The grumpy thread

[Spiny Norman]

I don't have 4K eyesight anymore.

[Zelandeth]

7 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

My trusty 52" Sony, all singing and dancing television that I picked up for free off Facebook for £notalot just before lockdown has sadly passed away this evening

It was a top of the range telly in its day, costing £3000 in 2011 

And it's picture quality was actually decent and arguably better in some ways than the LG OLED I have in the main room. 

Will I find anything anywhere near as decent to replace it? Probably not. 

If I bought a brand new replacement, would it last 12 years like this one? Probably not. 

Is it worth repairing this one? Probably not. 

Can hardly grumble, it's done well for a freebie. I'm just annoyed because it was such a brilliant telly. It was Full HD, which is better than 4K in my opinion unless you're actually watching 4K content, which I don't. 

What's it doing?  Unless the panel drivers themselves have died it's most likely to just be capacitors in the power supply having got cooked and to be entirely fixable.

[cobblers]

18 hours ago, MikeR said:

The lakes , over rated imho , any way we had a trip to Ambleside yesterday morning for her joy as it was only some 40 mins from the van  , it was ok , got parked up , it got busy as it does as the morning went on , the village idiot was doing wheelies down hill against the flow of traffic , I watched in hope , then after some shopping we headed back for dinner and saw the traffic heading in , it was bumper to bumper ,of course the unattended road works between Ambleside and Windermere , the tractor struggling up the hill with some 600 cars crawling behind it ...

We get home and the local NT car parks are closed off due to being full .. 

Nothing changes .

As with anywhere, people ruin it. If you go to the popular places on a busy day then it is inevitably going to be a fucking nightmare.

We live about a mile from Curbar Edge. Sunny weekend? Fuck that. Can't get anywhere near it, it's literally swarming with fairweather arseholes from sheffield with their dogs running round off the leads, chucking litter all over, car parks are full, all the roads are snarled up with people parked up the verges etc etc.

Go up there on a cold sunday or a weekday evening and it's beautiful and peaceful. End of last summer I went up there one friday after work and stayed the night, pitched up with a view looking over the main edge path and after 6:30pm there wasn't a soul, had the place to myself.

[RoverFolkUs]

5 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

What's it doing?  Unless the panel drivers themselves have died it's most likely to just be capacitors in the power supply having got cooked and to be entirely fixable.

Yes I suppose it will be worth having a look if it does just end up being a capacitor 

According to the internet, it's pointing towards backlight failure though.

It'll switch on, stay on for an unspecified amount of time and then "click off" completely dead and the red led will flash 6 times. 

It then won't turn on until unplugging it them plugging it in again. No real pattern, it seems to last between 10 seconds and 10 minutes before doing it

Sometimes the screen will dim slightly before it cuts out

[Zelandeth]

21 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Yes I suppose it will be worth having a look if it does just end up being a capacitor 

According to the internet, it's pointing towards backlight failure though.

It'll switch on, stay on for an unspecified amount of time and then "click off" completely dead and the red led will flash 6 times. 

It then won't turn on until unplugging it them plugging it in again. No real pattern, it seems to last between 10 seconds and 10 minutes before doing it

Sometimes the screen will dim slightly before it cuts out

That does sound slightly more sinister, though exactly the same fault can cause havoc on the backlight driver board (which is essentially just a high voltage switching power supply), so look for any obviously fried caps there too.

If the lamps(s) have failed though it's probably game over.  While they are theoretically replaceable if you can find spares, it's usually a gigantic pain getting the panel apart far enough to get to them - and even more so to get everything back together again.  

I'd probably try it if I were me, just because I don't like being beaten though!

 

[RoverFolkUs]

3 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

That does sound slightly more sinister, though exactly the same fault can cause havoc on the backlight driver board (which is essentially just a high voltage switching power supply), so look for any obviously fried caps there too.

If the lamps(s) have failed though it's probably game over.  While they are theoretically replaceable if you can find spares, it's usually a gigantic pain getting the panel apart far enough to get to them - and even more so to get everything back together again.  

I'd probably try it if I were me, just because I don't like being beaten though!

 

Thank you for the info,

I'll take a closer look for sure, but yeah, it's a full array local dimming backlight (very advanced for its time) and I don't fancy trying to separate the LCD. 

I can't imagine I'd be able to find brand new parts either so it would be a case of fitting unknown second hand ones, unless it simply component failure on a board which would be a much more viable repair

Failing that I could probably put the stand and remote control on eBay and recoup a little bit towards a replacement. And save them from going in the bin.

I hate throwing things away but I begin to question how much of my time I can allocate to a 12 year old television!

[Zelandeth]

Today's grump:

Seemingly every time I undertake a job requiring a feeler guage, I need to buy a new set.

There must be half a dozen of them in the garage now, can I find one?  Not a chance.

[horriblemercedes]

11 minutes ago, D.E said:

Low mileage bASe Modus with MOT till November. £500.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/renault/renault-modus/1451513288

In that picture it appears to leak oil  from EVERYWHERE

[D.E]

Grump: posting ebay tat in the wrong thread

[Datsuncog]

I thought you were just grumpy that a £500 black-bumper Modus isn't on your driveway yet...

[Split_Pin]

I received the new waterpump for our tumble dryer today and was going to replace it at lunchtime.

GR8 packaging M8:

The packaging offered no protection and the casing is totally smashed.

One for the ebay fuckwits thread.

I have messaged the seller so hopefully I'll receive a replacement or refund. Bloody inconvenient though as the dryer is wailing like a dug that's got its ball stuck under the sofa and I really need to replace the pump ASAP.

[Datsuncog]

Is that... 'Handle with care' tape on the cardboard wrapping inside the bag?

There's no helping some folks.

Hope you get a non-smashed replacement soon!

[omegod]

I knew I'd missed paying a toll on the M50 during a trip to Ireland in November but thought I'd gotten away with it, innocuous looking letter arrived today which promptly sliced into my finger as I pulled it out, Fecker's caught me good.  

[Stanky]

4 minutes ago, omegod said:

I knew I'd missed paying a toll on the M50 during a trip to Ireland in November but thought I'd gotten away with it, innocuous looking letter arrived today which promptly sliced into my finger as I pulled it out, Fecker's caught me good.  

DNA evidence as proof of delivery, sneaky!

[anonymous user]

40 minutes ago, omegod said:

I knew I'd missed paying a toll on the M50 during a trip to Ireland in November but thought I'd gotten away with it, innocuous looking letter arrived today which promptly sliced into my finger as I pulled it out, Fecker's caught me good.  

Nearly as bad as when a colleague got a paper cut from the accident book in work.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

3 minutes ago, anonymous user said:

Nearly as bad as when a colleague got a paper cut from the accident book in work.

I once sliced my thumb open on a first aid box.  The real irony is that the contents were out of date, so I couldn't use them...

[Rust Collector]

8 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

I once sliced my thumb open on a first aid box.  The real irony is that the contents were out of date, so I couldn't use them...

I nicked my hand with a sharp axe at my mother-in-law's house a few years ago. Like all cuts from a very sharp blade, it did nothing to begin with and then suddenly pissed out blood. We got the first aid kit out, and then discovered that it had expired before their communist government had in 1989... We used Vodka from the freezer to disinfect it instead 🤣

[Zelandeth]

After about an hour I gave up on finding any of the sets of feeler guages in the garage.  There must be at least four in there, but they're all hiding apparently.

Figured "No problem, I'll just drop by somewhere and grab a new set."

 

Nine separate shops later, nope!  Have given in and ordered a couple of sets off Amazon.  Which I'd rather not do, but having basically wasted an entire sodding afternoon on this now I had just run out of patience.

[108]

1 hour ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

I once sliced my thumb open on a first aid box.  The real irony is that the contents were out of date, so I couldn't use them...

I can’t laugh. I managed to faint in a First Aid class and woke up surrounded by 50 student nurses raring to practice. 
 

Bonus: I didn’t need to buy a drink at the after class pub crawl. 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

I nicked my hand with a sharp axe at my mother-in-law's house a few years ago. Like all cuts from a very sharp blade, it did nothing to begin with and then suddenly pissed out blood. We got the first aid kit out, and then discovered that it had expired before their communist government had in 1989... We used Vodka from the freezer to disinfect it instead 🤣

I have an ice cream tub in my car containing the first aid kit.  The contents are mostly fine to use in an emergency but the tub itself is from 1997.  I remember my Gran using it when I was about nine.  I'm never getting rid of it.

[Dobloseven]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

After about an hour I gave up on finding any of the sets of feeler guages in the garage.  There must be at least four in there, but they're all hiding apparently.

Figured "No problem, I'll just drop by somewhere and grab a new set."

 

Nine separate shops later, nope!  Have given in and ordered a couple of sets off Amazon.  Which I'd rather not do, but having basically wasted an entire sodding afternoon on this now I had just run out of patience.

Did you try Halfords? Machine Mart? They'd be my first ports of call. 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

After about an hour I gave up on finding any of the sets of feeler guages in the garage.  There must be at least four in there, but they're all hiding apparently.

Figured "No problem, I'll just drop by somewhere and grab a new set."

 

Nine separate shops later, nope!  Have given in and ordered a couple of sets off Amazon.  Which I'd rather not do, but having basically wasted an entire sodding afternoon on this now I had just run out of patience.

I'll wager that if you go into the garage first thing tomorrow you'll find one almost straightaway. The law of Sod.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

I once sliced my thumb open on a first aid box.  The real irony is that the contents were out of date, so I couldn't use them...

What I don't get is how a bandage can expire? Creams yes, plasters maybe (though they shouldn't be in there anyway and I've found 10yo ones to work fine), but bandages?

[Jazoli]

14 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

What I don't get is how a bandage can expire? Creams yes, plasters maybe (though they shouldn't be in there anyway and I've found 10yo ones to work fine), but bandages?

Stuff has to go out of date otherwise people would never replace anything, one of my team looks after the first aid boxes for the local authority we work for, we throw hundreds of pounds worth of bandages and plasters away regularly because they are out of date, when in reality there is nothing wrong with them.

I have just signed off the disposal of 50,000 covid test kits (20 tests per box) as they are out of date, they cost a LOT of (council tax payers) money!

[RoverFolkUs]

23 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

What I don't get is how a bandage can expire? Creams yes, plasters maybe (though they shouldn't be in there anyway and I've found 10yo ones to work fine), but bandages?

It's the sterility that can't be guaranteed after x number of years incase the adhesive of the packing has dried out/been compromised

I agree, utter lunacy and I'm not throwing away a bandage or plaster because it says it's out of date

[Split_Pin]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Is that... 'Handle with care' tape on the cardboard wrapping inside the bag?

There's no helping some folks.

Hope you get a non-smashed replacement soon!

The irony of that has only occurred to me now that you've mentioned it 🤣

[New POD]

4 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

After about an hour I gave up on finding any of the sets of feeler guages in the garage.  There must be at least four in there, but they're all hiding apparently.

Figured "No problem, I'll just drop by somewhere and grab a new set."

 

Nine separate shops later, nope!  Have given in and ordered a couple of sets off Amazon.  Which I'd rather not do, but having basically wasted an entire sodding afternoon on this now I had just run out of patience.

RS, Listers and Kaiser and Craft 

Bought 2 sets at work one imperial one metric. 

[hairnet]

6 hours ago, omegod said:

I knew I'd missed paying a toll on the M50 during a trip to Ireland in November but thought I'd gotten away with it, innocuous looking letter arrived today which promptly sliced into my finger as I pulled it out, Fecker's caught me good.  

scousers trying to get away with it again

 

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

Did you try Halfords? Machine Mart? They'd be my first ports of call. 

Yes (X2), yes, B&Q, Motorserv, GSF, Toolstation (X2), Screwfix, Homebase and one independent down in Bletchley I've now forgotten the name of.

[Dobloseven]

8 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Yes (X2), yes, B&Q, Motorserv, GSF, Toolstation (X2), Screwfix, Homebase and one independent down in Bletchley I've now forgotten the name of.

Last time I used any must have been about 10 years ago, when I fitted a new cylinder head to an Endura engined Fiesta. I bought a new set from a motor spares place that was closing down. I dug them out a while back, planning to adjust the valve clearance (tappets?) on the 25.I'd even bought a new gasket. I must make sure I don't lose them!