Sunday, January 28, 2018

Potpourri

I borrowed the title from Coop's last post as it seems to fit this hodgepodge of subjects though the “pourri” apparently means “rotten” or “putrid”. Sunlit trees and a dark sky is still my preferred winter picture. This was taken around 11:30 am when the sun is still at a pretty low angle and lighting thing up from below the clouds. The location is Creamer's Field behind the Fish & Game offices on College Road. We stopped so my mom can get some more snow pictures but she didn't bring her camera.

This afternoon (Saturday), was spent fabricating a rear rack on the Ural. There are four holes in the fender for either installing a rack or a second tractor seat. The seat would also have an additional steel that attaches to on top of the rear fender essentially doubling the thickness. For my home-made rack, I added two vertical supports which attach to the rear frame and provide most of the vertical support. I still need to pick up some rubber spacers for the front two fender bolts. And some longer bolts. I will probably disassemble the whole rack one more time to use blue Loctite on all of the screws. The hardware store didn't carry stainless nyloc nuts. There is about 22mm between the front of the rack and the fender. The fender bolts are mostly providing side-to-side and front-to-back support.

The Saturday evening project was this PaddleStick keyer. It came as a simple kit though the all of the components didn't match the instructions. Kind of a pain. The company (individual) is sending the right ones. Fortunately, they provided a schematic simplifying the task. Now, I just need to dig up a 9V battery and connector before I can test it. Maybe I can dig up some 2.2k resistors from my small stash of Arduino pieces. I’ve run into several code decoders based on Arduino boards. Hmmm, that seems like cheating.

On Sunday afternoon, I added the spacers and longer bolts between the rack and the fender. I ground the spacer to match the curve of the fender and bolted everything in place. The rack is incredibly solid. You could probably pick the bike using the rack. I Just drilled some holes in the box and the rack to fasten them together. I’m thinking of permanently attaching bolts to the rack and use some threaded knobs inside the box. This would allow me to remove the box with no tools. My son suggested making another small box or platform to attach to the rack when the box isn't attached. I like it when projects just work...

11 comments:

  1. The box support looks strong and I also like the idea of making a platform to replace the box when not needed. Nice.

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    1. I like the platform idea though I may just make it out of hardwood slats.

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  2. Nice rack! :)

    As to "code decoders based on Arduino boards" why not....in fact, is there a way for you to interface with them and just type your outbound messages and let it translate that to code and vice versa?

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    1. There are a fair number of software encoders/decoders. One option is to interface with the audio in/out of a radio with the radio set up as VOX or voice activated. I want to actually learn to hear and manually key. I read that it is good brain exercise.

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  3. Nice job on the rack. Will make hauling things easier.

    Pretty snow picture. Not much of the white stuff around here this year (at all) so it is good to see pictures of it from others.

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    1. With the sidecar I’m not sure I needed an easier way to haul things. But more lockable storage on a bike can always be used.

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  4. I empathize with the components not matching, just started on a speaker cross-over kit I've had for years and finding the same thing. I think the right parts are there but the photo, cad drawing and schematic are in conflict. Its from Denmark so the confusion may be just me...

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    1. At least this was a US vendor. He looked at the rest of his inventory and about half of them had the wrong resistors. Is this is the crossover for the JBL L100?

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  5. +1 on the lockable storage. Nice work!

    And your snow picture is just beautiful!

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