Author: cherrick

Added Functionality to Arduino Thermostat Switch

You may remember my previous posts on my Arduino that switches AC current on and off based on the thermistor sensor reading. After using this for a year, I have ended up changing the switching temperature multiple times based on the season. I decided to add a linear resistor to change the switching temperature.

I started by printing the resistor reading to the serial monitor and found that my resistor sends values of about 100 – 900. I then created seven ranges that the code would switch the temperature at.

While it is still in development, my thermostat switch is quite handy. We use it, mainly in the winter, to switch on a fan when our radiator gets hot. Depending on the time of year and the temperature fluctuation, it is handy to be able to change the temperature it switches at without removing the whole arduino to upload new code.

Ford Focus HVAC Shutter Door Hack

In my last post, I discovered how to fix the HVAC control knob, but that was not the root of my problem. The root of the whole thing was that the HVAC shutter doors were getting stuck. This “hack” is not the proper way of doing things, but cuts off a lot of time removing the whole dash and taking the whole HVAC apart. behind the controls and radio is the HVAC system. I cut a hole in it and found the lower shutter door that I knew was sticking. There is a rubber seal on the door that had degraded and turned into this glue like goop that stuck the shutter door to the walls. I cleaned off as much of the goop as possible with rubbing alcohol but I knew that it would eventually get sticky again, so I put aluminium foil tape over the door to eliminate any chances of it sticking again.

I hot glued in the plastic that I had cut out and made sure it had a good seal. While this is not a proper fix and isn’t really professional, I wanted to get this working with the least amount of time as possible. This seems like it will be a good permanent solution. The car just won’t look as nice if you were to take it apart one day.

Ford Focus HVAC Control Broken

We have had a 2007 Ford Focus hatchback for quite a while now and every winter we would notice that the HVAC control knobs got harder and harder to turn. Eventually, we ended up turning it too hard one day and it didn’t adjust the airflow anymore.

We took it to a mechanic and to the local Ford dealership. They told us it would cost $1000 to tear apart the whole dash and fix the problem. I recently discovered that the knob mechanism was entirely accessible with only a bit of tear down.

There are cables that attach the knob down, under the steering wheel, to the shutter doors that open and change the airflow. Since the knob could move freely, I figured that the knob or cables were broken. After plenty of YouTube research and playing around, I discovered that not only had the cables slipped out of their pulling locations due to stretching, but the knob was also slipping on the gear. After lots of gluing and tinkering, I finally got the whole thing working. That is the only problem for some people, but I had further problems with the shutter doors sticking. I fixed the symptoms, but the initial problem still needed fixing. I’ll cover that in the next post.

Tasty Jelly

I recently learned about some edible berries. I always thought that the red berries in the picture below were bane berries but it turns out that they are highbush cranberries. I also heard about chokecherries and only recently learned what they look like. My brother and I went out and picked a bunch of them. The picture below shows about half of what we picked.

Both berries are very sour by themselves so we decided to turn them into jelly. We cooked them and strained out the pits and seeds. We added sugar and once the syrup reached 220 degrees Fahrenheit we pulled it off the stove. As it cooled, it turned into a thicker jelly and we canned it. We made chokecherry jelly, highbush cranberry jelly, and chokecherry / highbush cranberry jelly.

Something that I noticed is that both berries are super easy to pick because there are around ten to fifteen on the end of each branch. We were able to pick a lot really quickly but the pits make up for the ease of picking. We lost at least half of the mass from the pits in the chokecherries and the seeds from the highbush cranberries. I think that I personally liked the combined jelly better than the individual flavours because the chokecherries are a bit more bitter and the highbush cranberries are more sour combining to a well rounded flavour [once the sugar was added… : ) ].

Smith Corona Typewriter

I have often eyed typewriters at garage sales and thought it would be fun to try one out. Often the thing that held me back was not knowing if it would work and the price. I recently stumbled on a Smith Corona XE 5200 typewriter being sold for $2. After seeing that it worked, I decided to take the plunge.

This was no ordinary manual typewriter. It came out when computers were starting to take hold of the word processing world. It has a 5000 word memory bank and a built in dictionary. I had fun running it through the demo and this is what it typed out.

While I appreciate the versatility of a typewriter (for example I addressed a few envelopes with it), I don’t think that it will be replacing my computer. However, it has been really fun learning how to use it and there are still many more functions listed in the manual that I could still make use of.