I finally figured out what's wrong with my dryer!
There's no drum to put the clothes in. This is a rookie mistake, Samsung.
It's fun, I looked up the possible issues this dryer has: there's five wheels that can break, one belt, and four sensors.
I haven't gotten to the sensors yet but all five wheels are bad and the belt is gone
Supposedly there's a bolt in here somewhere
I'm not an expert but I don't think this wheel is in functioning condition.
Honestly the hardest part of repairing my dryer is that it's got a computer in it, and I gotta resist trying to run Doom on it

I promised my roommates I wouldn't run Doom on it, but here's an idea:
The dryer has a moisture sensor, right? So it can tell how long it takes to dry a given set of clothes...

What if I made this into a keyboard?

I just need to bin the different possible drying times and use them as input for a function that converts it to letters
So like, doing a load that takes 10 minutes to dry then a load that takes 30 minutes to dry: that's an A
Anyway back to slightly serious things: a few people asked how old this thing was but I didn't know at the time.
The answer is apparently 8 years old.
my spouse and I usually sleep while listening to letsplays, but somehow the playlist got messed up this morning and I got woken up early by it playing a video on how to repair dryers.
I was tossing and turning and they were like CAREFULLY REMOVE THE BELT FROM THE TENSONING WHEEL and I was like THIS IS THE WORST NIGHTMARE, I AM FIXING DRYERS IN MY DREAMS!
it's still not fixed: it turns out I had to replace the dryer felt seal too, as it had partially come off.
That took a day to get here, and then the glue takes 24 hours to cure.
but maybe tonight, I'll finally finish the job?
I'm not an expert, but wheels are supposed to be round, right?
It's all back together and currently supposedly drying some towels. Hopefully it's working, I won't know until they come out

The final tally, btw:

This dryer has the following items that are the main failure points that will need to be replaced if any of them break:
4 barrel wheels
1 tensioning wheel
1 belt
4 sensors
2 felt drum belts.

Of those, how many were broken?
Well, it's easier to list which weren't:
1 felt drum belt
0-4 sensors (replaced anyway as they be bad)

So if one more felt belt had died, this dryer would have had basically every major breakable part replaced. This isn't even the same dryer anymore, really.
It is the dryer of theseus!
and it works! better than before it "broke", because it was probably at least partially broken before we even moved into this house
@foone the magic of finally getting the scsi termination right!
@foone, that or Trigger's dryer.
@foone you could say you put Schrödinger's towels in the dryer of Theseus.
@foone My grandfather had one of those…
@foone "this here's great grandpa's dryer"

@foone is it one of those ones that plays a cute song when a load is finished?

If so, would it be within the parameters of your arrangement to make it play the DOOM theme?

@kboyd good question! If I hacked in it more, maybe. But if I make this repair project take any longer just for Foone reasons, I risk my roommates murdering me
@foone So if it is not the same dryer, then it is not even your dryer any more? As in, it is not the same dryer that you promised not to run Doom on?...

@foone Weeeeeell... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle

(OK, more of a roller than a wheel, but...)

Reuleaux triangle - Wikipedia

@foone Generally, yes, being round is a desirable trait of a wheel :o...
@foone Impressive wear for 8 years tbh. Just refurbed a 2011 and 2015 heat pump drier because they were super cheap secondhand (and <2kWh is amazing for one washing machine worth of clothes). And all the rollers were still in usable shape surprisingly.
@foone That will buff right out.

@foone I'm left wondering just how much of a racket the dryer was making before it gave up the ghost.

That wheel's been jammed solid for a while

@beeoproblem very much, because it wasn't just this wheel that was bad, It was all of them!
@FrostyFoxTeals @beeoproblem I did have a bunch of NT boxes nearby when I was fixing it. Maybe some of the Windows NT got into the dryer?

@foone I mean, not necessarily. A square wheel will roll smoothly on a road made up of catenary curve segments. Morphocular has a video on how to calculate a "perfect" road for any mathematically describable wheel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGxSTzaID3k

(note that just because their method yields a road shape for some wheel doesn't mean said wheel will roll smoothly, as some wheel shapes may have to clip into their respective road somewhere other than the contact point in order to roll smoothly)

The Perfect Road for a Square Wheel and How to Design It

YouTube
@foone Maintain a 40 year old Sears Kenmore washer & dryer because no modern equipment will fit the space built in 1963.
@stevewfolds @foone I maintain a 40yr old Maytag dryer because it came with the house and being purely electromechanical with no computers at all, will almost certainly outlive me, provided proper care.
@foone damn, what's your secret
@ifixcoinops I looked at the label?
@foone I meant getting a Samsung to last that long ;)

@ifixcoinops oh, that!

well, every single part was broken, if that explains it

@ifixcoinops @foone How to make a washing machine last: Call this guy.

His name is Warren, and he's a dead set legend.

(Every little box is a whitegoods appliance, and last time I checked they were stacked two high)

@ifixcoinops @foone To be clear, these are _mostly_ washing machines. Last I spoke with him he made it clear that yes he had some fridges, but they really weren't his jam. He is a washing machine guy.
@Farbs @foone this is the thing about Warrens
@Farbs @ifixcoinops I love that there's always a guy. for any X, there's an X guy
@foone 8 years old?!! Is it in an industrial laundry facility in continuous 24/7 use? Are your clothes made exclusively of tungsten ring mail? What HAPPENED to this thing?
@glyph well it's 8 years old and we've been in this house for 3 years. So apparently the first 5 years were filled with the previous renters fucking it up
@foone “What did we do with the dryer? What dryer? Oh! You mean the wrench tumbler?”
@foone this sounds delightfully inefficient can we also somehow use a blockch^H^H^H
@foone I feel like you're getting a long way from "Keyboard". For instance: No key(s). Also, no board. Now, a bunch of computer case lock switches (for the key lock on older cases) mounted in a 2x4 would definitely count.
@foone Though I have a feeling you've already done this.
@foone solid use of Morse code right there.
@foone ...does serial work with a clock of a ridiculous length? can you do serial communication with a dryer using 6 hours of running wet clothing?
@foone It’s not Morse code, it’s… moist code
@foone I'm now curious about what the current record is for most electrically inefficient keyboard.
@foone feels like this might be a little too high latency for an input device for DOOM
@foone don’t be silly, doom is for pregnancy tests and atm machines not dryers
@rgb @foone Should run a linter or a fuzzer on a dryer
@foone
Embrace your destiny
@foone as the liquid helium said to the mercury, "resistance is futile".
@foone but what if you don't gotta? What if you run doom anyway?