That’s everything. I hope you find something you like! Mom insists that tassels are IN right now! She stays on top of that stuff better than I do, so I’m inclined to believe her. I’m the one who will show up wearing pearls and a bandana. Meanwhile, I’ll be hopefully readying myself for a trip to the post office to mail these things far and wide. Thanks for having a look, see you again next time!
Haha, yeah, right, made you look. As if that will ever happen.
First/foremost: Apologies for the short notice – I’m planning to add new beads and things to my shop on Monday June 26th at 7pm Central Time. I’ll post here again when everything is ready for your perusal, and if you’re subscribed to this blog you’ll be the first to know what’s happening and when for this shop update, and all future ones. That is, if you are someone who still uses email.
I wanted to update my shop much sooner, but I can only blame getting a week behind (because let’s face it, it’s more like 4 weeks altogether) on this little doodad. In case you can’t readily identify it, that is a relay. In my life, this thing causes the heating elements in my annealer to switch off and on to maintain a constant temperature, and it is directed to do what it does by a microprocessor. I honestly can’t imagine how this technically, actually works; it might as well be magic. I do know for sure the beads must be annealed, and I must have an annealer to do that, and that’s not magic so much as it is a fact. By most accounts, relays in annealers generally only last a couple of years. This one? 17. Years, that is. I have been expecting this day to come for about the last 15 years, yet it was still something of a surprise when it did. All my annealer told me that night – the one night when I really needed to work and finish an order – was “tCl”. After I turned it on, it clicked like always, then a few minutes passed with no increase in temperature, then another click, then the tCl error message. According to the microprocessor manual, it could be anything: the elements had finally died, the thermocouple was either dead or had a coating of corrosion on it, or the relay had finally bit it. Odd thing was, the last program ran without issue or error – the processor will always give a cryptic message if there was any problem at all and no such thing happened, hence my surprise. I reckon it was such a loyal little relay that it did its very last job thoroughly and without complaint.
I bought this annealer in 2006 and bought all three of these major parts a few years later, expecting to replace them much, much sooner and under more intense pressure. My annealer, the Paragon EZ Beader, is blue, looks a lot like the Bluebird, and was only around for a short while before they released the Bluebird. The EZ Beader is smaller, cost a few hundred less, and uses half the electricity. Most standard annealers use 15 amps, mine uses 7, which was probably the most attractive thing about it at the time of purchase, and still is, if we’re being honest.
So after two more tCl (thermocouple lag) messages, onto the internet I went to figure out how to troubleshoot. The worst case scenario was the elements had died – rumor has it that the elements in these types of annealers are actually encased in fiberboard, which, if they are encased this certain way, will necessitate replacing the entire fiberboard+element apparatus and could cost hundreds of dollars. I know for sure this is the case for the Paragon Bluebird, and this part costs around $900. (I know, right?) Once I discovered the situation with the Bluebird and the $900 replacement part, I began to absolutely panic and was fairly confused by why Paragon would have sold me a free flowing element if it were of no use to me and I determined that perhaps they were just selling me a part to turn a quick buck. Who knows, really. I still don’t, and I won’t until that element needs to be replaced. Needless to say, I’m dreading that eventuality.
The conclusion I ultimately reached was that I needed to be, or to know, an electrician, before I completely lost my cool. I called Paragon, and they weren’t much help since they don’t make my model any more and it quit being made so long ago. I wracked my brain. I had a vague recollection of seeing a volt or ohm meter in my hallway drawer at some point in the last two decades, but I didn’t bother to look for it because cautiously plugging stuff into a wall and rewiring a lamp is as far as I’ll go with electricity. Mom suggested a family friend, who I called, and he showed up a few days later at 10am (gads, that’s early) and proceeded to disassemble one of my most important tools. The feeling wasn’t too different than leaving an of-age kitten at the vet to have their, errr, um, social skills adjusted. Mind you, I already had to do very minor surgery on it practically right out of the box in 2006 – it had been shipped out with a faulty microprocessor that needed to be replaced, and that was fairly simple. Oh, and I had to replace a fuse that literally saved its little blue life when my electricity freaked out on the cable guy that one time (he was unharmed, thank goodness), but replacing the fuse took about two brain cells to accomplish.
So now this thing is open, the things that need to be tested are exposed and the tinkering expert used his instruments to reveal the truth. The elements: functional. The relay: dead. The relief washed over me with the grace of a 10lb sack of potatoes. Frank the engineer quickly and skillfully replaced the relay, and we did a test run. The relay clicked, the temperature increased, the microprocessor executed my commands as usual, and the remainder of the relief set in. The new relay is a bit more quiet than the last one, and knock on wood, it has carried me through at least 3 bead related workdays without issue.
a tiny glimpse at what will be available
Which brings me to my next point – there will be beads! Not as many as I was hoping for (there never are) but really nifty purse charms will abound. This new job is kicking my feet’s butt for the majority of each week, but I work near the most perfectly extravagant models (see above) for these purse charms and had fun photographing them. Off the clock on a slow day, of course. So I’m going to be off my feet for a few days, putting these listings together, and as usual, I hope I can make it in time. I hope you can make it too! Thanks for checking in!
the z-beads blog 