Yet more ideas

I’m starting to be convinced that Jan thinks of more projects to keep me occupied.

After her successful cataract operation she has returned to playing with her organ.   Not that one…… I mean the one she gets a tune out of.  That doesn’t sound right either!  The organ has a keyboard and plugs into a 240V power socket.   Apparently the problem is there isn’t enough light to read the music and the wall socket is a single into which the organ is plugged.  could I replace it with a double socket allowing her to have a light.  It’s a 10 minute task but I need to buy another dual wall socket.

Meanwhile I’ve visited the local recycle centre to dispose of the old engine oil from the last couple of oil changes I’ve completed on the 4WD.  I usually replace the engine oil and filter in between the manufacturers scheduled services.   I also took the opportunity to deposit the dud 18650 lithium cells that failed the capacity testing.  Whilst doing that I noticed someone had left three lithium power tool batteries in the disposal bay.   I might be able to salvage a few good cells from them.

They are all 36V but one is considerably lighter than the others.   I suspect it is a 5S1P with only 5 cells whilst the others are 5S2P containing 10 cells

After pulling them apart I was surprised to see the ‘light’ battery actually contained 10 cells.  But they feel very light.  It’s a ‘no brand’ battery and I suspect they are very cheap low capacity cells.

The other two battery looked to be well made with the AEG containing a heat sensor.  An indication of a high quality battery

I’ll test all the cells and see if any are worth keeping.

A few days later

Only one of the batteries had any cells worth salvaging.  The ‘light’ cells had a capacity between 300-400mAh which was woeful.  They are obviously very poor quality cells.

Meanwhile, I’ve finished the cover for Jan’s kitchen gas hob.

 

Catch Up

The extra socket in the pantry has been installed

No rest for the wicked when Jan mentioned she no longer used the five ring gas hob in the kitchen.  Could it be converted to additional bench space?

I’m not going to remove the hob as that would entail capping off the gas line and filling a large hole in the granite bench top.  My alternative is to make a timber frame to surround the hob and cap it with a square of coloured acrylic sheet.  Jan selected the colour for the acrylic, red.

The frame was made from scrapes of timber

It received a coat of primer followed by a pink topcoat (surplus paint)

It’s now receiving as many topcoats of red that are necessary to give an acceptable finish.

My remaining timber project has been paused whilst I wait for some router bits.

The bits I had ordered won’t fit in the router.   My error.  They have the wrong sized shank for my smaller DeWalt router.

I’ve made a jig to go around the cutting board I’m making.   I want to use the router with a bullnose bit to rebate a draining groove around the perimeter.

The jig will ensure (I hope) that the groove is cut exactly where it should be in straight lines with nice corners

Meanwhile Jan suggested the study was too cluttered and perhaps I could make some shelving to get everything off the floor.  This would make it easier for her to vacuum.

It was cheaper to make than buy so I made it from melamine particle board and did a test fit before screwing it to the wall.  I’ve already managed to fill it.   there is a principle involved here “Stuff expands to meet the available space”.  I suspect it won’t be long before the floor is again covered with more “stuff”!

Another small job

Yesterday Jan asked whether we had a multi socket 240V power board.  She wanted one for the pantry as she now has more appliances than sockets.  A multi socket board on the benchtop would look ugly so I suggested I install another dual wall socket instead.

You may recall it’s only in the recent past that I installed the splashbacks in the pantry and I didn’t want to attempt to remove one of them!

Eventually I suggested a location which appeared suitable.  It was just above the lower splashback and almost above an existing wall socket.   I could run a cable between the existing socket and the new location.

Here looked a good spot

I marked out the outline of the socket and then the inner portion of it which would need to be rebated into the wall.   Houses in western Australia are usually constructed of double brick walls with a cavity in between.

After marking the location I scored the outline of the rebated portion with a knife cutting the top layer of fine plaster.  Doing this would prevent the edges chipping (I Hope).  Next I drilled a matrix of holes using a masonry bit and my hammer drill.  Afterwards I realised the drill was being powered by one of my recently made batteries.  Then I used a cold chisel and hammer to knock out the rebate ensuring the hole reached the cavity between the inner and outer brick walls.   I’m not going to install a socket enclosure box in the hole so I marked out the location of the mounting holes instead

I used a punch to mark the centre of each hole and then drilled with a 6mm masonry bit.  The holes were then filled by hammering in a plastic rawl plug.  Obviously I’m getting old as I can remember the days when we had to make our rawl plugs from timber.   These plastic plugs are much easier to use.

I’ve temporary stopped here as Jan is watching the TV and I suspect it is on the same power circuit as the socket in the pantry.  Years ago I would probably have just done the connections live.   But poor eyesight, shaky hands and a number of years of additional common sense means that isn’t going to happen.

Nerd Battery Post

 

Back in November I mentioned Ken had given me a old lithium battery which I disassembled to salvage the useful 18650 cells.   There were 60 cells and during the last two months I’ve been testing each cell with my special battery tester.  The tester charges, discharges and recharges one cell every 24 hours.  This provides me with the actual residual capacity of each cell.   A new cell has a capacity of 2400mA and those I’ve recovered from the battery range between 2359 to 1806mA.  No battery retains full capacity after use.  Each cell has received new shrink wrap cladding and insulated washer around the positive terminal.

 

None of the cells were dead which left me wondering how to use them.  I decided to make some batteries for my DeWalt power tools.  I have more tools than batteries and find myself swapping batteries.   This situation occurred because the batteries are expensive and obviously I don’t use all the tools simultaneously.   An 18V 4Ah DeWalt battery cost $200.

 

After searching on Aliexpress I ordered two kitset batteries (less cells) and a portable spot welder.  The kitsets were $21 each and the welder $80.  For an outlay of $140 I should be able to make two batteries which would have cost me $400 from a tool store.

 

My batteries will be 18V with 4Ah capacity.   The cells need to be configured as 5S2P (two rows of 5 cells in series).   Each cell has a voltage of 3.7V so five in series is 18.5V   It is important that each row has a similar capacity.  To achieve this I created a small spreadsheet.  By shuffling the cell capacities on the spreadsheet I was able to achieve the desired result.  The rated capacity of each battery was approximately 4.6Ah.

 

It only took 10 days for the battery kitsets to be delivered.  Interesting to note the EU and UK representatives on the package label

 

The other interesting piece of information was the naming of the battery.   One assumes this is a effort to avoid breaching DeWalt copyright.

The cases looks very similar .  Importantly, it fits my DeWalt tools

Inside each case were a printed circuit board, cell holder, screws and decals

No instructions!!

I needed to do a test fit of the cells and printed circuit board to ensure I had the cells correctly orientated.  The nickel strips were then added and held in place with a rubber band.

I then soldered the Tabs on the nickel strip to the board

I probably made a mistake here.  Before soldering the Tabs I should have soldered the battery indicator wires to the circuit board.

 

With poor eyesight and shaky old hands the subsequent soldering of the indicator wires proved to be problematic.

The board and cells were then removed from the case so I could spot weld the nickel strips to the ends of the cells.

I’ve never welded and this was a learning experience.  The spot welder is portable and powered by a rechargeable lithium battery.  Each cell needs four spot welds at either end.  It took a significant number of attempts to establish the required welding settings.  Too low and the nickel strip doesn’t weld to the cell.  Too high and a hole is blown in the nickel.  Working my way up through the power setting I established the setting 10 appeared to work.

My little spot welder

After establishing the correct settings the welding went rather quickly.

The cells and circuit board went back into the where I then tested the terminals to see if the connections were working

19.97V for an 18V battery.  Everything looks good.

The battery indicator wires were soldered and the top screwed into place

I fitted the battery to my DeWalt drill and tested it worked.   Now I need to assemble the second battery.

Cut, Squash, Twirl

A second or less.  That’s all it took to cut, squash and twirl a piece of metal of a length of steel rod and you have a wheel stud.

 

So why did something that probably cost less than $0.01 to manufacture require me to pay $15.  To add insult to injury there was a two week wait for it to be delivered from the other side of the continent as there were none in Western Australia. 

If parts are so scarce for a common Isuzu I’d hate to be an owner of a Chinese EV.  There are so few of them and the models change so rapidly; sourcing replacement parts must be a nightmare.

Why do we need a wheel stud?   One on our Isuzu is damaged.  Apparently the thread is stripped which the garage identified during the recent 75,000km service.  They would have replaced it but there was no stock in Western Australia. 

I enquired about the time it would take to replace the stud and was informed about an hour.   The garage hourly labour rate is $140.   So $155 to replace a wheel stud.   I’ll do it myself.  But not until the weather is cooler.

 

Plugging On

According to yesterday’s weather forecast the high temperatures will be with us for the rest of the week.  It’s so hot the birds have stopped singing.  Actually some are falling out of the trees.  We’ve left some water out for them.   Meanwhile I need to check the water level in the pool as it is rapidly going down.  Hot water is running out of the garden taps. 

Last night we went to bed leaving the air conditioner running.   I felt slightly guilty (for a very brief period) as some suburbs have experienced power failures.  I eased my conscious by reminding myself our solar array sends more power to the network than we take.

Today’s small maintenance task is to replace the European plug on Jan’s new slicer which arrived from Germany yesterday.   She has had her old plastic slicer for many years and I think I’ve sharpened it’s blade on the oil stone several times.  However the plastic body had started to distort with age and use.  Actually it’s well used as Jan bakes all our bread before slicing it with the machine. 

I suggested she replacement be made of metal and she couldn’t find one in Australia.  Hence the overseas purchase.

Off with the old and on with the new!

 

Every three hours I’ve been dashing out to the workshop in the heat to continue my project of reconditioning the lithium 18650 battery cells salvaged from the e-scooter battery.   A new cell has a rated capacity of 2400mah.   The capacity of these cells is between 1950 – 2350mah.  I’m considering using some of the cells to make a couple of additional batteries for my DeWalt power tools.

Hot

It has been so hot over the last few days that I’ve seen birds blowing on the worms before eating them.

At 46+ we have rarely ventured outside other than to water the plants.  they are drooping in the heat with shrivelled leaves.  At least the solar panels provide power for the air conditioners, otherwise our electricity bill would be astronomical!

Humphrey arrived with our small package.  An eleven day trip across Australia.  The poor devil had to immediately turn around and head back. 

Meanwhile the package Jan ordered from Germany arrived today.  It took less than a week! 

My small eBay package arrived from Taiwan.   Replacement idler wheels and bushes for the bike chain tensioner.

No sign of wear on the teeth of the worn original wheel.   However the steel bearing (sleeve) has worn through which has resulted in the hole in the wheel being extended

The failure of the bearing resulted in the wheel wobbling and rubbing against the inside of the chain tensioner frame (below)

There are two idler wheels and only one is badly worn.  I’ve decided to just replace the worn one and keep the second new idler wheel as a spare.  The bike has done approximately 10,000km and I should probably expect to replace worn parts.

 

Humphrey

Early last December Jan purchased three items from Aliexpress.   Two were less than $20 whilst the third was moderately expensive.  The two cheap items arrived within a fortnight being delivered by the Australian courier company, Fast Horse.  They are very reliable and take a photo of the item at the postal address when the item is delivered.  They also send a text message immediately it’s delivered.

The Aliexpress seller of the third item has made a poor selection when choosing their Australian delivery provided.   Aramex is notorious for being very slow.  Our order was sent by air from China to Melbourne and collected by Aramex on 6 January for the final domestic leg of the journey. 

The Aramex estimated delivery date was 15 January.   Nine days to cross Australia.  The journey can be done in 5 hours by air; 21 hours by train and 48 hours by road.

My assumption is Aramex uses Humphrey; the blind, geriatric, three legged camel for delivery across the continent.  By today Humphrey had only covered half the distance and appeared to have stopped for several days.  He was likely exhausted.

Apparently I was wrong.  When I checked the Aramex website for the reason the delivery had been delayed I read it was caused by a rising volume leading to Christmas.  

As they received the package on 6 January I can only assume it’s the lead up to Christmas 2025!

My guess is Aramex business model is to be the cheapest courier.   They probably retain packages until they have a full shipping container before despatching it.  Melbourne to Perth is probably by rail.   The high number of complaints on various internet forums indicate significant delays with deliveries along with losses, damage and poor customer service responses to queries.  There is a price for going cheap!

I could be wrong and Humphrey might be slowly plodding west! .  

Bike Modification

A boring post about modifying the bike chain tensioner.

The Alfine 11 internally geared hub in the rear wheel came with a spring loaded chain tensioner.

You can see in the above photo the chain runs through two small cogs which form part of the tensioner.    Looking at the tensioner from a different angle allows me to explain the steel bushes in the cogs [A] have worn out.  The cogs now wobble around on the shaft of their securing screw.  As a consequence the chain doesn’t move smoothly and is noisy.  Moreover part of the tensioner is bent [B] and very close to the chain.  This probably occurred on one of the occasions when I either dropped or fell off the bike.

Buying a new tensioner is expensive.  Particularly as the only parts requiring replacement are two small steel bushes which are probably worth less than $0.01.  After searching the internet I found a supplier in Taiwan who claimed to be able to supply replacement cogs and bushes at an acceptable price.  However delivery may take some time.

I went onto Aliexpress looking to see if there was an intermediate solution.  Whilst doing that I decided to also buy a replacement pair of bike chain pliers.   My original pair are very small and my old hands are having problems squeezing them to break the chain link.  The new pair arrived today. Being larger are much easier to use.  I also ordered a generic single cog chain tensioner,

The first step was to test if the teeth on the generic cog aligned with the chain

They align

However when I fitted the tensioner to the bike the cog had insufficient reach to the chain.  Had I bought a lemon?

After thinking about it I modified the tensioner assemble.  This wasn’t a simple task as the tension spring inside the assemble initially worked in the wrong direction.  However once that problem was overcome the cog was able to be aligned with the chain.

 

I need to take the bike for a local test ride to ensure the tensioner is secure and works.  If it does I will probably cut off the surplus piece of the cog shaft with the angle grinder.  It sticks out and will likely bend or break the tensioner if the bike falls over.

Just my opinion

By nature I am curious. So when Paul (of Waterways Routes) left a comment regarding the recent breach of the Bridgewater Canal I started thinking about ownership of the canal and how much land was actually owned.

The Bridgewater Canal is approximately 60km long. Effectively a linear water park. But how much property is owned; apart from the canal bed and what is it’s value?

Peel Holding purchased the canal and they appear to have a very diverse and convoluted grouping of sub companies. The Bridgewater Canal website states:

“The Bridgewater Canal is owned and operated by The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited, part of Peel L&P, in conjunction with the Bridgewater Canal Trust. Bridgewater Canal Company Limited is a statutory body responsible for navigation and maintenance of the Bridgewater Canal.”

Interestingly Peel L&P appears to have been decommissioned as of 1 April 2024. What happened to the Bridgewater Canal Company Limited; a statutory body required by law to maintain the canal?

A perusal of the records for the Bridgewater Canal Company at Companies House allowed me to look at their latest Director’s Report for the year ending 31 March 2024. The first thing that caught my eye was the paragraph titled “Going concern”

The director’s report the company has net current liabilities. However the directors report Peel L&P will continue to support the company to enable it to continue to operate for the next 12 months. You may have realised Peel L&P was decommissioned the following day (1 April 2024). The Director’s Report was for the period ending 31 March and was submitted on 29 November 2024 eight months after the decommissioning.

[Definition of Net Current Liabilities

Net current liabilities refer to the current assets less current liabilities of an organisation. To have net current liabilities, the current liabilities must be larger than the current assets. This is usually because the company has very little inventories or does not give credit and therefore has no receivables. Alternatively it could indicate that the business is insolvent.]

Under fixed assets the company had as at 31 March 2024.

Tangible Assets £21,458

Investment property £17,480,000

Loans to group undertakings £5,879,250

Total £23,380,708

After Deducted Liabilities the total is £18,603,376

Cash in the bank £20,158

There is insufficient detail in the report to identify whether the company is self-insured, insured by Peel Holdings or has independent insurance coverage. Nor is there and detail regarding the scope of the ‘Investment property’. Is it the canal; or more?

My conclusion is the Bridgewater Canal Company Ltd continues to exist and is has a statutory responsibly to maintain the canal.   However one gets the impression their is insufficient revenue to support the business.  Hence the comment about Pell L&P support.  But Pell L&P apparently not longer exists?

It becomes slightly more confusing because their is a Canal Trust on the Bridgewater Canal website

“The Bridgewater Canal Trust. The trust meets twice a year and formulates the long and short-term policies for the amenity use of the Bridgewater Canal. All income generated by the Bridgewater Canal from pleasure craft, fishing, drainage and sales of water for cooling purposes etc is used to maintain and improve the canal and its local environment.”

The above paragraph makes me wonder whether there are any additional sources of income?

There appears to be Peel L&P (decommissioned) which owns (ed) The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited which has assets of approximately £23m and a Bridgewater Canal Trust which generates revenue from boating, fishing, drainage and sale of water. I also read separately the income in 2018 was approx £750,000

Interestingly; unlike other UK canal trusts; there appear to be no records at Companies House for the Bridgewater Canal Trust.

My assumption is the Trust will dam both sides of the breach which would allow some boating, fishing and drainage,etc allowing revenue to continue. But not meet the statutory obligations for navigation and maintenance.

Repairs would likely cost in the region of £2-3m and my guess is the Trustees will take their time deciding how; if; when; they will fund that.

More Maintenance

It seems I’m spending more time these days doing maintenance tasks.

The new security camera stopped working with the system reporting the camera battery was flat.  That was a revelation as it’s connected to a 5V solar panel which was purchased to provide enough power to keep the camera battery fully charged.  

Had the camera or solar panel failed?   Both were still within the statutory 12 month warranty period.

I plugged each of them into my USB multimeter. 

The camera battery was accepting a charge and the solar panel was producing power.

There is a pigtail cable connector between the solar panel and the camera.  It’s an adapter connector as the solar panel cable has a micro usb plug on the end of the cable and the camera has a usb-c socket.  The pigtail connection wasn’t fully home, so no power was going from the panel to the camera.  “Look for the simple things first”

I don’t ride the ebike wearing my hearing aids.  The sound of the wind whistling in my ears is too painful.  Not wearing them means I don’t hear any unusual noises from the bike.  Today was an exception as I could definitely hear something.

I must have ridden a couple of thousand kilometres since the last oil change in the rear wheel internally geared hub.  It’s a 30 minute job.   But the noise remained!

Thinking about it I realised I hadn’t checked the grease in the main gear of the electric motor since the period prior to my first trip to Taiwan.  That was many thousands of kilometres ago.

After removing the crank, chain ring and cover plate I was surprised to see almost no grease.

This was less grease than when I first inspected it immediately after it was delivered.  At that time I had carefully and fully repacked the entire housing with a good quality grease.

The reverse side of the cover plate looked somewhat worn.  Fortunately the area where it sealed against the main housing wasn’t damaged.

I spent another 30 minutes repacking the entire area with grease. 

After reassembly the bike was still making a noise.   Eventually I traced the source to the chain tensioner.  It’s the first time I’ve disassembled the tensioner and I discovered the stainless steel bearing bush was worn out.   Of course you can’t just buy the bush which is probably worth less than $0.01.  The entire tensioner has to be purchased.  It would be nice to have a lathe and make my own replacements.

Jan was keen to tell me there was a breach in the Bridgewater Canal with boats being stranded.  The canal is owned by Peel Holdings, which has a sole family as the major shareholder.  Peel Holdings is very wealthy but the canal makes little money.   I suspect Peel Holding would like to divest themselves of the canal, but to date haven’t been able to find a naïve purchaser. 

My instincts are repairs are going to take a long time.  Peel Holdings won’t want to spend the money.  If the canal is insured, the insurance company will want to see evidence that Peel Holdings has been actively working to minimise potential risks.  There will likely be a stalemate and possibly a long legal battle prior to any repairs commencing.  I suspect the best stranded boaters can hope for is either being craned out. However my guess is Peel Holdings won’t do that unless there is plenty of negative publicity regarding their inaction.   Time will tell.