Share your ‘I MacGyver’d it’ solutions

Double sided alien tape works great for hanging acoustic panels.

Started with phone books. Upgraded to racquetballs. Currently using mattress springs.

I used to be MacGyver--my friends even call me that.  And I am still full of clever solutions.  But I now have my own machine shop and I do things professionally rather than with paperclips and gum.

Jerry

got quoted to fix my AC compressor at the shop at $900. Ended up fixing my compressor with few zip-ties that worth barely few cents.

got quoted with crazy prescription to fix my IBSD, but instead decided not to eat what hurts and saved another 10gs

Doin' and doin' it everywhere possible around the house and outside of it.

"Just yesterday I needed to raise my DVR. Found 4 orange juice bottle caps and 4 racquetballs."

I have an old Onkyo A-7055 integrated that I enjoy but the feet are not completely level. Achieved the same results with 4 rubber chair leg caps - they come in a variety of sizes.

Septic service wanted $2k to replace my crumbling D-box. Something about the acid dissolving concrete over time. I took two old plastic flower pots, put one inside the other, poured concrete cement into the 1" space between them. $2 for the bag of cement. First one crumbled to sand in 10 years. Now 20 years later this one is still strong as the day it was made- er, MacGyver'd.

Different colors of nail polish to paint bus-fuses.

My stereo at the time had only a mono sub out, but I wanted true stereo subs. I found out how to convert speaker level to line level, and now I have stereo subs. Not only is the music better with channel separation, it also serves to even out room response. Cost was a few bucks for a decent rca jack and a couple resistors.

I fought back against neighbors who blasted shitmusic from an outdoor stereo by using microwave oven parts in a homemade sheet-copper horn antenna to microwave and stop their stereo. I was in my last year of the coursework for my PhD in physics and math and used the university's expensive Mathematica software to optimize the dimensions of the horn antenna I designed. 

This was more than the statute of limitations of whatever laws I broke ago but when people try to report such things to the police they sound delusional so I was safe. 

I saw some MacGyver reruns my wife told me to watch and I would like to think MacGyver had a doctorate in the physics and/or engineering that made him able to invent his weapons.

MacGyver Revisited

Use of a pneumatic suspension is popular in the industry.  However this is seldom, if at all, properly implemented.  Overlooked is taking into account the suspended weight and the spring rate of the suspension component.  This is vital as it determines resonance.  Now, if we are so careful about matching compliance of tonearm to cartridge (which determines resonance) it seems the industry left us to guess this resonance with their expensive elastic suspensions.  The DIYer can easily do better, and the below equation should help obtain this goal of proper resonance.  The template at the referenced website makes this even easier.