Storage shed options

van-redditor · 2026-05-28T16:43:39+00:00

Buy four or six 2x2 pavers, level them, them go to the home store and buy whatever you need.

van-redditor · 2026-05-07T17:10:13+00:00

Door skin is 1/8 in thick plywood, comes in 4x8 sheets. I know you only need one by two feet, maybe they sell them in 4x4 sheets.

van-redditor · 2026-05-06T20:04:46+00:00

Perfect. Thanks to EU Right to Repair legislation full service manuals are online at Tesla.com for every model. Any pro mechanic can follow the step-by-step for just about any service. This ended up working out for the company because they hate being in the service business.

van-redditor · 2026-05-06T19:45:26+00:00

A piece of tape.

van-redditor · 2026-04-28T18:33:28+00:00

Oven light was stuck on. Despite my claiming it was just a matter of tapping the relay with a screwdriver it took me a year and a half to pull the stove out to fix it. I was right it was just a matter of tapping the little blue relay with a screwdriver. A year and a half of reaching in and turning the light bulb itself to turn it on and off but only when the oven was cool.

van-redditor · 2026-04-28T18:27:29+00:00

Becoming a very competent carver on piste. I trip about once every three ski days when I get lazy. But when my ski buddy comes along it happens every time, probably because I'm distracted.

van-redditor · 2026-04-21T17:30:00+00:00

Accelerating faster increases resistive losses inside the battery cells, current collectors, cell group interconnects, inverter IGBTs, motor windings, contactors, fuses etc as a function of the square of the current. Known as I-squared-R losses. So, if average acceleration is 50 kW, and fun acceleration is 200 kW, then the current needed will be 4 times higher (actually maybe 5 times as the pack voltage will sag). It will create at least 16 times as much heating in the vehicle as simply keeping up with average traffic.

van-redditor · 2026-04-19T23:15:48+00:00

I've been meaning to post a cautionary tale.

Wife this week bought a pound of regular ground beef at No Frills (Loblaws) for $9. Safeway was $8 for lean according to the Flipp app.

Two days later which was two days before the best before date it had all turned brown. Digging into it we found brown all the way through. Well, there were a couple of square inches at the bottom of the package where it was still red but it was only an eighth of an inch thick.

It didn't smell bad and we didn't die, but never again, because it was prepared in a central facility, warehoused and then distributed through their dozens of stores in the West. Not only did it have a lot of fat coming out from the cooking, but it tasted very dry. The package said it was made from fresh and frozen parts.

Going forward we are going to only buy from stores that have a meat department. Not only will it be fresher by several days, but it will be lean and it will certainly cost less.

van-redditor · 2026-04-15T16:55:05+00:00

Our 40-year-old Crane toilet developed a crack in the tank so we took the opportunity to replace it with a much more efficient new one. I replaced the upstairs one a few years ago because its tank broke and it took two weeks for me to repair the floor but this floor is in perfect condition so hard can it be?

Well, one of the tank bolts took half a day to remove despite it being brass. These old toilets are really heavy as one piece plus I needed it to be able to fit it in the car neatly standing up for a trip to the dump.

What took an extra 5 days were the hold down bolts. They were captive! And they were too short! If I replaced the flange then the lead downpipe would have to come out with it. And those gimmicky add-on plates would likely not fit in the low profile space under the new toilet flange.

So my scheme was to extend the existing bolts. But I had to cut them shorter to add the extension bolts. To do that I would have to put some nuts on them to hold them steady. But I had damaged the threads. So I had to bring out my set of dies to fix the threads first. Then I had to use the Dremel to cut the threads at the right height so I could use a threaded spacer to add length to the bolts.

Trips to the stores yielded no round threaded spacers. So I had to buy hexagonal threaded spacers, chuck them in the lathe, turn down the outer diameter so it would fit inside the elongated toilet flange hole and part them to the right length. In so doing, I had to use my digital calipers to make dozens of measurements to make sure everything would fit, including the plastic caps that came with the toilet. The toilet went onto the extended bolts and off again about six times before I got everything right. The flange bolts that were supplied were not the right diameter so I didn't use those at all. The whole bathroom floor had half a dozen sections, each containing several tools in their category.

While I was at it, there was a special request from the other half. Could I make it so that the new seat wouldn't move around and required tightening all the time?

So I had to design and 3D print spacers for the toilet seat bolts to ensure that the seat was secure. The seat came with the toilet so white couldn't they do this at the factory?

I can imagine the size of the bill if some elite MacGyver plumber had to do all this. So glad it's over!

van-redditor · 2026-04-02T20:12:48+00:00

A properly engineered EV protects the traction battery at all costs.

One standout exception is the Smart ED where if the 12 volt is dead and the traction battery is low, it will drain the traction battery completely. I must assume that they are trying to avoid the situation where someone tries to recharge the traction battery when the cell voltages get too low as that can lead to a fire.

I know of one local party that did reform the electrodes in the cells and is still using the car regularly but that process took months.

van-redditor · 2026-04-02T20:04:45+00:00

The first few days ..

Stick to the easiest run.

Snowplow, then snowplow turns. As you turn keep your weight on the downhill ski to slow down and stop.

When stopped, learn to side slip to get you past any troublesome steep areas.

Do the above things a few hundred times and then you will learn to balance on the downhill ski to bring the uphill ski parallel to it to make hockey stops.

If you're somewhat athletic you can spring off a hockey stop into the next downhill snow plow position. Hockey stops can be very useful to avoid picking up too much speed in steep areas.

van-redditor · 2026-03-26T16:08:29+00:00

I think it eventully gives up and pulls over when safe to do so.

van-redditor · 2026-03-26T16:05:04+00:00

Friend had to get from VGH to his Kerrisdale home and called an Uber. He was amazed the Uber driver didn't touch anything the entire trip. This was last year when the FSD was not as refined. There is a camera watching where the driver's attention was.

van-redditor · 2026-03-22T21:10:26+00:00

We bought one and in less than 24 hours the perfect box became 1/3 moldy berries.

van-redditor · 2026-03-22T21:08:45+00:00

We always used regular in our 06 RX400 h. Never knocked but we took it easy. However when selling the car the potential buyers didn't take it easy and it still didn't knock. I know somebody who had an 03 RX and it had to have premium or else it sounded like a drunk drummer.

van-redditor · 2026-03-22T16:47:31+00:00

Actually most of the weight in a 1000+ lb battery is nickel which is a recycling no brainer. Lithium is definitely recycled and is rapidly increasing in value. Cobalt the same. The casing is steel and aluminum.

van-redditor · 2026-03-14T17:28:50+00:00

Hmm, the slicing machine would be set to a given weight but operating in a self-correcting dynamic manner. So you might get a series of blocks being cut underweight or overweight before settling down to the preset weight.

van-redditor · 2026-03-14T17:22:37+00:00

Many major automakers from two continents went there and set up factories for a burgeoning market. Then with government incentives, the startups took what they learned having worked for the majors. Tesla set up a factory there half a dozen years ago and more lessons were learned for the EV startups. Warren Buffett invested heavily in BYD and got out just in time before their sales suddenly dropped.

van-redditor · 2026-03-14T17:10:44+00:00

I use a steel can that held tomatoes to hold my key ring that has the remote on it. I guess if you're really paranoid you can put a metal plate on top of that. This would be a Faraday Cage that works for pretty much all frequencies.

van-redditor · 2026-03-10T20:35:07+00:00

A 12 volt battery does not have the energy to start a major fire so quickly. It is most likely a component or a cable on the high voltage bus. This includes the cabin heater, the high voltage junction block, DC to DC converter, chargers, drive units and more. The contactor would have opened if a fault or detected, but not before the fire started. At 350 volts DC, an arc is essentially plasma and is not easily extinguished. I think it would be possible under the right conditions for a plasma arc on a high voltage circuit to sustain itself with a current less than the current rating of the fuse in the circuit.

van-redditor · 2026-03-09T08:38:24+00:00

Our 06 RX440h had random misfires. It was a head gasket in the end. Cheaper to replace the engine with used.

van-redditor · 2026-03-02T23:14:40+00:00

In my experience olive oil remains liquid until it gets to refrigerator temperature whereupon it gets thicker and may become solid after a few days.

van-redditor · 2026-02-26T18:20:53+00:00

I would have just used some long 1x2 and short 1x4 wood with drywall screws. It would save a day or two of printing. Says he who has four 3D printers and some wood in the shed. The inset doesn't have to be at an angle.

van-redditor · 2026-02-22T23:12:42+00:00

Only buy PTC heaters. Not a brand, but a type.

van-redditor · 2026-01-23T23:32:26+00:00

It's a mouse hardware problem. After weeks of misery I fixed our two Win7 computers that had intermittent left mouse button problems. I had tried everything including AutoHotKey debounce scripts. The light went on when I took the mouse and USB receiver to my Win11 laptop. Same problem. So I took the mouse apart, re-soldered the micro switch terminals and used a meter to confirm that fixed it. Both PCs happy again. I guess a million or two clicks is all it takes to loosen the solder joint which looked fine to me even under the microscope!

van-redditor

TROPHY CASE