First Man had Fire.

Fire would be found in a pit or later a fireplace. With fire came soot and smoke.

Eventually Man put his fireplace behind a pane of glass, eliminating smoke in his dwelling.

And again Man figured out that he could have a fireplace burning gas that did away with smoke and the necessity of building and tending a fire.

Today Man has built a fireplace (The Moron Fireplace) which burns gas with fake logs for the singular purpose of decoration, not heat. Indeed this fireplace (THE MORON FIREPLACE) expels the heat generated by the flickering gas flame OUTSIDE the building. On purpose.

This is excess in living. This is how we know we’re better than those who can’t afford to heat their homes.

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After having the last couple weeks of my life stolen by first illness, then jury duty, I’m finally back in control and ready to get the stuff that needs to get done done to make the projects that need to happen happen- like the car and the kart. I didn’t shave until I was booted from the jury selection- It’s probably just superstition but hey, it can’t hurt to cultivate a “you don’t want me on your jury” look. What a relief to get out- the trial presentation for those selected will likely stretch into August. A real messy attempted murder case.

So, what’s up now? I’m making plans to get the electric MX-5 down to Monterey on Sunday for the Refuel expo/trackday/event at Laguna Seca. I’ve installed a set of MK3 Rudman Regulators to replace my home-built balancer setup as I discussed before. I’ve given the car a couple of test cycles to try to figure out what is really working and what’s not- the new regs look promising but need to be dialed in. There appears to be one really weak battery that is limiting the performance of the whole pack. And the brand new Belktronix DC/DC has something going on that I need to figure out. It’s blown a couple of HV fuses now (where do I recognize this scenario from?) If I can’t get it working it won’t ruin the weekend however, the aux. 12v battery seems to be up to the task of running the car. I got about 15 miles of driving today with heavy vacuum pump and headlight use before the aux battery ran hit the Zilla’s cutout point, and it wasn’t fully charged when I started.

It’s the little things that stack up and become seriously frustrating. The cycle analyst reports wildly varying and totally wrong current readings while charging the car, while seeming about correct under discharge. Even my Fluke 337 current clamp meter is acting sketchy and not entirely trustworthy, particularly for voltage or resistance measurements. There’s definitely something wrong with it.

So, like usual with the practice of trying to get stuff to work there is the sweet and the sour- some things go right the first time, more often things need more attention. Patience and perseverance.

I’m really looking forward to the event on Sunday, I know some people I want to see will be there and I expect plenty of people I will enjoy seeing but haven’t thought of will show up as well. Hopefully the Miata performs OK. Looks like my friends and I will also have the electric recliner in tow. After reworking the battery box today it is even more solid, and stealthy than before. Good stuff. Sadly we didn’t get a chance to set up the remote-controlled auto-recline feature. Another day.

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I’ve been working on the parts for this bike over the last couple months in the machine shop- I’ve changed my mind a couple times about how to put it together, but now that it’s together it’s working as well as I could have possibly expected. Let’s just take a look at the specs:

• Motor: Kollmorgen “Hi-Kol” 24v/400W brushless DC motor with integrated controller
• Motor mount: .090 304 Stainless Steel plate (CNC plasma cut) and billet aluminum
• Belt Drive: 6 Rib J-profile Ribbed V-Belt on custom machined pulleys, .070 galvanized steel tensioner, spring, automotive idler pulley. 10:1 ratio- 12″ rear, 1.2″ front
• Rear wheel: Shimano hub with IS 44mm disc hub
• Throttle: Magura 0-5k
• Batteries: 2x B&B 12v/20AH absorbed glass mat valve regulated lead acid
• Battery mount: .063 aluminum, hose clamps, zip ties
• Monitoring: Cycle Analyst

What does this all mean?

• Peak power: 1000w
• Top all electric speed: 20mph
• Range: 12-18miles
• Energy consumption: 20-30 wh/mile

25wh/mile is approximately equivalent to 1500 miles per gallon efficiency.

I just returned from an 11.68 mile ride on the bike in the Berkeley hills. I ascended Spruce to Grizzly Peak then back down Centennial Drive to Oxford, then back to the flats via Monterrey. That’s over 1100 ft. elevation change. I made it up the hill in 15 minutes, averaging almost 15mph, pedaling hard but staying in my middle gear and not working so hard (in my out of shape condition) to really feel beat up. The extra 500-800 watts of assist climbing the hills makes a world of difference. It’s almost magical. Trips that I would normally just hop in the car for due to lazyness or time pressure suddenly become bike trips with the electric assist. Added to the fact that the bike is simply a joy to ride. The motor and belt drive are quiet, the bike feels secure and stable and the bike has enough power to make riding as lively or easy as you want. Having a trouble-free charging setup and ample instrumentation thanks to the Cycle Analyst makes riding stress-free as well.

The energy used during this ride?

From what I’ve seen I don’t think this is exceptional by electric bike standards. Still, I am thrilled at the incredible comparative efficiency and effectiveness, not to mention enjoyable nature of riding this bike.

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Meet the Soviet Long-Track Radar Vehicle (P40 Radar), from 1969.

Or, in this photo from an Air Force website, via Wikipedia:

So, it’s basically a not-really-armored, fully tracked, mega-massive soviet built tractor with a 30 foot wide 2MW turbine-powered radar dish on top- what could possibly not be fantastic about that.

A peek inside confirms, yes, fantastic.

The rear of the truck houses the electric parts to run the radar system. The middle of the truck is this room for 4-5 operators, with a superb array of switches, joysticks, knobs, dials, screens, gauges and lights. All the panel printing is in Russian. The whole thing is in impressively good shape.

I’ll just run my photos of all the controls, but first- yes, the whole thing runs on vacuum tubes, in the true Russian propensity.

Even the cab of the truck is pretty well fitted out.

So, what do we take from this besides a certain “steampunk”/”retro-industrio-mil-russi-punk” attraction? (as if that isn’t quite enough!) Well, just like all the things in that museum, it’s a testament to the incredible outpouring of resources (natural, and human) used to build war machines. It gives a face to “Mil-spec”. Forty years later this machine is still in remarkable shape. It’s also a reminder of just how technology has progressed in this evolving globally connected world- where something like this is absolutely, hopelessly obsolete and useless. The Russians, Germans and Americans seem like the biggest players in the arms/engineering race depicted through the collection at the MVTF. Every nation has different strengths that are reflected in the way they built these war machines- imagine what could have become if everyone just dropped the war part and worked together for the purpose of improving life instead of destroying it.

Problems of the world aside, I’ll stick with the “retro-industrio-mil-russi-punk” attraction. It’s working pretty well for me right now.

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Well, there was a little inverter called the Micro Sine, made by Trace. A 100w 12v or 24v input grid-synchronous inverter designed for mounting right on the frame of a solar module. It was great for “Guerrilla Solar” – back feeding power without the utility’s permission or knowledge. It was a feature in Home Power, people took photos with their little (and even pretty big) arrays wearing gorilla masks, articles were often written in a sort of tongue-and-cheek style. It was pretty neat. As time went on big arrays got cheaper, the big HV input MPPT synchronous inverters came on the market and utilities started becoming more willing to make legal protocols for grid tie systems. Trace got bought by Xantrex and the Micro Sine fell off the market. Guerilla Solar disappeared out of Home Power. Small distributed grid tie inverters have never caught on.

As with all things, however, you can count on the Chinese catch on about 10 years late and bring a facsimile of something the western market has disappeared for, but make it cheap enough to sell them anyways. So when I mentioned to my friend Micah that I had a 160w 12v PV array he mentioned that he had picked up a Chinese 12v/250w grid synchronous inverter in the style of the old Micro Sine- but he didn’t have enough solar to push it. He offered that I should try it out.

It worked fine- just as it should have. And I have to say, it was a bit of a thrill to see that 100w of rogue energy flowing back online, PG&E none the wiser.

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The About page has got a new, up to date section reflecting my outlook these days.

I’ve just moved to a new WP-theme, “Grey Matter” in favor of the old customized K2 with custom header and background that I thought vaguely reminiscent of some Louis Vuitton pattern. Or something. Benefits: nice fresh clean design, and THREADED COMMENTS!

For posterity:

And even further back in the wayback machine- my first header ever:

And second:

Ah, just lovely.

We’re coming up on 52 posts in 52 weeks (we’re at 51 in 51 currently)- let’s look at a few of last year’s highlights- posts that I think stand the test of time best:

• My classic review of the rental Grand Marquis, as compared to the gold standard of automobiles. March 2009.
• Generating radial SVG clones- why would you need expensive graphics programs when you can just procedurally generate your art using open source tools? April 2009
• And in the other corner- generating art in a backwards, goofy, totally analog fashion. April 2009
• I proudly used my JB-Welded cell phone for a whole six months before the plastics just started breaking apart around the JB-Weld cast. May 2009
• The first ever drive of the EV Miata. May 2009
• More automotive tomfoolery- installing a Jaguar tach in the dash of the ’68 Dodge, in a soup can no less. May 2009
• The EV coolant bottle struggle- with two flavors of Nalgene water bottle. Good thing REI’s right around the corner. June 2009
• My photo gallery from the Wayland Invitational EV drags up in Portland. August, 2009 (taken in July)
• The Electric Skateboard Trilogy. To be continued…
• My goofball car-roof-mounted solar power system, used primarily to power a subwoofer on my Northwest roadtrip. September 2009
• Banzai Lemon- an insane paint job. September 2009
• I finally edited the first car run video from back in May- October 2009
• My most recent writing, inspired by the University of Delaware and Chrysler- January 2010

And on we go- Stay tuned for some really neat new posts I’ve got planned, on some really wild new projects.

As to traffic- in the last year we’ve seen almost 13,000 pageviews, over 5,000 unique visitors. About 70% of those visitors in the last 3 days. Thanks to Hackaday!

Here’s to another good year!

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Browsing BoingBoing today I saw this article. I clicked through and looked through the photos posted on the auction website. It’s worth a look. Here’s the story: wikipedia Chrysler’s Newark Assembly plant in Newark, Delaware built tanks between 1951 and 1957, and cars between 1957 and 2009, including LeBarons, Town and Countrys, and most recently Dodge Durangoes. The property and facility was bought by the University of Delaware for $24.25M, as it is adjacent to campus. They plan to re purpose the property for research and future expansion. The sale was made in October 2009, now they are auctioning all the industrial machinery, tooling and fixtures that made the plant run. $24.25 seems like really a pittance for such a facility- 3m sq. ft., chock full of everything needed to run a production car manufacturing operation.

The pictures really struck a chord with me. Usually when pictures are available of a closed factory, or other “urban relics”, they’re in rough shape- they’ve been looted and explored, the roof leaks, flaking paint and light filtered through broken windows illuminate scenes of decay and rust. Not here- this factory is fresh and clean. The pictures could have been taken over a holiday when the workers were at home, aside from the acres of empty stock shelves. And indeed- the emptiness is not due to flood or famine or disaster, but just the management deciding to close up. The employees cleaned up one night, and never came back. They’re still around- but not working here anymore.

And equipment! What equipment! Mills, lathes, a Haas VMC and toolroom mill, stock racks and bandsaws, in the manual machine shop alone. All installed in a solid, spacious, well lit facility. Not to even mention any of the production facilities, or testing/QC areas. Auto lifts, toolboxes, spacious rooms with everything needed to do anything with cars.

It’s hard to put my finger on what I’m trying to get at, because the screw-up represented here is so fundamental to the issues I see at play in the world here. Simply, it is insane that everything Chrysler built here is being taken apart and auctioned to the highest bidder. The “service economy” or “knowledge economy” that America has been and is still purposefully heading towards excludes manufacturing. And here we have a university taking over an American manufacturing facility and instantly liquidating everything they can, including facilities that could be used in industrial engineering education programs, and demolishing it, ready to build whatever fits their vision. Research space and future expansion. In order to crank out more B.A.s who don’t understand how the food gets on their table, and B.S.s who don’t know what to do with a wrench or drill.

Even if the plant was built to make cars and the car market has been pulled out from under it doesn’t mean that the established manufacturing facility it left behind is worth most as empty land for a university. Considering capitalism, a plant full of machines should have more earning potential, and should be worth more than a plot of land. And from a “doing what’s right for the world in the face of impending energy crisis that will destroy every foundation of American life” perspective, that plant should be building wind turbines, or electric motorcycles or electric cars or anything to prepare for a post-petro world, regardless of profitability. I would pack up and move to Delaware right now, plus give my right kidney for the chance at using 1/100 of that facility to work on things that I think are important for the future of the world. It really kills me to see this kind of an opportunity taken away. As well, America does not need everyone to go to university, many of the kids “served” by the University of Delaware would be better served by the opportunity to work in the trades, in a facility like the one that is currently being destroyed.

Here’s the list of items to be auctioned (189 6-axis robotic arms. Jeezus).

And here is a mirror of all the images on the auction page.

P.S. 50th post! Woo hoo!

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Basically- I noticed this aggressive driver in a black Passat with frat letters on the back when they passed me on the right. Drifting around in the lane, uneven acceleration. Decided to give them wide berth. As I followed directly behind them in the left lane, but with 2-300 yards distance I saw them brake suddenly, realized they had failed to slow down with traffic. They then swerved sharply into the right lane, where there was some space. It was a misty day, with moisture on the road but no standing water. The driver then lost control of the car, skidding side to side, then sliding into the embankment on the side of the road, probably at 50+ mph. The car rolled onto the roof. I pulled into the median and crossed the road, helped the driver out of the car through the rear driver side window. The driver’s side front corner of the car was crushed worst, although the airbags didn’t deploy, the driver was lucky not to get more hurt.

After a couple minutes I realized the engine was still running, despite having lost all the oil, and being upside-down (obviously). I reached through the drivers window and steering wheel and moved the key out of the ignition position. The radio kept playing. Couldn’t shut the key off and remove it as the transmission was not in park. Before I shut it off the engine sounded like a diesel, and was beginning to smoke. It had lost all the oil when it first hit the embankment- the oil pan was shattered.

I found it a bit impressive how well the car held up, for the safety of the driver and running upside down with no oil for a good little while.

Despite having seen it unfold right in front of me I’m still not exactly sure what happened here. It was pretty shocking, unreal. Puts into perspective how the way we use cars and roads can quickly, in just an instant go from the disconnected, comfortable, predictable way we are familiar with into a real display of heavy objects in motion, subject to all the misunderstood, unprepared-for physical realities that aren’t a part of the road culture. Racing LeMons, even autocross is also a good way to get in touch with the car as a physical system- find the limits where surface predictability disappears. And cheaper and safer than flipping your car on the highway.

No one was badly hurt, only one car was totaled, but not only our distracted driver friend got a bit of a reality check seeing this crazy scene unfold.

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Something strikes me as pretty funny about the car in this picture. Probably because I expect the driving experience in a diesel rabbit has got to be pretty wretched. Hey- I’ve got nothing but respect for terrible econoboxes boldly proclaiming their worst attributes!

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Photo M. Macor/The Chronicle

On Bad Engineering

On Tuesday (10/27/09) I was driving back from Laney College up to my home in Albany. A ways in advance of where 880 splits off for (I guess) 80E and 80W (Bay Bridge) I realized we were merging out of the left lanes for the Bay Bridge- with flares and cones. No Caltrans trucks, flashing arrow signs, hundreds of cones, just a smattering of flares and dingy cones. And then headlights, coming toward me out of those lanes- wait?? huh? They had apparently rerouted traffic “out the in ramp”. I’m still not sure exactly how it worked- but by the time we got to the Y it was quite clear that something funny was going on with the bridge. Then over the flyover I could see the “parking lot” in the toll plaza everyone has been talking about.

When I checked 511.org and sfgate.com at home I learned that the “saddles and rods” fix that the contractor CC Myers had installed on a cracked “eyebar” beam on the bridge had come apart, smashing a couple cars, and the bridge had been shut down indefinitely. The cracked eyebar had been found during Labor Day’s planned festivities- the replacing of the approach to Yerba Buena island with a temporary section to allow construction of the new bridge approach- and the weekend closure was extended another day to set up a reinforcement for the cracked beam. The contractor finished up a half-day early to the lauding of the general bridge-going population, and the bonus-granting of the local governments. The apparatus they devised lasted seven weeks before high winds on Tuesday caused one of the four long rods under tension holding the parts of the reinforcement together to snap. The forces in the assembly were then became unbalanced and the rest of it pulled itself apart, flinging massive hunks of steel across the roadway.

The immediate response has been one of annoyance over the closure of the bridge, hope for it to open again soon, general sympathy for the situation. It’s been treated sort of as a natural disaster, something unexpectable that couldn’t be averted, and now must be taken care of. Sfgate.com published this editorial that captures some of my feeling about the whole matter, the fundamental “High winds should be anticipated on a bridge” idea. There has been other publicity of the possible half assed-ness of the “band aid fix” like here, and this editorial blathers a bit about Caltrans and the Chinese steel and “adulterated” concrete that has been used in the footings for the new bridge. Maybe “this country needs an ethics revolution”, but the problems here lie in engineering integrity, not solely in material quality or governmental dishonesty. But in general, the public and media response to this has, in my view, given the people responsible a bit of an easy time.

So, my thoughts:

Once you find something like the cracked eyebar on the bridge you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist and do nothing about it. Even though the bridge still is intact, and was showing no signs of coming apart destructively. Once something like that is known, it must be fixed. But in critical situations, the quality of the fix must not be affected by the perceived importance (or lack thereof) of the problem it’s fixing. Is it possible the engineers in charge of designing the “bay bridge band-aid” realized that the bridge wouldn’t come apart if the eyebar snapped and therefore weren’t very careful about the design of the fix? Did they say well, it’s really not going to break, and even if it did, people probably wouldn’t die, and the bridge is going to be demolished in a few years anyways, so we’ll put together this simple thing that will take the static tension load of the eyebar and forget about it? Not taking into account that the thing they slapped together was in fact just as much a part of the bridge as the rest of the bridge once it was installed on the bridge and just as likely to be subjected to the adverse conditions often found on the bridge, and in just as much a position to injure people in its own failing? Would they have designed this part differently if the eyebar weren’t cracked, but was gone and their fix would actually, for sure have to bear the load of the beam it replaced? It doesn’t take an engineer to see that high winds should be part of the assumed conditions in designing a part for a bridge, just like salty spray, dynamic loads from passing cars and whatever structural role the part fulfills. I think it’s pretty telling that the “band aid” whipped up in a few day’s time to “take care of” the cracked eyebar problem was the only thing that failed. That it destroyed itself, and in destruction posed as a potentially fatal hazard to people driving on the bridge. Truly an example of bad, bad engineering.

Like, the bridge was designed so that if an eyebar failed, the bridge would not fall apart. This “fix” that was installed was designed in such a way that when one part of it failed, the whole thing explosively came apart. Right. I think it’s hard to argue that that couldn’t have been foreseen, or was unavoidable.

An analogy: If a drug company wants to make a drug to help people grow bushier eyelashes (which they HAVE, another WTF for another day) it’s morally not OK for that drug to cause cancer and death in 1% of the population. It’s not OK to put out a drug that has a chance of really hurting people under natural, “foreseeable-for” conditions. Bridges rarely fail. Nor do jet planes, or high speed trains, or even cars fail dangerously under a wide range of natural operating conditions. That’s due to the complex, slow moving, expensive process that has evolved for designing stuff that doesn’t fail catastrophically. There are protocols and known things to take into account when you’re building a bridge, or anything else. When you get a blitz engineering job that generates a failure like we saw on Tuesday, it shows that that everything that needed to be taken into account wasn’t.

There’s a place for designing stuff that pretty much works, not all engineering has to be perfect. Stuff you build for yourself, or stuff that will not see a lot of abuse and isn’t in a position to hurt people can be designed with less engineering skill and thoroughness. I’m pretty familiar with making “good enough” stuff myself. But when you start selling a product that people rely on, or designing something that is as critical as a part for a bridge, there’s no excuse for inadequate engineering.

If anyone knew that the fix was going to fail, that intensifies the practically criminal nature of this engineering oversight. Back when BART was brand new the train tracking system would periodically lose track of trains as they traveled around autonomously on their routes. They weren’t willing to acknowledge the problem or take any steps to remedy it. It took the constant hassling and publicity efforts of a third party group to get BART to fix the problem, which could easily have led to a disastrous accident. Making an engineering mistake in life-critical systems is unforgivable, it should never happen. People have been building these sorts of things long enough to know what needs to be designed for. Leaving a known dangerous piece of engineering in place while the critical system it is a part of is in service is downright criminal. Knowledgeably endangering people.

I am very glad and, in hindsight relieved that no one was killed by this mistake. I only wish that people were more aware of how this should have been foreseen, that there were people who should have kept this from happening, endangering lives and now, with this bridge closure, putting many people at risk of losing their jobs.

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