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.