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Friday, August 9, 2019

The hurdles of fixing a puncture in a Xiaomi M365 scooter

I can say that I am pretty seasoned at fixing bicycle tires. It dates back to my childhood, where numerous times I had to fix the punctures by patching the inner tubes. I still remember the patching kits featuring an assortment of patches of different sizes and shapes, sanding paper, and the rubber cement.

Never had much trouble in separating the tire from the rim, and putting it back together, after having fixed the puncture. The same applies for fixing the tires of more recent MTBs, where upon following the usual technique no major obstacle arises in accomplishing these tasks.

But now, just after a bit over 100 Km into using my Xiaomi M365 scooter, I found a rattling noise in the front tire while riding it. Went on to take a look, and found a thumb tack, fully buried in the tire. As I started removing it, I could hear the air escaping. Decided to leave it there just so that I could ride the scooter back home.


Saturday, July 13, 2019

EDF Propelled Hovercraft project - first outdoor test

Following the post regarding the construction of this project, here is finally the first real test:



Performance and handling are very good, as expected.

Monday, July 8, 2019

The most inneficient (and probably the coolest) EV in the world - the electric hovercraft!


This project may well model what an electric hovercraft could feel like to drive. At least from a noise perspective, trust me, it is a pretty solid preview in spite of its small scale!

Sunday, June 23, 2019

DSLR Intervalometer - Source code made available in GitHub


For those who remember my work back in the days with implementing an intervalometer for Nikon cameras (yes, in spite of it being rather simple to implement in the camera firmware itself, these larger brands prefer to classify such a feature as premium and make it available only in more expensive DSLRs), I have detailed in the following post, the solution that I have put together:

https://www.creationfactory.co/2012/03/timelapse-intervalometer-technology.html

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Yet another product safety issue - a self-balancing electric scooter, a.k.a. "Hoverboard"

Considering all the fuss about this particular type of personal transportation gadget having been responsible for numerous fire incidents, given that it is already part of a distant past (by modern perception), I took the chance of buying one of these units, going for a cheap one. My expectation was that this industry had some time to mature and learn with all the beating they received from the press and these incidents:



Sunday, May 12, 2019

Dealing with dishwasher failures

Albeit 10 years of flawless operation can be considered quite good for a home appliance, still when it finally fails, there is the brief criticizing thought of "why didn't it last longer? Bloody programmed obsolescence in modern industry!" ..and so on and so forth.

Well, the truth be said, 10 years of operation without a single glitch is either a product of sheer luck (i.e. one golden batch in the production line), or the brand really went serious with quality and the strategy at the time didn't include the need for recovering the same consumer soon in the product life cycle.

I can say this from the Whirlpool dishwasher model ADP 6837/1 that I have been using since 2009. During 10 years it never complained, while we threw dirty dishes at it on a daily basis.



Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Once again bumping into questionable product safety standards



About 6 months ago, I replaced the manual plastic pump I used to have for dispensing water from 5+ litre jugs, with what would in principle be a more sophisticated and convenient approach: looked for an electric water dispenser, and without much searching, found several options. Most, if not all were unfortunately designed to fit into the 19 litre office water bottles. Without any alternative, ordered one of these, considering that I would have to come up with some custom adaptation if I wanted to use it with the 5 litre bottles. Ended up ordering the one below, for its minimally elegant design and compact dimensions: