Just a short post. I’ve spent the last two days “fixing things.”
Our dishwasher decided to stop emptying the dirty water. I knew exactly what the problem was: the sump/discharge pump had died, again.
Quick order of a $25 part from Amazon, get a hand under the dishwasher, press the release catch, rotate the pump and it comes off in your hand.
Remove the power connector, attach the power connector to new pump, put the pump into place, and rotate until you hear the click. Done.
Except it didn’t resolve the issue.
Call out the repair dude; I didn’t have time to deal with this.
Two weeks later, he’s there. As I suspected, he diagnosed the issue as a dead controller board. This is a $130 part. And it is known to be a quick failure part; if the first dies, the second will die shortly after. Of course, the extra brown on a couple of wires and the look of some ABS connectors made it appear that something had gone overcurrent.
We decided to replace the dishwasher. Communications issues put a delay on that. Then Facebook Marketplace to the rescue. A 300 series Bosch dishwasher for under $200, in good condition.
Which leads us to Saturday, when I’m looking at the new dishwasher and realizing that I don’t see some of the things I expect to see. Turns out that there are missing parts, the power cable for one. Back to Amazon.
That’s tomorrow’s issue: installing the dishwasher, part two.
Meanwhile, I managed to break the 3D printer.
I was changing from ABS to PLA on the external supply. I messed up. Usually the UI just tells you what to do. But I haven’t read the online manual, so there are things I don’t get, and I don’t know I don’t know.
The sequence I had been using, which always worked before, was to unload the old filament, load the new filament, tell the printer the type and color of the newly loaded filament.
This is the wrong sequence.
You first unload the old filament. You then tell the printer the new filament type and color. Then you load the new filament.
When you do it in this order, the printer helpfully tells you, “Don’t push that PLA into the chamber/hotend that is too hot! It will melt and jam things.”
I didn’t get that warning. I pushed the PLA into the extruder; I kept feeding during the “grab filament” stage. And I created a blob after the drive wheels and before the cold end of the nozzle. It couldn’t go forward. The printer then tried to retract the filament. This deformed the filament going the other direction. Locking the end of the filament in the extruder drive.
This was a 15 minute fix, if I had a clue. Instead it took 2 plus hours. But it is fixed and I know more now.
I just have to keep fixing.