25235 km / 32 months. 4 new tyres
Not very impressive Renault.
The car was also built twisted meaning the rear left tyre scrubs off.
About year ago I swapped front to rear to squeeze more life out of the original Michelin green tyres. I could have got another ~3 months out of the old fronts/current rears, but it's winter.
It seems I am not alone. The place that does my tyres reckons the originals do about 20000km, and after that maybe 15000km. And tracking that's impossible to fix.
It was off from new on the fronts.
Chances of winning against Renault?
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Wednesday, 7 November 2018
Goop tyre sealant
A rash of punctures on the ride-on had me looking for tyre sealant. There are a bunch of them, all with different uses and differing amounts to inject.
Linseal came highly recommended in a one-product-fits-all. You need a fair amount, and I was quote €160 delivered for 25L, but that might be +vat. It was 15 L too much, and smaller bottles werent economic. Slime (American) comes in tube and tubeless and requires a fair amount. It's pretty expensive and it lasts 2 years according to them.
I found Goop. I paid €34 for 2 litres, which will cover the trailer (no spare), the ride-on and 2 wheel barrows, with a bit to spare. Small tyres need 250ml, the barrow 125ml. I struggled to get much info on dosing, but most applications are shown on the bottle.
Linseal came highly recommended in a one-product-fits-all. You need a fair amount, and I was quote €160 delivered for 25L, but that might be +vat. It was 15 L too much, and smaller bottles werent economic. Slime (American) comes in tube and tubeless and requires a fair amount. It's pretty expensive and it lasts 2 years according to them.
I found Goop. I paid €34 for 2 litres, which will cover the trailer (no spare), the ride-on and 2 wheel barrows, with a bit to spare. Small tyres need 250ml, the barrow 125ml. I struggled to get much info on dosing, but most applications are shown on the bottle.
Friday, 26 October 2018
Chimney annual clean
Cleaned the chimney and wood burner. Joints inspected. Main door seal will need replacing next year.
Just lit the fire...
Just lit the fire...
Monday, 22 October 2018
Small chainsaw
You get what you pay for with this at €69.99 at Bricomarché. It starts, runs and cuts just fine. It seems to throw out too much oil when run, rather than cutting, but that is adjustable.
It's a generic item sold everywhere. Spares seems expensive to the point that it's probably not worth repairing for a failed part.
The blurb from Bricomarché says you must run it using their own brand of pre-mix, whilst the actual instructions don't. And it comes with a mixing bottle. Go figure.
The chain is tricky to get on, as you the brake is on the outside, rather than in the casing. The fuel openings are small and don't work with my automatic fuel can. But you do get a shoulder strap, mixer bottle and file, which is more than you get with Stihl at €370.
Thursday, 27 September 2018
cutting tempered glass screen protector
You can't, unless you happen to own a laser cutter.
Tried scoring with knife. Crack.
Diamond tipped engraving tool. Sort of works, but don't apply pressure as you come off the glass.
A flat diamond coated sharpening stone did remove material, but very slow
A flat diamond (tile) file was simply too coarse and caused cracking.
Do check it's glass. In true marketing style, there are plenty of 'tempered' protectors that are plastic and cut easily with a craft knife.
Tried scoring with knife. Crack.
Diamond tipped engraving tool. Sort of works, but don't apply pressure as you come off the glass.
A flat diamond coated sharpening stone did remove material, but very slow
A flat diamond (tile) file was simply too coarse and caused cracking.
Do check it's glass. In true marketing style, there are plenty of 'tempered' protectors that are plastic and cut easily with a craft knife.
Sunday, 2 September 2018
Lightning protection - SPD
Installed a ADEE VAR15GT5EF T2 in a separate 2 module enclosure adjacent to the main (500mA) trip. 15kA/275V. This was partly to meet the 0.5m rule on phase wiring, and partly as there wasn't really space in the existing board.
The device is internally fused, so doesn't require a separate isolator to meet NF15-100. This does mean the supply will have to be isolated to swap it. It's wired with 16mm incoming, but the earth was just unmanageable, so that's in 10mm. 6mm minimum. The instructions show the main earth to be looped through the spare earth terminal. The thin bit of wire you can see linking the terminals (they might be linked in the potting too, but why do the job twice?) would represent a significant impedance under a overload. Earthing stayed at the earth strip. There was, in any event, not a chance of getting 2 x 16mm cables in; they would have gone into the terminals ok.
Green led is lit, and can be detected with a LDR.
Hopefully this will be enough to reduce future spikes to low levels.
The device is internally fused, so doesn't require a separate isolator to meet NF15-100. This does mean the supply will have to be isolated to swap it. It's wired with 16mm incoming, but the earth was just unmanageable, so that's in 10mm. 6mm minimum. The instructions show the main earth to be looped through the spare earth terminal. The thin bit of wire you can see linking the terminals (they might be linked in the potting too, but why do the job twice?) would represent a significant impedance under a overload. Earthing stayed at the earth strip. There was, in any event, not a chance of getting 2 x 16mm cables in; they would have gone into the terminals ok.
Green led is lit, and can be detected with a LDR.
Hopefully this will be enough to reduce future spikes to low levels.
Sunday, 12 August 2018
Frying tonight
What goes flash, <pause>, crack, <pause>, rumble, <pause>, bugger that sounds expensive.
Well,
flash - lightning
crack, router plus a ton of other stuff arguing about whose voltage is bigger
rumble - thunder in the distance
bugger that sounds expensive - me.
We had a thunderstorm on Sunday night, 12/8/18. We get a good number of thunderstorms and today's was average. Lots of rumbling and flashing, but not close to us. Tonight we'd had 2 blackouts of ~2s, then there was a flash outside and load crack from the main distribution where the VDSL router and IT stuff lives. The thunder suggested the lightning was not near by!
18/8
re-fitted the phone line protection; this was installed with the ADSL router in 2010, but reduced the speed too much, so got removed again. We got upgraded to VDSL, and I never tried the filter. Today, I have just tested the speed with and without. We get a 97/12.3M connection to the local box, which was reduced to 90/12.0 Using speedtest.net, the speed went from 12/42 to 11/40. This change is probably within the bounds of variation during the test; we're usually throttled back to 12/30, so it looks pretty good today. The filter can stay until they give me back the bandwidth to 97M !
I do need to separate the phone line wiring from the CAT5, and put an earth connection directly from the earth rod to the phone socket, rather than going via the dis board (normal install) - done.
The death toll in active components is quite impressive, as is some of the damage (splash marks)
Cabled weather station (PIC16f884 working, but comm port dead)
Main processor (CPI) (PIC32MX775F512H and power monitor ADE7953. PHY + EEPROM ok)
Main processor IO (opamp for water meter, 1W i2c conveter ds2482-800, 1W mux ds2408 74HCT244, BMP180)
Caller ID (ESp8266 + dsPIC33FJ128GP, opamp. EEPROM 25l256)
12V to 3.3V/5V regulator AC, 5 + 12V fuses, plus regulator chip+fets
12V battery backup. 2 Fets that switch 12V. The other 2 that operate battery undervolt were energised at the time and ok. Both 1W devices
5V relay for garage door power - tracks fried from live to +5, plus protection diode to 0V. Works ok after clean. Relay believed off at the time.
Garage 1W dual IO DS2413.
mains SMPS for all devices - both main diodes, both output caps swollen, a zener crowbar
LF356 on burst controller. pic ok.
All 1W temperature devices (2 wire) all survived
Rpi connected via ethernet cable, but unearthed psu ok
New burst controller / power monitor running direct off mains ok.
Well,
flash - lightning
crack, router plus a ton of other stuff arguing about whose voltage is bigger
rumble - thunder in the distance
bugger that sounds expensive - me.
We had a thunderstorm on Sunday night, 12/8/18. We get a good number of thunderstorms and today's was average. Lots of rumbling and flashing, but not close to us. Tonight we'd had 2 blackouts of ~2s, then there was a flash outside and load crack from the main distribution where the VDSL router and IT stuff lives. The thunder suggested the lightning was not near by!
18/8
re-fitted the phone line protection; this was installed with the ADSL router in 2010, but reduced the speed too much, so got removed again. We got upgraded to VDSL, and I never tried the filter. Today, I have just tested the speed with and without. We get a 97/12.3M connection to the local box, which was reduced to 90/12.0 Using speedtest.net, the speed went from 12/42 to 11/40. This change is probably within the bounds of variation during the test; we're usually throttled back to 12/30, so it looks pretty good today. The filter can stay until they give me back the bandwidth to 97M !
I do need to separate the phone line wiring from the CAT5, and put an earth connection directly from the earth rod to the phone socket, rather than going via the dis board (normal install) - done.
The death toll in active components is quite impressive, as is some of the damage (splash marks)
Cabled weather station (PIC16f884 working, but comm port dead)
Main processor (CPI) (PIC32MX775F512H and power monitor ADE7953. PHY + EEPROM ok)
Main processor IO (opamp for water meter, 1W i2c conveter ds2482-800, 1W mux ds2408 74HCT244, BMP180)
Caller ID (ESp8266 + dsPIC33FJ128GP, opamp. EEPROM 25l256)
12V to 3.3V/5V regulator AC, 5 + 12V fuses, plus regulator chip+fets
12V battery backup. 2 Fets that switch 12V. The other 2 that operate battery undervolt were energised at the time and ok. Both 1W devices
5V relay for garage door power - tracks fried from live to +5, plus protection diode to 0V. Works ok after clean. Relay believed off at the time.
Garage 1W dual IO DS2413.
mains SMPS for all devices - both main diodes, both output caps swollen, a zener crowbar
LF356 on burst controller. pic ok.
All 1W temperature devices (2 wire) all survived
Rpi connected via ethernet cable, but unearthed psu ok
New burst controller / power monitor running direct off mains ok.
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