Conclusion of the big parasol project.
The original rotatable base is now in place on a concrete post.

Rotate outwards too raise, rotate and secure in the desired position above the sofa group.

We can move the parasol between the sofa group seating and the dining table terrace wheelie base.

Palm and Random orbitals are great.
I have 3, 2 smaller Li batt powered ones and one bigger 240v. Saves swapping the sanding discs so often when doing repeat jobs.
The batt ones are surprisingly good.

I rarely use an older detail orbital sander.

My dad was an absolute whizz with a disc sander on a drill.
Could shape and flatten with skill.
That was 60s tech!

You can never have enough tools🙂

I am working on the empirical proof that is not true!   

I've been having a great time watching all the suggested Toro Timemaster YouTube vids..

Seems like I'm the only one online who's stripped the transmission down and repaired it.

The other issues are interesting.

Some report the drag flap (stops your feet getting covered in grass etc), splitting and then getting eaten by the blades when you back up.



Mine started to get a line / some wear on the same area.

I figure it's the flap getting pushed up under the transmission area when you ride over clumps and push the rear down to turn and run the left wheel down a flower border edge etc.
These are 65kg mowers all the forces are greater than normal mowers.
Under there is a sharp edged metal bracket, intended to keep the transmission retained under extreme travel or the spring breaking?

That edge cuts the drag flap.

Here it is



My solution, radius the edge and Gorilla glue a tough PVC pipe I'd split along its length along the edge.



Also been wanting to do some de-thatch maintenance

Saw this vid



He fitted a front mounting John Deere 21" de-thatcher to a Toro Timemaster.
Worked a treat.

I searched and picked a UK located one up second hand!

Will be interesting to try it.

I'd made my own rear tine solution, but this way the mower bags it!👍

Very clever!

So, the car blower resistor failure...

New one arrived all the way from China. Apparently the original, made in Germany, is no longer available!

I set about measuring the resistance of the various pin permutations, comparing new vs old.
6 pins.
Two are motor + / -.
The other 4 are 1 (FB), 2 (GND), 3 (IN), 4 (BATT)

Some big variations Mohm vs Kohm in there, some values are half of the new one but nothing obviously open circuit.

Being an auto climate control system there is more logic or perhaps it's complexity in these resistors then the boggo 4 position fan switch manual ones of old!

Here are my scrawled records.





Might open the old (not easy as all sealed) and see what's inside.
Can I see the rogue resistances between the pins that have shown up - I doubt it..

In the meanwhile, the new blower resistor responded exactly as it should in an 'on the drive', Auto and Manual AC and blower test.

Oh to be able to use more than lowest setting of the blower again! 😂

Don't know what you mean.

It failed in normal use.
It was failed when I took these measurements.

There are some capacitors or similar in there too as reversing the ohm meter polarity shows a resistance increasing to infinity on a couple of the contracts.

No, I wasn't expecting them to.
I wanted to see the difference - if any points were open circuit or obviously.

The new one has some very high resistances and the 'blown' one much lower.
Opposite of 'blown' logic🙂
5Mohm vs 171Kohm is a big difference but not the way I expected. Hardly open circuit.

Not much to do about it.

Good news is the Air Con auto controller (brain?) seems fine.

Next project.
Something for the garden.

Will use unusual materials (no powdercoat steel!).

6mm birch plywood offcuts from a exponential front loaded bass horn job.
Cut into strips glued up, bent and laminated in place.



More laminations done and spokes added to aim for the perfect semi circle.

110cm diameter - if only we had a table or similar at that diameter.
90 cm was the nearest.



Got to buy the materials (cheap stuff) and make a sheet metal funnel (that's a clue right there).