RANT iCoyote part 2

In my last post about iCoyote, you'll remember that I wasn't all that chuffed about how the upgrade worked.

In the last couple of bugfixes, some of the bugs got fixed. So I now have, or should i say had a working program. The last update broke it again. When I stepped in my car the other morning after an update the program would just crash. It took me a clear data / force stop / reinstall / wait a day / reinstall / clear data / .... you get the idea before the damned thing would start again. 

Bear in mind that I recently paid 90€ to renew my licence. I must be erred but I expect an expensive piece of software to just work. Especially since it's a rather simple program. Face it, it's a database with a front end on evey smartphone. hardly rocket science. 

Anyway, it worked again, but the interface is crap. Let me specify that for you, the text prompts are a real mess. It all starts with the first startup, where it gives you the choise of what country you're in. I'll ignore the fact that a GPS enabled program has to ask this for now. So you chose your country and then you can chose your language. Here the trouble starts, not all languages are available. I live in Belgium, so the official languages are French, Dutch and German. Two of which are available, yes you read that right, there is no English to choose from even if my phone is set up completely in english. Ok, let's just select dutch shall we. 

That's where it get's really funky. None of the prompts are proper Dutch. The best ones are google-translated from French, some are in German and some are just not translated. 

I'll see if I can get you some screenshots in the next couple of commutes.

Here not a prompt, but a rather funky average. Mind you, all the prompts are in English.

 The text says "radar gemiddelde snelheid" which is a direct google translate from French. The voice prompt uses the official Dutch "trajectcontrole"

 Here we have a couple of typical google translates. Oh and you guessed it, "Nein"and "Ja" aren't Dutch either. In this case German is used, in another case (no screenshot) it's in French.

This is a funky one, not a clue what a "Rijdende mobiele" is, but somehow I got warned about it.

COTW BMW Z3 coupe 2.8

Those following this site might have a déjà vue, but bear with me. I'll tell you how I came by this car  ... again.

I decided that I really want to replace the celica with something else. I've been driving celicas for the last 10 years and covered 300kkm in them. Time to move on.

Soooo I want rwd (shouldn't come as a shock to you guys) I also wanted it to be cheap, i.e. if something goes wrong with the car, I don't want to have to go back to driving a lesser car. So the Porsche is out of the question. This leaves us with the MX5 and the S2000. 

There's a world of difference between the two of them, but in the end it boils down to one is cheap and modifiable the other one is a finished product at a higher price. So MX5 it is. 

That explains that for the last couple of weeks I've been looking for my ideal MX5, which is a black on black 1.8l with aircon. Of course this being the one I want, makes it about a rare as they get. 

In my wanderings along car sale sites I've recently came across a Z3 coupe 2.8, which made realise I still love that car. So I wandered off in another direction and did some more research on the car. 

You'll remember, or you can just click my previous post, that I wanted to change a lot of parts on it. Well it seems the latest 2.8, which was introduced in 1999, already has double vanos. I only need to make sure the engine is a M52TUB28 instead of a M52B28. There you have it, some motivation to accept a 2.8 in my life other than the tax advantage compared to the 3.0, the fact that they are easier to find and they look gorgeous. 

Anyway, I'm off searching for some cars :-)

Beemer was thirsty

Yesterday the beemer was very thirsty.

She told me the range was 0kms. Where the 4 dashes are, there used to be a number indicating how many kms I can still drive. But she was still running as you can see on the tach.

And when filling her up, I put in 62,32l, whereas the tank capacity is 63l

Guess driving LPG this long has made me less sensitive to the fuel needs of a car. In the Celica there's always fuel or gas just a press of a button away.

The beemer gets the Greg treatment

Well, the beemer has been my Faithfull companion for the last couple of weeks commuting. So long enough to start modifying it beyond the foam cup holder.
Two things have been bugging me.
1. The complete absence of cupholders, which might seem a small issue. Not so small if you factor in 270km a day starting at 5:30. Think morning cup of Joe and you get the idea.
2. No aux to the radio. Which is not too bad as long as you stay within range of a decent radio station or have a big cd collection. I was planning a round trip to bologna, so there goes radio coverage and my cd collection amasses to 2, of which one is a Michael Jackson cd I got as a birthday present when I was 12.
The first problem was quickly solved by cutting some foam in shape and sticking it in the central ash tray. Looks weird but gets the job done.

The second problem can easily be solved by giving bmw 60€. This buys you a 3.5mm jack you need to install in the car. Rather pricey for a stupid wire so off to Google for a better solution. I was rather disappointed not to found something better so I go thinkering. The schematics for the cable are easily found, I have a bluetooth receiver laying around collecting dust. So there you have a better solution, just put one and one together and hide it somewhere in the dash. Unfortunately that's way too easy. I wanted a completely integrated BT receiver, so I cracked open the receiver case, soldered on some wires. Now all I need is 5 volts to run the receiver off. So I  cracked open the the radio and went hunting for a power line. That's where I got lucky and found a nice accessible 7808. Combine this with a 7805 I had laying around and pronto 5volts :-) Now a that's left is to solder the previously soldered  wires to the corresponding pins and hot glue the receivers print inside the radio unit.
Here are some pics for you :
The all important collection of resistors and capacitors to trick the radio in thinking it has an AUX-IN attached to it.

 Some wires soldered to the BT receiver :

 Here's the 7805, which will feed the project

 And the 7808 which was already mounted in the radio. With all that metal to cool it, it should be possible to feed the 7805.

 The inside of the radio, with the pins where I'll solder the BT receiver

 Some more metal to cool the 7805

 All soldered up, ready to add hot glue (sorry no hot pics)

COTW - the final one

With a title like that this is bound to be a good one, so enjoy.

This morning I had the dreaded MOT visit again with the Celica.

I made it there at 6:45, before they opened and was first in line. I guess i'm not the only one crazy enough to do that, since at 6:46 we were already 4 waiting for the gates to open. So I drive in, the guy pours all over the car, slightly cursing at my LPG installation, which gives him more to do. But  in the end all is fine and the car still conforms to what's written on the documents.

That is until the time comes to pay. The guy in front of me is called to the desk and is given an LPG price, on which I step in and tell them that will be mine. I pay my dues and walk off with my papers. Having a bad feeling about the name mix-up i check my documents, and they are for a Renault ... yuck ... a Kangoo of all things. So I head back to the guy and sort out the documents with him. Upon which the desk clerk wants to see all the documents and spends another 5 minutes rummaging through them before realizing her mistake and handing both of us the correct papers. I guess that's a downside to arriving this early, they haven't had time for coffee yet.

So I go out to the Celica with a green ticket and a new LPG sticker to put on the windscreen. After which I drive off and decide to take the small windy roads home in celebration. Of course paying homage to my old adage "life starts at 6200". After some slight speeding on the tones of AC/DC combined with a screaming engine I arrive home with a huge smile on my face.

That's about when it hit me. Of all the cars I have been rambling about, there's actually only just one which can give me the same feeling as the Celica. The S2000. There is just no substitute for revs. The feeling you get when the car kicks you in the but at 6200 after a nice smooth buildup of power throughout the rev-range ... I confess, I'm an addict :-)

So there you have it, if the Celica will ever be replaced, it will be by another high singing car. For the moment the only car worthy is the S2000.

RANT - Smog alarm

So today we had / are having Smog alarm in Belgium.
In short the air quality is poor and to solve this we're going to drive at 90kph instead of 120kph on the highway.
Since I have a 140km commute, this has a big impact on me, and this gave me a lot of time to think this through.
Here are some random remarks

• It causes the trucks,which usually drive on the right lane to drive in the middle. As everybody knows, trucks are limited to 90kph, so setting the limit for everybody at 90 will cause a messed up situation. You'll have your "cautious" drivers doing 85 on the right or middle and trucks overtaking them. 
• All the media hype you get the last days makes people ignore the signs along the highway. So even on places where 120 is still allowed you'll have the white van man blocking you. Which might not be such a big deal if you only have 15k to drive. Me on the other hand was rather annoyed. 
• If instead of having 99% diesel cars on the road, we had more petrol engines we would have less pollution. Way to go politicians in pushing for diesel. 
• On a side note, has anybody who drivers an "ecological car" ever achieved the claimed consumption ? On my 10 year old diesel, which is supposed to be very un -eco I commute using only 5.5l/100km, beat that. 
• Wouldn't it make sense to make everybody's commute shorter by trying to get rid of the traffic jams ?
• Wouldn't it make sense to make commuting by train more pleasant and efficient. I simply don't get why I need to spend about an hour extra for the same distance when taking public transport. Let alone why trains can have delays. They only have 1 track, no other cars on it and the trains stations have been the same since ages. But hey, i'm getting side-tracked. 

Oh well ... I'm not looking forward to the trip home :-/

RANT - iCoyote update woes

Last week I got a nice popup on my phone telling me about the new version of iCoyote.

I went ahead and installed the new version, all 37Mb of it. (why should a program with just one function be that huge ??)

Ever since I first used it, I long for the old version. Call me old or retro minded but the old version of was just plain better. OK it didn't look as fancy but at least it did the job and didn't make me feel like throwing my phone out of the window. 

Now I have to cope with

• A screen that's stuck on full blast since the night mode doesn't work. Sure it works in the settings screen but once you're in the main app it goes back to blinding. 
• A broken mute function. If I want it to shut up I really want it to be silent. So no beeps to tell me how far I'm away from the radar, nor overspeed beeps
• Sound that's always on media, even though the settings are set to notification. Since my podcast is set to mute on notifications of other programs, it now happily keeps on chatting when iCoyote makes a sound. Combine this with the previous point a d you have a very annoying bug. 
• An indication  telling me I'm doing mph instead of kph. Hello iCoyote people, we have metric here in Belgium. Luckily the speed is in kph, so at least I don't have to constantly re-calculate my speed. 
• Nag screens. Every time it tells you there is a vehicle stopped or a mobile radar it asks you to either confirm or decline its presence. This is all well and good, were it not for the nagging sound every couple of seconds followed by a obnoxious buzzer if you fail to answer. Sometimes I prefer focusing on driving rather than fishing for my phone to answer a question.

In short, I want the old version back.

And as a closing thought it would be nice if the iCoyote people actually listened to their customers. Given the number of 1 star ratings they're getting on Google play lately, one would think they'd do something about it, or at least have send some communication out into the world. Guess again.

I'll have to give Waze a test-drive.

COTW - GT86 - BRZ

It's been a while since I've written something here. Come to think of it, I really must stop starting my posts with this sentence. The way to go might be to post more frequently, but I don't seem to manage it lately.

Anyway, off to the meat of the post, the car.
I present you the Toyota GT86 / Subaru BRZ. This car should need no introduction, unless you spend the last years under a rock or you have absolutely no interest in cars (what ARE you doing here ??)

So there you have it, I've got the successor of the celica on my mind. It's a proper sports car in such that it has the engine up front, the driven wheels at the back, a low center of gravity and the proper amount of doors, being 2.
In the last couple of years I haven't seen a negative review. Most of them go something like it's a brilliant and fun car to drive. If you really twist the reviewers arm they say it could do with some more power for track use. Since I've driven it once many moons ago, I can concur.
Living in Belgium, a country without any form of car culture, (there are no tracks, you can not modify your car - even something as small as changing a bulb for a led is frowned upon and the bulk of the cars have a 1.6l diesel up front for tax reasons) I would even go as far as saying the 200hp is plenty for day to day use.
The only mod I might consider is having a set of different size rear rims so that I can "recycle" cheap tires at the back :-)

I've been checking out list prices for second hand ones and they've fallen as low as 15k. So depending on the funds that rest me after our apartment is done this might be an option. Fingers crossed.

3D printers - The jungle out there

Ok, I've been ogling 3D printers lately. They're just way too cool, so I want one.

The last couple of days I've been searching the net to see what the options are. After about half an hour googling I was ready to give up. There are so many options out there, it's mind bogging.

We need some criteria to narrow this down

• I want to print ABS, so I'll need a heated bed
• Price should be about 500$
• Self-replicating printers sound way to cool not to have one
• I want to tinker, so a ready-to-print is out of the question
• Build volume should be at least 200x200

This pretty much narrows it down to a RepRap. So we have the "brand" now the model. 

Given the fact that the Mendel is known to a colleague of mine, who's willing to help out and print parts, that's the model sorted as well. 

So now we have brand and model, you'd think you're there. But hell no, there's still half a dozen variations of the model and most of these have a couple of iterations. I'm getting the feeling of being sent to square one. 

After some more googleing I found the one that I want. Combining the above criteria with a pinch of "but it's preeeeetyyyy" I came to the conclusion that I want a RepRap Mendel Prusa i3 with a laser-cut Melamime frame i.e. this one

Now that's the model down, next hunt is about learning about hotends and electronics to find out which one i want / need. But that's for a future post.