Charging an electric car battery to 100% all the time will wear out your battery faster. Many cars have settings to manage this, and some cars even manage it themselves (like your MacBook, they learn when to charge and how much). Not so much for the Volkswagen e-Up!, but here is a trick to have it always stop charging at 80%.
Category: Workshop
Volkswagen Up! Garmin Conversion
In their infinite wisdom and search for an affordable quality infotainment and navigation, Volkswagen partnered with Garmin. That would nog have been a big disaster, but in their search for a budget solution they put the standard Garmin/Navigon screens on a little arm that protrudes out of the dashboard not unlike a scene from the movie “Alien”. If you have an (otherwise fine) Volkswagen Up!, e-Up!, Skoda Citigo, or Seat Mii (which are basically the same cars), see how I converted a Garmin holder into a proper Magsafe adapter, holding your phone and charge it without extra wires running over your dashboard.
Remove DataTool Alarm
If you have a Triumph Motorcycle and the Datatool evo, S3 or S4 alarm gives you headaches, there are two things to know:
- The alarm is virtually irrepairable because it is filled with silicone
- There is an easy trick to remove/disable it without permanent damage to the bike or the alarm.
Triumph Speed Triple 1050 Starter Problem fixed
For a while now, my Triumph Speed Triple 1050 from 2009 was refusing to start every now and then. At first I thought this was a motormanagement or battery problem, or the sidestand switch, but it turns out there is another switch which prevents the starter engine from turning over. The clutch handle!
The switch in the clutch handle is a simplistic one, and after a while dirt and moisture can get in there and that makes it fail intermittently. One time it starts, and the next time it won’t even react. Today I took it apart and cleaned it, and it seems to have fixed the problem. If you suspect similar problems, this is a video of a guy that shows how to take it apart:
Because the video is not all that clear, I added a few photo’s of my switch below. Make sure you take care in taking this apart, it is a bit fiddly. Pay special attention to not breaking the plastic or tearing the rubber, because the switch seems to be sealed to the wiring loom. When re-assembling, pay attention to the plastic and copper rings, they have to be put back in the correct place to make the switch work properly.
I cleaned the switch with brake cleaner, and I coated the copper with a bit of WD40 to repel moisture. After closing the housing I added a but of vaseline to the pin that protrudes and touches the handle. Vaseline keeps out moisture and is safe for the plastics.
The original post was done on the Dutch Motor Forum.
Designing a Fox-hunt antenna
Many years ago, I used to do some radio fox hunting with cars. Usually these hunts are at night to make it more exciting, and can be great fun. As I got older I lost interest and moved on to other things. But last year, I decided to have a go at a popular balloon fox hunt on 144MHz. This is quite a large scale and professionally organized fox hunt by Dutch Radio Amateurs.
Print posters on a regular printer with Excel.
I recently needed to print out a big schematic diagram of the RX/TX board of a Kenwood TS50 Transceiver. This did not fit on a single piece of paper. Instead of downloading all kinds of crappy tools or uploading the image to some “free” site which is going to use it for whatever they think justifies their definition of “free”, I found out you can do this in Excel. Here’s how:
- Make sure the image you want to print out as a poster has a decent resolution
- Open Excel (maybe this will work in LibreOffice too, I haven’t tested, let me know)
- Drag the image into a new worksheet so that it is top-left of the sheet.
- Open the “Print preview” (the little icon in the bottom left of the window)
- Resize the image so that it covers more than one page, up to the number of pages you’d like the poster to be. Your screen should now look somewhat like this:
- Optional: Adjust the page margins.
- Print.
After this, you’ll be gluing the pages together, but I think you already figured that out beforehand.
Have fun!
Catnip Watering System
Here’s a one minute how-to on growing catnip without having to water your plants every day.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jyqNzNeQeE]
Aeroccino Motor Replaced
Months ago, I got this broken Aeroccino milk frother for free. This week I fiddled with it for a few hours, and got it to work:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNEqWH3ILDc]
Zūmo Mount for Triumph Speed Triple
The RAM mount coming with the Garmin zūmo’s are fine, but I wanted something more elegant to go with my Triumph Speed Triple. This article contains a detailed description of building your own mount for the Garmin zūmo 660. I mounted the zūmo on my Speed Triple, but the mount is universal enough to be center-mounted on any bike which has riser-mounted handlebars.
No guarantees ofcourse, you’re on your own from here. Bring your tools and read on.
WARNING: When I tried to cut one of these rubbers in half, the bottom disk came loose. It was not as securely glued to the rubber as the top disk. When pulling the zūmo on the mount it does not come off, but if you want to be sure order the Garmin 550 mount rubbers (described in article below).
Packing bags on a Speed Triple
As you may know, I traded in my Honda Sevenfifty for a nice Triumph Speed Triple. While waiting for the bike to be delivered, I tried to fiend out how I can take my hefty 4-star ART chainlock on this bike. Apparently, nobody uses chainlocks on their bikes because I could find no information at all about transporting chainlocks.