Here’s the short version: Because we are cheap, my friend picked up a Mars “Brushless Etek” BLDC motor from Ebay user “megadan” who has been selling these motors for about half price, with the catch that they are shipped with an odd and difficult to deal with shaft adapter (I’m starting to get used to this reality of cheap and surplus motors)

The first plan we had for removing the shaft sleeve adapter was to cut the end off then hold it in a vise and use a pin to beat the motor shaft out from inside it.

Cutting the end of the adapter was uneventful, so we found a pin and started hammering on the shaft. Seeing no movement we beat on the shaft pretty good. Then I noticed the motor had bound up and wouldn’t spin anymore.

Turned out the hammering caused two magnets to come unattached from the rotor plate. You can see the left magnet in the photo protrudes further from the rotor than the right magnet, it has stuck solidly against the stator. Still no movement in the shaft adapter.

The next day I figured out a better plan for removing the shaft adapter- I used a dremel cutting disc to cut a slot in the sleeve right above the keyway, using the keyway as a relief to cut through the sleeve without cutting into the shaft. The adapter sleeve was held on the shaft purely through friction, no internal keyway. Given the tightness of the fit I would guess it was an interference fit assembled with thermal expansion. After slitting the sleeve I ground out the motor-side of the sleeve in the corner that the dremel cutting disc was unable to reach. I pounded a screwdriver into the slot and the sleeve slid right off. With careful grinding and cutting I managed on only nick the motor case and shaft.

So now, an adapter-less but seized motor. Time to disassemble. But how? There’s just one screw on the outside of the motor that holds it together. Other than that it is held together by the axial magnetic force of the rotor -> stator and the friction fit of the shaft through the rear bearing. There are three metric (M5?) tapped holes in the rear case that can be used to attach some sort of puller rig.

This can only end badly

I bolted the front case to the welding layout table (conveniently spaced holes) and whipped together a plate to bolt to the puller-holes out of some scrap. A 2×4, bottle jack and some bolts and nuts complete the picture. And yes, this is surely a Miller-recommended usage of the Dynasty welder cart.

Spoiler: it ends up working—

*crack* *pop*

Umm, doc? I think we need some more POWAH here

No problem!

Well, there’s your problem right there.

Nothing a whole great smear of epoxy can’t fix

Good as new (that’s not saying much, really)

In order to reassemble the motor I thought more control of the rear case decent would be in order to try to minimize the chance of shaft binding and case snapping. I didn’t know when planning that the force required to press the tailshaft through the rear bearing would be much greater than the magnetic pull between the rotor and stator. So I set up a reverse-puller using three scissor jacks.

Although I ended up whacking the inner bearing race over the shaft using a tube an soft hammer anyways the tri-jack rig was extremely easy to control and secure feeling, I was happy with how it worked even though it was probably not actually necesessary. If you’re attempting this, be sure to keep an eye on the hall sensor wire, pull it back through the grommet as the the motor halves approach.

The freshly rebuilt motor spins freely now and appears to work OK. I didn’t make a mark on the case before pulling it apart so I may have slightly altered the timing (the hall sensors are on the inside of the front case). I don’t feel confident that the motor is as really as good as new, but after seeing the inside of the motor I’m not particularly inspired by the quality of manufacture all around.

Regardless, I think it’ll be a good start for the Kart 

I’ll tidy this up a bit

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First, get yourself a pack of these “TWIN DRAFT GUARD” (AS SEEN ON TV) “MAGNETIC VENT COVERS” from your local Bed Bath and Beyond – maybe walmart or target carries this or something similar as well-

They’re not very strongly magnetic, but I tested it on the freeway, didn’t go anywhere. And cheap! $9.99 for 3. Good enough.

Next, draw some numbers on them with a fat permanent marker- I decided on 1, so we can be 15, 51, or 5 using the 5 painted on the car. Drawing a 6 would give you the most versatility, as you can just flip it over and it will become a 9- tricky! UPDATE: I just thought of something else- even better. Since the package of magnets includes three sheets, cut one in half and make 1′s, then make 6/9s on the other two- then for $10 bucks you’ve got 1, 9, 6, 16, 19, 61, 91… seven unique number possibilities! That’s quite a bargain!

Simple as that! Indeed, they stick to cars! That is, as long as you don’t have a Saturn, or DeLorean, or Corvette, or……

But If you have one of those your paint will probably survive some masking tape.

The vaunted 1(doorhandle)1 Camry Race Wagon

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I set this system up for my Northwest roadtrip, as previously described. It worked like a charm, supplying me with laptop charge and ample stereo bass all 2300 miles of my trip. What’s this about subs and bass exactly?

One of the prime objectives of the system was to power up my subwoofer system- because what’s a roadtrip without a subwoofer? You may be thinking to yourself, WTF? So let’s get this straight. I mounted an 80watt polycrystaline PV panel to the roof of my station wagon. I ran the power to a charge controller and 90AH SLA battery pack behind the drivers seat. And with the resulting charge I ran a small inverter and a subwoofer amplifier.

'90s Japanese midsize wagons aplenty

Simple enough- and in all seriousness, it worked really well. Here’s the details:

The module is an 80 watt Photowatt module I purchased several years ago and borrowed from my roof.

It’s anchored to the Camry’s factory-installed roof rails by way of 2×2 lumber, U bolts and plastic tube

Note to self- beware that the distance between the rails on the Camry gets bigger toward the front of the car!

12GA landscape-lighting cable is run in through the rear hatch- I’ve found that landscape lighting cable is widely avaiable and not too expensive, as well as water and sunlight resistant.

The cable is run forward to the driver side rear footwell

From there, the charge controller and batteries are hooked up, as well as the loads.I used the parts I had on hand- 2x  tired old PowerSonic batteries, a BZ Products M20 charge controller. The terminals are insulated with tape, I neglected to add fuses aside from the charge controller’s internal fuses- not a good idea, but I was lucky and was spared any disasters during my trip.

A small mod-sine inverter was sufficient to charge my laptop while I was camping. I made its leads long enough to move around the front seat area.

I put the sub amp under the passenger seat

And used this sweet pushbutton I scavenged from an old junked BMW to activate the amp

There you have it- for two weeks this system kept me supplied with charging power and sweet tunes. It was a no-brainer project for me since I already had all the equipment, but I could see something like this being very worthwile for the avid car-camper. It’s like how many RV people put up solar panels- why should they have all the fun?

If you’re interested in putting something like this together, there are a million different ways you could go about it- roof racks, solar panels, charge controllers, batteries- but here are some ideas of where to start.

PV Panels:

• Something like these is likely one of the easiest options- I have on occasion seen other panels of this sort for sale, all in one chargers with built in charge control. Not the most cost effective though.
• Traditional-style PV panels can be purchased from many dealers- this is one of my favorites. Chose a panel for output and dimensions.
• For permanent installation, particularly on lower-roofline vehicles like my Wagon (as opposed to a van) a glass-less panel may be a good investment to avoid the worry of vandalism or accidental breakage. Unfortunately the best choice, larger Uni-Solar modules appear to have been discontinued and are very hard to find.

Charge Controller

• If you found a panel with integrated charge control, you’re good to go. Similarly, if you’re using a tiny <10watt panel you are also OK- otherwise you’ll need a charge controller to keep your battery pack from getting roasted.
• A controller like this one will be suitable for panels up to around 80 watts. It also includes an LVD output that you can use to power small loads while protecting the battery from being entirely drained.
• This one can make for a very tidy installation as it mounts directly on the panel’s junction box- just beware that some small panels don’t use J-boxes.
• There are many other options. These cited in particular are just my recommendations.

Battery pack

• In order to use a battery in your car you really must use a sealed lead battery as opposed to a flooded one typically available at autopart and warehouse stores. Unfortunately these are much more expensive and pickier, but you don’t want to risk the explosive fumes collecting in your closed car that result from charging a flooded battery, as well as the danger of liquid sulfuric acid.
• You can check out Northern Arizona Wind and Sun’s selection here, or shop around. It can be worthwile to shop locally as battery shipping is often expensive due to their weight. 60+ Amp Hours will give you the best flexibility.
• Something like this is a nice option but quite expensive.

Make sure all your wires are appropriately sized (12GA min, 10 or 8GA OK) and that you use ample fusing. For systems this small an inline ATC fuseholder is generally sufficient. “Car Stereo” style fuseholders are also a good option, also easy to find locally and with higher current capacity. There is some benefit to using a fuse block, but this is one of the areas where it is easy to quickly stray from the KISS (keep it simple stupid) ideal of the project.

If you crimp terminals crimp them tight- you should be able to break the wire before it comes out of the crimp. Landscape lighting wire and ATC fuseholders/fuses can be found at your local hardware store. It’s no problem to attach an inverter to the system, or a cigarette lighter receptacle (auto parts store) for other types of chargers. A 30 amp system fuse will support a 350 watt load.

Hope you find this interesting or inspiring. I sure appreciated my purely solar powered sub tones all the way up and down the West Coast.

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Heh, all kidding aside, this is a little project I have thought about for a while, and it came together nicely. Let’s see:

The Jag tach has two wires of interest- a green wire attached to a faston terminal and a blue and white wire attached to a sort of banana plug thing. The green is +12v and the blue/white is the pulse signal. The metal body of the gauge must be attached to a solid vehicle ground. I used a small ring terminal to attach a wire to the tach body for ground. The signal wire must attach to the ignition coil, on the low voltage terminal that is attached to the distributor.

It worked on the first try!

Then- the small matter of attaching it to the dashboard, running wires for it, and attaching it to a power source that is only energized with the keyswitch on. It really needs a housing, to protect the wiring and exposed plastic on the rear of the gauge- remember, it’s british and almost 40 years old! For that, a tomato can turned out to be just the ticket.

I spliced +12v power into the radio power lead (already well-hacked and spliced), ran the signal lead out through the firewall to the coil, and wrapped the ground wire around one of the windshield wiper motor bolts (along with another unknown wire)

Zip ties finish the installation. It’s beautiful.

This should work in any car with distributor and coil type ignition, and with most any tachometer, given that it came out of a car with the same number of cylinders as your target vehicle (this tach is from a Jag with inline 6, the dodge has the venerable 225 slant 6). Usually it is pretty easy to identify the +, – and signal connections to the tachometer gauge.

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The material is “JB Stick Weld” epoxy putty. So far it seems quite secure, reception is normal. I don’t want to risk breaking it again so I don’t plan on keeping it in my pocket all the time like before, but I think this fix will hold well.

It’s ugly, I know. I enjoy the feeling of having really made the phone uniquely mine by all this homespun repair work– it’s a tiny rebellion against throw-away culture.

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Several months ago when it became annoyingly clear that my 2 year old “Razr” phone was slowly dying I picked up a cheap out of contract Motorola E815 on eBay to replace it- I’ve been impressed with the phone, it gets excellent reception and battery life and I really enjoyed putting goofy MP3 ringtones on it after I did the SEEM hack to allow copying to and from removable memory.

I’ve had a couple of problems, though. First, I blew the ring speaker out. Seriously- the ringer was reduced to a nearly inaudible scratchy whisper. I think the mylar cone delaminated from the voice coil- probably while playing one of my more raucous ringtones. And- recently I noticed that the plastic case parts around the antenna have cracked. The antenna protrudes about an inch and gets plenty of abuse in my pocket- but it’s not designed with very good support. Now the antenna has some play in it.

Cut to the chase. I fixed the ringer, and I tried to superglue the case back together, but it broke again. If it gets worse I will make it a JB weld cast. About the ringer- I decided tonight to donate the old “Razr” to science:

I pulled its ringer speaker out, and decided to stick it in the E815. The speakers are not quite the same size, it’s not a drop-in fix.

(“Razr” speaker on the right, E815 mainboard, speaker contacts can be seen on the left side of the board, placed diagonally)

I am impressed by the design of the E815, it’s simple and easy to pop it apart and back together, the FFC and connectors are robust and easy to use. I’m not so impressed with the antenna mounting at least it’s easy enough to take apart and put back together.

Since the “Razr” speaker doesn’t actually fit, I hot glued it to the circuit board and cut out some of the plastic bits that kept it from fitting in the bottom case. In doing so I busted one of the little clips off and had to re-solder it. Flux FTW.

It lives!

Now I’ve got my speaker-phone back, and most importantly… my ringtones!

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