Important research question!

The straightened paperclip we used to sell to the Mac newbees for $.50 to get their stuck floppy disks out of the original Macs.

Wrapping 100MPH tape (looks like Duct Tape) around the rotor blades so we could fly back to base after taking rounds through the blades.

Hi,

Probably one of the lowest tech solutions was on a computer that wouldn't turn on. Turned out to be the switch behind the big button had come loose. Borrowed secretaries nail polish to use as glue to stick it into place.

Used a pair of tights (sorry, panty hose) {bloody foreigners!} in an emergency on a snapped fan belt on the old car.....

Scraped a chunk out of a brand new pair of shoes at a conference in Sheffield - found black nail varnish, and painted over the heel...worked wonderfully, lasted about 8 months!

:p

GG

It keeps small fine machine screws from loosening on such things as glasses or anything else where screws may come undone for a variety of reasons; usually vibration.

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

Have used it as a temporary repair for ripped trousers.
Keep your stick on the ice. We're all in this together. We're pullin' for ya!!! :^O

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

...used a hairdryer to warm up a fairly majorly dented rear bumper/fender on a company car (Audi A3 - think Golf GTI) moulded unit...previous quotes ran into ?100's to replace and respray damage. Pressed out the damage by hand ...simple repair trick.

I recently used an eraser to clean the rollers on an HP printer. It wouldn't pick up the paper so I just took an eraser (on the end of a pencil) and just kept erasing the "gunk" on the roller until it was clean again. The roller was way down inside the printer would have been a pain to disassemble It was completely "white" from paper fibers when I started and was back to black when I finished. Erase-erase-erase and a little canned air....repeat!

We acquired a company and they had a complicated industrial controller frame, based on an HP backplane with loads of circuit boards, and wires from it to the machine it controlled.

It did not work, controller would not boot. They called me in. I disassembled the controller frame. (carefully documenting which card went in which slot and which connectors attached to them). Cleaned accumulated dust off frame and cards with can of compressed air (and probably eraser on contacts too). Re-assembled it and it booted first time.

Did something similar on old server with raid array we acquired for a lab. Blew out dust and it booted OK.

One other quick cure: in our corporate computer center, our unix box, with tons of scsi cables sticking out, was regularly halting. After analysis, we could not find reason, hw OK. A consultant brought in an AM radio, put it in by the computer and as he moved it to the left towards a gigahertz switch, it started spewing loudly with static noise.

Solution? I picked up galvanized sheet steel at Home Depot and metallic tape. Put it up in the divider between rack sections, secured by the metallic tape, to block the EMI. Computer never halted with these symptoms again.

A friend of mine used duct tape to hold a heatsink and fan onto a Pentium slot processor.

I originally asked him why he needed a fan but then realized that he was using duct tape to hold it all together so I just handed it to him and went on with what i was doing.

Come to think of it...The only thing mounted in the case was the motherboard, The power supply, cd-rom drives and floppy drive was stacked ON TOP of the case.

I was faced with possibly replacing thermal valves on the radiators which had all "stuck". Some radiators were stuck on "full" whilst others didnt respond at all to temperature regulator changes (cooler/hotter).

A trick I picked up from a plumber at a trade center was to remove valves and use butter on the pin to ease its travel - saved ?100's works every time...
Mind it must be mineral based rather than (wd40) or "OIL" it will destroy rubber seal and you'll have leaks!!

K dot Dubya

I have used duct tape to piece together a three-plug RJ-11 modular jack that was broken at the seams.

I also used the same kind of tape, only wider, to create a facade for my newly built speakerphone boxes made of corrugated cardboard and Gorilla Glue, Pioneer speakerphones and an amplification system from the CompUSA brand computer speakers.

-swg :)

Back in the early 80s I worked for a UK VDU manufacturer called Pericom and during the development of intelligent terminals we needed to test output from keyboard and input to screen, both via the same RS232 serial port. So we used a PAPERCLIP with one end poked into the transmit pin hole and the other into the receive pin hole. The device used became known as a PAPERCLIP because it was the:
Pericom
Applied
Peripheral
Equipment
Research
Communications
Link
Interface
Probe
Any other stories of the origins of names of low-tech everyday objects?

..then hopefully there is a store within walking distance of where you broke down, or you can make it to a store before you break down. If you are broke down in the middle of the wilderness with no stores nearby, you can look for a rattlesnake or eagle nest and take one of its eggs. :-)

if I left that open enough that SOMEONE would take that route. And of course you never disapoint me my dear.

Acitone stops bleeding in a flash ....

Beware !! It hurts really bad for a second :D ... but the next second ....All Healed

... I drove behind a Chrysler engine that was notorious for vapor lock in hot humid weather.

However, a couple of wooden clothes pins (the spring loaded kind) clipped to the gas line coming into the carb, and I was good to go.

Duct tape, WD-40, clothespins, drywall screws ... what else do you need in your tool kit?

I had a fan connector with one wire that just would not stay connected. Jam in a toothpick, and no problem any more.

I've also use them and a dab of Elmer's Glue for stripped out wood screws.

Could you explain that whole eraser to clean contacts bit? Are we talkin hard contacts? cause I'd think using an eraser on a soft lens would rip it up. I used to wear hard contacts and, shhh, sleep with them in all the time. It accumulated buildup, if only I knew an eraser would be able to clean that it could have saved my eye alot of grief.

Great topic :D

camping out once, guy brought along a sterno can that was empty and we couldn't cook any food unless we ran back to town (20 miles...1 hour drive each way).

I took an empty tuna can and some newspaper and lantern fluid...

take newspaper...cut thickness of paper about as wide as the can is high...

get as many levels as you need to wind up tight into a coil that just fits inside the can.

put it in the can and let it uncoil.

put enough fluid in the can to dampen the saturate the paper

light and it will burn hot enough to cook an egg in a thin pan (dunno about cast iron)

cost was:

free can
strips of a $.50 newspaper
about $.15 of lantern fluid, maybe

Simple solution .... I parked a friend's car next to mine and by holding 2 wires to the battery terminals for 10 minutes .... had the battery up and running again

I've used zip and velcro cable ties for a bunch of things. Two of the most notable:

- We had a huge pile of monitors in the server room with nowhere to put them and nowhere to walk. My friend and I made a net against the wall with CAT5 cable and zip-ties. It held them all against the wall securely.

- We ordered a Primera DVD Duplicator, but forgot to order their overpriced mini-DVD adaptor. Rather than pay $200 for a few pieces of vacuum-molded plastic, I cut up spindle covers and wound velcro ties around them to hold the upside-down covers in the center of the cd bin. It works great... I even have pictures.

- Not mine, but notable: I've seen plenty of CompUSAs hold open their doors during the day by zip-tying the door handles to nearby objects. I guess they didn't feel like buying a door stop?

I actually use a Snap On hose clamp to do that and with the good old beetles you only need the one. :p

Unless of course it is one of those that leaves my factory then there are lots of crankcase breather tubes that need plugging. I got sick & tired of blowing the oil filler caps off. :D

Col ]:)

I'd rather lose a little paint than risk dissolving something plastic in a fuel line!

And here's a chuckle for you: Stoddard Solvent will not mess up nail polish. However - if one is wearing nail polish, one should never oxy-acetylene weld without welding gloves. The nails catch fire astoundingly quickly.

I'm into martial arts as much as I'm into geeking. One day while sparing, with very little protection, I connected with a solid blow to an incoming opponents brow. As we both stepped in I saw my blow hit him right above the right eye and like a fire cracker explodes, there was blood everywhere. My Sifu stepped in immediately, keeping him on the floor and trying to stop the bleeding enough to see what was up. He then ordered a student to go to the store a few doors down and buy an egg, what he did still amazes me. He cracked the egg, took a piece of the membrane (the thin slimy looking stuff that coats the inside of the egg) and poured alcohol over it. He had me put a little pressure on the cut and pinch it together, he then applied the egg membrane to the cut and blew on it until it dried. As it dried it pulled the skin together and sealed the cut. The next day my sparing partner went to the medic on base, they were amazed by what they saw. They told him that if they were to take it off and stitch it, it would leave a big scar and he?s better off leaving it as is. This big gash left only a slight line of a scar.