2009/10/18
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Sunday, October 18, 2009 (#291)
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[category:Facebook]]
08:39
Came down this morning to find that Josh had left the fridge door wide open. Closed it. Ten minutes later, I found it open again -- even though I was cooking stuff for him. We've looked into fridge alarms (either light- or temperature-based*), but they're all ridiculously expensive for a circuit which I could make myself for $2, if I had the time to figure it out.
*I should have said light, temperature, or (what would be simplest) mechanical -- just a leaf switch or something.
The minor problem is that it shouldn't go off right away; there should be a delay of maybe 10-30 seconds, so people can get into the fridge for normal stuff without being beeped at constantly. Just rigging a switch to a beeper I could probably do in a few minutes; it's the timer that's the tricky part.
- Mel suggests a fridge lock
Can you get one for an existing fridge? I thought those had to come with the unit.
- Mollie suggests Gorilla Glue (which ends up not working for this problem, but does end up working quite well for replacing sewer clean-outs)
I've heard rumors of the manifold virtues of Gorilla Glue -- we may actually try that. Then we add yet another key to the kids' keyrings (and ours). Meh.
- Hilde suggests some kind of self-closing mechanism
I thought of that... there are 2 options I can see: (1) spring-loaded hinge to push the door closed, (2) a spring without a hinge, pushing the door closed from the same location.
The problem with #1 is that the axis of the new hinge needs to be in line with the axis of the door's existing hinges, and that axis is inside the door. #2 might work, but the problem is getting it to stay attached (not as much surface area for the glue). Maybe if someone made a push-spring with plates on both ends (or if there were some way to attach plates firmly to the spring), which could then be glued... I'll have a look next time we're at the hardware store, but I kind of doubt it.
A cheap but ugly solution: attach a string just above the door and dangling down the front of the door, with a weight at the end. This will tend to pull the door closed. I might try that.