Fixing broken Haier HRF-336SS fridge

Recently my five-year-old Haier HRF-336SS refrigerator suddenly broke down. It stopped cooling, there was a clicking noise coming from the back and the light inside the fridge was flickering. I disconnected the fridge from power, plugged it back and now it was also making a beeping sound every 5 seconds, and a red "alarm" notification appeared on the LCD panel.

The clicking noise was coming from behind of this panel, so I removed it:

There were two PCB boards behind the panel:

The clicking noise was coming specifically from a blue relay on the white PCB. I didn't immediately see any signs of a burned component or other malfunction, so I thought that perhaps the blue clicking relay was broken. I called Haier support and they scheduled a technician to come and check the fridge. The technician finally came over two days later, and after checking the fridge, he informed that they don't sell this model of the fridge anymore, and they don't have spare parts required to fix it. The recommendation from the technician was to buy a new fridge.

I wasn't happy with this, as the lifespan of a typical fridge should be at least 14 years, and it should be possible to repair what looked like some issue with electronics. Hence, I decided to try to fix it myself.

I removed the white PCB to check for any signs of broken electronics. Upon close inspection, I noticed one bulged capacitor:

No other issue with the white PCB was visible and the green PCB also looked perfectly fine. Hence, I simply replaced the bulged capacitor with a new one. Here's the same PCB after this quick fix:

I connected everything back together and turned on the fridge. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly fine. A simple replacement of a single broken capacitor was all that what was required to fix the fridge. There's one less fridge in the landfills, hopefully for another few years.

Perhaps don't listen to the tech support when they tell you to replace broken electronics. Try to fix it first.

Update: 1 month later the fridge still works fine.

ID: Perbaikan kulkas Haier HRF-336SS.

Banana spiders & trail running in Indonesia

Banana spiders just love to spin their webs above dirt paths just to catch tall trail runners and land on their heads. This one caught me today in it's web. Just one of the perks of trail running in Indonesia.

I couldn't resist teasing it a bit:

Deforestation at Gunung Pancar

The Gunung Pancar (Taman Wisata Alam Gunung Pancar) is my favorite trail running location. It is close to Jakarta, with lots of great trails covered with trees - running in the shade of pine trees in tropical Indonesia feels great. This afternoon I ran on my old trail around Gunung Pancar and discovered significant deforestation at the area. Also, when I got there, two trees surrounded by the new plantation were set on fire:

Meanwhile, beside setting trees on fire, this guy was busy chopping down nearby trees - you can see his face clearly on zoom:

He didn't like that I put out the fire, so I fled before he showed up near me with his machete:

This area is owned by Forestry Department (Departemen Kehutanan) and this activity is illegal, but nobody seems to bother. The trees visible on Google Earth are no longer there and it looks like pine trees at Gunung Pancar will soon be gone, replaced with illegal plantations. Meanwhile, people responsible for guarding this area do not appear to be doing much beside collecting the money for entrance to the park.

But, not everything is lost. Few kilometers from the place with burning trees, I found Eco Edu Forest that appears to be sponsored by PT Astra International with 130 trees planted:

This Eco Edu Forest is located here. They also installed warning sign informing about potential 10 years jail time for chopping down trees:

Big thank you Astra International! Here you can read more about their CSR project. As you can see on my photos, this project is real and really important. I really appreciate this eco contribution from Astra International.

Garuda vs Lion Air

One of the reasons I don't fly with Lion Air:

Wonderful Indonesia

The 2012 Wonderful Indonesia promotion video "Feeling is Believing " is indeed really wonderful:

I also like this video:

I also found this little gem on YouTube:

Overall, great job Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy! Looking forward to 2013 videos, keep up the good work.

Tree ferns of Java (Cyathea)

Photos of Cyathea tree ferns I took on a trail run around Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia):

Tree ferns do not form new woody tissue in their trunk as they grow. Rather, the trunk is supported by a fibrous mass of roots that expands as the tree fern grows.

More info about Cyathea on this site.

Privacy in Indonesia

Anyone living in Indonesia will soon realise that the concept of privacy is not very well understood within the Indonesian society. Here's one interesting example, of a prepaid SIM-card registration process:

The registration process includes question "Are you a smoker? [Apakah Anda Perokok?]" It is not possible to skip this question. I think most of westerners would be really surprised to see such question - why the hell mobile operator needs to know if I'm smoking?!?!?! - and would not be happy to have to answer to it, but it is perfectly normal in Indonesia.

Gunung Pancar

I took a few photos from one of my favorite spots around Gunung Pancar, featuring Gunung Pancar (left) and Gunung Salak (center):

This is how the same view looks in Google Earth - it's pretty close actually:

It's possible to see Jakarta from here, but unfortunately due to high humidity and pollution, I can never see it clearly - I'm still waiting for the right conditions to take a better photo:

 Sentul seen from the same spot:

In case you want to visit yourself, I mapped all these photos on Panoramio.

Creatures of Gunung Pancar

I found this cute little crab on a trail run around Gunung Pancar:

I didn't know crabs can live in a forest at 450m elevation. This little bug was not moving much, so I had enough time to  set-up proper light:

Trail run from Cibadak to Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia)

Last weekend I went back to Cibadak for more trail run challenges (video):

Finally I managed to find an off-road trail from Cibadak to Gunung Pancar (parking at the  pine tree forest). Turns out, it was another night trail run in this area because of invalid maps both on Google Earth & Garmin GPS (same source?). I had to run extra 4km to find the correct trail. Backup waterproof flashlight really came in handy.

Java Trail Runs - trekking virtual roads in Indonesia

Last weekend I got back to hills of Cibadak, trying to find new shorter trail from Cibadak to Gunung Pancar. The landscape was really amazing, with lots of rocky streams and rice fields:

The tall grass in the above photo was some fun. I wasn't too confident walking through it because of snakes I saw in the area (actually on the other side of the hill around Gunung Pancar) and also there were quite a few hidden holes in the grass:

Surprisingly, I could not find a single snake all the trail. Even better, not a single banana spider.

Anyway, as it turns out,  my planned route was useless because all the roads shown on Google Earth/ Garmin GPS map that I planned to take were only virtual. I end up trekking 3km through a rocky stream and could not find any way out because of steep hills on both banks of the stream:

The mark 98 visible on Google Earth as a road, where I planned to go up the hill, was actually a small waterfall! Too bad I could not take photos because by the time I got to the stream it was already too dark:

Anyway, after 1 hour of trekking through the stream including 30 minutes in complete darkness I managed to find way out and back to a dirt road. I think I'll need to get stronger flashlight, because the one I had was useless in longer distance, so I couldn't find any road behind grass. I end up switching it off, so after a while I could see roads in the distance. Running in the dark I also scared few farmers, who weren't quite expecting someone running in darkness.

Overall, it was really fun trekking/running. I did not get to my planned destination, but I found few great dirt roads for trail runs.The stream trekking was also great, I'll probably try going up some mountain stream again. Oh, and I'll try to find that trail to Gunung Pancar again - got new route already planned.

The North Face Single-Track Trail Running Shoe

After years of running trails mostly in Nike and Reebok shoes I wanted to try a different brand. I've read quite a few positive reviews advertising The North Face Single-Track Trail Running Shoe. e.g.:

• The North Face Single-Track Awarded “Best Debut” by Runner’s World
• 2010 Gear of the Year award recipient from Outside Magazine

While on a trip to Bangkok I purchased a pair, which pretty much looks like this:

Now, this is how my heel looks after every 5k trail run in The North Face Single-Track Trail Running Shoe:

The ugly blister in the above photo is courtesy of The North Face as I always get those when I run in their Single-Track Trail Running Shoes. Just in case you wonder, I purchased correct size and have not immediately run long distances in it (it was impossible to run more than 2km in these shoes anyway). The problem with these shoes in my opinion is simply very poor design and I can prove it.

This is how heel looks in my Nike shoes:

Just soft foam with no edges, which is why I've never had a single blister while running in Nike (or Reebok) shoes. Now compare the above heel to The North Face Single-Track:

As you can notice there's hard foam collar in the heel surrounding the ankle and creating sharp edge that rubs the top of my heel. To make matters worse, the material covering this hard collar has texture, which I can compare to sand paper. Perfect recipe for terrible blisters.

These shoes received awards from Runner’s World and Outside Magazine and they happen to be the worst shoes I've ever purchased. Clearly, this was my last purchase of any The North Face product.

Tarsius tumpara - Siau Island tarsier

Two photos of Siau Island tarsier (Tarsius tumpara) in captivity I took during my last trip to Siau:

This animal is on the top 25 most endangered primates list. It is critically endangered (A1 acd) and faces an imminent threat of extinction. I was shocked to find one in a cage behind a house of some guy on Siau island. This animal is one of only about 1000 still alive!

Orange sunset in Jakarta

Yesterday I took this photo of Jakarta at sunset.

This was probably the most vibrant orange sunset I've ever seen.
PS: This photo was not Photoshopped.

New Shoes - Nike Lunareclipse 2

Bought new running shoes, Nike Lunareclipse 2:

I must say the ultra-soft Lunarlon cushioning feels great!

Update: 2 months later, I must say those are the best road running shoes I've ever owned. These shoes are near perfect, the only thing I could complain about are short shoelaces. Nike will have very tough challenge to come up with something even better.

We will fall. We can rise!

Los Angeles Galaxy won today 1-0 over an Indonesian all-star team. At least unlike Manchester United, they have not cancelled and actually played in Jakarta! Anyway, we all should remember what life is about. We will fall. We can rise!

Indonesian TV Commercials

I'm against promotion of tobacco products, but I must admit cigarette companies in Indonesia release some of the best TV commercials in the world:

The above TV commercial released by Djarum (Indonesian producer of clove cigarettes) really shows amazing beauty of Indonesia. Below another two cigarette commercials I really like:

You can also compare it to TV commercials promoting tourism in Indonesia:

I'm looking forward to new year TV commercials.

Jalan Orang Utan (Orangutans Road)

Not the kind of view I like to have on a trail run:

Strangely, the name of this street is "Jalan Orang Utan", which means "Orangutan Road". Sad.

NakedPasswords

How do you encourage users to enter stronger passwords? How about showing girl removing her clothing as the password entered by user grows stronger? That's exactly the interesting idea proposed by NakedPasswords. Yet, I'm not quite sure this would be legal to use in Indonesia (my ISP is yet to block it in their filters) and I think most female users would probably prefer to see a male version.

Java (Indonesia) Trail Running - Scenic Views

In previous posts I wrote about beautiful views trail runners can enjoy outside Jakarta. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just share a few photos from my trail runs: