Faulty 4 - Gang Extension module

Last Friday morning was a shocking experience for me. As I was having my quick breakfast by just munching at my cubicle, I heard an explosion (small one). I ignored the sound as I thought it was not serious because the munching sounds caused my ears to be less sensitive.

All my colleagues stood up and look at me. I felt strange and I asked, "what are you guys lookin at?" By the time one of them came over, I could smell burnt pvc material very near to my office notebook. My colleague who walked over told me that she saw a spark followed by the small explosion sound. She also added that the explosion has caused power tripped to all their cubicle sockets. I replied "Ehh? Really" and they looked at me angrily.



I sniffed all around the notebook area and finally I found the first socket of the 4-gang extension module got burnt. I didn't bother much as I had to attend training downstairs.

The same explosion occured right after lunch time when I was experimenting the same 4-gang extension with another socket. This time, my colleague Justin warned me not to play with it anymore.

Being a stubborn person, I asked Lydia, whose father is an electrician about the problem. She asked me to dismantle the module and I did. I saw burnt marks on both sockets and we found out that each of the socket is connected to an LED and a resistor.



We have concluded that the resistor might be faulty and could not take the load and burst. So being an office McGuyver, I cut loose all connecting LEDs together with its' resistor and assemble back the extension module.

I did few testings and it works fine! So, the lesson learnt is -> never purchase the 4-gang extension with light indicator! That would add more electronic components to the module and one the component fails, it would cause explosion. Beware. :)

My Satria's Faulty absorbers

Lately, I feel funny when driving my car especially the braking and cornering. I could not stop my car within the distance I expected it to do and also my car sways during cornering.

My newly installed Bendix brake pads are good and served me well for the past few months but still, braking is not efficient enough and my car has been too bouncy as well. I suspected something amiss with the suspension system and my assumption was absolutely correct after I heard clunking sound on the front left of my car after climbing the ramp of the office basement parking area.

This is scarry as the whole car is now unstable due to no proper support by the absorbers. Since the Satria is quite old, I think I forgot to replace the shocks and coils after 65000km. Oops!

Two days ago, I dropped by my favourite spare parts shop around PJ area to get new absorbers. I selected Kayaba shocks because they are less expensive and reliable. KYB Malaysia actually manufactures shocks for many Japanese cars such as Vios, Latio, Grand Livinia and so forth.

Since there is no other brand for the coil springs, I ended up buying APM coils for both front and rear absorbers. I bought oil-based for the front and gas-charged for the rear. I ended up damaging my wallet for RM 470.00 without installation.



Here's a short calculation for the total cost:
- KYB Front oil-type shocks = RM88.00 x 2 = RM 176.00
- KYB Rear gas-charged shocks = RM 58.00 x 2 = RM 116.00
- APM Coil springs (Front) = RM 46.00 x 2 = RM 92.00
- APM Coil springs (Rear) = RM 43.00 x 2 = RM 86.00

I think, the whole cost spent on the car (for 4 wheels) is still cheaper than my Rock Shox Tora fork of my mountain bike. Maybe I should quit mountain biking eh? LOL

I have yet to install the shocks due to busy weekdays' schedule and hopefully my mechanic near Jalan Gasing can install them with reasonable price.