Author Archive for Doug

Christmas vacation

Published
by
Doug
on December 21, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

Another term of school is over and I’m quite pleased with the outcome. My cumulative GPA has risen from 3.02 to 3.32, and I’m feeling more secure about next term. I have no idea why I got an A+ for Networks 101 - I couldn’t have scored better than 70% on the final. I’d like to ask the professor, but maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie.

Anna and I are in Portland, OR, having Christmas with the parents. We’re snowed in, which is unusual. But fun, so far. I spent the first few days getting Dad’s new iMac set up. There was a problem with the Migration Assistant that kept us busy for a while, but we got it sorted yesterday. Otherwise, a very nice machine indeed.

Hope y’all have an excellent Christmas!

Got back some of my mojo

Published
by
Doug
on August 8, 2008
in
. 2 Comments

Managed to get the K2 theme upgraded, so at least Learn Something looks like it did before the Great Upheaval. I seem to have widget problems, my categories are still broken, and WPG2 still won’t let me add pictures to posts, but one thing at a time.

Site update problems

Published
by
Doug
on August 7, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

More fun updating the site. I had to update the Wordpress engine again and this time I lost my categories and my theme doesn’t work right. Also Gallery2 images can’t be placed in posts any more.

I want some sleep so I’m setting the theme to the default and I’ll fix the rest tomorrow.

WordPress is close to being a really great product, but it’s fragile and finicky. It took me more hours than it should have to upgrade it. Why can’t I just click the Upgrade button? Maybe it’s time to shop for a new CMS.

Zilla day

Published
by
Doug
on August 7, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

Monday my Zilla controller arrived. Yowza! One less excuse for not getting the car running.

I spent much of the day happily rearranging the parts I plan to put in a water-resistant box in the rear of the Ghia. I think I have the correct layout now. It will minimize wiring and coolant hose runs and fit all the bits I want to keep dry — the Zilla and Hairball, the potbox, the DC/DC, and the contactors.

There’s a problem — or opportunity — though. The Zilla controller comes in two pieces: the power stage, the one that does all the heavy lifting of feeding battery power to the motor, and the Hairball, which is much smaller and covered with places to connect little wires to. The Hairball makes all the decisions and tells the Zilla power stage what to do. There are several versions of the Hairball, with different capabilities.

You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you? Yep, they sent me the wrong Hairball. I ordered the base version, which senses the throttle position by reading the resistance from something called a potbox, which is essentially a volume knob (potentiometer) with an arm on it that the throttle cable pulls on. What they sent me expects something called a Hall Effect Pedal Assembly, which is a replacement for the entire accelerator pedal that contains Hall effect sensors and wires directly to the Hairball. The Hairball they sent me won’t work with a potbox, so to use it I need to buy a HEPA.

The advantage of the HEPA is no potentiometers. They wear out, get dirty and crackly like the volume knob in your stereo, and stick. On your stereo that’s not a huge deal, but the Zilla equivalent to crackly music is a car that lurches or stumbles. The Hall effect sensors should last pretty much forever with no degradation, plus there’s no throttle cable or throttle springs or separate pot box to deal with.

The problem is that I’ve already spent the money on the potbox etc.

So now I’m faced with trading in the the better Hairball for the crappy one and hating myself in a few years when the potbox dies, or keeping the better Hairball paying more money for the HEPA and feeling smug about it for as long as I own the car.

Hmmm. Looking at my choice of words there, it looks like I may have made my decision.

Samsung S1050 date problem

Published
by
Doug
on August 5, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

I just had the first problem with my Samsung S1050 camera.

I noticed that some of the pictures I uploaded had funny dates on them, so I went into the camera to look at the date setup.

The page has three items: the date at the top, 08/05/08, then the time, then a setting to allow you to choose whether you want mm/dd/yy, yy/mm/dd, etc.

After flailing around with it, and actually calling Samsung and confusing the poor guy on the phone so much he dropped my call (on purpose? hmmm) I finally figured out what the problem is.

The date at the top of the screen, where you can set the camera date, is ALWAYS in yy/mm/dd format, no matter what it says elsewhere. I finally figured it out when I was trying to set the month and it started at 7 and went up to 50. That’s not days or months, so it has to be years. Similarly the second field goes from 1 to 12, and the third from 1 to 31.

Last month’s pictures came in as having been taken in 2007, which is because last month was month 7, and I thought I was entering the month because THAT’S WHAT THE CAMERA SAID I WAS ENTERING! Or so I thought.

I looked it up in the documentation, and there’s a reference to this in the section for initally configuring the camera. But not in the section for setting the date.

So what kind of a bug is this?

I guess officially it’s a documentation bug. It’s not a software bug, because it’s working as designed. IMO, it’s a design problem; specifically a user interface problem. The data entry fields are not labeled as to function. However, at the bottom of the screen, there’s a place to choose your date display format. I thought that this meant that the data entry fields must be arranged according to the way you’ve chosen to format your date displays.

I think I’ll see if Tog has seen this one.

Internship 2008 final report

Published
by
Doug
on August 5, 2008
in and
. 0 Comments

I’m all done with my summer internship at the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. They had me working on some fancy Excel spreadsheets to help them predict the wind speed at the spaceport site. The internship was sponsored by the New Mexico Spacegrant Consortium, which does things like that.

I had a really good time, and I think I was able to help the Spaceport Authority a little bit. I plan to get back to them once I’m out of school and see if they’ll hire me.

Not only did I have fun, do something in line with my mission statement (”To contribute in a material way to the creation of a spacefaring civilization”), and get paid, I also get to give a little talk about my experience at the 2008 ISPCS conference. This means I get to go this year! Yay! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get into this conference for a couple of years now.

I recommend you check out Spacegrant’s web site if you’re a New Mexico student looking for an interesting and well-paid internship, or perhaps a scholarship. Thanks, guys!

Oh yeah. My final report is available in the download area. Or just click here.

Length does matter

Published
by
Doug
on July 27, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

The wire attached to my Bare Bonz fuse panel was too short to reach my battery way in the back of the Ghia, so they sent me some more cable and a nice power junction box.

Sadly, there’s no good place to put the junction box along the route. There’s an OK place (under the driver’s side back seat) but I couldn’t find any good mounting points.

So I bought another junction box and will put one in the back and one in the front, just exactly the right distance apart for a single run of cable. This will be handy later, as the junction boxes have screw terminals for the attachment of power wires for high-current add-ons like power windows or air conditioners or 120vac inverters. There’s one junction near the rear electronics and one near the front electronics.

Tonight I installed the rear junction box, along with a 60amp fuse holder (no fusible links in THIS vehicle) and also a ground terminal strip. I’m running a separate ground system, and I’m going to replicate the +12v run with a terminal strip at each end.

Why a separate ground? I don’t want to have to troubleshoot any wacky grounding problems. Besides, electronics projects don’t use the project box for distributing power, and this is just a great big electronics project.

No more excuses

Published
by
Doug
on July 26, 2008
in
. 0 Comments

Well, one more.

I’m about done with my internship at Spaceport America (I built them some fancy Excel spreadsheets) and there’s about a month between now and the start of school. Let’s see how far I can get on the electric car in one month.

The remaining excuse is that I’m still missing the Zilla motor controller. Kind of like missing your carburetor on a regular car — it’s the component that controls the flow of energy to the motor.

I’ve begun rebuilding the 12V wiring in the car, which was such a mess that I pulled most of it out. I bought a new harness and fuse panel kit called the Bare Bonz from Ron Francis Wiring. I like it a lot. So far the fuse panel is mounted. I have all the parts needed to extend heavy-gauge wire from the rear (where the battery is located) and the front (where the fuse panel lives). I’m also going to put in a separate grounding system. This car will be complicated enough without having to troubleshoot wacky ground problems. I’m going to wire it like an electronics project — which, in fact, it is.

I’ve been ordering lots of goodies from Ryan at EV Source. I’ve got contactors (giant relays), tools of all descriptions, a small radiator to keep the controller cool, a PakTrakr battery monitoring system, etc. I still need to acquire a DC/DC converter, which will take the place of a gas car’s alternator and keep the 12V battery charged.

I’m kicking around ideas for the electronics box in the rear of the car. It will be a water resistant enclosure for the expensive electronics in engine compartment. Being a VW, the comparment is open to the rain from above and road splash from below. I want a see-through panel on the front so I can show off the bits that make it go.

So anyway I wanted to tell all my readers what I’m up to, so I have some accountability :)

Wish me luck and egg me on!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Published
by
Doug
on May 11, 2008
in
. 2 Comments

Hi Moms,

We love you!

Hope you enjoy this little video.

Love,

Doug and Anna

Mother’s Day 2008

My wife is awesome

Published
by
Doug
on February 3, 2008
in
. 2 Comments

I recently got a comment from Marty on my Good News and Bad News post.

Marty wrote:

Your wife does life coaching and editing? There’s definately some stuff in my life I’d like to edit out, like the heart attack I had 12/27 (don’t worry, it was a little one, I was a walk in, my cardiologist said to consider it a wake up call). If I could only edit out some of those bacon double greaseburgers, and edit in some excercise… Is that what a life coach is for? Proof read the rough draft before living it?

I decided I’d share my reply with the rest of my readers.

Hi Marty,

Glad to hear you’re OK. Sounds like you got the best possible heart attack :)

I’m also glad you asked that question, it gives me a chance to talk about my favorite person.

My wife, Anna Paradox, is both a life coach and an editor of books. Two separate professions. Sorry if I was unclear.

She can’t edit your past life — but she can certainly work with you to edit your future life!

Life coaching is somewhat difficult to explain because it’s a fairly new field and isn’t yet part of our collective knowledgebase. Here’s how Anna describes it:

Imagine your life is a game. A life coach looks at your game and helps you play better.

She might very well be able to help you get more exercise. Drop her an email if you’re interested. She’ll set up a free telephone appointment with you and the two of you then decide if Anna can help you. You can also sign up for her free email newsletter.

And as for her editing, she uses her life coach training and skills to

…help aspiring authors write the book that only they can write.

She helped edit two recent poker books, Elements of Poker and Professional No-Limit Holdem.

She has a great little $27 package called From Wishing To Writing that can get you past whatever’s got you stuck. There’s even a free preview you can download immediately.

Clearly I’m biased, but I think she’s the greatest thing ever. Please check out her web sites if you’re interested.

Wishing you health and happiness,

Doug