Uncategorized

Toyota Corolla Car Clock

In the past year, I bought a 2004 Toyota Corolla and one of the problems that it had when I bought it was that the clock was not working. After some quick research, I discovered that the solution may not be all that difficult. I will give credit to the YouTube video that I found addressing this solution here. Anyways, I took the clock out and took the assembly apart. There is only one Phillips screw that needs removed behind the fan speed selector knob. Then the whole assembly just pops out. I used a flat head screwdriver to take the clock out, and then to remove the backing. What we are looking for is the 5 resistors on the back of the circuit board that I have circled below.

In order to fix the clock, I simply re-soldered these resistors to the board. Upon reinstalling the clock in the car, it lit right up. This job only took me about a half hour, and it has been working since. As far as car work goes, this has been the simplest and most satisfactory job I have done yet. I never knew how much joy the lighting of this little green clock could bring me.

Dewalt Drill Motor Replacement

I recently was able to pick up a used Dewalt cordless drill for $20. I was very happy with my purchase until I got home and realized with some use that the motor was mostly burnt out and that the brushes were on their way out. The motor made a decent bit of what I would call, burning smell. I looked into replacing the brushes and found very limited information about that specific model, DCD771. After taking it apart, I realized that the motor was pressure fitted together and would be quite a lot of work. The brushes ended up being $15 on Amazon or I could buy a new motor for $30. I opted for the new motor, and got it soldered in quite easily.

I ended up having to do some work, but a Dewalt drill for $50 is not a bad deal. It was fun seeing the inside of the drill, and the Amazon part was just as expected.

Wireless FM Transmitter

I recently purchased a vehicle made in the early 2000s and it only has a CD player. While I love CD’s and have a collection, it is far easier and more convenient to be able to play music from my phone. In other vehicles I have had access to pair my phone to the car sound system through Bluetooth, or at least through an aux cable.

This would require replacing the car’s head unit. For the sake of simplicity, security, and affordability, I opted to give a try using a Bluetooth FM transmitter that operates out of a cigarette lighter outlet.

I found it really easy to use but sometimes, where there are more towers broadcasting, the FM transmitter can get overpowered. It has the ability to broadcast on different channels which allows for you to work around that problem. I would not recommend it for those who want really high quality, static free music, but for my needs with my cheap car speakers, it is quite handy.

Crosley Portable Record Player

I had been collecting records for my old Soundesign record player and was really enjoying the music. I recently moved however and didn’t have space for it, nor the large speakers I needed. I found this Crosley one at Goodwill for $15 and couldn’t resist. It has little built in speakers that, while they’re no subwoofer, do capture some of the bass from the records. What’s more is that it can act as a Bluetooth speaker if you want, although I don’t know why you would play music from your device when you have records. Anyways, I have definitely been enjoying the portability and ease of use with my new record player.

Using Generative AI

There are a lot of different chat bots that are becoming popular like Perplexity and ChatGPT. While it is fun to see what the AI algorithms come back with, I have really enjoyed using generative AI to produce images. I have used Craiyon, Stable Diffusion, and more recently Gemini’s Bard image generator.

Vinyl Record With Floral Growth

Although the images generated can be quite chaotic or unrealistic at times, when given the right prompt, these generators can produce interesting and fun images. There are so many key words that they pick up on like styling photos to be photo-realistic, classic, impressionist, hand-drawn, ect. You can pick what ever they draw and add elements like a graffiti or floral look. It is not only a lot of fun, but can be useful when trying to come up with specific images. Here are a couple fun examples that were generated with Bard.

Shooting Star Over A Hill In The Style Of Starry Night