Old Hippie's Garage

…or at least write a little more often. Not much happening in the Dim Technological Pleistocene or the Old Hippie’s Garage lately. Mainly that’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time working the farm, and the equipment hasn’t broken down. I managed to resurrect an old grading blade that I got as part of the deal that netted me Eminence Grease, a utility trailer, and the blade all for free. If you’ve paid attention you know how Eminence Grease worked out. The trailer is a real white elephant and I’ll give it away for free to anyone who drives up to get it. Hint. Email me.

The blade is another story. It looks homebuilt but it has a builder’s plate on it from a company I can’t remember off the top of my head. Very heavy steel mother. Fully reversible and tiltable — and all in pieces on the trailer with some other bits and bobs mixed in for a light-duty drawbar. Task One was sorting out the parts, then cleaning some of the rust off, giving the whole thing a spritz of WD-40 to protect the steel. I replaced some of the bolts and washers but in the main it’s used but not used up.

After getting it together, backed the JD 4320 up to the trailer and hooked up the draft links and centre link to the blade frame and mast. I ended up robbing a pair of retaining pins off the tiller to hook up the draft links. Good-working hydraulics make picking up heavy loads easy! Took it up to the shop, did some more fix-and-fettle on it, then propped it up next to the tiller in the equipment park and unhooked. The centre pivot bolt for the blade is seized with rust (though it pivots smoothly after shooting some grease under the baseplate), so I may have to get a neighbour to use his cutting torch or air-arc on it so I can replace with something from THIS century.

Next month I’ll run the tractor in for pre-winter service, which will also see the addition of hydraulics to turn and tilt the front plow blade. I *think* I’ll still be able to run a blade on the rear with part of the rear hydraulics diverted to the front plow, but we’ll see. It’d be nice but not critical.

This weekend I’ll be harvesting a bounty of well-aged manure from a neighbour’s sheep farm. People just throw this stuff away! Imagine! I’ll have to hook the tiller back up — which means a bit of grease here and there and some basic set-up and check-out. I’ll spend this weekend churning up the manure the sheep have packed into the ground and piling it up where they won’t be tempted to play King-of-the-Hill on it. You have to be smarter than the sheep — who may not be tops in the brainpower department but they have a low animal cunning that is hard to outguess some days. Then I’ll rent a dump trailer and move the pile down to our place. Next spring it will help us put another level of terrace into production.

The long-term weather outlook is for the current La Nina event to continue into January 2011. That means cooler than normal and more precipitation. Since the bulk of our snow hits in December and January, it’s an even bet at this point whether we’ll have above-normal snowfall. After the scanty snow last winter one can hope for some more moisture.

I’ll close by revealing my weather schizophrenia. As a farmer, ya just gotta love free water (as long as there isn’t too much of it!). Every drop that falls from the sky is a drop I don’t have to pay BC Hydro to pump outta the well. The old hippie who ran away to the desert would rather see it dry, however. The farmer reminds the old hippie that having food is a good thing, so quit bitching about the weather! In winter I just put my head down and get through it, knowing the sun and warmth will return eventually. February’s a hard month, though.

Cheers for now.

Comes a point when ya just have to pull the plug. I hit that point when Jim called me up and said, “I found shims under the main bearings.” If this particular 1950 Ferguson TEA-20 had been Grandad’s, I would have said “spare no expense! It’s got sentimental value.” But it’s not. It’s an old tractor that was abused and poorly rebuilt (at least once) and abused until it finally broke. End of story. Kinda sad, but in the end I need a working tractor, not yard art or a parade queen.

So I went looking for another tractor. Put out a bunch of feelers to people, but nobody knew of a good used outfit. I’m not one to wait for the world — we went looking at new tractors. On the Saturday I went into town there was precisely ONE tractor dealer open, Prairie Coast. If the “competition” doesn’t want to compete, then I will go with the people who will also be open when I need parts. I’m not the world’s biggest John Deere fan but since the last Emerson-Brantingham rolled off the line in like 1925 it looks like the next best thing.

So I’ll get pictures of the new machine up soon. “New to me” I should say, as it’s a lightly used (275 hours) John Deere 4320. I used to live not far from Waterloo, Iowa where Deere has a major factory. I think this’ll work out OK. Seems like a solid outfit, anyway. One of the neighbours was giving me the fish-eye for buying a new tractor, but I just said, “That’s how the next generation is gonna have old tractors.”

After posting that I’d like a little bike to blast around on for short distances, I am in LUST…

This guy is a premier builder. You can read the whole thread on Endless Sphere here:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9534

To cut to the chase: wicked thrust, wheelies up to top speed at 60 km/hr. He eventually sold it to a guy for US$5,000 and regeared it for 85 km/hr. Now I gotta wipe the drool outta my keyboard…

Rather than address comments piecemeal (though thanks for the comments — wow, somebody reads!) I will use this post to briefly share some of the evolution in my thinking as I get deeper into this thing.

First: let’s hear a big shout-out for blind optimism. Years of working on motorcycles has given me a sense of what can and cannot be done, but except for the broadest outlines that understanding goes by the boards when we talk about bicycles. A setup that would push the limits a little on a motorcycle pushed the limits too far on the bicycle.

What’s happening is that the choices I made constrain the range of choices I can make. Well, that and money. But whining should stop before analysis begins. I’m over it.

Frame: the old Trek steel frame I’m using seemed fairly stiff as a shortbike, but make a longbike out of it and it reveals its inner flexible nature. Some of the problem is the compromises worked by the Xtracycle attachment scheme. Some of the problem is the loading.

Fork: I have an old frame with a 1-inch headset. The local bike shop (Spoke ‘n’ Motion) found ONE suspension fork in 1-inch. It’s by RST, a model that is adjustable and takes a disc brake like I wanted, but it’s on the bike because it was what I could get, not because it’s the best one made. It needs much heavier springs to hold up me and the power pack, even with the preload honked way up.

Motor: I have a Crystalite 408. It’s actually a pretty good motor. It will take the bike up to 40 km/hr and still have throttle left. I’m a very careful rider, because I know crashing sucks. I’m also aware that there’s a very thin line between “in control” and “out of control” on this bike. Perfect riding conditions keep me on the “in control” side of that equation. Part of my discomfort is from the knowledge that if you hang it all out over the edge, sometimes things come along and cut it off for you. I want more margin for unexpected situations.

So, the motor is a good motor, doing all I can reasonably ask of it, but in a bad setup. The biggest problem with the motor is there is ZERO torque at very low speeds. Getting me and the bike up my driveway means pushing while using the throttle. It’s steep and it’s gravel. If I’m not moving there’s no torque. I have to push hard enough to get a 150-pound machine going uphill on my own before it gives me any help. Even then, if I hit a bump just right the back end starts hopping. When that happens, I let off the throttle and let things calm down, then start up again.

I think I would like to try a separate motor — one that could spin fast enough at low vehicle speed to get it up the hill. With the hub motor I can often pedal fast enough to hold 15-20 km/hr up a hill, which I can pull nicely with about 1200-1400 watts going to the motor. I expect to hear the pop of controller electronics frying when I do that, though. Chicken:egg — less weight would mean less amperage needed to get up a hill.

Actual usefulness is another factor. I basically built the bike because I wanted an EV and some experience with the process. I’m getting that. I periodically ride a motorcycle to campus, and wanted to try this out and see how it works. Other problems intrude, however. One being that we have an organic farm. We collect coffee grounds from the Tim Horton’s and Starbucks outlets on campus every day — during summer that means two partially full 5-gallon plastic buckets, about 30 pounds of coffee grounds. (During winter it’s sometimes four full buckets — close to 80 pounds of coffee!)

Can’t carry that on the bike, and it needs to be done every day. So there’s a logistical issue. Basically I have to bring double the buckets the day before I want to ride, or else depend on my wife to drive into town to get the stuff. That “thud” you heard was a big carbon footprint.

If we lived in town it’d be cool to get one of those flat-bed cargo trikes like the Chinese use. I saw lots of them in Beijing with little gas or electric kicker motors on them. For where we live, well…heavier vehicles need more Ah to move, which means bigger/more expensive batteries. Here we go around that circle again.

I still want to play with an ebike, though. I love the concept. As a long time two wheeler I love being on two much more than on four. I could build a e-offroad-bike. Problems there are that getting to somewhere to ride it usually means putting it in the back of a gasoline powered vehicle and driving it into the bush. “Thud” again.

I will likely work out another frame design that will let me use a converted car alternator as a motor, and be more of a motorcycle rather than a pedelec. I would design the thing for farting around in my village area: down the road to get the mail, over to the neighbour’s, down the road about half the battery pack and back home. Might do something like the “Long Ranger” from Atomic Zombie.

So I’m up in the air. For now, I’ll keep fiddling with this thing. At some point I’m going to get fed up and scrounge up a stiffer frame for it. But I think there’s a lot I can do to optimize it as it sits. Keep yer cottage tuned to our wattage — more updates on the way.

I had the Lead Comet out the other night for another little break-in ride. When I got back I reminded myself to take a picture of the darn thing — and finally did it a couple of days ago. So, in all its glory, here it is. Notice the batteries on the Xtracycle. Those are 38 Ah Optima YTs. They weigh about 25 pounds each. The rear axle is about centred under the rear battery. This is a more crucial point than I assumed at first.

Four batteries. About 100 pounds. Motor about 20 pounds. All of it on the Xtracycle. I knew it was going to be close to the edge for handling, but I didn’t think it would be as close as it is. Riding in perfect conditions has me right on the verge of what motorcycle riders call a “tankslapper” — where the front end starts to oscillate and the bike spirals out of control before the rider can react.

Pedal input, particlularly hard pedaling uphill, flexes the frame from side to side and really makes things sway. It’s a smallish frame, and I hear that the Xtracycle is prone to making a really whippy machine if you load it wrong. Still, I was going uphill with moderate pedaling around 20 km/hr, pulling around 1000 watts.

After about 8 km, I was starting to analyze the machine a little. “Shoulda got a front motor and put some weight in the front.” While I can’t do that — money IS an object and all my objects have small numbers on them — I decided to look into putting a front rack on, then moving two batteries to the front. I have some fabrication work to do making battery shelves for the rack, but that’s basically on the go now.

Which is why I wanted to get the picture up: because it doesn’t look like that now. At any rate, you see my problem — putting 1400 Wh of lead on a bicycle to go 50 km each way home to work. Other stuff: on the top of the Xtracycle is the 35A controller and four Soneil 3A constant current chargers. They get very hot in operation, so I fabricated a heat sink as part of the hold-down that keeps them in place. Up front I have the Cycle Analyst mounted on a small aluminum frame attached to two cut-down bar ends that are now in the centre of the bars. I wanted a small dashboard, so I could fit a light switch and a “Jesus Switch” or emergency power cutoff. (It’s called a “Jesus Switch” because if you ever need it, if you don’t pull it the next thing you’re going to see is Jesus.)

Here’s what this space is all about.

Over the last few…decades, really…I’ve been interested in finding some of the earliest foundational works in radio and electronics. The real history of “electrical science” goes back well into the early 18th century but what interests me most is the history of radio.

I’ve kept searching for texts that deal with technologies that have long since faded into what I have called “The Dim Technological Pleistocene” — a place in time so remote that we can only see the skeletal outlines of the dinosaurs of radio. It’s a little bit like finding someone old enough to know how to start a Model T Ford. We may not need to know how to crank up a Honda Civic without breaking an arm, but I believe the knowledge is nonetheless valid.

I also believe that this “antique knowledge” has at least two uses in our modern world:

1. Going back to original sources gives us a fuller picture of the context of the technology. In understanding it, we also come to understand how the technology and the ways it was used contained the seeds of our present technologies and how we use them.

2. What we sometimes forget is that just because there may be some “better” way to solve a technology problem, that does not mean that older “less better” solutions are obsolete. I put “better” in quotes because there are so many dimensions to how we define “better.” I believe we need to remind ourselves about the older solutions. Understanding them helps us think creatively about new problems, and who knows? — we may find that some solution from the past is the perfect answer for a modern problem.

3. My third reason is that what a technology can do imposes a set of “rules” on how it is used. Those “rules” feed into how the technology is perceived as a tool to be used in a culture or society. Radical technologies change societies in radical ways. Going back to the time when those changes were just beginning helps us to understand the society or culture within which that technology had its birth. Once again, we can “go back to look ahead” and view the development of our present society from a new perspective.

So, what will you find here? My primary goal is to have a place online where I can host electronic copies of some of the old radio books I have. Secondarily, I will post links to useful articles, databases, book titles and other holdings that relate to the topic.

I’ll be honest that although I have been trained as a librarian, this is very much a labour of love for me. My love is relatively specific, and therefore the collection on this site, as it grows, may seem idiosyncratic to you. Such is life. If you find something of interest here, please link to it from other pages. If you have items of your own, please let me know. Links are always appreciated.

A further note: I am indebted to several other people who have asked not to be named for the loans of some rare books. These wonderful people have allowed me to handle their books and to scan them electronically for your use. So far as I am aware, none of these books is still protected by copyright. Feel free to download them and read them at your leisure. One of my reasons for doing this is to get this information into as many hands as possible. I only ask that if you download it with intent to pass it on, that you do so at no charge, as I am doing.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have. Thanks!

Pix when I can get them. Ol’ Eminence Grease finally got opened up in my friend’s shop. Hoo, boy.

This is one seriously abused tractor. First we drained the oil, then dropped the pan. In the pan were several chunks of piston, along with the crankshaft endplay shims which had fallen out. We took off the connecting rod caps, pulled the head and pushed the pistons up the cylinders. TWO broken pistons, though #1 is the worst. #3 is missing a piece of land between two ring grooves.

Took the head in to Valley Speed to be rebuilt — Rob Munro is a great guy to deal with! Rob told me I needed new valves, seats, seals, springs and guides. I sourced all except the seats from Rick at Central Equipment, who was most patient about finding parts. Another great guy! I won’t see the parts until they’re in the head, so I’ll post pictures of that when it gets done.

While I was at it, I took the radiator and gas tank to Rapid Radiator, and the alternator and starter to AlterStartAir. The starter is toast but the alternator is all tickety-boo now. The radiator is freshly cleaned and painted, and so is the gas tank. The poor guy at Rapid put a handful of old screws into the tank to break up the internal rust, and they got lost behind the tank baffles. That necessitated a pair of holes cut in the tank to get them back out, followed by a couple of tasteful patches soldered on. Looks like a good job. I could wish it hadn’t worked out that way, but they were really good about it and I left there feeling like all due care had been taken.

I had been told that all TEA-20s came off the line with 12V electrics. So says the book I have. Then I got corrected after a little argument with Pete at Greenway. I have to admit that when a guy tells me “I know this better than you do because I cut my teeth on these tractors” that I really want to prove them wrong. So I kinda got my back up when he said that. HOWEVER…I pulled the starter and cross-referenced the part number cast into the nose and it is a 6V starter.

Harrumph.

As I tell my wife in such situations, “I was less right than I usually am.” Now I gotta go get him a six-pack of Bud and drop it off with him by way of an apology. It’s a good excuse to work on my humility.

I recommend any of the shops I’ve dealt with so far.

My hardcore mechanic friend has developed a theory about what happened to this engine. It looks like somebody did a rebuild on it not too long ago, because the cylinder sleeves are in wonderful condition. However, whoever did the work did a really crappy job: Grade 5 instead of Grade 8 bolts used on a couple of the rod caps; Guide rings never installed on the pistons; Crankshaft shims poorly installed. Things were whacking around in there, which put extra stress on things. Then the tractor got run out of oil and overheated and things really went off the rails. Neither my friend or I can figure out WHY somebody blew up a fresh rebuild — the previous owner is widely known to be a pretty careful guy.

At this point, most people would strip what looked good and sell it on eBay, then send the rest of the tractor to the boneyard. I can’t do that. This thing’s in my blood now, and I have to make a runner out of it. It won’t be a 100-point concours resto, but it’ll be a good hard-worker that I can depend on.

The e-bike lives!

Last Sunday morning I wheeled it out and took a turn up the road and back. Not far. It was pretty cold to be riding around on a bike with a ventilated helmet — about 5C. As I knew, it’s a lead sled. 50 kg of batteries tends to affect the local gravitational field. I still need to put a “Jesus Switch” on it, as well as a DC-DC converter to run some lights. It feels very nice. Smooth acceleration from stop to 40 km/hr, which was as fast as I felt comfortable with on a brand-new construction. Pix when I get them…

I’ve known about this guy for a while. In fact, I bought my e-bike parts from him. Last summer he rode his e-bike across Canada. He went from Victoria to St. John’s for $8.57 in “fuel.” At that rate, he could go around the world for the cost of filling up an SUV!

Here’s a link to the whole thread on Endless Sphere

Now I have to lean on him to get a version of that bulletproof controller! The controller I’m using has a tendency to go “poof” under load and lock full-on.

So. Along with the usual crud that infects my inbox comes this little gem today, courtesy of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association mailing list. More after the PR…

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Doreen Allen <Doreen_Allen@news.teslamotors.com>
Date: 2009/3/3
Subject: Tesla comes to Canada!

I’m excited to announce that Tesla Motors will begin taking orders today from customers in Canada, and we’ll begin delivering Canadian cars later this year. This is great news for Canada’s many car enthusiasts, including scores of Tesla fans who have written passionate e-mails over the years about why Tesla should go north. We listened to you – and we look forward to delivering your cars starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Canada is uniquely positioned to become a premier showcase for Tesla, still the only production automaker selling highway-capable electric vehicles in North America. Canada is one of two countries in the world (the other is Norway where the majority of electricity comes from renewable resources, including run-of-river small hydro, wind, biomass, ocean, geothermal and solar energy.

An EV recharged from the current Canadian grid, on average, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
about 85 percent compared to an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle. In hydro-dominant British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba, the reduction would be an impressive 98 percent.

We are already busy considering retail opportunities in this vast country. In the short term, we are confident that we can serve a large percentage of our customers through retail stores in Seattle and New York, which we plan to open in the first half of this year. Eventually, we envision Tesla-owned retail and service centers in Ontario, British Columbia and possibly Quebec.

The base price for Roadsters in Canada will be set closer to the start of deliveries in the fourth quarter, and pricing will reflect exchange rates at that time. The CA$60,000 reservation fee is refundable, and the remainder of the balance is due upon the start of production, a few months prior to delivery. In the United States, the base price is $109,000.

These Roadsters will comply with all Canadian safety regulations for mass-produced, highway-capable vehicles. As they have for Americans and Europeans, we’re certain Roadsters will quickly become the automobile of choice for Canadians who refuse to compromise between performance and efficiency. You can order your Roadster today online, or call us directly at +1-650-413-6300.  We look forward to hearing
from you!

Doreen Allen
Director of Sales Operations
————–End Forwarded Message———–

Now let’s think about what you get for your — at today’s exchange rate — C$140,651.83. Oops! Forgot the GST. That should be C$147,684.42, and oh! by the way, you still need to put the tags on it and pay the guy who shipped it up from Seattle (and pay some additional money to the Registrar of Imported Vehicles and to Canadian Tire for the Federal and Provincial safety check-off). I’m not really getting down on Tesla, here. I just want to look at what you’re getting for all that money.

If you bought a Honda Fit you’d have a car with a back seat. You would still be burning that evil gasoline, but it gets 50 mpg Imperial or 40 mpg American. Since we buy gas in litres, we get to do some more math: At 3.78 litres per gallon and 1.61 kilometres per mile, that 40 mpg is 17 kilometres per liter. I know that’s not how we think of the litres vs. kilometres question! Remember that mpg measures distance against a fixed quantity of fuel, whereas l/100 km measures fuel against a fixed distance. I’m looking for a conceptual similarity that will be plain in a moment.

I can go down to Kamloops Honda today and drive away in a nicely equipped Fit for $26,000. I drive 80 km on average every day except Sunday, so let’s call that 500 km per week or 2,000 km per month. Just to keep the math simple let’s say I’m paying $1.00 per litre for fuel. I’m burning 117 litres of gasoline a month, at a cost of…gee…$117.00. Add in the every-two-months oil change, tires once in a while, a pack of chips for the driver, and we could see $150.00 per month combined operating costs. See where I’m going?

Let’s add it up: $26,000 for the car, $1500 a year for insurance and registration, $150.00 month for gas, oil, tires and stuff. In the first year, that’s $29,300. In year two, an additional $3,300. Assuming that $150 per month doesn’t change, how long can I drive that car before I’ve paid for a Tesla?

According to my math, 36.5 YEARS. How far is that at 2,000 km/month? 876,000 km!

By now some person has noticed that I’m comparing apples to oranges. Perhaps I should run the numbers on buying a Corvette. Too bad GM is bankrupt. It might still be a good deal.

Now let’s get to my real point, which is that a “production automaker selling highway-capable electric vehicles in North America” can get four wheels on the road for less than that. A lot of people miss the secondary point here, too. That is that the Tesla Roadster is designed for the kind of people who just have to pay close to C$150,000 for the moral equivalent of a grocery-getter.

As it happens, there are at least a couple of companies right here in Canada that can get you going electric. One of them is Canadian Electric Vehicles on the Island. They don’t produce the vehicle, but they produce the kit that you use to modify the vehicle. It’s pretty specific — their kit is designed to quickly and easily change a late-model Chevy S-10 or GM Sonoma into an EV. You supply the truck — called a “glider” in EVspeak — and either they do the work, you do the work, or you can farm it out to any decent mechanic.

Cost? I’ll toss up some numbers with the same level of precision as I used above. C$10,000 for a truck in clean condition with good running gear (you can pull the old gas engine and sell it on eBay to save more money). C$15,000 for conversion parts and batteries. You get a usable range of 60-80 kilometres. If you want the spiffy lithium-ion batteries that are all the rage, expect to pay $25,000 for your batteries. Double the price of the vehicle, triple the range. You could go high end three times for the price of a Tesla, and it’s a made-in-Canada solution that puts Canadian bread on Canadian tables. Which option are we most likely to see on the streets of Kamloops?

Which brings me to the last lesson for today. I hear people complain all the time about not being able to get a “legal” EV in Canada. I checked the regulations. I called an ICBC specialist to be sure I was comprehending what I read. There is no law against EVs on Canadian roads. There is a law against driving a vehicle that won’t go fast enough. You can’t drive an electric golf cart on the Trans-Canada because you can’t make it go fast enough to be anything other than a mobile speed-bump. Any vehicle that meets crash test requirements and goes faster than 60 km/hr is legal on the road, as far as I can tell. Doesn’t matter whether it runs on coal, diesel, steam, gasoline, propane, electric, wind, hot air from Ottawa, or by running along like Fred Flintstone.

So for the cost of a Honda Fit, you can get an electric vehicle that will meet almost any around town and commuting need, carry two or three people and some groceries, and “fill up” for a dollar a day.

Or if you need serious “points” you can splash out for the Tesla. If you do, I’d like a ride.