Wednesday, December 14, 2011

How to upgrade your macbook pro hard drive - DIY

I successfully followed this tutorial and replaced a 120 Gb hard drive for a Samsung 500 Gb inside my macbook pro 2.16 Ghz. One just need some patience and the right tools. OWC home page has many videos showing how to upgrade your mac. Check out at http://www.macsales.com/.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Repairing my Miele S 536 Vacuum Cleaner - DIY

Although this is a blog for Mac users, a place that can help them solve problems and share information, I will start sharing my experience repairing a Miele vacuum cleaner.

When I moved back with my family from Germany to Brazil in 2002, I brought two of them. One pretty old that burned out and a newer one, model S 536, that worked well until early this year of 2011. Suddenly it stopped after making some funny noises. I tried to figure out what was the problem, lights were on but no sound or noise from the motor. It seemed to be dead.

There is no Miele in Brazil, the only country that sells those wonderful and expensive appliances is Chile which doesn't belong to Mercosul, south-american common market.

Well, I did my googling and I found this site which was very useful:

http://www.sannerud.com/house/miele.html

There I found a detailed experience from a guy that repaired his Miele vacuum cleaner and many tips to follow. His main advantage was plenty of good suppliers in USA that provided him the parts that he needed. But his advice was good enough that made it easy to disassemble mine although a different model.

Well, I'm a musician and a mac lover not really a technician but I didn't want to throw away my Miele before making sure there was no way out. So I kept researching until I found out it could be carbon brushes worn out.

Then I found this other site from New Zealand, also very helpful:

http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bb/2009/12/29/tearing-apart-my-miele-s5210-vacuum-cleaner/comment-page-1#comment-68621

Before that I had open my Miele and closed it back without finding anything wrong, I decided to open it again and figure out how the carbon brushes were doing. I also found in the internet how they look like as new and finally, after finding them attached to the motor and taking one out (there are two of them), it looked pretty worn out.

I asked my wife before she travel to Germany if I could ordered a new pair of carbon brushes to her mother's place that she could bring them back home. So she did and I got them here. After replacing the older ones I'm pretty happy to say my Miele vacuum cleaner is working back!

The pictures below show step by step how I replaced them. Check it out:

1. Model back shield.


2. Original Miele carbon brushes


3. My Miele S 536 open


4. I had to take the lid out. Watch out not to break plastic pin holders!


5. Lid out.


6. Filter also has to be taken out.


7. Filter out.


8. Three philips screws out here...


9. Plus two in front.


10. Pull out the whole switch command. It feels like a big plug!


11. Under the switch you will find the last three philips screws.


12. Some details about their location...


13. ...and here.


14. Now you can lift the top up and it will look like that:


15. A close look at the motor besides the cable spooler.


16. Just pull up the whole motor but don't forget to detach the little white plug female.


17. The motor already out of its case.


18. Here you can see two carbon brushes held by two torx 20 screws each.


19. Old carbon brushes.


20. The motor with the new ones. At that point I had no idea if it would work back...but it did!


To set up the vacuum cleaner back just follow the steps backwards.

I really hope it can help. Don't forget to have the philips and torx screw drivers with you. I really want to thank my friends in USA and New Zealand cause without their support I wouldn't have made it. Sorry about my english mistakes, it's not my mother tongue. If you have any doubt, let me know.