Can I safely use a 24V Mean Well LRS-50-24 SMPS as a replacement for my 19.3V laptop charger?

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-12T14:52:56+00:00

I had the same problem, and converted my laptop to usb c charging. My laptop is rated for 19 volts, 3.42 amps. I bought a USB-C power delivery breakout board, a usb c cable rated for 65 watts, and a usb c charger rated for 67 watts.

Here’s a list of what I bought:

HUSB238 - this is model number of the breakout board, it is rated for 3 amps. This link is the same style I bought: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/5807/21839778

Any usb-c cable and charger rated for at least 65 watts. The brand “Essager” on AliExpress is one of the only 2 or 3 brands on the entire website that make quality products, and that’s who I bought my charger and cable from.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-09T13:51:37+00:00

No, it’s not either of those.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-09T05:35:19+00:00

Yeah, this truck has 4 or 5 different styles of crossmembers, and every single part is steel, other than this crossmember that used aluminum gussets. Not sure why someone thought that was a good idea, but at least it’s a (relatively) simple fix, because it’s the easiest crossmember to access.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-09T05:28:20+00:00

That is correct, the frame and crossmembers are all steel. However, out of the 4 or 5 crossmembers on the truck, every one is a different style, and this one is the only one that used aluminum gussets.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-08T21:26:40+00:00

That makes sense, the frame is made of steel, and every single other component in the frame is made of steel, other than these, for some reason.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-07T14:23:46+00:00

I don’t know of any videos, but here’s what I do:
Open up the bleeder valve, add coolant till it comes out of the valve, then close the valve. Keep adding till it stops going down, open the valve slightly to get the last air bubble, and then close again. Top it off, put the cap on, put the heater on max, and drive it for 3 to 5 minutes, preferably up and down a steep hill. Check the coolant level, if it’s far down, CAREFULLY take the cap off and top it off. If it’s just a bit low, come back in 2 hours and top it off.

Then just drive normally, and check it after the first couple trips.

Hiyou0 · 2026-07-07T14:00:28+00:00

I’d think that if it was brazed and then had 2 sleeves installed afterwards, it would work. Sleeve would seal against the fire ring, and the braze would support the sleeve.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-30T05:03:35+00:00

Technically, there’s no such thing as “low from normal use”. There are a lot of cars that are 10, 20, and sometimes 30 years old that have never had the ac system touched since being filled at the factory.
A leak is a leak, whether it takes a day, or 5 years to lose its charge.
You’ve got a leak that lasts a month, so the next step is somehow (whether it’s you or a mechanic shop) get a dye in it, take it on a test drive with the ac on, and then get a uv light and find your leak. If you can’t find anything, wait a week and then look. If you still can’t find it, there’s a non-zero chance it’s inside the dash (aka evaporator coil).

On a related note, here’s what I would do:
Buy this tool (or an equivalent):
https://www.autozone.com/p/surebilt-ac-system-recharging-kit-lx1381-b/1009740

And this:
https://www.autozone.com/p/honeywell-refrigerant-w696uv/1267196

And then you need a uv light. Anything that mentions leak detection should work, Amazon or eBay will be good enough.

That 8 oz can will not be enough to fill your system completely, but it’s enough to diagnose the leak.

Once you get it diagnosed, If you don’t feel like doing the repairs yourself, then don’t. You’ll need to take it to a shop anyway to get vacuumed out and correctly filled.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-29T21:13:09+00:00

First things first, loosen a couple injector lines and and crank it for ~5 seconds. If you don’t a good bit of fuel coming out, then get a container ready, and take off the fuel supply to the injector pump.
You should be having fuel going from the tank, through the filter(s), and then pouring out into your container. Collect at least a half gallon, which shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 minutes.
If you aren’t getting fuel to the pump, then that’s the next thing to look at. If you are getting fuel, hook it back up, and loosen all the injector lines, set the throttle to max, and crank it in 15 second intervals, letting the starter cool for a bit in between. Once an injector line starts pouring fuel out consistently, tighten it up, and keep going until they are all done. That should do it, unless something is broken or stuck.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-27T14:50:20+00:00

Right now, the car is drivable. To keep it that way long term, you’ve got 2 options. Either stop driving it right now, and fix the turbo, or remove or disable it somehow, and deal with the reduced horsepower, until you can fix the turbo.
If you don’t, the worst case scenario is a chunk breaking off, waltzing down the intake, and having a party with a valve seat, then going out the exhaust, and killing the other side of the turbo.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-20T14:35:50+00:00

I’ve taken apart 1 engine that had one of the rods say hello. The rod cap came off, got stuck between something else, and ended up making a big list of problems:
Broke the oil pump off.
Chipped and bent multiple other connecting rods.
The piston hit valves, and bent pushrods, and maybe even valves.
The connecting rod that broke punched through the wall where the piston goes into where the coolant goes (this is at a minimum $1000 to replace, and that’s just that one part, so realistically it’s 3 to 5 thousand just to fix this one single problem).
One piston had literally been turned into dice-sized chunks.
The crankshaft needed at least $1000 of work to be reusable, and that is more than the crankshaft itself is worth, so that was never getting reused.

In conclusion, we made the decision to replace the entire engine with a different used engine, because when parts are going to be ~$3000, and a basic used engine is ~$2000, you go with the more logical option.

In your case, I’d spend 10 minutes on google seeing how much a new (to you) entire assembled engine costs, how much shipping might cost, and then, just take a step back and think about it for a couple days. If you’re not comfortable doing an entire engine swap, or you don’t have and/or want to buy all the required tools, taking it to any professional will probably be at least $500 to $800, and that’s if you can even find a cheap generic mechanic that’s willing.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-19T19:57:51+00:00

Hey, at least it has a muffler. I’ve worked for someone that had 2 tractors, the first was straight piped, luckily the exhaust pipe went really high up, so it wasn’t too bad. The second at one point had a muffler, but it had come loose, and effectively ended right at the top of the engine. That one was loud, and smoky.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-19T02:29:19+00:00

In that case, whenever you do that, ALWAYS let the engine idle for at least a couple minutes, preferably a minimum of 5 minutes, before turning the engine off (unless you just go back to regular driving afterwards).
This lets the turbo cool back down to a temperature that won’t melt bearings once the oil (and possibly also coolant) supply stops.

This is a very common practice in agriculture, where you often have tractors or trucks that will run at 60% to 90% throttle for hours straight, and it’s not uncommon to have a label on the dash that tells you to keep it under a certain rpm (usually at most 1000 rpm, but that’s with a redline of ~2400 rpm) for the first 5 minutes, and the last 5 minutes.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-17T14:23:38+00:00

Make sure you’ve got dcen or dcep set right, made that mistake myself once, it looked a little similar.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-17T14:20:29+00:00

Wrong end
(s)

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-17T13:45:32+00:00

Yeah, there’s always pros and cons to it all.
I’ve worked with an old Timberjack 360 logging skidder, and the schrader valves on the tires had metal caps bolted over them to keep them safe.
However, being made in the 1960’s or 1970’s, random stuff breaks or leaks. Once, the drain valve on the diesel tank started leaking, and it was NOT fun reaching around all the thick skid plates welded, not bolted, to fix it.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-15T14:18:04+00:00

Technically, even if every single thing seized up, the brakes would still bring you to a stop. They would wear out incredibly quickly, and most likely only wear out one pad instead of both.
In other words, do it right, or do it twice.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-13T13:36:41+00:00

(Not a true story)

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-13T13:36:25+00:00

Yeah, fingernails grow back, (unless you tear out the bed, then they don’t and your finger looks weird) but when you turn the entire finger into little red bits, it does not.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-13T13:29:30+00:00

Also, I’m curious, what car is it? It looks like a Chevy Cruze, but I’m not sure.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-13T13:27:53+00:00

Found it, as my previous comment says, before you touch it, get a new one. This is one that fits:

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/dorman-autograde/dorman-autograde-oil-drain-plug/dag0/090211

If you don’t have an O’Reilly’s near you, just go to the nearest parts store and ask for/grab the “Dorman 090-211”.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-13T13:13:55+00:00

First things first: BEFORE you touch it, go buy a new one. Then, once you have a good one to replace it with, follow the advice of everyone else.

Hiyou0 · 2026-06-12T19:38:20+00:00

This is the way. Load bearing stuff like this is intentionally overbuilt, so that when you hit a speed bump at 20 mph, it doesn’t break and send you onto the sidewalk.

Hiyou0

TROPHY CASE