So at some point last year - I think it was like midsummer (and that's a guess, i totally don't remember), the Carriage that attaches to the chain that moves the door on my garage door opener broke. the opener still worked, but the stopper had broken off, so it was pretty crippled. I eventually just disabled it, and have working the door manually ever since.
Cue the last month or so re-orging my garage. I've been pulling out garbage, combining like things and redistributing hardware, moving the stupid shelves to the other wall and lowering them to be a great workbench - topped with an old discarded tabletop; set up an old kid's computer desk with castors to live anew as a rolling tool bench; took the LCD TV that worked intermittently, and as such was replaced in the house front room and set it up over the desk, attached to a Roku we don't use anymore to play Youtube videos, and have a 12 year-old laptop running Windows 10 - barely - hooked to a 17" flat screen monitor mounted on a swing-arm we didn't have a use for in the house.
It's been pretty productive, and I have a great shop space that didn't cost very much to build up. Already run a handful of wildly successful projects out of it; it's nice when you need to do a little job that should take 15 minutes, you don't start by spending 45 trying to find something in a dump. Gives me a great place to maintain the bikes, too.
And there it was. I'd forgotten about it. Up in the overhead storage was a Chamberlain WhisperDrive Opener, Still in the box. been there for like 2 years... but it was purchased in like 2008... and never used. Long story.
So anyway - there's my fix. i spent the last couple days replacing it, pulled the old Genie (which is, technically, newer than the chamberlain, probably - assuming it was new-installed when the house was built in '09 - but a crappy little no-feature stock model) out of the ceiling, and it's laying on the floor all forlorn whilst I set up and tweak the... well, new one.
Another handy feature of my garage is the block-and-tackle hoist for the Wrangler hard top. It makes lifting the hardtop into the ceiling for storage a one-person, one-handed job. i just pull on the string and up it comes. hardly feels like it weighs anything.
So anyway, i'm kinda working and thinking about next steps and I think well, i'll do this and this and then dismantle that genie for scrap, too bad, It turns the chain great, just the doorstop is busted, and I have no need for...
... for...
... for...
a remote-controlled electric-powered 3/4 horsepower chain-drive winch.
That I can mount anywhere and use my Bike repair tools to make the chain any length I want.
And then I looked at that block and tackle hoist.... specifically the empty piece of wall, above the electrical outlet I installed a month ago, where the hoist rope is coiled, loosely.
Soon as I can get my hands on a spare rear bicycle wheel, that sucker gonna be electric and remote-controlled.
