Friday, June 24, 2016
Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Along the way I continued studying Spanish on Duolingo. PharmD redesign meeting: other websites review. All-day UFD retrospective meeting in CL210 with Eric, Susie, Paula, and David. Stopped at the OSACA to drop off a cable. Rode Muni home. Finished reading Ready Player One via iBooks along the way. Dinner at home with Patrick: tikka masala with tofu, potato, and broccolini over jasmine rice. Dessert: two small chocolate chip cookies each from frozen. Began repairs on the AMDM Inc. Intelliseat IBS-200. The problem is that the soft close feature stopped working; the toilet seat would instead fall quickly, making a loud clunk noise. The underside of toilet seat says to not disassemble the seat. I ignored this warning. The user manual that came with it is not a repair manual, so it was of little use except to tell me about the unit separation button. Pressing this button enables the seat to pull forward from the toilet and tank. I unplugged the unit from AC power. I removed the two screws at the back using a small phillips head screwdriver. I carefully turned the unit over then inserted a large flat head screwdriver into two slots near the seat's inner rim and carefully separated the top portion from the lower portion. Inside, wires connect pieces attached to both portions, so you must perform this step carefully so that the top and bottom portions are not separated too far to cause the wires to break. Patrick helped me take photos of the wires before I disconnected them so that I can refer to the photo if needed during reassembly. I removed two more screws attaching one hinge mechanism to the toilet seat, and here is where I discovered the problem: the plastic had broken around this joint. I successfully used super glue to fix this. During reassembly I discovered that the other hinge mechanism had issues as well. The plastic surrounding the mount had cracked in one location and had broken off a piece in another. To repair this, something that might work is epoxy putty, which I do not have. I shopped online and decided upon Loctite Repair Putty General Purpose because it was the highest rated and also the cheapest. Amazon has a distant estimated delivery date, so I'll try to find this in a local hardware store instead. For now, we can use the toilet and toilet seat without the seat lid.