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Showing posts from August, 2012

E-Bike Rack Fail

Apparently my bike felt left out, and wanted to get in the game of things that are failing.  Riding home from downtown last night, very late, hit a sewer cover pretty hard (it was hard to tell how uneven it was at night) and busted my battery rack.  It was not a catastrophic failure, but the rack lowered down to the tire and started dragging.  Enough that I had to stop and figure it out.  So I was sitting on the ground in the parking lot of the Jolly, with the bike almost completely disassembled. Bike rack, sans busted lower brackets. Busted aluminum lower brackets. The bottom part of the rack attaches to the frame via a tapped tab, and an L shaped, aluminum bracket with graduated tapped holes.  The aluminum obviously saw quite a bit of impact load when the 30 lbs. battery came slamming down. This is the second rack I've bought, and I'm really not interested in spending more money to deal with this issue.  (But I probably will have to).  Wondering if maybe I can

Galaxy Nexus Tales of Woe

One of my ongoing battles with my Gnex is the charging port.  In the past, it has stopped working, and after lots of Google searches, I found out that a common issue is the little inner tab not making contact with the cable (fixed by bending it up slightly). After a recent vacation, I found once again that my phone wouldn't charge.  This time, it seemed that the charging port was somehow mutilated, and the cord didn't seem to go in correctly.  The contacts were bent inside the phone.  I don't have the insurance, and I'm kind of used to being on my own warranty after rooting, ROMing, etc.  After researching, I promptly ordered this replacement USB flex board , for about $50 w/ shipping, and replaced the board following this i Fixit how-to . The procedure was a little tricky, but not too bad. In general everything felt like it went smoothly, and I expected no issues.   However, after putting the phone back together, the phone still wouldn't charge.  I disassembl

E-Bike for your (mental) health

The first time I rode an e-bike was probably about 7-8 years ago.  I thought it was pretty cool, but I'll be honest, at the time I wasn't really grabbed by the idea (it probably didn't help that, at the time, they were more expensive, heavy, and had very limited range). At some point this year, I started to pay attention to e-bikes.  After watching countless YouTube videos of people doing their own builds, I finally took the leap.  I wanted a bike that was reasonably "stealthy" (could easily be mistaken for a normal bike), powerful enough to be on moped terms, yet still able to be operated like a bicycle.  Originally I intended to buy a conversion kit, and spent about a month researching reviews to figure out which of the many options I should pursue.  The process was suddenly abbreviated when I found a Craigslist ad for an already-converted bike.  It was 48V, 1000W, right in the area I was looking for. E-Bike purchased from Craigslist. My trusty old s