29 new of 848 responses total.
Yeah, that news item has gotten some discussion on various audio forums. Actually it was a commercial product, a somewhat retro design called the "Copperphone".
So for the last 30-40 minutes I've been running on "0%" charge, and the time remaining display has given up and is just saying "Calculating...". So I guess the new cells are holding up, and the battery software ought to catch up on the next charge.
The office chair I reupholstered a few months ago was getting a bit lumpy in the seat - I'd used all cotton stuffing. I hadn't wanted to use foam, since it tends to break down over time. But poking around the fabric store I found "densified polyester batting" which seems like a better filling. It's springy but fairly open in weave. So I bought a seat-sized piece and put it (along with a smaller amount of the cotton) into the seat. Managed to get the leather cover back on, and it's much more comfortable.
Got my wireless connection to the internet working. Full account in micros 255. (That makes it look simple - it actually took many hours and frustration to get it all configured.)
Scott, you could probably have purchased (or found) a couple of used polyester-filled seat cushions at Kiwanis (50 cents each) or the curb this past week. My leather office chair is filled with latex foam, which lasts.
My brand-new 1995 Jetta is getting old, and the door locks are no exception. Basically the driver-side lock has gotten 99.9% of the use, and it's definitely gotten a bit tricky to use. And it freezes up pretty good in cold weather, too. So today I swapped the lock cylinders between left & right doors. Took about 1.5 hours, probably would have gone much faster if I'd known a couple short-cuts I figured out while doing it. Anyway, I should be good for a couple more winters without having lock problems.
I installed a Wheelskins leather steering wheel cover on my car. It was somewhat time consuming (about an hour and a half) but the results are worth it for the one part of the car I touch the most.
We were given a weather station with a remote transmitter for outside temperature and humidity but our house has no sheltered north-facing side for the transmitter, which is not waterproof. Therefore I built a housing out of 4" PVC drain pipe and an end-cap top. It is attached to the house siding with brackets bent from aluminum strap. It got a little complicated as I had to be able to open it and remove the transmitter to replace batteries, and I also added a screen across the open bottom to keep wasps from building a nest in it.
Nobody has done anything since February? I fixed the kitchen faucet because it was leaking (at least) around the swiveling spout seals. This then got complicated in chasing down all the parts. Lowes had the Moen 1225 Cartridge but not the 117 Seal Kit, which I found at a plumbing store, but then on disassembly found that the composition thingy in the Handle Adapter Assembly was worn so got that from the Moen website, and after everything was reassembled found that the Spray Head and Hose Assembly leaked and also had to be replaced. It was, though, less expensive for parts than to replace the whole shebang...not counting time and automobile wear, tear and fuel. Recommendation: replace all the polymer sealing parts in these complicated faucets at the same time. Repairing different components as they start to leak will consume much more time overall - and get all the parts online to eliminate the (often futile) search through stores.
Jim has been doing lots of things but is too busy to report on them. This week (having cleaned out the garage for two weeks to make space to work in) he eventually got the two rear wheels of a car given to us taken apart and the brakes cleaned of rust and reassambled. Now he is working on a front wheel that is dragging and might need new bearings. Then he has to fill the holes in the wheel wells so that the outside is separate from the inside of the car and the trunk, including a hole in the floor in front. Apart from all this rust, the rest of the car was taken care of by the neighbors whose plumbing he keeps fixing. They gave it to us after a seatbelt stopped working. That was a simple fix. He pointed out where the spare tire was sitting in a puddle (until the floor under it rusted through) and now the metal on it is too rusted and irregular for the tire to hold air, so that needs fixing too, somehow. He has until Thursday to get it running, or we could switch to the other car and improvise an exhaust system again for it. It is 1987 and this one is 1986. THe library had the repair manual.
What's he filling the holes with? When a car I had rusted through the space between the wheel well and the fender I filled the whole space with polyurethane foam.
I use canvas and roofing tar.
Jim used polyurethane foam and then sprayed some black rubberized coating over it. It looks nice but don't bump it. For the floors he used the stuff you put on roofs to prevent ice dams, over two layers of stainless steel. The car drove 3500 miles. He spent two days on the trip underneath it and managed to patch the oil leaks with a 2-part epoxy compound and gave up on the gas leak. It only leaked if you filled it over half full, so we would put in 5 gal at a time when it was nearly empty, calculating when that was (the fuel gauge only works when it is over half full) by counting miles and assuming 40 mpg (35 in rush hour traffic, 45 on level highway). The trunk was also leaking on the trip but he fixed it with rust treatment and we put the piano onto the back seat instead (in pieces, just fit). The FM radio did not work, AM is not worth much, but the tape player was fixable. It was too noisy to hear much even with the windows shut (and then it was very hot). We are thinking of selling the 1987 Dodge Colt that needs and exhaust system - maybe for $300? It works apart from that. WE don't need both.
Recently gave my Mazda 626 (working well needs battery body mostly used up from rust) to a friend when I moved to AZ. It's not much of a favor, but he can use it more than I can. I hope it does as well for him as it has for me these past many years. Took apart the hand brake lever on my Subaru Legacy wagon as the lever would not stay up. Turned out the button to release the lever had broken (in a minor way) and the loose pieces were binding the button. Now it works again although the button is a little deeper in the handle, and it wiggles more. Sometime I'll get to a yard and get a new old lever for it. Gotta say I just love that Subi wagon. Great car. It moved my whole life to AZ from MI, and it moved one of my friend's whole life from MI to San Diego. Both fun trips. As well as several other trans continental flights. Really no other way to describe MI to AZ in under 30 hours. :)
Wow, I'm still working on the BMW that I was working on in item 734. Got a solo seat and rack coming in from Germany. Engine is back together but I've not run it yet. I wonder how much longer this project will take?
Built a remote on/off control for the cable modem and wireless base station, to be operated from near the computers in another part of the house. I used (powerline) X-10 control. The X-10 signal would not pass the filtered UPS that provided the power for the modem/base, so I used an X-10 Universal Module at the wall outlet, which is a switch for low voltage service, to operate a 12V relay that switches the power to the modem/base.
This past couple of years I contributed to building a "Caver's Choice Ballot Box", which can be seen as the last item shown on http://tinyurl.com/y7w3h8 My wife did the side mosaics, my daughter the top one, and I designed and constructed the box so that it is easily assembled and disassembled for transport. My daughter also carved the lettering in wax and I made the RTV silicone rubber molds from them and cast the letters in pewter. Besides the "Honorable Mention" in the NSS Fine Arts Salon, the ballot box won the "Caver's Choice" Award itself, for which the box was made to receive the ballots. The left-hand mosaic is the logo of the NSS Fine Arts Salon, and the right-hand mosaic is from a photo I took of a friend in a Michigan cave. (Opposite that one is a mosaic of me in a cave in California.) This was a fun project, for all of the new design and techniques challenges faced and met.
I built a boat shed, rebuilt a CX650C, merged the parts from a '54 Gravely L1 with those of a '64 L8 (Can't do that with stuff these days!) and use it to till a 40' x 40' gagden, maintain 1/2 mile of trails and plow two LONG driveways. That's enough for now.
Klaus! good to see you. It's been ages and ages.
Re #384: is that project finished, klaus?
I come by here every now and then to clean out my mailbox. Rane, #384 is not my project so I can't answer your question. I put new brake pads on my CX650C and new stainless steel mufflers on a BMW R75/5. Nice bike, that! I rebuilt the hi/lo planatray on my '69 Commercial 12 Gravely 2-wheel tractor and then discovered that the differential had big problems. Parts are on order to repair that and bring it up to the more recent configuration. I'm kicking around ideas on building an electric motorbike. Something with a 40 mile range and top speed of around 50 MPH so that I don't become a road hazzard on some of the roads out by me. I met a fellow who did one who lives close by. Anyone with a doner bike out there by chance? I bought and built up a new commuter bicycle last spring. I dissed the front shifter and chain ring. I figured out what gears I needed and set up the 9 remaining gears to meet those needs. I did over 2K miles last year just riding to and from work. This winter I laced a Shimano Nexus dyno-hub into the front wheel for a little 3W halogen headlight. Wasn't bright enough so I got sone Luxeon Emitter III LED's and after collecting some data on the dyno-hub, built up a dual-LED headlight. MUCH better than the halogen unit and I was able to coax another watt out of the dyno. Did I mention that we put up ten 10' X 4' solar hot water panels a couple years ago to preheat the water going into our hot water tank and to dump heat into our basement radiant floor slab? Works great, when the sun comes out... I see my spelling hasn't improved. And I forgot how to use the editor. Oh well, some things don't change ;o)
How much supplementary heat do you still need during Michigan overcast winters?
I sure didn't mean to write "384" - but now don't remember what I asked about. So it goes.
We reduced our propane consumption from about 800 gallons per year to about 500. Solar heating for Michigan winters is difficult, though taking passive solar it into consideration during the design phase does help. Active solar is the only type of solar heating that will give you a meaningful net gain. In these sorts of overcast winter climates you are probably better off, heating & cooling wise, inside of a windowless Styrofoam box with a candle for warmth and a air-to-air heat exchanger for fresh air ;o) Rane, I think it was item 834 you were inquiring about. It's together and I've ridden it to break it in. I need to move the seat back a bit and then insure and license it. You can see it at: http://webpages.charter.net/n8nxf/R60slash2.jpg
Re resp:840: An electric motorbike would be overkill for me, but I'd kind of like an electric moped. A top speed of 30-35 mph would let me travel on most arterials in the town I live in without being a hazard to navigation. There isn't much out there, though; most commercial ones top out at 20 mph. This did catch my interest: http://www.electricrider.com/crystalyte/phoenix.htm
I'm thinking I'd like a Cheetah <http://www-eng.lbl.gov/~osborn/cheetah/ cheetah.html>. With regenerative braking if possible, but I think I could do without if necessary. Combustion speeds without combustion *costs*.
One reason I'm more interested in electric mopeds than electric cars is I have no electrical outlet near my parking space, but I could park a moped on my patio, where I do have power.
What if you could wear a big coil on your helmet and pass inductors on your route which would transmit the power to you through your helmet? ;)
I took my Ranger RCI-2950 10 meter band radio out of my car for repairs, today. It had two problems: First, the power connector was flimsy and intermittent. Secondly, the memory backup battery had gone dead, causing the radio to lose its settings every time it was powered off. This might have been only a minor annoyance, except that the radio would sometimes power on in a confused, non-functional state. The first problem was fairly easy to solve. I bought a pigtail with a much heavier-duty connector on it. I removed the original connector and put a grommet in the hole, using that for the cable for the new power pigtail. I installed a terminal lug inside the radio to hold the components that were formerly attached to the old power connector -- a couple of filter capacitors and RF chokes. A zip tie pulled tight around the cable just inside the grommet provided strain relief. The second problem required more disassembly. I found the display/control board had a soldered-in lithium battery on it. I couldn't find lithium batteries with solder tabs locally, so I installed a holder for a common CR-2032 lithium coin cell instead. This will make future battery changes much easier; I feel it really should have been the original design.
You have several choices: