Astonished Myself

It appears I may have fumbled and stumbled my way into repairing the damaged Kobo eBook Reader.

You may recall it stopped recharging.  With nothing to lose I decided to dismantle it.  I thought the tiny soldered connections between the micro usb port and circuit board might have cracked.  Using two magnifying glasses, a fine tipped soldering iron and a headlamp I attempted to repair the connections by running the soldering iron across the five tiny connections between the plug and the board.  It wasn’t easy as my eyesight struggled along with shaky hands.  

In the end I decided I’d done the best that I could and reassembled the eReader.  Fitting all the ribbon cables back into their holders proved to be yet another challenge.

After plugging the charging cable into the port I noticed a faint glow (right arrow above).

When I looked at the end of the reader I noticed the LED was illuminated.  It wasn’t working before I attempted the repair!

After flipping the reader over and looked at the icons in the top right of the screen the battery icon had a small lightning bolt indicating there was a charge going into the battery.

It appears I may have repaired the charging fault.   But does the reader have a data connection allowing me to update my library?   That will be the final test. 

Meanwhile I’ve congratulated myself on saving $200 by not having to purchase a replacement eBook Reader.

It came back to bite me!

Sunday saw me heading south on a reconnaissance for the 2026 club fishing competition.  I took the camper trailer, intending to spend several days checking out the beaches and potential campsite. 

Jan packed some food for the trip, including one of her delicious homemade beef pies.  As it was a brief trip I didn’t bother running the trailer freezer.  All the perishable food went into the fridge. 

At the risk of repeating myself, the source of the trailer 12V electrics is a 120Ah lithium battery which can be charged from the 4WD when moving and by solar panels when static.  It can also be charged using a 240V lithium battery charger when mains power is available.  I have an App on my phone which can monitor the battery state of charge..  There is also a display panel on the back of the trailer.

Before leaving I checked there was power from the 4WD to the trailer.  Everything looked fine.

At 11AM I stopped in a roadside rest area and turned on the small 12V oven in the trailer setting the temperature to 180deg and the timer for an hour.  In went the homemade pie.   Another stop at noon for a delicious piping hot pie. 

Mid afternoon I reached the secluded and sheltered campsite I had booked in the National Park.  After erecting the trailer awning and rooftop tent I went for a local walk to check the long drop toilets.    Clean and with paper!

For some unexplained reason I decided to check the trailer battery state of charge around 4PM.   Horror…..!  The battery was displaying only 4% capacity and urgently needed recharging.  I quickly connected the solar panel to put some charge back into the battery but then found myself moving the panel every 10 minutes as I chased sunlight through the trees.  5 Amps from the panel wasn’t going to suffice.  I reconnected he 4WD and ran the engine for an hour to get the battery back to 18% charged.  A very inefficient use of the vehicle. 

Any thought of cooking with the 240V trailer inverter and induction hotplate disappeared.  I would be using the two ring gas camp hotplate.  Except it wouldn’t light.  Actually there was a minor explosion when I attempted to use a naked flame.  Now I had two problems and no means of cooking food.   Because it was a brief trip I hadn’t packed any tools.  However I did have my Leatherman multitool and was able to dismantle the gas cooker.   The subsequent investigation revealed what was wrong with the cooker.  When I first fitted it into the trailer kitchen it had been bolted in place.  Recently I removed the cooker to formica the kitchen and when I reassembled it I’d inadvertently failed to connect the gas jets correctly.   It was a simple fix and I was again able to cook.   Later I discovered there was a camp kitchen with free gas hotplates.

I headed to bed that evening wondering if there would be any power left in the battery.  5AM had me up and checking the battery.  It was back to 12%.  Do I run the 4WD engine or keep moving the solar panel.  I opted for the latter.  Then logic set in.  The battery voltage reading was 13.3V  That seemed high for a battery nearly flat.  My thoughts were interrupted when Mr & Mrs Stumpy wandered through my campsite giving me a cursory glance.

 

I suspect this is who I will be on reincarnation.  Legs so short I’ll have to drag myself around on my belly.

Back to the battery.  The voltage suggested the battery was 80-90% charged but the display showed 12%.  I decided to believe the voltage reading and assumed the App percentage state of charge was corrupt.  This would mean I wasn’t short of battery capacity.

Having decided I knew what had happened it was time to check the fishing.  I had miles of beach to myself

The aim wasn’t to catch any fish.  I wanted to do another trial with my diy drone fishing line dropper. 

I flew the drone 300 metres off shore and then lost my nerve wondering if the trigger to drop the line would work.  It did!  I could have probably flown it another 200 metres and also use the drone camera to look for a good location.  However I’m taking small steps any building my confidence.

The following morning I packed up the campsite and connected the 4WD to the trailer.  That’s when I noticed the 12V connection between the vehicle and trailer seemed very soft.  Something to investigate at home.

Once back home I connected the 240V lithium battery charger to the trailer.  It wouldn’t charge!  Was the charger defective?  No!  The multimeter showed it was sending 14.2V.   Then I checked the input plug on the rear of the trailer.  It was full of “crud”.  The plug is supposedly water and dust proof.   However being on the rear of the trailer it is exposed to a large amount of fine dust.

After cleaning the positive and negative pin connectors I reassembled the plug filling the back with silicon sealer in an effort to prevent water and dust entering.  I also placed a piece of duct tape over the front of the connects and underneath the hinged cover plate.

Next I turned my attention to the 12V socket on the rear of the 4WD.  This is when I realised I’d done several things that had come back to bite me.

I tend to overengineer things and the wiring I’d installed between the 4WD battery and the socket was well oversized.   I vividly remember wriggling around under the vehicle threading these thick cables through the chassis rails and fitting a 120A rated plug.  A year later I was replacing the 120A plug with a smaller 50A as the vehicle alternator wouldn’t supply anything greater than 35A.  The original cables wouldn’t easily fit into the 50A plug.  But I made them.   I was also too mean to fit the new plug into a dust and waterproof box.   As a result of my actions one of the pin connectors had slipped back inside the plug which had resulted in an intermittent connection between the 4WD and trailer.  Additionally the open plug had become congested with dirt and the terminals had corroded.

Yesterday I bought a mounting block for the 50A plug.  Cleaned the terminals.  Fitted the plug into the mounting block and added silicon sealer to make the block as water and dust proof as possible.  

 

Hopefully this will resolve the three problems I created.

Well that’s annoying!

There was surplus timber from my cutting board project and I decided to use it to make a second board.

The surface is very uneven.  with the last board I levelled the surface by running it through the thicknesser.  Whilst it worked it’s not a good idea to plane end grain timber through a thicknesser as there is the potential for the thicknesser to rapidly ejected the piece or even break it up inside the machine.

 

This time I’ve decided to mill the surface using a router sled and frame.  The sled was delivered yesterday and the DeWalt router is a good fit.

  

The router manual has long gone so I searched on the internet using the router model number to find the diameter of the chuck.   The website stated it was 8mm and I ordered an 8mm milling bit which arrived today.  nice looking bit.

Then the annoying part occurred.  The 8mm bit doesn’t fit in the router chuck.

I’ve now discovered this DeWalt router came with either a 6.25 or 8mm chuck in Europe.   I bought the router in the UK but received the 6.25mm version.   I need an 8mm DeWalt chuck.  

Off to the local tool shops where I’m advised DeWalt only sold 6.25mm routers in Australia.  DeWalt Australia have the 8mm chuck on their website but there is no stock in the country.   I could purchase the chuck in the UK and have is shipped.  However the cost exceeds $100.  I can buy a new router for that price.

Searching on Aliexpress I think I’ve found a seller which can supply an 8mm chuck that fits the router for $8.  The one thing I can’t confirm is whether the thread on the new chuck will fit the thread on the router.  I guess I’ll find out in a couple of weeks.

Head Unit, NAS, PiHole and other stuff

I suspect it wasn’t one of my finest moments.  Let me explain what happened during the project to replace the head unit in the Isuzu.  

There seemed to be a surplus of plugs and cables in the dash as I attempted to install the replacement head unit.  Then I realised I wouldn’t be using the original GPS Antenna which meant one surplus plug.  Moving on I identified further plugs which I wouldn’t be using.  Those of the HDMI socket, audio jack and usb port.  Next I needed to identify the ‘Trigger’ wire for the reversing camera.  Power to this wire occurs when the vehicle is placed into reverse gear.  This then displays the reversing camera image on the head unit.  Doing this was only required because I had decided to retain the original reversing camera.  It would be an involved and long task replacing the original camera which is why I wanted to connect the original camera to the new head unit.    Events proved this to be a poor decision as I had incorrectly selected the ‘'Trigger’ wire.

This was the result when I powered up the new head unit.

   

The screen had a ‘flash over’ burn in the top right corner.   After a few choice words I wrote to the Aliexpress seller describing the problem and asking if it was possible to just purchase the screen rather than the whole kit.   They agreed to sell me one for half price.  Meanwhile I disassembled the rear tailgate on the Isuzu to gain access to the reversing camera.  After some modifications I was able to replace the camera with the one supplied in the kit.  It was then a case of running cables to one of the reversing lights (power for the camera) and the video cable through the vehicle to the dash where it connects to the head unit.

Two weeks later and the replacement head unit has been fitted.

The Main Screen.  It’s two inches larger than the original and configurable.  I haven’t done that yet.  The unit will connect to the mobile phone network but I opted not to purchase that part of the system.  Instead I have it configured to connect to our home wifi.  

I couldn’t decide whether to use Waze or OSMAnd as my satnav program and installed both.  I experiment and make a final decision after several trip.   Currently I’m using OSMAnd

Whilst the dash was apart I reinstalled a blue LED onto the aircon control panel.  This is connect to the 4WD switch and illuminates when the vehicle is switched into 4WD mode.  I’ve been caught out twice with the vehicle in 4WD instead of 2WD.  Hopefully this LED will prevent that reoccurring.

Whilst working on the head unit project my Kobo eReader decided it would no longer recharge.  The Reader works but the battery was steadily going flat.  Trying a number of usb cables and chargers had no effect.  Obviously the problem was somewhere inside the device.   With nothing to lose I disassembled it.

My poor eyesight was unable to identify any issues so I took a photo and then enlarged the image.

The five socket connections are tiny.  I think they are cracked.  It’s going to be an interesting effort attempting to resolder the connections with my poor eyesight and shaky hands.

Meanwhile one of the two dual external USB caddies that hold the hard drives containing our video library has failed.  Probably unsurprising as both caddies run 24/7.  We made the decision to replace them with a proper Network Access Server (NAS).  After some research I opted for a Terramaster F4-424 which is capable of holding four hard drives.  Terramaster gives the user the option to configure it using their propriety TRAID system or conventional RAID.  Whilst there are advantages to using TRAID I decided on the more conventional RAID 5 configuration.

Using the Terramaster as our home NAS meant we now had a surplus Raspberry Pi.   I decided to configure the Raspberry Pi as a PiHole.  Whilst PiHole has been around for at least four years I’ve never attempted to use it.  This week I did the installation and configuration.  Using PiHole does a number of things.  The most important for us are the removal of the majority of website Ad’s and protection against potential Malware.

I’d only been running the PiHole for 15 minutes and you can see from the screen dump below it has already intercepted 192 queries.  blocked 81 of them (42.2%) and had a database containing 109,615 potential sites to block

Three days later the results are much greater

44,208 queries intercepted.  7,528 queries blocked.  A total of 17% of all queries blocked.   Websites are loading faster and the number of displayed Ads has dropped significantly.

4WD Head Unit

The aftermarket Android Head Unit was delivered today.  Shipping from China was very quick and I was pleased to see it had been well packaged.

Our original head unit is a 2DIN and consequentially quite deep.  I assume because it included a DVD player.  The new Android Head Unit doesn’t have the player and accordingly is roughly 25% the depth of the original.

The screen is larger (9inch vs 7inch) which required a replacement facia.

Included were

• Head Unit
• Facia panel
• Patch lead to convert the exiting 4WD wiring to the new unit
• GPS dongle
• Two (2) USB leads
• Reversing camera and cabling
• Patch lead to convert the existing rear view camera wiring to the new unit
• Patch leads for accessories
• Patch lead for the original FM radio aerial
• Plastic trim removal tool

Connecting all the cables was rather simple, although I found I had a loose red and black cable with no connection.  Eventually I realised it was the power cable for the fan inside the unit.  Then looking through all the patch leads I identified a grey & black cable with a fitting that appeared to fit

Does the Grey/Black cable connect to the Red/Black?

No screws we included to secure the unit to the facia but after several minutes of searching in my various “you might need these one day” jars I found some that were suitable.

The unit has a built-in microphone, but these are usually poor quality.  The accessory patch lead has a socket for an external microphone and I’ve therefore decided to buy one from Aliexpress.  I’m also going to buy a plastic screen protector in an effort to avoid scratches and minimise glare.

what I now need is a fine day to do the installation.

More work

Someone hit the left rear of our 4WD when it was in the local hardware store carpark.  Initially I thought the damage wasn’t significant, but a more detailed inspection revealed it was more extensive than I first thought.  My estimate was about $300-400 for a panel beater to do the repair.   Well I got that wildly wrong.  The first panel beater quoted $1400 plus $100 for a replacement taillight.  That seemed excessive and it was therefore a shock to have the second quote $2000.  The third also quoted $2000 but informed me it might be more if there was unseen damage behind the bumper.

The vehicle is eight year old and likely to be our last.  I don’t want to spend that amount of money on what is now an old vehicle.  I’ve therefore decided to attempt to do the repair myself.   First I need to identify the extent of the damage.

The bumper plastic has been cracked and distorted

There are also slight pressure creases

The left side has popped away from the metal body

Removing the broken taillight revealed more cracks and distortion in the plastic

The damaged taillight is actually the reversing light and red reflector.  I was able to araldite it back together.  That’s $100 saved!

My initial plan was to purchase a new bumper, but Isuzu wouldn’t sell me one.  Their reason was they had previously sold one to a owner who had subsequently refused to accept it because it was unpainted.  They were then left with an unsold bumper.  This sounded spurious to me as bumpers are likely to be frequently damaged and replaced by commercial panel beaters.  With no replacement available I’ll have to repair the bumper.

I will need a heat gun, a plastic welding gun, body filler and paint.  I already have the heat gun and body filler.  An order has been placed with Aliexpress for a plastic welding gun ($40) and the local auto parts store can provide the paint. 

Whilst on the subject of the vehicle.  I’ve decided to replace the original Isuzu head unit.  Actually I’ve been considering replacing it for the last five years.  The cost of a replacement unit was delaying the project. 

My assumption is Isuzu approached several manufacturers of vehicle head units (eg, clarion, pioneer, jvc, alpine, etc) and asked for a price to provide 250,000 units.  The manufacturers submitted their heavily discounted price for a volume order.  However they didn’t want these units to be the same as the high priced units they sold to the public so they supplied unit with ‘crippled’ operating system.  The head unit in our vehicle is made by Panasonic.  It only has four functions. 1.  make and receive phone calls via the owners phone.  2. display the image from the reversing camera.  3.  Play audio media streamed using Bluetooth from the owners phone. There is also AM/FM radio and a CD player.  4.   Navigation.   I have never made a phone call in the vehicle and can count the number of calls I’ve received on two fingers.  Never used the CD player.  Regularly use the reversing camera.  Frequently use the Satnav.   The latter is the most annoying function.  The maps are out of date and an annual update costs $145.  Because the navigation system uses commercial maps they are usually already out of date by 12 months when purchased.

 

A replacement head unit needs to fit into the same location and not have a ‘crippled’ operating system.  It also needs to connect to the existing vehicle wiring loom.

Time marches on; technology improves and prices drop.  When I first started researching after-market head units 5-6 years ago they were $1000.  After waiting for the China National Holiday Sales this year I think I’ve found a suitable unit for $167

 

Fengshida Manufacturer Store – Aliexpress

Jan did even better and obtained a $26 discount.

I didn’t purchase their cheapest model opting for the one that has 4GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage.  After showing the seller photos of the connection sockets on the rear of our Panasonic unit they have confirmed the unit they supply will fit.

The advantages of the new unit are:

• OS Android 15 (not locked down)
• Android auto and Apple Carplay
• Steering Wheel Controls
• Bluetooth and WIFI
• Bigger screen with higher resolution
• Google Store (can download and install any Satnav program I want)
• Two USB ports to extend storage, etc
• Rear reversing camera. (optional front camera or 360 camera system)
• Radio and video player

All of the above at almost the same price as an annual upgrade on the Panasonic Satnav maps.   It’s going to be an interesting project

A month into spring

Our mulberry bush has produced a prolific crop of berries this year.

We have picked five bowls to date and there are plenty more ripening.

Berries on our breakfast cereal and some tasty jam for the next 12 months.

The daffodils were early flowerers and are now starting to die off.

 

Two of the three trees beside the pool have flowers.   The plum and the peacharine.

 

Two years ago the Mango tree was a sick looking twig.  Jan has nursed it back to life and we might actually get a couple of mangoes this season.

The hibiscus Jan planted along the fence line have produced a riot of colour.

 

One of her rose bushes in her front garden has an attractive bloom.

I know to not touch any plants in her garden.  Desired plants die at my touch whilst weeds thrive!

Design Weakness

The mounting brackets that hold the digital display on the ebike handlebars has failed again.  Twice I’ve attempted to repair the break in the mounts and both times the mounts have failed in a different location.  I believe it’s a design weakness.

Not wanting to spend the $100+ purchasing a new display I searched online to see if it was possible to buy replacement mounting brackets.  I thought this might be optimistic but to my surprise I found a seller on Aliexpress.   However the price of the brackets was $12.97 with an additional shipping cost of $18.23.  Did I really want to spend that much money on something that was likely to fail.

After  30 minutes of searching I thought I might have an alternative.   A seller on Aliexpress had CNC machined aluminium motorbike brake hose mounts and the hole for the brake hose looked very close to the size I required to mount the display.   Moreover the cost was $12.67 with free shipping.  I took a gamble I could make them work and they were delivered today.

You can see where I have attempted repairs on the original mounts in the photo below

After searching through all my ‘stuff that might be useful one day’ for something that might be used as a 10mm dowel in the hole of the new brackets I realised I could probably use the ends of the original brackets.

Below is how I plan to modify the new brackets.

I cut off the ends of the original brackets and then filed them down in diameter in order to fit them into the 10mm hole in the new brackets

Next I did a test fit

All good.  Time to remount the display on the handlebars using the new brackets.  I don’t think these brackets will break as easily as the originals.  AND they were cheaper!