchase the ICs, since many forum participants mentioned purchasing them on Ebay, where there are literally dozens of vendors offering MCZ3001DB chips. The vendor I chose was TriState Module out of Evansville, Indiana because of their reasonable price for the ICs ($6.99 each) and fast shipping ($5 for first class mail). The parts made it to Colorado in just 2 days. I also needed a pair of 18-pin dip sockets which I found at the local Radio Shack for $.59 each. They look like this:

After replacing the ICs with sockets, you’ll need to install the replacement ICs. Odds are that only one of the chips is bad, but since you won’t know which one, it’s best to just replace them both. It is necessary to squeeze the pins together to get the legs aligned with the holes in the sockets. This style of IC has its legs spread out by default, and so they won’t automatically align unless you pre-bend them inward just a little to align with the holes in the socket. Carefully examine the chips after you install them to make sure all the legs made it into the socket.

IC8002 and IC6501 installed in their new sockets.

After re-installing the board and attaching all the cables, it would be a good idea to test it to make sure the repair worked before reinstalling the cover. With luck, your TV will be back up and running, avoiding a premature trip to the recycler. I can’t guarantee this fix will work for you, but the consensus on the forums is that it frequently fixes the 6 or 7 blink code problems on the Sony Wega models.

I found the repair to be of intermediate difficulty, certainly not as hard as repairing the transmission in a washing machine, and the result was very gratifying. And if it ever happens again, I could fix it in a few minutes, thanks to the sockets that are installed in there now.

In the event it doesn’t work for you, then maybe getting one of those new and improved flat panel TVs is your best alternative.

Printable Drill Chart Decimal Equivalent

If you have a 115 piece drill set and have lost the chart that translates the diameter of the drills to a decimal equivalent based on the drill number, letter, or fractional size I have scanned mine, stitched it together and have it available as a jpg or pdf file. When I lost mine, I spent an inordinate amount of time with calipers searching for the right drill diameter. Now that I found it again, I keep it near the drill index and if I ever lose it again, I’ll know where to go to make a new copy of it.

The chart is a real time saver. If you click on the image below, you’ll get the full scale jpg image of it. From there you can right click and ‘Save As’ to have your own copy of the jpg file so that you can print it.

I generally print it to fit to a single page, which shrinks it a little. If you prefer, you can print it full size from the pdf file and then cut and tape it together.

UPDATE: After looking at that image for a while, I decided the chart needed a ‘do over’ and so I put it in a spreadsheet and printed it as a PDF which makes it much more readable. Click on the image below for a PDF file suitable for printing on a single page.

Using a Drill Press like a Lathe to make a Center Hole

My friend is building a Stirling engine and when he found out that I owned a small lathe, he asked if I’d machine a piston and cylinder for him. Having some materials on hand like copper tubing for the cylinder and some solid aluminum rod for the piston, I happily agreed to make the parts. Another one of the parts he needed was a 7/16″ bolt with a hole drilled down the center of it. He had tried to make the hole with his drill press, but ran into a problem where the hole he drilled was not centered. This became apparent only after the hole was finished, of course, as it exited the far end of the bolt off center.

I had an idea about a procedure for drilling an accurate center hole in a cylindrical part with a drill press by first aligning a drill vice to hold a drill bit stationary while using the drill chuck to grip and spin the work piece. My drill’s chuck can hold a drill up to 1/2″ in diameter, which would be more than sufficient to grip a 7/16 bolt on its shank. I thought I’d run a quick experiment and document the procedure for anyone else who may want to try using a drill as a lathe for making a center hole in a cylindrical part.

A lathe is most often used to turn a part using a cutter that can either remove material from the diameter or from the part’s face. But it also has a very nice feature when a drill chuck is inserted in the tailstock, and that is to accurately drill a hole precisely down the center of the part. An example of that is shown below.

Normally, you would use something called a center drill to start the hole and then swap it out for the drill of the proper diameter. If the hole is large, you may have to drill with several drill sizes to get it up to the finished diameter. In this case, the hole I wanted to make was just .125″ in diameter so it was possible to do with just a single drill in one step. The procedure I describe below would need to be modified by resetting the alignment for each drill if you need to open the hole up in several steps.

If you didn’t own a lathe but had a drill press and a drill vice, here is a procedure for drilling a center hole in a cylindrical part.

First, you put a drill of the desired diameter in the drill chuck and tighten it. Then gently raise the drill table, clamp the table to set its height, and then and move the drill vise to the bit and clamp the drill vice down on the bit. The drill vice must have a ‘V’ groove one its jaws to align it vertically on the drill bit. This is important for a subsequent step. After everything is aligned, then use a pair of ‘C’ clamps to hold the drill vice to the table so it cannot slide from side-to-side. Then un-clamp the drill bit from the chuck and the drill vice and turn the bit upside down and clamp it in the vice’s V-groove again so that its tip is facing upward. Then clamp the workpiece in the drill chuck. In this case, I’m using a .5″ diameter section of aluminum rod as the workpiece.

Here the drill is clamped in the vice pointing upward and the workpiece is just partly visible and clamped into the drill’s chuck.

Then turn the drill on. Just like on the lathe, the drill bit will be stationary and you can lower the spindle with workpiece and it will drill the hole accurately through the center of the part. Remember to lift up on the spindle periodically to clear out the metal chips. If you got everything aligned correctly, the drill will make the hole directly in the part’s center. In my case, the hole was within .002″ of being concentric with the outside diameter of the part on both ends of the part. That’s about as accurate as you would get with a lathe so the technique works well.

It may not be apparent but the part is spinning, the drill bit is stationary.

Here’s the finished part with the hole perfectly centered.

Fixing a broken latch on the Yaesu YSK-100 Separation Kit

I’ve maintained the Yaesu FT100 FAQ for about 10 years. For those of you not familiar with ham radio, the FT100 is a popular mobile transceiver. I’ve talked to people from all over the world on it. As time went on, the FAQ stabilized and I rarely have to do much updating to it now other than to fix stale links. This FAQ still sees a fair amount of traffic.

My FT100 is mounted in my Durango using a YSK100 separation kit. The separation kit makes this radio easier to mount in a vehicle by separating the user controls, called the ‘head’, from larger body of the radio. The head then can be installed on a faceplate that is connected to the radio’s body with long cables. The body of the radio can be installed wherever you find room in the vehicle. Mine is hidden in the center console.

About a year ago, the latch that holds the head on to the face plate of the YSK-100 separation kit broke while I was removing the head.

I’ve never been happy with the YSK100 faceplate design since the latch requires an excessive amount of force to deflect when installing or removing the head. Without the latch, the radio could still be used, but it would come off easily whenever I brushed against the head. Since the radio has been out of production for a few years, spare parts hare hard to find. So I decided to fix it myself.

The plastic latch had cracked off of my faceplate.

There had been several reports of this problem on the FT100 Yahoo Group, but no one had ever reported figuring out a fix for it. You can’t just glue it back in place, because the part is highly stressed and a glue joint would not hold up to those extreme forces.

As you can see in the above image, a small portion of the latch is still on the wall of the faceplate. I sanded this off with a small belt sander. Next I took some measurements and started bending some .032″ thick aluminum sheet metal to make my own latch. I have a small metal brake/shear, but in this case, I just ended up using a vice to bend the sheet metal since the brake has a limit on how small the bends can be. I drilled some small holes and with attached it with M3 screws and nuts.

Here is a top view of the latch.

It works pretty much like the old latch in that it’s very stiff and holds with a lot of force. I suppose a thinner material, perhaps spring steel, might have worked better, but this one can be bent to get the desired feel. If it ever breaks again, I know how to make a new one.

Here is a side view of the latch.

New metal latch with head installed.

I hope that others are able to take advantage of my description and pictures to help them to fabricate their own latch in the event that they break the plastic one that comes on the faceplate.

Finding the OBD port on a BMW E36

A few weeks ago my wife’s 1997 BMW 328i illuminated the ‘check engine’ light and she called me asking if she should immediately take it to the dealer to see what was wrong. Since I had just changed the battery on the car and thus the electrical system had lost power a few times, I thought that it might be a false alarm and told her I’d like to look at the diagnostic trouble code (DTC) on its OBDII port before spending any money at the dealer. Taking a car to the dealer with a ‘check engine’ light is giving them permission to charge your for an hour’s labor for what might turn out to be nothing.

I had purchased an OBD scan tool at Amazon.com that hooks up to a USB port on a computer and it’s based on the ELM327 chip, which means it can read any of the standard protocols available on the OBD connector. However, when I first tried to use it on the BMW just to satisfy my curiosity after purchasing the tool, I recall not being able to locate the connector. On U.S.-made cars like my Dodge Durango, these OBD connectors are located under the driver’s side dash and are usually exposed and thus easy to locate. In looking through a few BMW forums for help on where the port is located, I found some conflicting advice about the port being under the hood and having a special round plug that was unique to BMW. Some forum responses assured me it was down there under the dash next to the clutch but it was covered.

After getting a flash light and putting my head under the dash, it was almost embarrassing that I didn’t find it sooner. BMW put a cover on it that was clearly labeled OBD, but unless you’re a contortionist and get your head under the dash, you won’t be able to read that cover. The cover is easily opened by turning a screw head with a coin and the cover will hang down from a tether. Similarly, the connector itself has a cap over it which can be pulled off and it is also tethered. After pulling off these covers, the OBD plug was plainly visible.

Please note, the photos below are taken from the driver’s side floor looking up at the bottom of the dashboard.

The BMW's OBD port is covered

BMW OBD port shown with covers open

BMW OBD port with cable attached

After connecting the scan tool and running the software to check the codes, I found out the check engine light was complaining about a past event where the coolant sensor had reported too low a value. I checked the radiator fluid level and everything looked fine. I figured the car’s computer may have gotten confused when I was replacing the battery. I used the scan tool to turn off the check engine light. It’s been a few weeks and the light has stayed off, so the little device has paid for itself several times over just for that one usage.

I wanted to document this here in the blog in case someone goes searching for how to find the BMW’s OBDII port since a few pictures of it sure would have been helpful to me.

Replacing a Seiko Kinetic Watch Battery

I’ve owned a Seiko Kinetic model 5M62 watch for about 8 years and I really liked the fact that it never needed batteries and would run for days without winding. The Kinetic watch is self-winding, and instead of using a spring to store the energy, it converts the mechanical motion into electricity and stores it instead. This gives it the convenience of a self-winding watch along with the accuracy of a quartz movement. However, a few weeks ago I noticed that it would stop running if I took it off for a few hours. Sometimes, when I was just typing on the computer and not moving my wrist around, it would stop running. Below is a picture of the watch.

I figured there was something wrong with the energy storage system, possibly a dead battery or bad capacitor. After a web search, I found out that the watch does have a battery, which is sometimes erroneously referred to as a capacitor, but it is indeed a battery. All rechargeable batteries eventually lose their ability to hold a charge and after 8 years, this one had simply worn out. The problem with changing it is that the Seiko Kinetic battery is not one of those standard watch batteries that you buy in a store and easily change by yourself. However, I found that it could be purchased from a number of vendors on Ebay, Amazon, and other on-line websites for around $15-$20.

In our disposable society, I’m sure this issue would have been an excuse to go shopping for a new watch. But once you become attached to a watch, and this one is water proof so I hardly ever take it off, it sort of becomes a part of you. I hated the thought of replacing it, especially because I felt it had many more years of service.

I started reading a few of the websites that talked about replacing the battery as a DIY project, but wasn’t sure if I was up to the task or had the necessary tools. I never had taken the watch apart and looking at the back of it, I didn’t think it would simply pop off like my previous watches that had user-replaceable batteries. I talked with the jeweler where I bought it and they told me that they would have to send it away for repair and thought it might cost $65 or more to replace the battery. The local jewelery repair shop had a similar assessment. So, being an adventurer and inveterate fixer, I decided to do it myself.

You can see from the image below that the watch had notches on the back of its case. This meant that it needed a special case opener wrench.

I decided to get a Jaxa style opener (shown below) which clamps down on three notches since it seemed like it would do the job better than the openers that only grabbed the case on two notches. These can be found on the Internet for less than $10.

To make things easier, I decided to remove the watch band. Most of the watches I’ve owned had spring-loaded pins that were pretty easy to remove, but this model had pins pressed in that held the watch band in place. I was able to push them out with the tool shown below.

I used a paper towel to protect the watch and gently gripped it in a vice and was able to unscrew the back with the watch opener. It took a fair amount of torque to loosen the case back. In the image below you can see what it looks like inside. The battery is the brass-colored part in upper side of the image below. To get to it, you need to remove three very small screws. I had several small jeweler’s screw drivers around the house, but these screw slots are so tiny that I found it necessary to use a file on one of my screw drivers to make a very sharp tip in order for it to fit in the slots of these screws.

The center screw holds the winding weight and gear in place. These items can only go one one way as the shaft is keyed. Actually, they can go on two ways, but both ways are correct. However, you can put them in upside down, so pay attention to how they are installed as you remove them. The gear must mate up with a smaller gear so make sure that it does before installing the winding weight and screw.

When you get all the parts out, they look like the image below. There are 3 small screws, the winding weight, a gear, a red mylar insulator, a battery hold-down clamp, and the battery. To re-assemble them, just (carefully) put them back together they same way you took them apart. You’ll find a pair of sharp tweezers useful to handle the screws and other parts.

Here is the package I got from SwatchBattery.com through their Amazon store. It came with a red mylar insulator, a hold-down bracket, and the Maxcell TC920S battery. You may not need to replace the insulator or bracket if yours are still in good shape.

In addition to the tools mentioned above, I also used the magnifying headset shown below which I highly recommend. I think that the magnifying headset (with built-in LED lights) was instrumental in allowing me to work on such a small device. They can also be found on the Internet for less than $10.

If you’ve stuck with me this long, I’m going to give you a bonus. I mentioned that I had owned the watch for 8 years so now I have a confession. I always wondered what the push-button at the 2-o’clock position was used for. Sometimes it would advance the second hand 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds and then it would sit there and stop. Then it would start running after the time had caught up with it. I had no idea why it did this because I had never read the owner’s manual and don’t even know if I still have a copy of it. So, in case you’re wondering, here is a copy of the page from the owner’s manual I found online that explains it (hint: it’s a sort of ‘gas gauge’ for the battery):

Incidentally, when the watch battery had begun to fail, it was impossible to get the reserve indicator to advance the second hand more than 5 or 10 seconds even after vigorous winding. Now with the fresh battery, it jumps forward 30 seconds whenever I push it.

Would you like to know how to correctly wind the watch and how much it takes to keep it moving for a day? If so, here is the explanation, again from the Seiko manual:

It would appear that if you walk more than 720 meters (about 1/2 mile) you’ll impart enough energy to keep it going for a two days. Here’s another interesting tidbit: If you see the watch second hand jumping 2 seconds at a time, that means the battery is low and that you have less than 24 hours of charge left on it.

So, there you have it, a way to resurrect a watch that should last for decades. If you have one of these Seiko Kinetic watches sitting in a drawer gathering dust because of a dead battery, I hope my explanation gives you the motivation to get it working again for minimal cost. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or just want to share your experience with other readers.

Putting Tire Sealant in Presta Valve Tubes

I got a new bike earlier this summer (a Kona Dew Deluxe) and it’s a sort of cross between a mountain bike and a road bike. It uses the narrow 700 cm road tires and so I’m learning to deal with Presta valves whenever I need to inflate the tires. That requires putting an adapter on the valve stem since my air compressor is set up for much more common Schrader valves.

One of the annoyances of bicycling on the Front Range of Colorado is the abundance of thorns called ‘goat heads‘. They will easily puncture bicycle tires. I learned this many years ago when I purchased my first bike in Colorado only to get two flats tires on the same day I took it for its first spin. When I returned to the bike shop, they asked if I had put TR tubes in it yet. TR tubes? “What are those and why didn’t you let me know about this when I bought the bike?” I was new to Colorado and never heard of TR tubes. “TR” stands for thorn resistant and their outside wall is about 4 times thicker than that of standard tubes and so the goat heads generally cannot penetrate in far into the tube wall enough to puncture it. After installing these tubes, I didn’t have any more problems with flat tires from the goat heads on my mountain bike.

However, with my new bike, despite putting TR tubes in it before leaving the bike shop, I’ve had several flats from goat heads. I guess it’s because the rubber on both the tire and the tube is thinner to begin with than standard 26″ mountain bike tires. So I needed another plan. I see a lot of Slime tube sealant for sale these days in bike shops, and I was wondering if there would be a way to get it into tubes that had these newfangled Presta valves since the cores didn’t appear to be removable. I looked on the Internet and found several websites that talked about a method of using cutters to clip off the last few threads on the part that holds on the nut you need to loosen to put air in Presta valves. This causes the threaded part to fall into the tube which allows enough room to put the Slime in the tire. Then you have to push the threaded part back up into the stem and secure it with the nut, which now has no locking thread to keep you from unscrewing it all the way. I was hoping that I would not have to do that. I found that I was in luck because my tubes had Presta valves that allowed me to remove their cores. If you look at the part of the valve that has the threads to hold the valve cap on and it has flats on it, then that means the core can be unscrewed.

This Presta valve above has flats on the threaded part that holds on the cap which means the core can be unscrewed from the valve stem.

In my case, I already had some Slime but my local bike shop guy, Mark at International Bike in Greeley, is a strong proponent of True Goo. He believes that this product is easier than Slime to put in the tire due to its lower viscosity and that it seals better too.

If you search on the Internet, you’ll see a lot of people telling you these tube sealants don’t work. I think the reason for this is that it’s still possible to get a flat even with tube sealant, especially if the hole is so big that the sealant comes out so fast it can’t solidify. Also, people are much more likely to post a rant about a product that let them down rather than to take the time to post a positive review. In addition, when tire sealant works, you don’t really have hard evidence to let you know that you would have gotten a flat if you didn’t have the sealant in the tube. So it’s hard to measure tube sealant’s effectiveness.

In my case, I had the perfect experiment. My rear tire’s tube was losing nearly all its air every 2 days. It meant that each time I wanted to go for a ride, I needed to put air in the tire. I had debated on whether to patch or replace the tube, but then I realized that it would be a great experiment to see for myself whether tire sealant actually works, especially on slow leaks, which are the kind you generally get from the tiny holes that goat heads put in the tubes.

In order to put the sealant in the tire, my bicycle guy gave me some good advice. The rubber transfer tube that comes with these sealants is sized to be a press-fit on Shrader valves, which is much too large in diameter to seal on Presta valve stems. However, if you gradually cut the top of the cone-shaped nozzle until it is a press-fit for a .22 caliber cartridge, it will also be a press fit on a Presta valve which is about .235″ in diameter. You can also use the .22 bullet as a cap because the red cap that is included with it will no longer fit after you cut that much of the tip off the nozzle. You can use a spent .22 caliber casing or something else that is similar in diameter if you’re worried about using live ammunition to seal the bottle. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

True Goo tire sealant

If your Presta valve has a removable core, you can even put the sealant in when the tire is on the bike. Just rotate the valve to the top, insert the nozzle on the valve stem, and rotate it back around to the bottom. Squeeze in about 3 ounces of fluid, rotate back to the top, remove the bottle. Then replace the valve core and fill it with air.

I found that my tire that leaked down every 2 days consistently has now held its pressure for several weeks, which leads me to believe that this stuff actually works as advertised.

Replacing Remington and Norelco Shaver Batteries

I came to the realization that I’ve never worn out a Norelco or Remington razor yet I’ve owned a number of them over the years. But I have worn out a number of shaver batteries. My first Norelco razor was a plug-in only model. I was lured into buying a battery-powered model that would let me shave without being tethered to the wall outlet. Over the course of a year or so, I noticed that the charge on the battery wasn’t lasting very long and so this eventually became no different than the model that had to be connected to the AC outlet all the time. I bought a replacement when I was planning a camping trip and would not have dependable access to an AC outlet. Over the course of a few years, this model did the same thing, i.e., its batteries wore out and it also had to be plugged in all the time.

At the time, I priced a service that would replace the batteries and figured out, like many others, I’m sure, that it wasn’t much more expensive to buy a new razor than to repair an old one. So I opted to get a Remington R9190 model that I could clean by running it under the water tap. What would they think of next? It had amazing capacity, providing 60 minutes of shaving on a single charge. However, after about 18 months, it too, needed to be left plugged in all the time.

I figured that these razors only needed new batteries, but knew that it would require getting the right kind of batteries, and then having to do some unsoldering and re-soldering. I found a website that sold shaver batteries and would provide the correct ones for the razors based on their model numbers. In this case, the razor model numbers I wanted to fix were a Norelco 6843XL and a Remington R9190. I found the battery packs at Electricshaver.com. In the case of the 6843XL, I received a single AA 600 mah NiCad battery with solder tabs at a cost of $9.95. The R9190 battery pack contained a pair of AA NiCads with solder tabs that were joined together at one end. I had to cut these apart to actually install them so it probably would have been better if they just provided two AA solder tab batteries. That battery pack cost $14.95. I realized afterwards that I could probably just have just ordered 3 regular solder tab AA NiCad batteries from any of a number of Internet sources for around $3.00 each and saved about $15. Live and learn.

The Norelco 6843XL came apart quite easily. I just removed two screws (although I did need to use a torx driver) and then popped its snap joints apart. The battery tabs of the single AA battery were soldered through the PC board, but with a solder sucker and some solder wick, they were easily removed and the battery was replaced.

The Norelco 6843XL was easy to take apart. It contained a single AA solder-tab battery.

The R9190 wasn’t as easy to disassemble. There were 4 exposed phillips head screws which I removed, but the casing still would not come apart. After a lot of time fiddling, I found that there were two more hidden screws under the rubber backing and once these were removed, everything came apart. It was first necessary to pry up the corners of the rubber backing which was glued down on the back of the shaver (as shown in the photo) to expose the hidden screws. I came close to giving up on it. It’s the reason you may have found this posting, because searching for ‘Remington R9100 R9190 R9200 shaver battery replacement’ came up with nothing on the Internet. So I figure that within a few weeks of posting this, it will start to get hits because if I’m having this problem, chances are pretty good that others are as well.

The main reason I’m posting this is because I know how much I appreciate it when I find some obscure piece of information on the Internet that allows me to fix something that I’d otherwise have to throw away. I’m disappointed that Norelco and Remington continue to build products whose batteries cannot be easily serviced. I’ve read recently that many cellphones get replaced when their batteries goes bad after around 18 months of use. I find that to be extremely wasteful, and in the case of most cellphones, completely unnecessary because the batteries are generally easily replaced (unless you have an iPhone) . Of course, the battery packs sometimes have excessive markups on them when purchased from the manufacturer so that probably contributes to it as well.

I think that building batteries into a product in such a way that they cannot be replaced by an end user is unacceptable. Rechargeable batteries are only good for around 500 charge cycles and then they must be replaced. I wouldn’t want to be associated with a product where the batteries are so difficult to replace that the battery life determines the useful life of the product.

The R9190 has two AA NiCad batteries soldered together with some wiring. They are relatively easy to replace once you figure out how to get the case apart.

Both shavers are working great now and I can again enjoy the experience of untethered shaving.

UPDATE 2009-01-25

I continue to get a lot of hits on this web page so I can only imagine that many people have encountered the same problem, i.e., a razor that is still working, but with batteries that have gone flat. A very nice gentleman sent me the images below complete with annotations to show how he repaired his Remington Model 8100 razor. He replaced the solder tail AA batteries with holders for AAA batteries. Even though AAA batteries are much smaller, and usually have half the capacity of AA batteries, he found some that had nearly equal capacity to the AA batteries he replaced. The best part of his repair is that the next time they go flat, it will be very easy to replace them because it will require no soldering.

UPDATE 2012-02-26: I continue to have readers send me tips and photos on razors that are a bit different than the ones shown above. In this case John H. was kind enough to put together an 8-step sequence on how to get to the batteries on the Remington M280 M290 style razors: