Magnets, How They DO Work

Love bug season has descended unexpectedly early here in north central Florida.

Love bugs love lovin' at our expense.

 
Swarms of these annoying insects, male and female joined at the butt, fly adrift, ready albeit unwilling to let themselves be splattered at high speed against the finish of your car. Given time and accelerated by summer heat, their acidic gut chemistry can pit the paint and fill the delicate fins of your radiator with bug parts.

An easy, somewhat ghetto measure can be taken to protect the radiator and engine compartment from these annoying insects. All you need is some plastic screening material, a dead hard drive, and scissors.

I drive a minivan, so I don't much care about its finish, I'm more concerned about function than form. In my case, I just cut a swatch of plastic screening material large enough to cover the radiator openings in the front grille, then secured it at either top corner with a rare-earth magnet salvaged from a long-dead hard drive.

The few inches of overlap will allow the screen to stay draped over the grille openings while driving, as will the curve of the grille itself. A masochist might go so far as to have a wire mesh complete with some power running through it to act as a mobile bug zapper and decrease the bug population, but I lack the motivation and time to go that far, I'm content to just keep them out.

Now my engine can remain bug free, without compromising airflow the engine needs so that the radiator can dissipate heat on the road.

Viewsonic G Tablet DIY Screen Protector

I recently purchased the Viewsonic G Tablet. Once you dump the factory ROM, it's great, but unfortunately its glossy surface is a fingerprint magnet and the glare can be pretty bad in bright light.

  
There are some commercially available, custom fit, and relatively expensive screen protectors out there, but paying upwards of $20 for a transparent piece of floppy plastic is a bit overkill in my mind. Another quite effective and relatively inexpensive solution to protect the screen involves using frisket film, a clear, nearly transparent adhesive film used for tracing, stencils, and related tasks.

I opted for the cheaper route. Care to try it? 

Here's how.

First get some matte frisket film. The "low tack" variety works just fine; it adheres snugly, yet can be easily peeled away without leaving residue. You can print out this template as a guide. Use some paper clips to secure the roughly 9 x 12" frisket film to the template. Then, using a sharp razor or knife, carefully cut along the whitespace between the inner and outer black borders. After cutting, you can trim the corners of the film to accommodate the curves of the tablet, and also cut out a notch for its built-in camera.

Thoroughly clean the surface of the tablet with a damp, lint-free cloth to remove dust and hair. Then, put on a pair of powder-free surgical gloves (latex or non depending on whether you're allergic or not), remove the backing from the frisket film.

Carefully apply the film onto the tablet surface. It helps to have a straightedge handy for this process. Begin with one edge and even up the border of the film with that of the tablet, then carefully smooth the film onto the surface of the tablet, and with a very careful scraping action use the straightedge to apply the film.

Bubbles may form, but some of these you'll be able to work out by carefully "massaging" the film's surface. Over time, any remaining bubbles that are tiny (roughly the size of pinholes) should gradually fade away.

I did notice that the translucence of the film did detract, but only slightly, from the sharpness of the text, but the photo below doesn't do the film justice. The touch sensitivity is just as good as it was prior to applying the film, and over time I'm guessing the minute bubbles will fade away.

Given that each sheet of frisket film in a 12 pack ends up costing around $1.25 apiece, the future prospect of replacing a worn film is far better than the initial cost of an expensive precut film. In this case, a little work means a lot of savings, as well as reducing glare without compromising the sensitivity of the Viewsonic G Tablet touch screen.

Solar Pool Heater DIY Leak Repair

Mighty Putty is one of the last products sponsored in part by the late Billy Mays.

Boasting the ability to bond numerous materials with the holding power of epoxy, including water pipes, I wondered whether this stuff could tackle a problem with some leaking HiTec solar pool heating panels.

Some years ago, I had a HiTec solar system installed to heat my swimming pool with solar energy. Consisting of a series of black panels of tubes which convey pool water up and onto the roof, given enough sunlight the system makes an otherwise chilly pool very swimmable.

Made of a rigid, ultraviolet-resistant plastic, the panels can be damaged by, say, falling tree branches or, as my contractor claimed, squirrels. The contractor who installed the system claimed that leaks that had developed in a couple of the panels recently were attributable to "squirrel damage" which conveniently for them is one type not covered by the manufacturer's limited warranty. 

Aside from the fact that no plastic-hungry squirrels nor squirrel spoor laden with plastic shavings had been discovered on my property, making determining the actual cause of the damage a difficult enterprise to say the least, this also meant that the contractor would be able to collect a roughly $135 service call fee to service the system for an out-of-warranty repair. How convenient that the contractor could fall back on these dastardly, elusive squirrels as the cause and not something actually covered by the warranty!

Commonly found, uncommonly evil, or so the contractor claims...

I wondered whether Mighty Putty might be able to save me some money.

I had basically two types of defects that had arisen in one of the panel arrays. One was a section of one of the tubes that appeared to have cracked off, a structural defect about 2" long.

Before application... a huge chunk of tube is missing.

Another consisted of pinhole leaks caused by abrasions to the plastic tubing, whether by falling tree branches impacting the panels, or the aforementioned scrabbling squirrels. Generally, since a solar system benefits from as much sun exposure as possible, installation under trees is inadvisable, but sometimes unavoidable. Unfortunately, a pine tree, a few of whose branches overhang the roof, probably were the culprit, both as a result of falling debris and as a squirrel habitat.

Following the instructions, I sliced about a 1" wide section of Mighty Putty, and kneaded it thoroughly for several minutes until it became a uniform, grayish consistency indicating that it's ready for use.

I roughened the area around the breach with some sandpaper and blew the resulting dust away. Then, I molded the putty into roughly the shape of a drinking straw cut in half lengthwise, large enough to encompass the hole and replace the missing plastic. Finally, I molded the putty patch onto the empty area and took care to apply even pressure all along the seam to ensure maximum contact with the plastic.

After application, covering the gap.

The pinhole leaks required slightly less putty to fix, but a similar process. To these I applied small dabs of putty sufficient to completely cover the holes.

For plumbing repairs, the makers of Mighty Putty boast a cure time of as little as 30 minutes before pressure is restored. HiTec states that their panels are pressure tested up to 90 psi, but that typically a swimming pool solar heating system will hover around 20 to 40 psi. I figured that this pressure is probably less than that of household plumbing. I would soon find out for sure. I climbed the roof, applied the putty, and allowed it to set for a full 24 hours just to be safe. The result? 

Success! The putty stopped the leaks in their tracks. 

It remains to be seen whether the putty will stand up to daily exposure to sun and chlorinated, pressurized pool water, but for now, the putty fully filled my expectations for far less than the cost of a service call, as well as saving me the time and trouble that would necessitate getting the perforated panel replaced outright.

Well done, Billy Mays. R.I.P.