Craftsman Cap Wrench

I love well-made tools. Objects that serve their purpose in a steadfast, understated, and seemingly effortless manner.  The Craftsman Cap Wrench Bottle Opener is one such tool. The name is slightly deceptive since it operates with a prying motion, and not the twisting motion you would tend to expect from a wrench, but I am willing to overlook that small marketing flaw. 

Like all bottle openers, it is a very simple tool. Its entire purpose is to apply a small bit of leverage to pop the caps off of bottles of beer.

Upon first glance, it doesn't look all that special. There is the obvious attempt to appeal to fans of their hand tools. It appears to be a good excuse to get you to spend $15 on a bottle opener, most likely as a gift. The beauty of the design is not obvious until you actually use it.

First, a short description. There is a raised dome built into the center of the openingrench. This pushes against the center of the bottle cap and acts as the fulcrum. There are two metal ears on that catch the edge of the cap. These are at opposite ends:  one by the handle and one on the far end. You can use either one, resulting in a prying up or prying down motion respectively. In the picture below you can see the unused ear by the handle, with the edge of the cap caught by the ear on the other side. This would be for the prying down motion.

The dome has the secondary purpose of preventing the cap from falling down into the opening where the combination of the two ears could make it difficult to remove. That pitfall is cleverly avoided.

The really beautiful design feature is how the two ears interact. When you catch the edge of the cap with one ear, the other pushes against the opposite side of the cap, preventing the wrench from slipping off. It takes almost no effort to keep the wrench on the cap. It almost feels like the weight of the wrench is enough by itself to open the bottle. It is incredibly easy to use. 

Sure, you probably don't really need such a massive chunk of forged steel to open a beer bottle, but if you're anything like me you will want your own as soon as you use one.

Modified Brew Hauler

Beer is heavy.

Five gallons of beer in a glass carboy is very heavy. At about 8.3 pounds per gallon, plus 10 to 15 pounds for the carboy, the total comes out north of 50 pounds.

Dropping a glass carboy full of beer would not be a fun experience. First there is the mess. Then there is the expense of ingredients, carboy, and the wasted time you spent brewing. And finally, there is the risk of severe personal injury. There are numerous horror stories on the internet about people cutting themselves on broken glass carboys.

Given all of that, it seems prudent to take some precautions. This is especially true since these heavy glass containers are often wet and slippery at the times they need to be moved.

Luckily there is a good, commonly-available, and inexpensive solution:  the Brew Hauler. It is a carrying sling made of nylon webbing that gives you two perfect handles for securely lifting and carrying a full carboy. This is incredibly helpful when lifting it in and out of a chest freezer.

The only complaint I have with the design of the Brew Hauler is that it sags. (If you look closely at the picture from Austin Homebrew, they had to use tape to keep it in place.) I was never able to tighten the top strap enough so that it would stay on its own. Even if I were able to, I would have to redo it each time I moved it to a different size of carboy. I have to admit that this is a relatively minor complaint. However, when it sags, it makes it easier for the straps that support the bottom of the carboy to shift. This could result in the carboy slipping out from between those straps if care is not taken to realign them before lifting.

My solution was to add a bungee cord to the top strap. This keeps the brew hauler snugly in place around the carboy. The materials are simple. All you need is one 24" bungee cord and four hose clamps. Any style of hose clamp that is about the right size should work just fine.

I used Oetiker style clamps because I had them lying around. They are stainless steel, which means they won't rust if they get wet with spilled beer or condensation. They are rather permanent once crimped, and there are no sharp edges or protrusions that could get caught on something. One of the clamps and the crimping tool are pictured below.

Step 1: Cut the hooks off of the bungee cord. They are not necessary and would just be in the way. Then singe the ends of the nylon sheath around the bungee cord's core with a match or lighter. This is just to prevent the cut ends from fraying or unraveling.

Step 2: Clamp one end of the bungee cord to the non-adjustable side of the buckle on the top strap. See the picture below. I used two clamps, which may be overkill, but I am confident that the bungee cord isn't going anywhere.

Step 3: Pull the bungee cord through each of the loops on the handles and lower straps. This is just like putting a belt on through belt-loops.

Step 4: Clamp the other end of the bungee cord to the strap on the adjustable side of the buckle. The only semi-tricky part is to make sure that the bungee cord is placed correctly. With the bungee cord completely relaxed, there needs to be 3 to 4 inches of slack in the webbing between the two sets of clamps. This way, when the webbing is pulled tight, the bungee cord is forced to stretch and maintain tension.

This end also shouldn't be clamped too close to the buckle. There needs to be enough adjustment  to pull the webbing tight around the smallest diameter carboy on which it will be used. As you can see below, I left a couple extra inches just in case. There are two clamps on this end as well; one is covered by the loop on the nylon strap. You can also see the singed end of the bungee cord in this picture.

For me, this has made a good product even better. I ended up buying and modifying a second Brew Hauler  so that I have one for each carboy when doing two batches at the same time. It was annoying to remove the Brew Hauler from the carboy after it was in the chest freezer and then try to put it back on later when it was time to rack the beer. These are great things to have around, and I highly recommend getting a couple.

My Brewing Fridge

I recently got into the hobby of homebrewing beer, and I really like lagers.

One of the more important pieces of equipment for brewing lager beer is some type of refrigerator. To keep the yeast happy (and happy yeast makes better beer) it must ferment and condition at the correct temperatures. For ales, you can often get away with brewing at room temperature. Lagers on the other hand require temperatures in the 50s.

The choice faced by homebrewers is what type of beer fridge to use. The two standard options are either an upright fridge or a chest freezer. Either one will require an external temperature controller for best results. I went the chest freezer route, and here is how I came to that decision.

The Refrigerator

Pros:

• Easier to fill. You don't have to lift heavy items very high at all to get them in and out of the fridge.
• More durable. A fridge is designed to operate above freezing. It should last many years.  
• No condensation issues. A fridge is designed to collect and drain off condensation from the air instead of allowing it to collect inside the fridge. 

Cons: 

• Limited capacity. A normal fridge has less room for kegs and carboys than is available in most chest freezers. 
• No secondary containment. When you open the door, any liquid in the bottom of the fridge will drain out. Rapidly.
• Less efficient use of space. The freezer portion of the refrigerator is pretty much useless at this point. 

The Chest Freezer

Pros: 

• More usable space. I can easily fit two carboys or three 5-gallon kegs in my 7 cubic foot chest freezer. 
• More efficient. Chest freezers tend to have thicker insulation than refrigerators because they are designed to operate at lower temperatures. This means it should use less electricity.
• Secondary containment. Any liquid that leaks will collect in the bottom of the freezer, and it will stay there until you remove it. 
• Fits better in an apartment. A chest freezer is not nearly as imposing as a second fridge. It also doubles as extra counter space. 

Cons:

• Questionable durability. Chest freezers are designed to operate below freezing. The evaporator coils are usually made of mild steel. This is fine for something that will only be exposed to ice, but when operated above freezing, liquid water can cause corrosion. The expected lifespan for a chest freezer in this application is probably only a few years. (Some precautions, of unproven effectiveness, can be taken - like caulking any seams in the internal lining to prevent water from migrating in to the evaporator coils.) 
• Condensation. Every time you open the freezer, room-temperature air laden with humidity rushes in. When this air is cooled, the water condenses out and collects as puddles in the bottom of the chest freezer.  (This is mostly just an annoyance in my experience.) 
• Harder to fill. Anything holding 5 gallons of liquid is heavy. Kegs, carboys, and CO2 cylinders all have to be lifted up and into the chest freezer. 

To be fair, the value of secondary containment did not cross my mind until after I already had the chest freezer and had kegged my first batch of beer. A misbehaving CO2 pressure regulator slowly forced beer out through the faucet. I did not discover this until the next morning. I opened the lid on the chest freezer to discover two inches of beer sitting in the bottom. It was tragic and heartbreaking to lose two to three gallons of beer. It would have been so much worse to wake up to two to three gallons of beer on the floor of my apartment. 

I have rationalized away the shortcomings of the chest freezer. Condensation is easy to dry off periodically with a towel. Lifting items in and out is a good workout. If the evaporator coil fails eventually, it gives me an excuse to tinker and come up with a way to possibly eliminate the condensate issue.. But until then, I am very happy with my chest freezer. I was happy enough to buy a second one so I could ferment and condition different batches at the same time.      

Low-cost Cable Management

There are many ideas out there for cable management using common items like binder clips, wire shelving, or rain gutters. The general idea is to use something to keep all the cords and cables behind your desk off the floor, organized, and out of sight.

This is my version.

I had a few of these corner braces left over from some prior project. They are 3 inches on each side. A package of 4 costs under $4 at Home Depot.

Now, I know what you're thinking. L-shaped pieces of metal are not so useful for cable management.

Simple solution:  bend them into a more useful shape!

A hook is much better suited for this sort of thing. Modifying the braces is relatively easy with the right tools. Most things are...

Step 1 - Clamp the corner brace in a vise. 

Step 2 - Use a pair of pliers and bend one leg of the brace 90 degrees. 

Step 3 - There is no step 3. You are done modifying the brace at this point.. I said it was easy. Now repeat steps 1 and 2 for each of the braces you will be using. 

Finally, attach the newly improved braces to your desk or table.

There are a couple options. You can use the top hole on the long side of the hook to screw the hooks in place. I ended up going with a less permanent option. This is mostly because I was attaching the hooks to the metal legs of my workbench and didn't want to drill holes. I used a strip of double-sided tape on the long side of the hook.

I was a little worried that the tape wouldn't hold, but I haven't had any problems.The only limitation of this design is that it requires a vertical surface for the braces to attach to.

A Sticky Solution

Today I am going to tell you about one of my favorite things. It is amazing how useful this stuff is to have around. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it is better than duct tape! Without further ado, I give you:

3M brand, exterior grade, double-sided foam tape. 

It is sold by many auto parts stores in 15 ft. rolls for permanently mounting trim or molding on vehicles. It is also available on Amazon if you can't find it locally. It comes in your choice of 1/2" or 7/8" widths. I like having both sizes around. Otherwise, I find myself cutting the thicker one in half lengthwise at times. A roll usually costs somewhere between $11 and $15. 

This stuff is excellent any time you want to semi-permanently attach almost anything with a flat surface. I have never had it fail to hold things together, especially if the surfaces being attached are clean, dry, and free from oils. It can be removed with a bit of effort, but it does take some effort. Take care using it on surfaces that might be damaged if you later decide to pull them apart from one another (painted walls, wallpaper, etc. are probably weaker than the tape). 

I highly recommend this stuff. It gives you an instant bond without the cure time or mess of glue. It is surprising how many uses you will find once you have it around. If you are looking for a last minute Christmas gift for someone who likes to tinker, you could do worse. 

I feel like I need to throw in a disclaimer. I am not employed by 3M. I don't think I've ever met anyone who works at 3M. They aren't paying me; this is just my opinion of this product. 

EVO 3D Digitizer Install

Sorry for the long delay between this post and Part 1 / Part 2 of the broken EVO 3D digitizer saga. I was tempted to leave the story unfinished forever because of the comic below entitled "Wisdom of the Ancients:"

But I wouldn't do that to you.

A quick side note. If you don't read XKCD, you really should. It is one of the most consistently brilliant webcomics I have ever had the pleasure of reading. So when you are done here, go read and subscribe to the RSS. And be sure to read the mouseover text for each comic. You will not regret it.

Back to the phone. From this point forward, I have decided to be consistent on how I refer to the part I am replacing. The phrase "touch screen" is too ambiguous for my taste. There are two parts that make up the touch screen. The touch part is built onto the back of the glass face of the phone. This is the digitizer. The screen part is behind the digitizer and is just a normal LCD screen. If you crack the glass on your phone, but the picture still shows up ok, you broke the digitizer. If the picture is messed up, you broke the screen. I'm glad we had this little talk. I feel better now.

The digitizer I ordered arrived from Amazon. It has a plastic film on the face of the glass to protect it. However, the back side of the digitizer is not glass. It is plastic. Easily scratched plastic. This digitizer arrived with several scratches on the non-glass side. Not cool. It also does not come with replacement adhesive for holding it in place. The description says, "Adhesive is on the back of flex, just peel off and apply," but apparently this only refers to a small rectangle of adhesive on the cable, not the adhesive that holds the digitizer in place. 


I will continue with the replacement anyway for a couple reasons. First, it will prove whether this part is causing my problem or not. Second, even if there are some scratches, if it fixes the problem my phone will be usable again. Since I am suffering from a severe case of smartphone withdrawal, I will install this semi-defective part and leave an unflatteringly truthful review on Amazon.

I now have a replacement digitizer and a video on how to take apart most of the phone. I follow the video and begin the disassembly. It goes well. Soon I have a pile of tiny parts where there was once a phone. I reach the end of the video, but it leaves me with the digitizer and screen still firmly entrenched in the front part of the case. It gives some vague advice about using heat and prying everything apart like on other HTC phones, but that is not so helpful to someone who hasn't done this to other phones.

It does point me in the right direction though. Armed with their somewhat nebulous comment, I go back into research mode. The HTC EVO 4G looks similar to the 3D, and it has been on the market much longer. Maybe there is a better guide for removing the digitizer on that phone. It turns out that there is.

So. I now have a very good photo tutorial on how to remove a similar digitizer. The following photos are blatantly stolen from ifixit.com in case they decide to take down the tutorial. Links are provided giving them full credit, so hopefully they will not be too upset.

The video leaves off at the point that corresponds to Step 20 on the EVO 4G teardown guide. This step has you start applying heat (but not too much heat) to the outside edge of the digitizer. The digitizer is held in place by adhesive. It is some form of very thin double-sided tape. Once you heat up an edge, you can start prying the digitizer from the front part of the case. The following few steps go through heating and prying each edge of the digitizer. At this point on the EVO 4G, you would be done. Remove the digitizer and stick the new one in place.

The EVO 3D is slightly different. Once you have battled the adhesive and removed your old digitizer, you will discover that the cable runs between the screen and the case. To get the cable out (and insert the new one) you have to remove the screen as well. This is not good news. In removing the digitizer on my phone, I destroyed it. The plastic film on the back side of the glass that does the actual sensing work was damaged along the top edge. This is no big deal, since I am replacing this part. However, now I have to remove the screen. My screen works fine. I have no replacement for it. I do not want to hurt it by removing it roughly.

Having no other choice, I continue with Step 33 on removing the screen. The screen is held on by two strips of adhesive, one on each of the long sides of the screen. (Left and Right when holding the phone normally - i.e. portrait, not landscape.) At this point, I get to apply heat directly to the LCD. This makes me a bit nervous, but I have come this far already. Going slowly, I apply heat and pry.. heat more and pry... and continue until it comes loose. Then I repeat for the other side. The only mistake I made was probably using too little heat to start with. Things went better with a little more heat.

I must note at this point that I am using a heat gun with pretty good temperature control. The lowest setting is 200F and that is what I used throughout. If you are using a heat gun without temperature control, I would worry more about damaging something. Just saying.

At this point, the screen is removed. It even looks to be undamaged. Now I get to re-assemble. Having no other option, I reused the old adhesive to hold both the screen and the new digitizer in place. I would not recommend reusing the adhesive for the digitizer. It attracts dust and lint like a magnet. Especially if you try to clean your fingerprints off of the screen. The fingerprints which you will inevitably get over everything as you try to pry things apart. Anything caught on the inner edge of the adhesive will show up around the outer edge of the display once it is all back together. You are much better off removing the old adhesive, cleaning everything up, and then applying new adhesive. Assembly is reverse of removal, but much easier. When putting it back together, there is no prying or heating.

Everything is back together. Now comes the moment of truth. Is it better? Is the problem solved, or did you break something going through this process?

...

Success! The screen is unharmed. Yay! The digitizer is responsive again. My phone works! Now to deal with the scratches... Which means getting another digitizer and repeating the entire process. At least this time I will have a better idea of what I am doing. Yay...  :-/


I feel that I must apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. My phone serves as my digital camera. I couldn't figure out a way to use it to take a picture of itself disassembled. I tried to describe what I encountered using words alone, but if it is terribly unclear, I refer you to the XKCD comic linked at the beginning of this post.

My New Radio

I bought a new radio for my car.

I went with the Alpine iDA-X305S digital media receiver. I chose it for a couple reasons. I was mostly looking for a device that works well with my iPod. Most of the time I prefer to listen to podcasts or to my own music library than to the local radio stations.

So, the main thing that helped me make the decision was that my friend Mike has an earlier version of this radio, and it works very well with his iPod or even just a USB thumb drive. I like the navigation. It is quick to load and responsive.

I ordered mine from Crutchfield. I had heard mostly good things about them. I like their website because it gives tons of detailed information and reviews of the products. Prices were reasonable, they included all the required accessories, and shipping was free. I am very happy with my experience so far. Now I get to learn about their tech support.

So, my new radio has a small problem. When I play podcasts, there is a glitch on the display.

(Please ignore the glare from the camera flash. Yes, I know that I was taking a picture of a backlit display and that the flash served absolutely no purpose except to obscure the otherwise clear image. But I don't feel like walking outside to re-take them. It's cold out there.)

The photo on the left is the radio playing an MP3. The one on the right is a podcast. The weird thing is that it only happens when I am playing podcasts, but it is consistent. With a podcast there is always the same white line that obscures the times at the bottom of the screen. Every time. (I don't know why I had to pause it to take the pictures, but it felt right at the time...)

MP3s? No problem.
Audio books? Just fine.
Podcasts? White line!
Podcast in a playlist? White line!
MP3? Still fine.
Podcast? Line! Grr...

So, on to the troubleshooting.
Maybe something is screwy with the background. There are options for 3 built in backgrounds (referred to as BGV in the options) or for adding your own. I tried a different built in one. Same problem. I downloaded one from the Alpine website, figured out how to copy it to the radio, and set it as the background. Same problem. It is not the background.

Maybe it is my iPod. Mine is a 5th generation iPod Video, though I have never played video on it. It always seemed like a silly feature on a device with that small of a screen, but I digress. I have had it for over three years, but it is updated to the latest version firmware. Regardless, it was easy enough to try Mike's much newer iPod Classic. Same problem. I tried playing a podcast from my iPod on Mike's very similar radio, and his screen does not have the problem. It is not the iPod.

Since I was unable to find anything about this issue on the internet, I am hopeful that the problem is with just this radio. Or that it is easily fixed. Either way, I will post with updates when I learn more.