Mickeyduck's machines

[mickeyduck]

That pcb looks repairable if it's worth doing, you can effectively replace the pcb traces with wire.

I think the calibration factor relates to the old days of cable driven speedos, so 637 cable revolutions was 1km. Now it would instead be 637 digital pulses (as the sensor pulses once per revolution)

Some years ago (9 or 10) I repaired the PCB in one of my electric guitars by doing exactly that. Worked fine (and still does) but I only did so because I can't buy a replacement PCB for it.

Scoring a speedo in decent working order is definitely my preference though.

Re the digital pulses - thinking about where the sensor is, that makes perfect sense Malcolm.

[mickeyduck]

Borrowed a 17 inch rim from Logan to see if it would fit over those Brembos. Just. Somewhere between 3 and 5 mm clearance.

The rim was a 17 x 7 1/2 @ 29 offset (if I'm reading this right) with the usual 5 x 114.3 stud pattern.

The offset is of interest to me due to the unusual spacers on the front of my SW. Need to be sure as to what might fit, if I ever go to 17 inch rims.

It looks as if the offset would make things about the same as they are now. It would be interesting to have a set of 17 inch rims that tucked in a little more though, maybe 5 or 10 mm. Clearance from the Brembos to the inside of the spokes would probably still be ok too.

[GDII]

Those aren't unusal spacers. Those are the aluminium top hat for the brake rotor. Unless the rotors top hat is really thick or there is a spacer behind it to suit the different caliper. Those wheels stick out really far vs my wheels that are on 2mm different in poke but mine sit way inside the guard. Might pay to check the rotor setup.

Get some 17x8+37 RGII wheels. They are designed to take big brakes and then slap. On some 17x9+29 on the rear. The spokes amhave quite a swoop into the centre hub. Looks quite good. Different to the front.

https://www.willtheyfit.com/index.php?w ... offset2=37

[mickeyduck]

Those aren't unusal spacers. Those are the aluminium top hat for the brake rotor.

You're no doubt correct Phill. Logan tells me the rotors on his Nissan are just like that too. Pretty sure that's steel though not aluminium.

Thanks for the rim info.

OK onto other news. Scored a speedo for the lad's old SW so that's sorted.

And borrowed a pile of power steering bits and it seems the power steering relay was the problem on my SW. So that seems to be sorted too.

Many thanks to Steven Nell for his help! I owe him a ride in the SW on a run sometime.

Broke out my old Nikon yesterday arvo in an effort to photograph some detail for an examination. Took a couple of quick pics of the SW's engine while I was at it. Have hardly ever used that camera as yet, still not that familiar with its controls. Only has the default shipped-with-it lens and what I really want is somewhat different, but it's a start. A very different beast to use as compared to the trusty old Fujifilm that has taken most of the pics I've posted on the forum.

One day I oughtta actually clean my cars up properly and see what kind of photos I can come up with. I like the way the camera has made the background black in these shots, highlights the more interesting stuff.

Anyway, back to the reason I broke out the Nikon. I've been hearing an exhaust leak and it's slowly getting louder. Put my hand down in-amongst the hot stuff yesterday, burnt a finger but could feel some chuffing. Sparked up the bee-smoker and tried to use that to determine the exact location of the leak, but that proved a bit too difficult. Hence the Nikon...

Anyway I think there's a crack opening up in one of the welds in the bend that bolts to the turbo at the top and to the down-pipe at the bottom. It has the ECU's O2 sensor in it as well I think. Anyway it's looking like I'll need to pull that section of exhaust out and get it stitched back up. I won't really know until I pull it out of course. It's pretty hard to get at to see properly - this photo was taken from about a metre away. But I think the crack is basically as seen between the arrows in the last pic below (a 1:1 detail of the pic above it).

Humbug.

[85AW20v]

Instead of your finger use a piece of hose with one end in your ear. You can get very directional with that and pinpoint the leak. Once you get the bend out, it might also pay to have a piece of 2 or 3 x 10mm stainless on its edge welded along the bed, perpendicular to the welds, on both sides of the bend. That would stop any more welds cracking as that one has.

[GDII]

Those aren't unusal spacers. Those are the aluminium top hat for the brake rotor.

You're no doubt correct Phill. Logan tells me the rotors on his Nissan are just like that too. Pretty sure that's steel though not aluminium.

Thanks for the rim info.

So what is the reason for the wheel to stick so far out? Do you know what car this front brake setup came from? It doesn't specify in the Superstreet parts list but if they are 330mm they might be Supra rotors but not sure what the calipers are from. The Supra rotor shouldn't push the wheel out that far.

[85AW20v]

It might also be possible to change just the top hats to bring the wheels in further although caliper clearance could then be an issue.

[mickeyduck]

Thanks guys, more good stuff to think on. The reinforcing ribs make sense Simon. Hmmm...

Well today I decided to start another little project. Not sure where it will end up but here's the guts.

The GoPro Hero 5 Session that I've been using for a dash cam for a couple of years has finally given up the ghost. Well kinda.

I didn't know that li-ion batteries don't like being charged at the same time as being discharged. So I used the GoPro as a dash cam, recording while charging from the ciggy lighter. Turns out that shortens battery life as well as generating a ton of heat in the battery, which then affects the behaviour of the camera (crashing etc).

It's got to the point where the thing won't stay alive more than 10 seconds even after a night of charging. And it works while charging but only if the temperature in the car stays really cool. If the sun is out it cooks and goes ga-ga, not responding to button presses or anything.

In theory the battery is not replaceable. The camera's not designed for it, being a fully sealed unit. And as far as I can tell, replacement batteries are simply not available.

Turns out that dash cams don't have li-ion batteries, they have super-capacitors. That means you can have them plugged into a charger and recording at the same time, for as long and as often as you like. Unlike a GoPro. So my mission is to replace the thing's battery with some super-capacitors.

That requires my GoPro Hero 5 Session to have an Out Of Body Experience (OOBE). Also commonly known as a "near-death experience". For good reason.

The first trick was getting the little bugger apart without stuffing it. I watched a couple of videos before first removing the lens cover then taking it out to the shed and attacking it with a heat-gun and screwdriver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q3tH4qmxAU

Immensely difficult to pull apart. Took a ton of heat, leaving the plastic case a little distorted. I also decided to peel off most of the rubber cover so I could see the insides as I was worried I might slip with the screwdriver and destroy a tiny component on one of the circuit boards (did that to my computer once). Got there in the end. A pity the case is now kinda ugly. but I'll deal with that later.

The thing that looks like a tiny bit of broken white glass is actually a lens that fits over the status LED, and the tiny black thing to its right is its gasket. Fiddly wee thing to refit but I got there in the end.

The torx screws are tiny. Micro SD card in the pics for scale.

Happily, it still works...!

https://youtu.be/4QLwq3C9H_k



OK, so my next trick will be to fit some super-capacitors in there instead of the battery. Thinking of scoring some of these guys, for a grand total of about $10. And wiring in 4 of them in series-parallel.

https://nz.rs-online.com/web/p/electric ... s/7153502/

super-capacitor.png (143.44 KiB) Viewed 1806 times

Series-Parallel.png (68.24 KiB) Viewed 1806 times

The li-ion battery measures about 10 x 30 x 25 mm and each super-capacitor is 8 x 11.5 mm plus wiring, so I should be able to squeeze 4 of them in there. Even 2 simply wired in series (to give me 5 volt capability) would probably do the job.

Some background info:

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/art ... rcapacitor

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php ... igurations

Anyway I'm no electronics expert by any stretch (as is all too often obvious) so if anyone has something helpful to throw in the mix, please do.

Would be brilliant if I can get this to work. Would sort me with an excellent dash cam that should last for years.

OK, time to go back out to the shed and pull the SW's exhaust apart. Again.

[mickeyduck]

Right then. The trip to the shed to extract that section of exhaust was well worth while.

I'd made up a brace for the down-pipe recently as it never had one. Scott had fitted a rose joint in approximately the same location, the idea being to take the weight. It had disappeared before I bought the car. Simply fallen off, I'd imagine. Anyway because the exhaust wasn't braced firmly, it seems that the flexi-joint wasn't the point of least resistance, and a certain amount of stress has gone into breaking a weld. The resulting crack has become the most flexible point in the exhaust (instead of the flexi joint) and the crack has thereafter managed to almost entirely circumnavigate the pipe. In fact close examination reveals the thing was holding on by no more than 1 cm of steel.

Actually I'd have to think it's my recently added brace that's saved the day and prevented the entire exhaust system from falling off and hitting the road. Cos all I could see was a hairline crack. Until I removed the thing...

Interesting to find that what I thought was a joint had been welded at some point, so removing a small bend ended up being removal of the section from turbo to rear crossmember.

I thought there was still about 2cm of steel holding on but closer examination revealed it's more like 1cm. As shown by the yellow line.

I'm guessing this is the exhaust gas temperature sensor, yeah?

Need a new gasket for the exhaust side of the turbo.

Anyway Isaac's mate Isaac is going to pick it up tomorrow after work, have a good laugh (I sure did) and weld the thing back up for me.

She'll be back on her feet in a jiffy...

Oh - and if you didn't read my previous post, please do, as I'm interested in any technical advice regards the GoPro project. Cheers.

[mknz]

It should work using capacitors, just know that they won't hold charge, as they discharge pretty quickly. They'll effectively just be power buffers, turning your GoPro into a dash cam. If you can only run two then do them in series so they can take the voltage.

[Gleshlich]

Hi Charlie

Do you still want dash leds? I've only got 4 left as I used a couple for my park lights.

Here's a photo of my dash with them installed. Please excuse my shoddy steering wheel

[mickeyduck]

Hi Charlie

Do you still want dash leds? I've only got 4 left as I used a couple for my park lights.

Hi Justin. If you've only got 4 left you're probably best to keep them in case you need them later.

What would be really useful though is, are you able to tell me where you got them and exactly what kind they are? There's two different sizes of bulb in the dash isn't there, so if you have a part number or link or something for each that would be brilliant.

Well the exhaust has just gone away to get stitched up, due back tomorrow night. Makes me laugh to think I must have been driving around with it like that for some time, totally unaware, until a couple of months ago when I was fixing the head studs etc and grabbed the thing from under the car and discovered it moved around a lot more than expected. Which is why I made the brace. One thing's for sure, it won't do it again...! The brace is directly ahead of the flexi joint and it's strong as heck.

[GDII]

T10 LED fittings are what you need. And 4 is enough to do the dashboard. They last forever and are not hard to get so yeah.

[mickeyduck]

T10 LED fittings are what you need. And 4 is enough to do the dashboard. They last forever and are not hard to get so yeah.

Thanks for the info Phill.

What size would I get to do the tiny bulbs as well?

[Gleshlich]

Here is the link for the t10 bulbs I bought.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2324367772

I also bought these bulb holders as a few of mine looked a little burnt
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10X-LED-T10-19 ... 343?_ul=NZ

5 in total if you do the empty fuel led too. My bulb works but the lights never come on for me. I'm happy to send you mine and I can just order another spare set. Saves you 3 weeks waiting time