Tearing apart my Miele S5210 vacuum cleaner
December 29th, 2009This is my vacuum cleaner.
Miele S5210.
It’s a Miele S5210. It’s a very, very good vacuum cleaner. Well, it was until the point that it broke! Actually I was somewhat responsible for that. For a little while now I have been restoring a car (OK, almost 6 years but I am nearly done – www.asciimaton.co.nz/pics). After weeks of filling and sanding of filler I finally sent it off to the panel beaters to be painted. This left me with a garage full of sanding dust. I swept up what I could the used the vacuum to clean up the rest. Unfortunately your average house vacuum isn’t really designed to handle lots of very, very fine filler dust. I ended up clogging it up and the motor stopped running smoothly and instead started stuttering. I needed to take the vacuum cleaner apart to clean it and remove all the dust so it would run properly again. What follows is the procedure I used to take the vacuum cleaner apart. I imagine the process is probably similar to other Miele vacuum cleaner models.
I was inspired to do this page after I found the following page online for a different Miele model (a Miele s300): http://www.sannerud.com/house/miele.html
You don’t need many tools to take the vacuum cleaner apart. Just a Torx T20 driver and a small flat screwdriver to push on the plastic clips that holds the parts together. All the screws used to hold it together are the same. The Torx bit shown here is actually a tamper proof Torx bit with a hole in the middle but it works fine on the screws. Click on any of the pictures for a larger view.
Torx screw and T20 Torx driver bit.
First unplug the vacuum cleaner and remove the bag and all the filters. The small silver honeycomb filter just clips in place. Remove this so you can then remove the lid.
The clips holding the lid on.
The lid just slides onto the hinges and two small square clips hold it in place as shown above. Depress the small squares and then slide the lid off the hinges.
Large honeycomb filter.
The large honeycomb filter is also just clipped in place. Carefully push back the two clips shown circled above and the filter should come out.
Rear plastic piece.
The plastic piece at the rear between the two buttons is also just held in place by clips. Brute force will remove this. Just yank it upwards and it will pop loose.
Removing the speed selector.
With the rear cover removed you should see two screws holding the speed selector part in place. Remove these.
Clips holding speed selector in place.
With the two screws removed the speed selector can be removed by pushing in the small clips that hold the front of it in place and lifting it off. This piece just contains the knob that controls the speed. The knob has a stalk that sticks down underneath it that fits into a selector switch on the electronics board.
Top cover screws.
The top cover is held in place with four screws shown, two at the front and two down deep holes in front of each button. Undo these then the top cover should lift off.
Electronics board plug.
With the top cover removed you can see the electronics board. It’s pretty simple really and doesn’t have much on it. The board should be free to pull off now. The only thing holding it in place is the connector shown above. Simply unplug this connector and the board will lift off.
Inner cover.
With the electronics board removed you should be able to see the screws holding the inner cover in place. There are three at the back and one in the centre as shown above. Remove all these screws.
Clips holding inner cover.
As well as the four screws there is a clip either side of the cover on the sides of the vacuum. You can simply pop these apart by hand then the inner cover should lift off. There is a small rubber hose that goes between the cover and the cord retractor mechanism which you also need to disconnect from the cover (it will probably just fall off anyway).
Inner cover removed.
With the inner cover removed you can now remove the motor (which has a foam pad over it) and the cord retracting mechanism. The only trick here is to unplug the connector that joins the two together.
Motor connector.
The motor and cord retractor will simply lift out. I gave everything a good cleaning to get all the dust out. I used my air compressor to blow it all clean. With all the dust removed from the motor I sprayed it’s brushes with electrical contact cleaner. I didn’t go as far as dismantling the motor itself.
Contact cleaner for the brushes.
The brushes are either side of the motor and I simply sprayed cleaner into the hole at back of them.
After letting the contact cleaner dry I put the motor, cord retractor and electronics boards temporarily back in place the tested the vacuum. You need to be VERY careful doing this as nothing is properly attached and there are exposed mains connections that will bit you it you touch them (don’t ask how I know). Also the vacuum motor is extremely loud when not encased in plastic!
Once everything was cleaned and working again reassembling the vacuum cleaner is basically the revers of taking it apart. Make sure you reattach the small rubber hose and also make sure the cord and plug are free and don’t get caught when screwing all the pieces of the case back together.
After my cleaning and spraying the motor with contact cleaner the vacuum is working nicely again. I know now I should really get a nice shop vac for cleaning the garage and leave the Miele for purely domestic duties!
I can really recommend these vacuums. They are good value for money and very powerful. And now, having seen how they look inside, I can say they are very nice quality too.
A door alarm for my house and garage.
December 26th, 2009If you’ve looked about my sites you’ll know I make things. Lots of things. This means spending lots of time in the garage. Often I am dashing about between house and garage as I am busy making stuff. My house actually has two garages, an old on on one side of the house and my new, double garage on the other. It is in the new garage I have all my tools work on most projects.
My house and separate garage.
One thing that always worries me about being in the garage is making sure no one goes into the house (and vice-versa). Locking the doors each time I go from one to the other quickly becomes annoying so instead I decided to make a little door alarm. Basically, when I am in the garage, an alarm sounds if someone opens the front door of the house and, when I am in the house, an alarm sounds when someone opens the door to the garage.
To build this I used two small boxes, some magnetic reed switches, some switches and LEDs (with current limiting resistors), a six volt power supply and four wires of the data cable I had run between the house and garage when I had it built.
Circuit diagram.
The circuit is really simple. Everything on the left is in the house, everything on the right in the garage. Basically each little box contains a toggle switch, an LED to indicate the alarm is on, a buzzer and a magnetic reed switch attached to the door.
The alarm works by sounding a buzzer when the opposite door is open. So if you are in the house and have the alarm switched on the buzzer in the house sounds if someone opens the garage door. If you are in the garage and the alarm is on the buzzer in there sounds if the house door is opened. The toggle switch on each box turns off it’s buzzer (say you are in the house and you know the garage door is open and don’t want it buzzing). The LED just shows the alarm is on and will buzz when the opposite door is open. The reed switches are wired so that the switch is open when the magnet is in place. The reed switch itself is attached to the door frame and the magnets are on the door. When the door opens the switch closes and the alarm sounds.
The power supply is an old 6 volt wall plug I had lying about. To completely turn off the the alarm I simply pull out the power supply lead.
Garage alarm box showing wiring and reed switch.
Garage alarm box (the power was off so the LED isn’t glowing).
House alarm box next to normal home alarm.
Now I can work in either the garage or house and leave the doors unlocked (but closed) and know that if anyone opens a door I will hear it where ever I am.
Finishing Sophie’s rocking horse (before christmas – just)
December 25th, 2009Part one of the horse making is here:
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bb/2009/10/18/a-rocking-horse-for-sophie
With time moving on I had to really move to get the rocking horse done. After protecting the foam with the tin foil I applied layers of fibreglass and polyester resin. I built up a nice, thick skin of glass all over the horse.
Layers of fibreglass to make a shell.
After the fibreglass shell had hardened I gave it a quick sanding just to remove any sharp bits then set about adding in Horseome Paul’s super secret feature – a hidden hiding place where Sophie can keep things. The cavity was made form a piece of PVC piping. A hole was cut in the horse and the pipe gently inserted.
Gentle insertion of secret hiding place.
Once the pipe was fully inserted the excess was trimmed off with a cutting disc on a Dremel.
Cutting off the excess.
Once the cavity was done I then covered the body in several layers of 5mm thick upholstery foam. This was glued on using Ados F2 spray contact adhesive. I put extra layers on the head for some extra padding in case of face plants by the young rider!
Covered in foam padding.
Next I had to figure out how to cover him in fur. A visit to Spotlight (a material and craft super shop – kind of like Bunnings for girls) provided me with some great fake fur and some pink frilly stuff for the mane and tail. I roped in a friend to help with the sewing (at the cost of making her dinner). I wrapped the horse in plastic from an old plastic bag then wrapped that in layers of brown packing tape. The idea is to make up a tape shell that you can then cut off with scissors and cut to form flat pattern pieces that will exactly match the three dimensional shape you are trying to cover. I was going to buy a sewing machine and learn to do all this myself but with only a few weeks before Christmas I ran out of time.
Wrapped in plastic and tape.
So, with time running short my friend Dani came over to help with the pattern making and sewing. One look at Horseome Paul though and we decided it was going to be trickier than we though. Dani makes quilts which are flat. A three dimensional horse was a much trickier problem. We decided I should try to find someone with a bit more experience to help. Still made her dinner though 
As it happened there is an alterations place near to where I work (errr, used to work as I was made redundant just before Christmas). I popped in there and talked to a woman who didn’t speak much English but after must gesturing and explaining she realised what I wanted to do and said she could help. I took the horse and material along to her and she sewed on the covering for me in a very short time and for an extremely reasonable price! She also made a bridle and sewed on buttons for eyes and even gave him a little charm necklace. He has a zip running down his back so the fur can be removed if needed.
Horsey head!
In the mean time I completed the wooded base. I originally painted it pink but in the end repainted it white and the pink become overwhelming! I attached some cardboard stickers I got from Spotlight to give some detail and to put Sophie’s name on the base. They were supposed to be self adhesive but I found I needed glue to get them to stick. Finally the body was simply bolted down to the base and held with large fender washers and Nylock nuts.
So here is the final product!
Horseome Paul is complete!
I ran out of time to make a saddle but I think he doesn’t really need one anyway. Christmas day is today so we shall see what young Sophie things in a few hours or so! Hopefully it doesn’t scare her!
Oh, that secret hiding place. Well, you can get to it by simply unzipping the zip under the tail a little. I am not sure my sister is going to approve…
A rocking horse for Sophie
October 18th, 2009Hmmm, almost Christmas again. Being someone who ‘makes stuff’ my sister asked if I was making something for Sophie for Christmas this year. I suggested a rocking horse. This is my attempt to do so. I don’t have much experience with horses. Probably the closest I have been is gluing two bits of paper together. Don’t blame me if it looks more like a sheep/dog/cow than a horse. It’s for a 2 year old, she won’t know the difference!
I decided to make the base rocker from wood and build a horse approximating shape on top of that for Sophie to sit on. The horse is made from polystyrene with pool noodle legs which is then covered in fibreglass to form a tough but light shell. The shell will be covered in foam then given a horse skin coat (that makes me think of ‘It rubs the lotion on its skin…’).
First I needed some polystyrene blocks to carve up into the basic shape. A sensible person would get some solid blocks from some sort of specialist polystyrene shop or something. I decided instead to glue together a few sheets of underfloor insulation foam since that was easy for me to get from Bunnings (where I seem to end up several times a month for some reason). I glued the sheets together using Ados F2 spray contact adhesive. The legs are made from sections of pool noodle.
Foam blocks and pool noodle legs.
Once I had the foam blocks I needed a way to cut them so I threw together a hot wire cutter. This is simply a wooden frame with a handle, kind of like a hacksaw frame. Stretched across the opening of the frame is a piece of nichrome wire. I use small screw eyes to attach it and at one end have a spring to keep the wire under tension. If you try to attach the wire to the screws eyes directly when it heats up it will expand and go slightly slack. The spring ensures it is always taut. A wire runs from either end of the nichrome and attaches to my car battery charger. At 12 volts the wire draws about 1 and 3/4 amps of current.
Hot wire cutter.
Next I drew something vaguely horse shaped on some cardboard then cut that out and transferred the shape onto the blocks.
Template and shape draw on foam.
Once I had a basic outline I used the hot wire cutter to remove anything that didn’t belong on a horse. Then after the basic shape was cut out I used a long knife to cut holes in the base of the body to push the legs into. I then used a 40 grit sanding disc on an angle grinder to sand the basic shape smooth. You need a gentle touch doing this as the disc will eat into the foam rapidly.
Basic shape cut and sanded.
Since the horse was taking shape I decided he needed a name. The horse is named in honour of an awesome ex-workmate of mine, Awesome Paul (so called because he is so awesome). The horse is of therefore known as Horseome Paul. Not many people can say they have a rocking horse named after them. Not sure many people would want to…
Once the shape was done I cut and pushed wooden dowels down the hole in the middle of the pool noodle legs. These extend right into the body to make the legs nice and strong. I drilled the ends of the dowels and inserted in some long 8mm bolts with the heads removed to turn them into threaded studs. These studs will attach Horseome Paul to the base. They are held in with extra strength Araldite epoxy.
8mm bolts glued into wooded dowels in the legs.
Next I started work on the base. First I drew a rocker shape onto some 6mm thick MDF to make a template. I used some scrap cardboard and a steel rule curved against a large steel block to form half of a smooth curve in the rocker. Once that curve was drawn on the cardboard I cut that out and transferred the first half of the curve to the MDF. I then turned the template over to draw the same curve on the other side of the rocker. The MDF template serves two purposes. First it gave me something to trace around onto two pieces of wood to give me a line to cut out with the jigsaw to form the rockers. Then I was able to screw it to the roughly cut wood and use the MDF as a guide on a ball race router bit to make the rocker edges square and identical. When tracing around the template I use a wide Sharpie marker to give a nice thick line. I then cut around the outside of the line meaning the rough rocker is about 1mm over-sized all around.
Template for the rockers.
The routing takes some explaining. What I do, and this is probably dodgy as hell, is bolt my router to a flat piece of MDF to serve as a base. I then screwed that to my temporary work bench I was using (a bit of chipboard sitting on a panelbeaters frame). This holds the router nice and firmly upside down with the bit facing upwards (Note to self : I really must make a proper router table someday). I then screw the MDF rocker template firmly to the roughly cut rocker making sure it is lined up so the 1mm extra is even all around. Then I run rocker against the router bit (making sure as you push the shape around that the tool cuts INTO the wood) with the bearing on the tip of the bit running against the edge of the MDF template. Because the bearing is following the edge of the template the wood will be cut to the exact shape of it too.
Routing around the edge of the template.
Once routed out the two rockers are almost identical. Just to be absolutely certain I screwed the two pieces together then sanded the edges together to make them smooth.
Random orbit sanding the two rockers together.
With the two rockers made I then cut two small supports that are screwed to the inside of the rockers. The tops of these supports were cut with a curve on the top face to match the curve on the rockers. Two wooden dowels attach each end of the rockers together. These are screwed in place then small wooden plugs were glued over the screw holes. Wooden slats were then screwed across the rockers, the outer two being slightly thicker than the middle ones so the legs can bolt down onto them.
Base completed.
While Horseome Paul is off his rocker(!) a temporary MDF board drilled to match the holes in the rocker base keep the legs fixed in the correct position so the bolts will line up once he is fibreglassed. Without this the legs might shift position during the glassing process then not fit through the holes in the base.
Temporary leg support.
One final detail was making a handle to go right through the head. The handle is just a piece of dowel. It does need to be removable though so later on I can fit the horse suit over the body. I found a piece of PVC pipe the dowel slides nicely into. I pushed the pipe through the head and made sure it was flush on each side. When the body is done the dowel will slide into this and be glued into place (or perhaps wrapped in tape and just held by a friction fit).
Handle and PVC pipe being inserted. Went right through! Didn’t hit the brain!
Finally before fibreglassing I needed to cover the polystyrene foam to protect it from being eaten by the polyester resin I was going to use. To do this I glued tin foil all over the body to form a barrier to the resin. By the way the polystyrene ears are just there to remind me that I am making a horse and not a sheep/dog/cow. The proper ears will be sewn on at the end along with a mane, tail, bridle and saddle.
Ooohhhh, shiny…
Finally fibreglassing could begin. To be continued soon.
Part two is now available here:
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bb/2009/12/25/finishing-sophies-rocking-horse-before-christmas-just
Sophie’s Ladybird Bookends
December 25th, 2008Some time ago my sister asked me what I was getting Sophie, my 10 month old niece, for Christmas. I said I didn’t know so she suggested I could make Sophie some bookends for her room. And she asked if I could make them like a ladybird that Sophie has on a blanket.
The ladybird I was going to copy.
My idea was to make the bookends with ladybirds like the one shown above but with LEDs in the wings to make them light up at night. Originally I wanted these to be solar powered so that they would charge during the day and glow at night in the same was as solar garden lights. I did experiment with that a little but found there isn’t enough light indoors to reliably make this work. For now I am using a small power supply instead but I might revisit the solar idea later.
I started by making the base of the bookends. These are made from MDF and quarter round moldings. These were pretty quick and easy to knock up. I then painted them with a lot of coats of gloss white paint. On the base I glued some sheet rubber to stop the bookend from sliding about.
The wooden bases made from MDF.
After I made the bases I started on the ladybirds themselves. These were made from more MDF cut out on a band saw into the basic shape. The wings are made from white acrylic sheet cut to the appropriate shape. These were sanded to make them diffuse the light from the LEDs I was going to use to make them light up. Each wing is held to the wooden base by two screws. There are two holes in the bodies that allow the LEDs to be inserted and shine through the wings.
The ladybirds and their acrylic wings.
Once the bodies were made (and painted pink) I glued small pieces of felt onto the face. Two of these cover the screws that hold the wings on. On the back I inserted the LEDs and their resistors. These are held in place with hot glue. In the center of the body I epoxied a threaded brass stud which is used to secure the back. The backs contain a power socket and are made from the lids of small plastic screw jars.
The back of the ladybird showing the LEDs and threaded stud.
The ladybirds are attached to the bases with two short lengths of brass rod covered in clear plastic tubing which spaces the body out from the base. These were epoxied in place.
The power socket in the backs are attached via short wires then the back is put in place over the brass stud and held on with a nut and a dome nut. Using two nuts allows me tighten them together to lock them in place so wht backs won’t come undone.
The back in place.
With the backs on it was a simple matter to make up some power cords. I use a small 5 volt wall plug power supply. The LEDs are only drawing 20mA each so the power supply doesn’t need to be very big at all and the whole thing uses very little power. The LEDs make the wings glow very nicely. It is a bit tricky to capture in a photograph though!
And these are the finished bookends! Along with some books every little girl should read. Sophie is a little young now but she’ll grow into them!