Wednesday, February 16, 2011

GE WRX55X10942 Main Board Works Perfect

My 2 year old bottom freezer refrigerator started to have the classic symptoms, not always cooling, one second clicking sound when not cooling. Some times the refrigerator cooled but not the freezer part. Sometimes neither part cooled while the fridge started to click. (Clicking is from relay noise). 

I ordered this universal board for my fridge from Amazon.com. I took advantage of the FREE shipping. It arrived quickly in a timely fashion. It was a sealed GE factory board and not a brand X board. First class! The board came with clear instructions to be used for your particular refrigerator. 

In my case, I removed the small rear panel on the back side of the fridge to expose the board. You then unplug the fridge, pull out the connector plugs from the board, remove the ground wire under a screw, remove the board off of 4 plastic standoff spacers, install the new board onto the spacers and then plug in all the wire connectors onto the new board. My new board had many more parts on it then the old board. You cannot plug the wrong connector into a wrong socket. Each connector has a different number of pins on it so any one plug will fit into only one socket. 

In some cases a wire needs to be cut on one of the plugs per the instructions, but for my model this was not neccessary. Also, for BOTTOM FREEZER refridgerators, you need to take the lower panel off exposing the compressor and check if you have a start capacitor on your fridge. (The diagram shows you where the start capacitor would be located if you have one). If you have one, you need to cut a ground wire off a plug. In my case no wire needed to be cut as I had no start capacitor on my fridge. In short all I had to do was to swap out boards on the fridge and then put the panels back in place with screws. 

For tools I needed a Phillips screw driver, but to remove the old board a pair of needle nose plyers helped removing the old board off the stand off legs as they needed to be squeezed before the board could be lifted off the standoffs one at a time. There are 4 plastic standoff legs holding the board in place. I didn't need to cut any wires but if you did need to cut one or two a small wire cutter would be handy. Otherwise a pocket knife would do the job. 


read more GE WRX55X10942 Main Board
If you follow the clear instructions you won't make a mistake. In my case I could replace the board again now that I did it once in less then 5 minutes. Doing it the first time, so you don't mistake, should take you no more the 15 to 20 minutes being very careful. 

One last thing, THE BOARD FIXED THE REFRIGERATOR! (Please understand after reoplacing the board and turning the fridge on again, once plugging it back into the wall, will require hours of operation before the fridge and freezer are cold enough to turn the compressor off. In my case, with an empty fridge, I got tired of waiting to see if it would turn off after three hours of operation watching it. When I checked the next day, it was cold and not running. Everything was working just fine. It took a long time before it shut off even when the fridge was empty. (So be patient). 

You can do the repair yourself and save a lot of money! The part from Amazon cost about half the list price of the board, no tax, and I also saved the cost of the repairman's labor. In my case I had actually called a repairman, two weeks later he had the board but never showed up on his appointment. I fired him and did the job myself quicker and for less money. 

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Improves on one of the great all time lenses Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor Lens

I own the prior version of this lens (the non-AFS 85mm 1.4), and it's one of my all time favorites. There's something almost magic about it for me - I almost can't take a bad picture with it. 

So when Nikon released the updated version, I was a little hesitant to upgrade - at least until I went to audition the new lens in one of the big NYC camera shops. After using the new lens firsthand, I just couldn't resist. Now, I own the new one, and the older one is on eBay. 



To be clear, by my eye, there's not a huge difference in image quality, as the older lens was already excellent on all counts. The updated version is maybe slightly sharper in the corners on an FX body, colors seem perhaps a bit more vivid, and it seems a bit less prone to flare when you point it directly at a bright light source. It focuses a few inches closer than its predecessor and weighs maybe an ounce or two more. Still, it's not like one is "bad" and the other "good" - just slightly different, and not at all a dramatic difference for most users. 

To me, where the compelling value comes from is the new AFS focusing setup, making autofocus nearly instant and incredibly accurate. Thanks to the wide f/1.4 aperture, you always get a bright image, and on both my D3 and D300, focus is blindingly fast and dead-on accurate. This was my only real gripe with the previous lens, and I found myself often either missing shots because of the slow autofocus, or I'd spend a lot of energy manually focusing instead of composing the exact shot I wanted. Now, with the new 85mm f/1.4G, I get fantastic image quality, plus much better and faster handling - and to me, that makes it worthwhile. 

Still, the older lens is no slouch, and I suppose if I had neither one and was on a tight budget, I'd certainly have no trouble going with the older lens. There seems to be maybe a $500 premium to get the AFS version, although that might narrow as more lenses get into the market and we see some better discounting. 



Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR


Of course, if you're questioning whether to upgrade, the pro-grade Nikon lenses hold their value very well, and although I haven't sold mine yet, I'm thinking I'll get 80% of what I paid for it when it was new several years ago, and that makes the transaction easier to handle. 

Definitely recommended.

Replacement Belt Made With Kevlar for 754-0101A, 954-0101A

Great Belt!
So my snow blower broke. I googled around to see common problems why snow blowers stop spinning/working. I found out it might be the belt. I opened the snow blower and the original belt it came with was tattered and shredded up. I called around to see how much it would be to fix.....was givin estimates as high as $200!!!!! Ordered this belt and put it on with a friend in about 10 mins. Snow blower is now working as good as first day. I compared the original belt with this belt and this one is made from A material that is A LOT STRONGER!!!! Only thing I suggest is turning the belt inside out when you put it on so it runs smoother. When you get this you'll see one side is smoother than other.