Posts

A Low Cost (and possibly free) Digital Multimeter from Harbor Freight

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As you get more comfortable with doing your own repairs and working with tools, at some point you'll start to try and tackle basic electrical tasks and one of the basic tools that is nice to have is a digital multimeter. A digital multimeter is just that, a digital meter that can read several different things that would be important to working on an electrical issue. A multimeter can read voltage that is direct current (DC) like what you would get from a battery or alternating current (AC) like what you have in the outlets in your wall. In addition to voltage, a multimeter can read resistance, current (direct and alternating) and usually do checks on diodes and or transistors. Once you get into working on electrical items you'll find that you can't live without a digital multimeter. A good quality multimeter can be a costly item and it may be something you'll want to spend money on at some point in the future if you do a lot of electrical work, but for just starting...
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How To - Solder a Wire

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At some point one of the in you're trying to do all of your own repairs you will get in the situation where you will need to join the ends of two wires together.  I have found the best way to get a really good strong electrical connection that will last is to solder the two wires together.  For people who haven't ever really soldered anything together before this may seem like a difficult task, but in reality it is actually very easy and in some sense a lot of fun (I'm pretty easy to keep entertained). So if you follow along I'll explain how I go about soldering the ends of two wires together. Some people may ask why not just use a crimp style butt connector to join two wires.  While a butt connector would work and be functional, it's not that clean of a joint and over the life of a the wire I feel a nice soldered joint will hold up much better and be less likely to ever give you a problem. The first thing to consider is making sure the final length of the two w...
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One of My Favorite Things - Dental Tools

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Over the years I have found that having a few dental tools around can really come in handy working on my shop either for cleaning little nooks and crannies or for trying to install or remove little tiny o-rings, or really for any one of a million other cases where something else just won't do. If you keep you eye out you'll find old dental tools at garage or gun shows, and you might even try asking your dentist the next time you go in for an appointment. I'm lucky in that my dental hygienist usually can find two or three tools they are ready to throw out each time I go in for a visit, so it never hurts to ask. If your dentist isn't all that nice, then you can pick up a set of  six dental tools at Harbor Freight  for only a few bucks. Helpful Links  ()
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About Me

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I put together this blog to share my knowledge and skills with different tools to hopefully enable others to do more things themselves both for the enjoyment of working with your own two hands and also to maybe save some money over having someone do something that you could very well do yourself. I titled this blog the "Millennial Tool Box" after hearing a story one day from one of our neighbors daughters who was living in San Francisco and had her toilet get plugged up and instead of just taking a plunger and unplugging her toilet, she got on her smart phone and summoned a Task Rabbit who quickly came over and unplugged her toilet for $25.00!  I almost fell out of my chair when I heard the story, but we live in a time where it is difficult for young people to own a home let alone have a shop, so I thought I would create this blog and focus on the basics and hopefully share information that will enable millennial's like my neighbors daughter to first try doing things th...
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