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Kia ODBII Codes P0171 and P0174

So I ran into this problem on our 2006 Kia Sedona, it had been running a little off and was hesitating at idle. The check engine light came on so I pulled the ODBII codes. I got two codes, P0171 (Bank 1 too lean) and P0174 (Bank 2 too lean). Now since this issue is affecting both banks, it had to be something that was common to both. Too lean typically indicates that it is getting too much air or not enough fuel. I did a little bit of looking around and quickly found the problem.

Kia sedona air intake hose split

I started looking and quickly found the air intake hose was cracked at the flexible section. This appears to be a fairly common issue on the Kia Sedona and possibly other similar vehicles. As this hose gets some age on it, it gets hard and brittle. Every time you check the air intake filter you flex this hose and eventually it cracks. The reason for these two codes (P0171 and P0174) is that this hose is after the MAF sensor. The computer has already taken it’s reading of how much air is flowing through the intake and has adjusted the fuel to correspond. With this hose cracked it allows more air into the engine than the computer thinks is getting there causing a lean condition.

Kia sedona air intake hose replaced

Replacing this hose is quite easy, it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish. It’s five clamps to get it swapped out. The replacement from Amazon comes with an adapter for the forward reservoir if yours is the smaller one. Just keep in mind that you will need a larger clamp that does not come with the replacement. You can use a standard worm clamp to get the job done.

Good luck and hope this helps!

Feel free to post any comments below.

60W Chinese Laser Fraud – Buyer Beware

60W Chinese Laser Cutter/Engraver Scam

I am writing this post as a warning to anyone wanting to buy a 60W Chinese laser off of Ebay, Amazon or anywhere else. I purchased one a few months ago and have recently discovered that it is definitely not a 60W laser.

Fake 60W Chinese Laser Scam

If you have bought this supposed 60W Chinese Laser, there is a very good chance that you did not get what you paid for.

Below are the details of what I have found.

The Laser I Thought I Bought

This laser was advertised as “60W CO2 Laser Engraver Top Line Laser Engraving Machine-comes w/ USB Interface”. The item specs listed by the seller show “Laser Power: 60 W”. Reading this, what would you think the power of the machine would be? If you are like me, you would say 60W!

The Laser That I Actually Got

After some problems with the laser, I dug into it to troubleshoot the laser no longer firing. This is where I confirmed that I did not get a 60W Chinese laser, I did not get a 50W Chinese laser…I got a 40W Chinese laser!

My Findings

Undersized Laser Power Supply Installed

The first thing that I looked at was the power supply. I removed it and tried to find a model number on it but only found adhesive residue for a label that had been removed…suspicious. I started looking online for a laser power supply that looked the same as the one that was installed on my machine. I found the exact model on Amazon listed as MYJG-50. This power supply is rated for a 35W to 50W laser tube. The proper power supply for a 60W Laser would be a MYJG-60 or equivalent which is physically larger than the one installed.

Undersized power supply in chinese 60W Laser

I decided to dig even further and took the power supply apart. To my further surprise, I found that the High Voltage Flyback Transformer inside the power supply is a HS-05-40JS8, which is rated for a 40W laser power supply.

40W Flyback transformer in 50W laser power supply

Not only was the power supply they installed underrated for what it was supposed to be, but the internals of the power supply were underrated for what it said it was. Double whammy!

Undersized Laser Tube

So now that I know my power supply is undersized, I move on to the laser tube. By all logic, a 60W laser should have a 60W laser tube installed. Well, apparently this is not Chinese Laser manufacturers logic also.

The laser tube that was installed only had one marking on it (SY161010A-405060WF) and I was unable to get it to cross reference on any searches that I did. If anyone has anymore info or verification, please leave a comment below. Now I must dig further.

Label on Chinese 50W Laser Tube

I measured from tip to tip of the laser tube and found it to be 990mm, the diameter of the tube is 50mm. I searched for these dimensions for a laser tube and all that I could find was a 50W tube that was sometimes listed as a 40-50W laser tube.

A proper 60W laser tube is around 1200mm long and typically 55mm in diameter. The inside dimensions of the laser is not even big enough to contain a tube of this length. There is a removable panel on the right side that you can take off and add an extension box if you need to use a longer tube. The 60W laser should have this extension box installed and the longer 60W tube used.

Wrong tube in 60W Chinese Laser

The 60W Chinese Laser Seller’s Response

Now that I had all the facts and was quite irritated at the fraud that had been perpetrated upon me, it was time to contact the seller and notify them that I know what’s up.

If money wasn’t involved, their response would be comical. To sum it up, they told me that the power supply does not matter in determining the power of the laser and that it is all decided by the gas proportion and the mirrors. See their actual responses below. I will update as the responses continue.

60W Chinese Laser Fraud

You can see in their first response that they are hoping I am gullible and will fall for their con.

Response 2 from 60W Chinese laser seller

They thought I should watch a grainy video showing absolutely no specs of what the equipment was rated for and no details of what power settings they were running at.

Response 3 from 60W Chinese laser seller

Above is my response to them regarding the video they wanted me to see.

The Next Step

I know that the seller has absolutely no intention of correcting this so now I will go about upgrading the laser to the specs that I originally paid for. I will do everything I can to make anyone shopping for a 60W Chinese laser aware of this scam.

If you have a similar story or anything else to add, I would love to hear it in the comments.

WordPress Custom CSS Image Class

Looking for a simple way to add a custom CSS image class to WordPress thumbnails without adding another <div> or wrapper around them? Maybe you have multiple WordPress loops on one page and you want to be able to style your images separately in each loop. Maybe you just like complete control over your naming conventions.

Follow this simple step and be on your way to customized images in your WordPress loop.

the_post_thumbnail() Attributes

When you add the thumbnail to your loop using the the_post_thumbnail() function, use the #attr parameter as below:

*/ Adding the class "custom-class-name" to the <img> tag /*

<?php

the_post_thumbnail( 'small', array('class' => 'custom-class-name' ) );

?>

the_post_thumbnail(#size, #attr) has two parameters available.

#size: This is optional and sets the size of the thumbnail based off of previously defined image sizes in your WordPress functions.php file.
#attr: This is where you can add additional data to the <img> tag for the thumbnail. This is not limited to just adding the CSS class, you can add any additional attributes you like to the <img> tag at this point.

Leave a comment and let me know how this works for you or if you have other ideas!

DIY Arduino Powered LED Under Bed Lights – Details

This post currently shows Version 1 of the build. Since then, I have made numerous changes and improvements. These will all be incorporated into a new post in the very near future.

DIY Under Bed LED Lighting with an Arduino

This post contains the details for the DIY Under Bed Lights for my kids loft bed, click here for the entire post on the LED Light Project. Below I show you step by step how to make your connections and solder your Arduino Proto board.

I am connecting to four individually addressable LED strips that use the WS2812B LED chip. I am making this board as my prototype board and each LED strip will only have 6 LED’s. The final product will use 4 strips of 25 LED’s each. Continue reading DIY Arduino Powered LED Under Bed Lights – Details

WordPress Jetpack Photon – SEO Loss

Use WordPress Jetpack Photon with care!

I just wanted to write a quick warning based on an actual situation that arose on my Wife’s website (www.WholeMadeLiving.com…go ahead and check it out, I’ll wait…)

Her content ranks really well in a lot of Google searches. Almost always the images of her mouthwatering food show up in the search results. If I do a “Site Search” of the Google index for her website site:wholemadeliving.com it would return pages and pages of her indexed content along with the little images next to the results.

Her Website Images Disappeared From Search Results

One day, out of the blue I noticed this all changed. Suddenly there were no more images at all for her search results in google. I needed to quickly get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened.

Continue reading WordPress Jetpack Photon – SEO Loss

LEGO Robotics & Kids

As a parent of three young boys, I have learned the hard way that LEGO’s can be a parent’s worst nightmare. I spend hours picking up LEGO’s and sound like the proverbial TV dad yelling at his kids to pick up their LEGO’s. I have also seen the important lessons that LEGO’s can teach kids.

I have watched all of my boys build unique and imaginative creations for hours and then I watch them cry in horror as their poorly engineered structure comes tumbling down. Then I watch them rebuild it again, maybe a little better next time and so on. All three of them now build very creative LEGO structures and creatures.

Enter LEGO Robotics – LEGO Mindstorms EV3

We took my oldest son, who was in kindergarten to his school’s science fair, we walked around and looked at all of the cool things the kids had built. On the way out, there was a table set up by the schools LEGO robotics club. We stopped and he watched all of the robots absolutely mesmerized with what he saw.

Continue reading LEGO Robotics & Kids

Choose Your New Web-host

One of the more important decisions you will make when starting your own blog or website is deciding which web-host you will be using. You have many choices but like anything else in this world, results may vary.

All I can do is give you my opinion on companies that I have used myself and you can follow your own gut on which web-host to pick.

One decision you need to make right now at the beginning is do you want to start out small and then expand in the future or do you just want to go for the gusto and go big from the start?

Continue reading Choose Your New Web-host

WordPress Child Themes – Simple

A WordPress child theme is something absolutely marvelous that you really might want to think about implementing! Do you like to play around with the style of your WordPress site? A WordPress child theme is just the thing for you.

What Is A WordPress Child Theme?

In simple terms, it’s basically a sandbox where you can make all the changes you want without changing the code of the original theme. The original theme is the parent and the new theme is the child.

A child theme is super simple to make and I’ll show you how to get started.

What is required to create a child theme? Not much at all, it’s pretty simple… Continue reading WordPress Child Themes – Simple

What is an Addressable LED?

There is a lot of commotion lately about LED’s, they seem to be appearing pretty much everywhere. This is most likely due to the fact that they are very useful, cheap and most importantly to me, just plain fun to work with! I thought I would take a few minutes to explain the difference between a couple different types of LED’s.

Non-Addressable(Cool) VS. Addressable(Very Cool)

There are a lot of options when it comes to buying LED’s and you want to make sure you have the right ones for your project to fulfill the grand vision you had in mind. Let’s start out talking about the way you control the LED’s.

All of these LED’s can be in the form of flexible light strips or individual LED’s. Let’s figure out the basics of each type of LED. Continue reading What is an Addressable LED?

Power Arduino UNO with 5VDC

On a recent project for DIY Under Bed LED Lighting I found myself in a bit of a power conundrum. I had a strip of 5V LED lights that required around 7 amps to run at full brightness. I didn’t want two separate power supplies powering the lights and the Arduino UNO and I didn’t want the Arduino powered by a battery and I didn’t want to add a DC to DC converter to boost the voltage. I know, I seem pretty picky here!

Since the Arduino UNO’s absolute minimum input voltage (per the specs) is 6V, how will I get this thing powered off of one single 5V power supply in the simplest way possible?

Well, It’s much simpler than it sounds. The Arduino UNO itself actually requires 5V to operate, so why does it ask for more? Continue reading Power Arduino UNO with 5VDC