Not that Gullible

The new internally geared bike hub contains oil.  To be precise it’s 25mls of special Shimano oil which has to be changed every 400km or annually, whichever comes first.  There is also a special oil change at 1000km involving a flushing oil to remove any swarf (ie; metal filings) created during the initially running in period.

The Shimano oil change kit consists of a one litre plastic pot with lid for the waste oil.  A small plastic syringe and a length of plastic hose with a metal connector at one end which screws into the hub.  This kit costs $70.  The oil is an additional $20.  Total cost is $90.   Well I’m not that gullible!

I can buy a plastic syringe from China for $4.52.  A metre of 6mm plastic hose from China is $2.52.  An empty plastic soft drink bottle for the waste oil, cost $0.  That just leaves the metal connector.

I removed the existing plug with a 3mm Allen Key

 

It’s a small grub screw with a rubber washer.  I found a 6mm nut fitted which told me the thread in the hub was 6mm.

The next step was to drill and tap a 6mm thread in a piece of scrap metal plate.  I then screwed a 6mm bolt into the thread and placed a locking nut on either side.

 

This provided a stable support allowing me to drill a 4mm hole down the length of the bolt.  The bolt was then cut in half to give me a 6mm nipple with a 4mm hole.  This can be screwed into the hub and the 6mm hose attached.

That’s $70 saved.  Well more $60 ,as I need to factor in the cost of the syringe and hose.

Searching on the internet I found some information from an Australian who had sent a sample of the Shimano oil to a laboratory for analysis.  Like me; he didn’t believe the oil was special.

The laboratory analysis stated the oil was a fully synthetic gear oil rated 75W-90.  The cleaning oil was 20% the gear oil and 80% White Spirits.  White Spirits can have a different meaning in different countries.  However as he and I are in Australia I know what he means.

Our local local auto parts shop was having an end of financial year sale and I managed to buy one litre of Castrol fully synthetic gear oil 75W-90 for $24.  At 25mls an oil change that’s 40 changes.  However I’ll take 200mls of the oil and add it to 800mls of white spirits which will give me 40 oil flushes and 32 oil changes.

No doubt Shimano would state using the Castrol oil voids the hub warranty but as I bought it from Germany I doubt I would have much success with a warranty claim.  Never the less I plan to do the oil change at twice the recommended frequency and also do a cleaning flush each time. 

Misty Morning

Very unusual weather for Perth.  Jan said it reminded her of our time on the cut. 

I made a 20km trip to Fremantle where I collected the new rear wheel for the ebike from Melody Wheels.  Adrian had fitted the Shimano Alfine 11 speed internal hub to a new rim which I’m using to replace the existing wheel and 8 speed derailleur.

Back home I started on the installation.  Obviously I’m getting old as I find myself reading the instruction and taking my time.  Actually the hub didn’t come with instructions.  I couldn’t buy the hub in Perth, eventually finding a seller at the right price in Germany.  However they wouldn’t ship to Australia so I had the hub sent to our son in the UK who forwarded it on to Perth.

Then the brake rotor was fitted

“Houston we have a problem!”

There was a gap between the \face of the rotor and the locking ring.  I looked online and found a diagram which showed a spacer that I didn’t have.

The local bike shop phoned Shimano Australia who advised there wasn’t a spacer in Australia.  The shop then phoned the UK (bike mechanic was from Devon).  None in the UK, but they though they might get some in late November.

It’s circumstances like this that require “Kiwi Ingenuity”.  When you live in the bottom right corner of the world thousands of miles from anywhere you develop a culture of being able to fix anything with hay baling twine and a piece of No8 fencing wire.

I went to the local hardware looking for something that could be used to make a spacer.  A brass plumbing fitting

The interior diameter was slightly too small but the exterior dimension was just right.  The end was roughly cut off the fitting and then compressed onto the end of the wooden handle on the garden shovel.  This provided sufficient stability to place the roughly cut face against the sander and smooth it off.  Finally the threads inside were filed off.

 

My $6 spacer

And then the locking ring was fitted

Once the chain was fitted I adjusted the gear shifter cable and went for a ride.

The hub worked but now there was no assistance from the motor.  Very puzzling as I hadn’t done anything to the electric system.  After fruitlessly going down numerous online rabbit holes I decided to disconnect all the ebike electric control cables then restore them individually testing each in turn.  The left brake lever sensor was faulty and requires replacing.  That’s a puzzle as it wasn’t touched during the hub modification.

I’ve now turned my attention as to how I can avoid spending a small fortune on the propriety oil Shimano sells in very small bottles.  I refuse to believe Shimano makes their own specialist oil for these hubs.

Envious

Our eldest grandson has bought a yacht and I’m more than a little envious.  

It’s an Alan Buchanan designed 36ft ocean going steel ketch built in the UK in 1991.  Having a full length keel and ketch rigging should mean it’s very stable and safe; but probably slow.  No doubt he will have plenty of work on his hands refurbishing it.  With little free time and an empty wallet it should keep him out of trouble. 

My e-bike modifications have paused pending the availability of the new rear wheel.   The pool heater is now working satisfactorily which means I need to tidy the cables and do some painting <yuk>

Jenny I only intend to wear my birthday suit during the walk if all the mattresses in the huts are occupied on my arrival.   The sight of my wrinkled, patched, faded, stained and baggy suit should be sufficient to drive at least one occupant screaming into the night not to be seen until dawn.

Brian I think they were lucky with the jury decision.  It’s not a sensible decision to retaliate by cutting off the finger of an intruder you have apprehended.   The court takes a very dim view of disproportionate responses.  IMHO the best weapon to use is a 26” cross cut saw.  You can always devise a reasonable excuse for the saw being the the house and you happened to grab it as the nearest available object.  Hold the saw by the handle and thrust the blade at the intruder.  They will instinctively grab the blade which you immediately jerk back.  I’m almost certain they will be so focussed on the remains of their fingers they won’t see your swift kick between their legs.   A further improvement is to have an old pair of steel capped safety boots beside the bed.  Whilst the intruder is down on their knees with the remains of their fingers between their thighs, give them a mighty kick on the tailbone.  When you call the police mention you think the intruder has a gun.  This ensure they actually attend the scene promptly rather than being give a case number and “advancing in the queue”.

  

Another almost finished & Bang in the Night

The pool heater timer system has been installed in between showers. 

The pump is located in the left box (yes… I have to paint it!) with the right box for the controllers.

If my chinglish is accurate I’ve correctly deciphered the instructions for both the solar controller and timer.

(yes… the wiring needs to be tidied)

I’ve wired the solar panel to the MPPT controller input.  The controller output goes to the battery, the Timer and the 12V relay.  The controller has load terminals which I have programmed to only be live when the controller is getting power from the solar panel.  The wire from the controller load terminal goes to the Trigger terminal on the Timer.  The result is the Timer function will only work when there is sun on the solar panel.

The terminals on the right side of the Timer are a switch which is activated by the Timer.  This switch activates the relay which is the switch for the water pump.

I’ve been able to establish the Timer has three options (programs)

P1 – A monostable trigger delay signal to trigger the switch.  When the time is up, the switch is disconnected 

P2 - A signal triggers and starts to count down. After a user set time in seconds, the switch turns on for a user set period in seconds and then turns off.

P3 – A signal trigger the switch on for a user defined period in seconds, then turns the switch off for a user defined period in seconds.  This is an , infinite loop provided there is a trigger signal.

I need to configure the P3 program.  My objective is to set the times in the P3 routine so the pump runs for 30 seconds every 15 minutes when there is sunlight on the solar panel.

Bang in the Night

On a more interesting topic, two nights ago we were lying in bed when Jan heard the backdoor handle.  Actually, even deaf old me heard a loud noise!  I asked Jan “Did you lock the backdoor darling?”  Jan was certain she had, which meant I should (needed to) investigate.  Reader I sleep in my birthday suit, so any intruder is either going to die of fright or choke on their tongue during hysterical laughter. 

The door was locked and I couldn’t see anyone outside.  However we subsequently decided it might be prudent to replace the single outdoor globe with a motion detector light.  That’s another job now completed.

My thoughts are there is a fine line between insufficient home security and too much.  Insufficient suggests a “soft target” whilst too much might suggest you have something very valuable worth taking. 

One thing we both noticed during this bang in the night was the damned dog slept through the noise and our subsequent nocturnal investigation.

 

Water Considerations and More Projects Completed

The planned walking track crosses numerous streams which means finding water shouldn’t be an issue.  Therefore no need for a large water storage container.  Instead I’ve purchased a small water bottle holder that will be attached to my belt.  For a water bottle I’ll buy a bottle of water on arrival in NZ and keep it for the walk. 

You would think water running off snow melt would be pure but the National Park website mentions all water should be filtered.  I assume they are just protecting themselves against any potential adverse action should someone fall sick.  I’m going to be boiling most of my water but just to be safe I’ve bought a small water filter.

 

The plastic bag gets filled with untreated water which then runs through the filter to be collected in my water bottle.  The syringe is used to back flush the filter.  The manufacturer claims the filter will remove 99.9% of sediment and bacteria.  Obviously it’s not going to remove viruses!

After comments from DavidSS and Dave about my last blog post I should explain how I intend to cook on the walk.  I will buy a selection of freeze-dried meals in NZ.  There are a wide range of meals available.  This is one example from the manufacturers website.

The meal is contained in a sealed aluminium foil bag.  The top of the bag actually has two seals.  An upper and lower.  The meal is rehydrated by tearing off the top and adding 500ml of boiling water to the contents.  The bag is then resealed using the lower seal and left for 20 minutes before opening it and eating the food from the bag.  No washing up.  Flatten the empty bags and place them in a small rubbish sack.

Irrespective of manufacturer; all the meals require a maximum of 500ml of boiling water.  My APG stove is all I will need to cook.

The last of the latest shed projects has been completed.

Jan has knitted some blankets for the larger cradle.

Of course there is no rest for the wicked and this morning the washing machine failed.  It’s making a horrible “clonking” noise and I suspect that means one of the drum spider arms has broken.  It’s a big job disassembling the machine to get at the failed components and after checking the cost of a replacement part ($200) I decided repairing the machine wasn’t economically viable.  Jan is now researching washing machines and looking for discount codes!

I disconnected the power and hoses before manoeuvring the machine out the back door.  These days I’m too damned old to pick the machine up so I resorted to using my brain and employed the principle of levers and packing to wriggle it through the back door.

 

Which Stove

Early preparations for the planned the long walk around the mountain resulted in me re-examining my cooking equipment.  45 years ago weight and volume was a major consideration.  If you were going to be carrying “stuff” on your back you wanted it to be a light as possible.  It also needed to fit in a small backpack as “stuff” tends to multiple to fill the available space .

Back then I cooked using small gas canisters on an equally small aluminium pot.  The pot was mostly used to boil water for a drink as I tended to be lazy and not bother heating the food, rather consuming it cold.   Cold baked beans, cold Irish stew, etc

I still have that pot and cooker

The cooker fits in the pot for transit with a sock to stop it rattling.  The equipment had several deficiencies.  Most notable was the inefficiency of the cooker if there was a breeze.  Pouring the hot water from the pot also involved an interesting technique.

Unlike Australia, there isn’t a shortage of available water in New Zealand.  That particularly true of my planned route which circumnavigates a snow capped mountain with numerous stream that I’ll have to wade (I’m not looking forward to that part!).  I’ve therefore decided to eat dehydrated meals (freeze-dried).  This will require boiling water as part of the rehydration process.   Being lazy, I want all this to be completed swiftly and therefore started looking at the latest technology. 

My attention was drawn the the ‘JetBoil’ system.  However I couldn’t justify the price and after looking on Aliexpress, found a much cheaper Chinese replica.

 

 

The APG Outdoor stove consists of a vessel (I’ll call it a mug) silicon lid, burner, pot ring, stand and carry bag.  It accepts the same type of gas cartridge as my 45 year old stove.

The APG is larger than my original pot/burner and slightly heavier.  The exterior of the mug has a removable neoprene sleeve which acts as a thermal barrier retaining the heat and allowing the mug to be held.  It has two folding handles.  The mug is made from aluminium which has an anodized coating.

The base of the mug has a flat central ring with radiator fins around the circumference.

 

Heat from the burner is directed onto the centre of the base and then horizontally onto the radiator fins.  This design appears to be very efficient in capturing heat and directing it into the mug.

The inside of the mug has volume marks pressed into the metal.

Maximum heating volume is 0.8 ltrs.  But total volume is 1.4ltrs.  There is also a mark at 0.5ltrs which will be very useful as that is the volume of water required for most dehydrated meals

The burner and mug clip together.  The burner has a piezo igniter and folding gas valve to adjust the flame.

 

The flexible silicon lid has a large hole on one side of the lip and smaller strainer sized holes on the opposite side. 

I particularly liked the small vertical lip adjacent to the large hole.  This protects your lower lip from being burned when drinking directly from the mug.

As an alternative to the mug, a pot stand can be fitted to the burner.

The assembled cooker

I needed to establish how many 500ml ‘boils’ I could get from one gas canister.  To do this I weighted the full canister on Jan’s kitchen scales.  After screwing the gas canister to the burner I added  500ml of water to the mug and attached it to the burner.  The stove was then lit until the water reached boiling.  This took approximately 2½ minutes.  The stove was then disassembled and the canister re-weighed.  The process was then repeated until all the gas in the canister was used.  The result was 36 cycles.  It was actually possible to place your hand on the side of the base of the mug during the boil without burning your fingers.  This suggested to me the radiator fin design of the base was very efficient in absorbing heat from the burner.

I was using tap water on a mild winter day in Perth.  The water on the mountain will have come from snow melt and I’ve therefore decided to reduce to number of boils by a third.  Plan on 24 boils from a container on my walk.

How many times will the stove be used?

5 days @ three meals daily = 15

5 days at five hot drinks daily = 25

Total of 40 boils.   Two gas canisters are required!

Which stove will I take?  They are almost equal in weight, but the APG is larger.  However the APG appears to be more efficient.   I wouldn’t want to cook food in the APG as cleaning it would be messy.  This isn’t an issue with the old aluminium pot.  Moreover you wouldn’t want to use a metal utensil in the APG as it might damage the anodizing.  Again, not an issue with the aluminium pot.

As I plan on eating dehydrated meals I only require boiled water.  I’ll use the ARG!

Projects

Two projects completed and three new ones.

The bulk of the scrap timber has now been used.  I’ve probably made my usual error and built an oversized cradle.

 

I shall have to remember to warn the little girl’s parents not to allow her to place her new baby brother in the cradle

The second completed project was the alternative 12V power supply for the laptop.   It came with a 240V power brick which converted the electricity to 5V DC with a USB-C plug.  I thought to myself “Great…. when I go away I won’t need the 240V power brick as I’ll be able to recharge the laptop using a 12V USB cigarette adapter and a USB cable with a USB-C plug on one end!” 

How wrong I was   A standard USB cigarette adapter provides insufficient power.  Moreover, the laptop has a special rapid charging functionality using the USB-C port.  I discovered all of this after my initial failure along with some subsequent research.  A standard cigarette 12V to USB 5V adapter only produces 2.1A, which means the power output is just over 10Watts.  The laptop requires considerably more power.  Moreover with a special rapid charge USB-C cable the laptop will accept up to 20V.  After more searching I was able to purchase the necessary 12V cigarette USB charger and high capacity cable.

 

You might be able to read the rated output on the shaft of the charger (118W).  It does recharge the laptop, although I noted the charger also gets very warm during the process.  However I now have a way of recharging the laptop from the 12V battery in either camper trailer or 4WD.

Three new projects have been identified.

I’m going to replace the 8 speed derailleur on the e-bike with a Shimano 11 speed internally geared hub.

The price of the hub in Australia was extortion and as a consequence I end up buying it from a retailer in Germany.  They wouldn’t ship to Australia so it went to our son in Manchester who forwarded it on. 

I have decided I would like to attempt to walk the “Ring of Fire” track in New Zealand.  It’s located on the volcanic plateau in the middle of the north island.  The 78km walk circumnavigates Mount Ruapehu. 

There is an annual “Ring of Fire” event where the runners attempt to complete the track as quickly as possible.  I believe the record in 8½ hours.  Whilst I am silly enough to attempt the walk, I not that silly to consider completing it in a day.  I plan on taking 5 days spending each night in a National Park Hut.  It will be interesting to see whether the body can cope with the physical demand.

My last project is more of an intellectual challenge.  I’m attempting to configure Docker on a Raspberry Pi.  If successful; I’ll then configure a Docker Stack.  No doubt young people can do this in their sleep, however it’s proving to be quite a challenge for me.

Robin the Load functionality on the MPPT controller is configurable.  I can program it so the Load terminals are only powered when there is sun on the solar panel.

 

A conundrum

The digital timer ordered from China arrive several days ago.  No instructions were included; which made for an interesting time.  Why buy a timer?  I’ve decided to alter the operation of the pool solar water heater.  You may remember the heater pump is activated by a thermocouple switch, that in turn is activated by the temperature of the water in the heater panels.  This setup works, but relies on the water reaching 85°C.  Whilst that happens it isn’t circulating water as frequently as I would like.

The idea is the digital timer will complete a programmed timing loop and activate for a set time at the end of each loop.  During this activation period the pump will push water through the heater panels.

Why is it that when you look at the product photos on Aliexpress the item turns out to be much smaller than you anticipate?  My timer is ¾ the size of a cigarette packet.  Two water resistant 12V 40A relays where purchased at the same time because I (correctly) didn’t trust the timer maximum current rating

With no instructions the conundrum was identifying what each of the timer terminals did.  Eventually I took it to my brother who has an oscilloscope and several better quality multi-meters than my el-cheapo. 

After an hour of experimenting we established the three terminals on the left were the 12V pos & neg with the 3rd being a signal terminal that triggered the timer.  The three on the right were a common in the middle and a Normally Open at the top and Normally Closed at the bottom.  Essentially the right terminals are a switch activated by the timer. 

I want the timer to only work during the day when the sun is on the water heater panels and there is power to the pump from the photo-electric panel.  Why pump water that isn’t being heated and why flatten an old 12V battery in the process?

It was then a case of drawing out a wiring diagram

The MPPT Solar Controller will receive 27V DC power from the solar panel on the shed roof. 

The MPPT battery terminals will feed the battery, timer and water pump.  The latter through a relay

The Timer will be activated by a signal (12V power) from the Load Terminals on the MPPT controller.  The Load Terminals only work when there is sunlight on the solar panel.

If my logic is there will always be power to the timer but the pump will only be activated via the Timer when there is sunlight.  

A new control box is required as the original is now too small