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33376

General Discussion Area / Re: Is there an electrician in the house...?

« on: 06 January 2008, 22:39:15 »

The thing that worries me about direct-from-mains fairy lights is that it's very easy to break a bulb, and then you have two little bits of wire sticking out with 240v across them.

In addition, the lamp holders are safe enough while there's a bulb in them but if someone pulls a bulb out while it's on it's rather easy to get a shock off them. Inspect them to ensure the cables aren't working loose too.

Best to use an RCD on the circuit if there isn't one covering the whole house. If it does come to the worst they will save someone in most circumstances. They have me.


Kevin

33377

General Discussion Area / Re: Looking promising

« on: 07 January 2008, 11:38:25 »

Just covering their @rses.

DONT bump start it, you'll knacker the cat.

I've never understood that one. If you've cranked it until the battery's flat (and there's fuel) you'll already have chucked a load of unburnt fuel into the cat. If not, what's the difference between bump starting and turning the engine on the starter? Very little.

If the electrical system is totally dead you won't get any fuel by trying to bump start it, and if it's not dead, it's no worse than cranking it, surely?

Kevin

33378

General Discussion Area / Re: Looking promising

« on: 07 January 2008, 10:23:15 »

I would guess they price ECUs and the like to recoup some of the (considerable) software development costs as well as the hardware. IMHO, it's fair enough to do this once, when you buy the car, but not if you're replacing duff hardware. Would you expect to have to purchase a new operating system every time your PC fails?

Even quite powerful microcontrollers are cheap these days, and there are a wide variety of devices to drive automotive loads like injectors, coils, etc. The problem isn't in the parts, but the markup for devices that are percieved to be complex.

Kevin

33379

General Discussion Area / Re: Looking promising

« on: 07 January 2008, 09:49:15 »

When I was at school (so 20+ years ago) we did a project whereby a whole light cluster could be controlled using what amounts to a CAN bus - a twisted pair of signalling wires plus a +12v supply line. Any number of devices could sit on the bus and it included full bulb failure reporting.

I don't understand why manufacturers are still fitting wiring looms as thick as my arm in places

Kevin
 

One possible answer is CAN is too complicated for the idiots in overalls running around most dealers.  But then, so is electricity.

But you could imagine taking the car in for a blown bulb - 'Sorry sir, you need a new rear light cluster ECU - £800 please'

True, it'd remove the need to the idiots in overalls to tamper with leccy on the whole, though, which can only be a good thing.

I agree a light cluster would probably be inflated stupidly in price. However, I think this is the motor industry inflating the price of things just because they're percieved to be "complex". Other industries seem to be able to build small amounts of intelligence into devices without them costing three figure sums (think printer ink cartriges, etc.) Even your sub-10 quid set of fairy lights has a couple of channels of bulb outputs driven by a small CPU (much to my irritation).

The cost of fabricating a set of wiring looms as complex as those in an Omega must be significant.

Kevin

33380

General Discussion Area / Re: Looking promising

« on: 06 January 2008, 23:42:09 »

When I was at school (so 20+ years ago) we did a project whereby a whole light cluster could be controlled using what amounts to a CAN bus - a twisted pair of signalling wires plus a +12v supply line. Any number of devices could sit on the bus and it included full bulb failure reporting.

I don't understand why manufacturers are still fitting wiring looms as thick as my arm in places

Kevin

33381

General Discussion Area / Re: Looking promising

« on: 06 January 2008, 22:51:14 »

Nothing to do with the fact that there's only about 2 litres of air in the tank at this point?

Tank starts to sound like the submarine in "Das Boot"?

Still, glad to hear that (fingers crossed) the misfire is gone. Thinking about it, I've always scratched my head as to why it improved when you selected higher impedance injectors. Insufficient suppy voltage ties in nicely with that observation.


Kevin

33382

General Discussion Area / Re: What a waste

« on: 07 January 2008, 11:29:49 »

Problem is, once thirsty cars get old not many people who would normally purchase cheap cars can afford to run them when they're working, and if you're unable to maintain yourself the simplest fault will appear to cost more than the car's worth.

Very few of the cars you see scrapped are really at the end of their lives. It just gets too costly to maintain them once anything starts to go wrong, thanks to silly labour rates.

There must be a considerable environmental cost to treating cars like throw-away items, but I guess it's not as quantifiable as the apparent reduction in emissions generated by newer, cleaner cars replacing them.

Kevin

33383

General Discussion Area / Re: What a waste

« on: 07 January 2008, 11:18:16 »

Worth more to them in parts than whole, I guess

Kevin

33384

General Discussion Area / Re: Tunnies LPG car...

« on: 07 January 2008, 10:28:56 »

It's when you pick up a 50m ohm BNC patch lead instead of a 75 and use it for Video that it gets interesting. Where's all that ringing coming from?

Phono connectors are not great for audio IMHO let alone anything else but they're cheap.

Kevin

33385

General Discussion Area / Re: Tunnies LPG car...

« on: 06 January 2008, 23:47:54 »

Yes, your prob right, I just haven't come across many decent ones !.  I had thought about fitting the car with a ring of decent power sockets for add-ons.

 Remember the old BNC, used for video signals. There were 2 types, 50R with a big fat pin, and 75R with a thinner tapered pin. If you plugged a 50R plug into a 75R socket, you splayed the socket so it was no use for 75R plugs again.  

Ken

Having worked in a mixed video / RF environment that has caused a few moments of head scratching for me too.

Kevin

33386

General Discussion Area / Re: Tunnies LPG car...

« on: 06 January 2008, 22:44:32 »

Remember the old Radar/Military standard connectors, with individual gold flashed contacts, both the pin and socket were the correct dia, and wiped upon insertion. The housing was such that it locked into place, and could withstand a squaddie's standing on it without damage. OK, they cost about £50 each but.......

QED. There are plenty of connectors around that are very reliable (most automotive connectors perform very well considering the environment they're in) but consumer electronics can only afford to use cheap sh1t.  

Kevin

33387

General Discussion Area / Re: Tunnies LPG car...

« on: 06 January 2008, 22:09:29 »

Someone told me that if a car's been cheapo'd it can open up the contacts in the socket (due to the pins being too big) and this can cause bad connections with a "real" Tech 2.

Kevin

33388

General Discussion Area / Re: Old Skool Gaming

« on: 06 January 2008, 22:20:49 »

Last Christmas Emma's stepfather wheeled out an old Taito space invaders table top game. Hours of fun! Modern games just aren't as playable IMHO, but I have a 10 minute attention span so am unlikely to bother with complex games.

When I was bored with playing it I took it apart and laughed at the number of ICs in it.

Kevin

33389

General Discussion Area / Re: senator vs omega

« on: 05 January 2008, 00:26:32 »

...... i think i have only seen one in about a year.

with the exception of ABS meets, that's one more than me. I haven't seen one on the road in years.

I pass a couple of them almost daily on my commute to work 8-)

Kevin

33390

General Discussion Area / Re: senator vs omega

« on: 04 January 2008, 09:20:04 »

Umm. A tough one. I'm with Laidback. V6 Omega is the better car in most respects, though plagued with niggles at times, but the Senator has "something" that's missing on the Omega.

I think it's down to the little bit of demarkation between the Carlton and Senator which marked the Senator out as something special, whereas with the Omega they almost went the other way and tried to make them all look identical regardless of what was under the bonnet.

Kevin