The other day, my Black & Decker PowerShot staple gun failed to reset, again. Usually banging it on the side of the table would do the trick, but not this time. I banged and banged to no avail. I checked for jams. There were none to be found. It was broken.
I decided to take it apart and see if I could find something loose or broken and easily replaced. This failed. As soon as I removed the last screw and separated the halves of the case it went all splody sending several parts around the room, propelled by the springs inside. So be it. Repairability was a long shot on something this cheap. There is always a trade off to be made between initial manufacturing cost and repairability. When something is cheap the balance usually leans towards low manufacturing cost. I had already resolved to buy a new one if I couldn't fix this one, so I wasn't too upset.
You'd think this would be an easy enough endeavor—You'd think. I went to Target and picked up a Stanley TR45 and some staples. I was only planning to staple some thin polyethylene tubes so I didn't need a heavy duty model. The one thing I liked about this was that you could open it to clear jams.
The packaging said it took JT21 staples so that's what I bought, but he damn things didn't fit. They were slightly too narrow to fit on the rail upon which they slide. Figuring I just got a bad batch of staples I went to my Local Ace hardware and bought another box from another manufacturer. They didn't fit either.
So the staple gun was the one that was mis-made.
What the Fuck! These are staples and staple guns, not mechanical watches. The tolerances aren't that tight. Cheap Chinese manufacturing shouldn't be a factor here. If I were stapling up a tarp to hide a camp fire from the ravenous undead, I'd have been fucked.
Since burning the gas to return it would cost almost as much as the thing costs I decided to try to fix it by bending in the edges of the rail. This didn't work so I just threw it away.
I then went back to my local Ace and bought an Arrow T50 because the box claimed it took the same size staples I already bought and it was made in the U.S. It worked fine.
The poorly made staple gun was bad enough but why isn't there an industry standard for staple sizes? There is for the office type paper staplers. ISO has standards for pretty much everything else. Seriously, if it can be measured ISO probably has a standard for it. As an American I know that the standard sized staples wouldn't be available to me since they would be metric, but the more things that have an international metric standard, the more pressure there is for the U.S. to finally get with it.
When the dead rise to mack on our brainy goodness we are going to need to do a lot of improvisation. We are not going to have the luxury of making return trips to the deserted hardware stores for consumables of just the right dimensions or dealing with tools that can't even do what they are manufactured to do.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Yankee Screwdriver
I've recently re-discovered a piece of retro-tech that should never have been abandoned, the Yankee screwdriver, and I don't seem to be the only one to have done so.
These are the screwdrivers where the blade is turned by the user pushing down on the handle. Ask Mr. Google for pictures and a more elaborate description of how they work.
They seem to have fallen from fashion with the introduction of cordless electric screwdrivers and drills, which I am now abandoning.
Let's consider the downsides of the standard manual screwdriver. First, they're slow. You can let go and reposition your hand on the tool only so many times in a given time frame and your wrist can only be rotated so much. For a long screw this can be annoyingly time consuming.
Secondly, it is difficult to keep them centered when repositioning for the next turn, especially with that bane of humanity, the slotted screw.
For years now, people have been using corded drills to drive screws. This is usually fine on the bench or when working on a medium sized piece that doesn't involve moving around a lot, tangling the cord and creating a trip hazard, but not when you are moving around a large piece of furniture or something along those lines. And frequently you have to dig up an extension cord, just to use it.
Cordless drills solve the problems of cord tangling and the need for an extension cord but then there is the problem that no one has managed to invent a battery that doesn't suck. They never seem to be charged when you realize you need them so you have to find something else to do while you charge the battery. After a number of chargings they fail to hold much of a charge. They are always in some proprietary, unopenable enclosure so it is frequently cheaper to buy a new drill than it is to buy new batteries. When you really want to apply a lot of torque they drain quickly. And they are big and clunky.
Dedicated cordless power screwdrivers are just junior versions of the drills, with the size problem somewhat mitigated.
One shortcoming of all the power options share is that you really can't control the speed of rotation or feel the torque being applied to the screw.
The Yankee has none of these failings.
It is powered by your own muscles, meaning no battery or cord and you can feel what you are doing and it won't run out of power. You push it up and down so you don't have to reset it for multiple turns. And they are small and light.
I believe that there are several reasons it failed in the market. One is that people, especially male people, are easily seduced by the latest gizmo. I know I am.
Probably, the major reason they failed is that they Stanley failed to adapt. The major shortcoming of the Yankee was the bits. When the cordless electrics came out, they used the, what are now standard, hexagonal bits, which were already in use in bit switching manual screwdrivers. The Yankee used Stanleys* own style bits which when lost were hard to find and expensive to replace. I don't know why Stanley failed to change the Yankee to accept the standard bits. It could be that they thought that thought that they could get away with what printer manufacturers are doing now, trying to keep people locked into a proprietary format. Or, since they made the electric drills and screwdrivers they may have thought that the Yankee was just obsolete. Or it could have been just an oversight. I don't know.
The Good news is that there are still lots of them to be found at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and on Ebay and there are several companies making adapters so you can use the hexagonal bits with an original Yankee.
The better news is that two companies have started making them. One is a Chinese company that is called Isomax or Easypower. It's hard to tell what is the company name and which is the product name from the packaging. The other is A German Company called Robert Schröeder. The Chinese company makes a 17 inch one and Schröeder makes an 8.5 incher an 11.5 incher and a 17.5 incher. All take the hexagonal bits except for the Schröeder 8.5 incher, which uses the old Stanley style bits but it does have bit storage in the handle.
I bought the Chinese one and the Schröeder 8.5 incher. The Chinese one is as well made as any genuine Yankee I've seen. It has a plastic handle which some people might see as a shortcoming but I think it's better than wood. The length can make it somewhat unwieldy but this would also apply to the long Schröeder. Because of this I use the Schröeder the most. When building a computer I pretty much only use the Phillips #2 bit which stays in the chuck so the limited bit choices aren't that important. If I ever need to use some of the other bits I have a genuine Yankee and an adapter, although I suppose I could use the adapter with the Schröeder.
They do make drill bits for these, which makes sense they are also know as push drills. I've never used them as drills so I don't know how well they work as such and the only bit size that seems to be available is for drywall screws.
The fact that these don't need electricity to work and can tighten and remove screws quickly means that this is something you're definitely going to want during and after the Zombie Apocalypse.
*I don't approve of possessive apostrophes and I'm not using them unless the noun is plural and pluralized with an "s".
These are the screwdrivers where the blade is turned by the user pushing down on the handle. Ask Mr. Google for pictures and a more elaborate description of how they work.
They seem to have fallen from fashion with the introduction of cordless electric screwdrivers and drills, which I am now abandoning.
Let's consider the downsides of the standard manual screwdriver. First, they're slow. You can let go and reposition your hand on the tool only so many times in a given time frame and your wrist can only be rotated so much. For a long screw this can be annoyingly time consuming.
Secondly, it is difficult to keep them centered when repositioning for the next turn, especially with that bane of humanity, the slotted screw.
For years now, people have been using corded drills to drive screws. This is usually fine on the bench or when working on a medium sized piece that doesn't involve moving around a lot, tangling the cord and creating a trip hazard, but not when you are moving around a large piece of furniture or something along those lines. And frequently you have to dig up an extension cord, just to use it.
Cordless drills solve the problems of cord tangling and the need for an extension cord but then there is the problem that no one has managed to invent a battery that doesn't suck. They never seem to be charged when you realize you need them so you have to find something else to do while you charge the battery. After a number of chargings they fail to hold much of a charge. They are always in some proprietary, unopenable enclosure so it is frequently cheaper to buy a new drill than it is to buy new batteries. When you really want to apply a lot of torque they drain quickly. And they are big and clunky.
Dedicated cordless power screwdrivers are just junior versions of the drills, with the size problem somewhat mitigated.
One shortcoming of all the power options share is that you really can't control the speed of rotation or feel the torque being applied to the screw.
The Yankee has none of these failings.
It is powered by your own muscles, meaning no battery or cord and you can feel what you are doing and it won't run out of power. You push it up and down so you don't have to reset it for multiple turns. And they are small and light.
I believe that there are several reasons it failed in the market. One is that people, especially male people, are easily seduced by the latest gizmo. I know I am.
Probably, the major reason they failed is that they Stanley failed to adapt. The major shortcoming of the Yankee was the bits. When the cordless electrics came out, they used the, what are now standard, hexagonal bits, which were already in use in bit switching manual screwdrivers. The Yankee used Stanleys* own style bits which when lost were hard to find and expensive to replace. I don't know why Stanley failed to change the Yankee to accept the standard bits. It could be that they thought that thought that they could get away with what printer manufacturers are doing now, trying to keep people locked into a proprietary format. Or, since they made the electric drills and screwdrivers they may have thought that the Yankee was just obsolete. Or it could have been just an oversight. I don't know.
The Good news is that there are still lots of them to be found at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and on Ebay and there are several companies making adapters so you can use the hexagonal bits with an original Yankee.
The better news is that two companies have started making them. One is a Chinese company that is called Isomax or Easypower. It's hard to tell what is the company name and which is the product name from the packaging. The other is A German Company called Robert Schröeder. The Chinese company makes a 17 inch one and Schröeder makes an 8.5 incher an 11.5 incher and a 17.5 incher. All take the hexagonal bits except for the Schröeder 8.5 incher, which uses the old Stanley style bits but it does have bit storage in the handle.
I bought the Chinese one and the Schröeder 8.5 incher. The Chinese one is as well made as any genuine Yankee I've seen. It has a plastic handle which some people might see as a shortcoming but I think it's better than wood. The length can make it somewhat unwieldy but this would also apply to the long Schröeder. Because of this I use the Schröeder the most. When building a computer I pretty much only use the Phillips #2 bit which stays in the chuck so the limited bit choices aren't that important. If I ever need to use some of the other bits I have a genuine Yankee and an adapter, although I suppose I could use the adapter with the Schröeder.
They do make drill bits for these, which makes sense they are also know as push drills. I've never used them as drills so I don't know how well they work as such and the only bit size that seems to be available is for drywall screws.
The fact that these don't need electricity to work and can tighten and remove screws quickly means that this is something you're definitely going to want during and after the Zombie Apocalypse.
*I don't approve of possessive apostrophes and I'm not using them unless the noun is plural and pluralized with an "s".
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Alarm Clocks
I just can't seem to find an alarm clock that just doesn't suck. The makers of these things all seem to think that everyone works the same hours five days a week, has perfect vision, and never mis-presses a control.
There are plenty of alarm clocks out there with large numerical displays. That isn't the only thing people need to see. Now days most have little icons on the face to tell you if the alarm in engaged, whether it will be the radio or a chime when it goes off, whether you are in standard or summer time (kind of useless), your time zone (more useless), AM/PM (I'd be just as happy with 24 hour time) and I'm sure some things that escape me right now.
I don't have much problem with the displays, but there is room for improvement. The icon that shows whether or not the alarm in engaged should be large enough for someone who wears glasses to see it without them. The rest can remain small or simply leave the indication to the position of the switch on the back.
Color could be used. Most are still segmented LED displays. With two primary color LEDs for each segment you would have the possibility for three colors them.
Red & green gives you the additional possibility of yellow.
Red & blue gives you the additional possibility of purple.
Green & blue gives you the additional possibility of cyan, but this is hard to distinguish by eye.
The color of the display could be used to show AM vs. PM. The color of the icon could be used to show whether alarm will be the chime or the radio. There are other options to be worked out through user testing.
Buttons are a huge issue. Almost every alarm clock I see has buttons of the same shape and size with the function labeling molded in or in small type adjacent to the button itself. Neither option is good for someone with poor vision in a poorly lit or dark room.
I know that the Genius Designers will hate this. They all seem to want to be in MOMA, but this is a fucking tool. Each button should have a distinctive shape and/or color indicating it's function and should, of course, be as large a practicable.
Mistakes should be back-outable. The one I have now (the RCA RP5430) has a Nap button which simply starts a countdown selectable in ten minute increments. This is a nice feature. The only problem is that you can't back out of it, or, if you can, the way to do so isn't apparent without reading the instruction sheet that I threw out ages ago. When I accidentally hit it I have to set it to its minimum time and wait for it to go off before I even think of going to sleep for real.
Lastly a word about functionality missing in every alarm clock I've looked at As I've mentioned, not everyone gets up at the same time every day of the week. I have four different times in an average week. Changing the alarm four times a week sucks. I'm sure that there are some with even more wake up times than me and I'm sure it sucks more for them. Sometimes people who share a bed have different schedules for getting up. This means that a non-sucky alarm clock would have one preset per person per day of the week, fourteen in all. Add another for unusual occasions for fifteen.
What sucks is that making an alarm clock with these features isn't hard or costly. Modern programmable processors are cheap especially in bulk.
I'm not sure about the usefulness of an alarm clock after the zombie apocalypse. Survivors should travel in groups to watch each others backs and to have someone to stand watch while the others sleep. An alarm clock would only serve to attract the undead.
There are plenty of alarm clocks out there with large numerical displays. That isn't the only thing people need to see. Now days most have little icons on the face to tell you if the alarm in engaged, whether it will be the radio or a chime when it goes off, whether you are in standard or summer time (kind of useless), your time zone (more useless), AM/PM (I'd be just as happy with 24 hour time) and I'm sure some things that escape me right now.
I don't have much problem with the displays, but there is room for improvement. The icon that shows whether or not the alarm in engaged should be large enough for someone who wears glasses to see it without them. The rest can remain small or simply leave the indication to the position of the switch on the back.
Color could be used. Most are still segmented LED displays. With two primary color LEDs for each segment you would have the possibility for three colors them.
Red & green gives you the additional possibility of yellow.
Red & blue gives you the additional possibility of purple.
Green & blue gives you the additional possibility of cyan, but this is hard to distinguish by eye.
The color of the display could be used to show AM vs. PM. The color of the icon could be used to show whether alarm will be the chime or the radio. There are other options to be worked out through user testing.
Buttons are a huge issue. Almost every alarm clock I see has buttons of the same shape and size with the function labeling molded in or in small type adjacent to the button itself. Neither option is good for someone with poor vision in a poorly lit or dark room.
I know that the Genius Designers will hate this. They all seem to want to be in MOMA, but this is a fucking tool. Each button should have a distinctive shape and/or color indicating it's function and should, of course, be as large a practicable.
Mistakes should be back-outable. The one I have now (the RCA RP5430) has a Nap button which simply starts a countdown selectable in ten minute increments. This is a nice feature. The only problem is that you can't back out of it, or, if you can, the way to do so isn't apparent without reading the instruction sheet that I threw out ages ago. When I accidentally hit it I have to set it to its minimum time and wait for it to go off before I even think of going to sleep for real.
Lastly a word about functionality missing in every alarm clock I've looked at As I've mentioned, not everyone gets up at the same time every day of the week. I have four different times in an average week. Changing the alarm four times a week sucks. I'm sure that there are some with even more wake up times than me and I'm sure it sucks more for them. Sometimes people who share a bed have different schedules for getting up. This means that a non-sucky alarm clock would have one preset per person per day of the week, fourteen in all. Add another for unusual occasions for fifteen.
What sucks is that making an alarm clock with these features isn't hard or costly. Modern programmable processors are cheap especially in bulk.
I'm not sure about the usefulness of an alarm clock after the zombie apocalypse. Survivors should travel in groups to watch each others backs and to have someone to stand watch while the others sleep. An alarm clock would only serve to attract the undead.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Can Openers
About a year and a half ago I lost my can opener of 15 years. I probably dropped it in the trash and took it out to the Dumpster without noticing. One would think that this is a trivial replacement. This was not the case. I've gone through quite a few in the last 18ish months and finally found a good one.
First I'll talk about the bad ones.
The first one I bought was the butterfly type with the punch that pokes a triangular hole in the can at one end and a bottle opener at the other. It had a small blade that cuts the metal and a drive wheel that is rotated with the butterfly crank. This just didn't work well. The wheel didn't grip the edge of the can unless you held it at just the right angle and really squeezed the handles, hurting my hand. And, because of the need to really squeeze the handles it didn't last long. I bought it because it was all I could find at the grocery store and it was cheap. I went through several of these.
For a while after that I just used the can opener on my Leatherman multitool. This worked but it was slow going and it left very jagged edges on the top of the can making it difficult to remove.
The next one I bought was one of those side cutting types, this one from OXO. It was kind of expensive. It felt great in the hand. The handles and crank are large and have a slightly grippy surface. Most importantly it also opened the can easily.
Unfortunately there are a couple deal breaking downsides. The first is that it takes a lot of drawer space. It a small kitchen that is an issue. The large handles and padding pretty much made it impossible to throw it in the drawer, give the drawer a little shake and have it fit with all the other crap that is in there.
The second failing is something many people think is a plus. It's a side cutter. This is to reduce the risk of cutting yourself on the sharp edges that top cutters leave.
Come on people. You are in a room full of knives. Exercising the caution needed to avoid injury is part of being there. Our ancestors butchered game with obsidian knives. We should be able to open a can without hurting ourselves.
The real problem with side cutters appears when you open a can of tuna or meat packed in broth. With a top cutter you just hold the can over the sink and press the freshly cut top into the can to squeeze the fluid out through a gap that is just the right size. With side cutter the top won't fit inside the can and if you try to hold it on the edge and pour you will probably wind up spilling the contents and still find that a lot of fluid stays behind.
After all this I decided to find out the brand of my old one. That's right. I actually did pre-purchase research on a can opener.
After a little bit of googling I found that is was a Swing-a-Way 407xx (the 'X's representing a color code). I now knew what to look for in the stores. Target Ho!.
It turned out that Target had them … sort of. They didn't have the normal model 407 but some "special" one with a modified design by Michael Graves, that was kind of expensive. The plastic handles he replaced the metal ones with spun around and fell off. He added a grippy surface to the crank, which was nice, but I could tell would be a point failure in the future and a magnet to remove tops that fall in that just wasn't strong enough to do so. It was all marketing gimickry, trivial "improvements" and a "designer" label. Only a big shot celebrity designer could take a design that has been around since the thirties and make it worse. I promptly returned it, and I guess a lot of people have done so since it isn't on Targets web site.
The good news is that I finally found one in my local Ace hardware. I should just start going there first since they always seem to have what I'm looking for. The bad news is that they are now made in China. It looks and feels as I remember my old one did. Knowing the Chinese reputation for using cheap steel only time will tell if it is made as well.
This episode is more evidence of something I've been more and more convinced of over the years. It is a rare event when modifications of mature technology are a net improvement and frequently are just useless bells and whistles. The fat handles on the OXO were offset by the extra drawer space it took. The side cutter's reduction of the small risk of a minor injury was offset by the definite increase of spillage. The Michael Graves modifications made it look good in the store but reduced its actual usefulness.
Now that I have a good can opener they'll probably start putting pop tops on everything.
SECOND/ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: While bemoaning my can opener woes some people have suggested an electric one. Besides the fact that they are just indolent (unless you are arthritic), they take up counter space, use electricity, which isn't free, they would be useless after a zombie apocalypse, by which time I would be using my Leatherman multitool anyway.
First I'll talk about the bad ones.
The first one I bought was the butterfly type with the punch that pokes a triangular hole in the can at one end and a bottle opener at the other. It had a small blade that cuts the metal and a drive wheel that is rotated with the butterfly crank. This just didn't work well. The wheel didn't grip the edge of the can unless you held it at just the right angle and really squeezed the handles, hurting my hand. And, because of the need to really squeeze the handles it didn't last long. I bought it because it was all I could find at the grocery store and it was cheap. I went through several of these.
For a while after that I just used the can opener on my Leatherman multitool. This worked but it was slow going and it left very jagged edges on the top of the can making it difficult to remove.
The next one I bought was one of those side cutting types, this one from OXO. It was kind of expensive. It felt great in the hand. The handles and crank are large and have a slightly grippy surface. Most importantly it also opened the can easily.
Unfortunately there are a couple deal breaking downsides. The first is that it takes a lot of drawer space. It a small kitchen that is an issue. The large handles and padding pretty much made it impossible to throw it in the drawer, give the drawer a little shake and have it fit with all the other crap that is in there.
The second failing is something many people think is a plus. It's a side cutter. This is to reduce the risk of cutting yourself on the sharp edges that top cutters leave.
Come on people. You are in a room full of knives. Exercising the caution needed to avoid injury is part of being there. Our ancestors butchered game with obsidian knives. We should be able to open a can without hurting ourselves.
The real problem with side cutters appears when you open a can of tuna or meat packed in broth. With a top cutter you just hold the can over the sink and press the freshly cut top into the can to squeeze the fluid out through a gap that is just the right size. With side cutter the top won't fit inside the can and if you try to hold it on the edge and pour you will probably wind up spilling the contents and still find that a lot of fluid stays behind.
After all this I decided to find out the brand of my old one. That's right. I actually did pre-purchase research on a can opener.
After a little bit of googling I found that is was a Swing-a-Way 407xx (the 'X's representing a color code). I now knew what to look for in the stores. Target Ho!.
It turned out that Target had them … sort of. They didn't have the normal model 407 but some "special" one with a modified design by Michael Graves, that was kind of expensive. The plastic handles he replaced the metal ones with spun around and fell off. He added a grippy surface to the crank, which was nice, but I could tell would be a point failure in the future and a magnet to remove tops that fall in that just wasn't strong enough to do so. It was all marketing gimickry, trivial "improvements" and a "designer" label. Only a big shot celebrity designer could take a design that has been around since the thirties and make it worse. I promptly returned it, and I guess a lot of people have done so since it isn't on Targets web site.
The good news is that I finally found one in my local Ace hardware. I should just start going there first since they always seem to have what I'm looking for. The bad news is that they are now made in China. It looks and feels as I remember my old one did. Knowing the Chinese reputation for using cheap steel only time will tell if it is made as well.
This episode is more evidence of something I've been more and more convinced of over the years. It is a rare event when modifications of mature technology are a net improvement and frequently are just useless bells and whistles. The fat handles on the OXO were offset by the extra drawer space it took. The side cutter's reduction of the small risk of a minor injury was offset by the definite increase of spillage. The Michael Graves modifications made it look good in the store but reduced its actual usefulness.
Now that I have a good can opener they'll probably start putting pop tops on everything.
SECOND/ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: While bemoaning my can opener woes some people have suggested an electric one. Besides the fact that they are just indolent (unless you are arthritic), they take up counter space, use electricity, which isn't free, they would be useless after a zombie apocalypse, by which time I would be using my Leatherman multitool anyway.
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