Scamwagon

I replaced the regulator in the alternator.  The VW MK4s have a module complete with the brushes and everything, so if you replace this module, 90% of alternator problems are cured.  Unfortunately it was a very tight space and it took me a couple of hours to get to it, but now that it's done, it works.  I uncovered a different way of getting to it, which I posted on the TDIclub.com forum.   Happy to have my car back in action. I have been working on the appearance update for the car.  I received my new front grill, which I painted: New Kamei front grill which I painted silver, before clear coat It looks great, I think it will be a nice improvement for the car.  I also got my new headlights, they are projector style with halo DRLs.  I haven't looked at them a lot, but I think they will look nice.  Lingering concerns involve difficult (running of all the extra) wiring, and more difficult bulb change access. Still waiting to hear back i...

Here's a mini project I am working on.  My new son (~4 weeks old) is doing pretty well, but he has trouble calming down when he wants to fall asleep. My wife and I spend a lot of time rocking him, and that helps to calm him down. I thought it would be great for him to be able to rock automatically, but all of the rocking devices I have seen are swings that require the baby to be upright, which is not ideal for putting him to sleep.  I decided to make a basic rocking machine out of parts I had lying around.

Amidst countless failures this month, most of which to do with my VW Golf, and will be saved for another post, I was successful at recommissioning my 48V bike battery.  And I'm pretty psyched about that, since a new one would have been well over $500 shipped.  Let's have a look at the story.

As I think I mentioned a few posts ago, my 48v bike battery seems to have a problem with cutting out under full throttle.  This is the case even immediately after charging.  I haven't known much about the battery pack, since I bought it used and it came with no documentation, but after reviewing lots of eBay auctions selling similar items, I have a pretty good guess at what I'm dealing with.  I think I've even figured out what happened, and what to do if there's any chance of fixing it.

One of the neat things we got as part of our Christmas haul is a Crock Pot.  I've been wanting one for a while, and it was really perfect timing.  We've already made quite a few dishes in it, and it's been going very well.  One thing that kind of sucked was that one outlet in the kitchen (apparently) doesn't work, and it took an hour to find out that the Crock Pot wasn't cooking.  There is no power light on the device anywhere, and the only way you know anything is happening is by the surface getting hot, which either takes a long time to do so, or is so hot that it will burn your hand.  Besides these lengthy guessing games, it's a safety concern when there is no visual indication that the thing is so hot you can't touch it.  Not really ideal. To complicate matters, I also invested in a simple outlet timer that would shut off power to the cooker in case no one was home to do so.  The timer I got also lacks any sort of on/off indicator, so it's e...

For a while now (long before the invention of the Nest Thermostat  (which is an awesome accomplishment in its own right), I've had the idea of building a smart heat management system for my house. Here are some of the issues that prompted me to consider doing this.