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Category: acquired things

New Project: Vassago Fisticuff

Published December 11, 2009

Here’s the start of a new project, building up a road / path / dirt road bike around a Vassago Fisticuff frame. While I haven’t decided on everything about it yet, I’m pretty certain that it’ll have disc brakes and be setup as a 1×9 with mountain bike parts, starting with a 44t chainring up front and an 11:34 cassette, shifted using an SRAM twist shifter on a HubBub drop bar extension for twist shifters. This should give plenty of range for going fast on smooth stuff and climbing the steepest roads in the area while still being easy to shift. Coloring will be mostly brown/black with silver bits as needed, with things such as brown powder coated Velocity Deep V rims, beige bar tape, Salsa Moto Ace Bell Lap bars, and a honey-colored Brooks B17.

There will be some odd niggles to sort out, such as fender and rack mounting, particularly with the close-proximity brake and fender mounts, the lack of rack mounts, and the slot dropouts, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem. Being a steel frame I’ll also need to seal the inside (with Frame Saver or a similar product) and promptly deal with chips (it arrived with a tiny one on a seat stay), but this shouldn’t be too difficult.

To see pictures of the Vassago Fisticuff as it currently exists (just a frame), please check out this album: Vassago Fisticuff.

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Twelve South BackPack

Published December 10, 2009

This is the Twelve South BackPack, a nice and simple metal stand for the back of an iMac or Cinema Display which clips (without marring) to the metal stand. It can then be used to hold external disks or whatever else, hidden behind the monitor.

Despite being a bit overpackaged and having fancier silkscreen that I’d expect on a small clamp-on shelf (both of which I suspect contribute quite a bit to the $29.99 price tag), it’s a nice little device. Assembly was pretty straight forward, requiring just a bit of adjustment to get it on the stand and centered. There are a series of plastic spacers which fit into the mounting clips, with different spacers needed for different types of iMacs or Cinema Displays, likely varying based on stand thickness and angle. A fixed screw protruding from the clip and its hexagonal base fit into slots on the metal shelf itself. The clips are then fit around the sides of the stand, and its weight holds it securely in place on the stand.

While some of the photos that I took show it with a hard drive, I suspect that it’ll see most use from me holding the AMB γ1 DAC tucked nicely out of sight, driving some manner of headphone amp. For now this will probably be a Millett Hybrid Maxed, but I’m considering building another headphone amp over the winter. Perhaps the AMB M³ with its active ground would work out well…

More photos of the Twelve South BackPack are available here, if you’re interested: Twelve South BackPack

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Heated Mattress Pad

Published December 5, 2009

Being a large corner room with two windows, my bedroom tends to be a bit cooler than the rest of the house. Combined with setting the house temperature back at night, this makes for a rather cool sleeping environment. I like it, but it’s a bit cold for Danielle, particularly right when getting into bed so today she picked up a Sunbeam Premium Heated Mattress Pad from Costco for $79 (or so). With controls to turn one side on at a time we hope that it’ll keep her sufficiently warm while not overheating me.

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Now Approaching Ludicrous Size

Published November 13, 2009

The iMac has arrived, and its 27″, 2560×1440 display is simply absurd. While perspective in the the image above doesn’t make it look that large, the Apple flying-esque intro video almost made me feel motion sick. The 15″ Dell Latitude D620 (which I’m using while data migrates from the Mac Pro) feels netbook-esque, and the older 20″ Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW feels dimunitive. It is also very quiet, which is wonderful.

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Danielle’s First 29er

Published November 12, 2009

Tuesday evening Danielle and I headed out to Novi, in response to this post on the MMBA forum (PNG mirror). The seller was offering a Motobecane USA 29er mountain bike with a 15″ frame size for $250, and this sounded like a really good deal and an ideal first mountain bike for Danielle. After trying the bike out to see that it fit, we took it home. While there were a few obvious problems with it, everything appeared easy to remedy.

After picking up a new tube I spent a few hours this afternoon working on the bike, adjusting things a bit and fitting a rear light. Having 29″ wheels drilled for Schrader valves made finding tubes a bit complicated, but I was able to locate one at REI. As the rear wheel had a slow leak (emptying once daily) I wanted to get a known-good tube in there. Beyond the slow leak, the bike also had the following problems, all of which were (or should be) easily remedied:

· Bent Saddle: This will be replaced with something more comfortable for Danielle.
· Too-Short Seatpost
· Brake Adjustment Needed
· Wheels Slightly Out Of True
· Rear Wheel Dished Incorrectly
· Brakes Not Bedded In Yet
· Uncomfortable / Small Pedals
· Fork Lockout Non-functional
· Handlebar May Be Bent / Weird

All of these should be easy to fix with just a bit of time, making the bike quite nice; especially for a first mountain bike. Here’s some more photos of the bike:

· Danielle’s new 29er bike, a used Motobecane Fantom 29 that was purchased for $250.
· The rear wheel is not properly dished. I’ll have to fix this.
· Mismatched brake levers because one was broken. They are still good levers, though.
· The seat is a bit bent, which is just fine, as it’s going to be replaced.
· The 350mm seatpost that came with the bike is much too short for Danielle. A longer one will be acquired later.

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Cascaded USB Hubs

Published November 3, 2009

As part of rewiring my office I purchased this seven-port USB hub from Firefold for $22.99, part number USB-7P-HUBSP. It turns out that this hub is actually two Genesys Logic GL852G hub chips, with one cascaded off of the other. The three ports shown above on the left are connected to the first hub, then the other four are connected to the second hub chip. Thus when the case is closed up (as seen here) ports 1-4 are on one hub which is connected to the hub that ports 5-7 are on. This shouldn’t cause a problem, but it’s a much cheaper design than using a seven port hub chip and having everything at the same level.

The hub also ships with a 5V 2.5A switching power supply. Having seven ports which can supply a maximum of 500mA each, this power supply cannot fully power the hub. That said, most devices never pull anywhere near 500mA, so this shouldn’t be a problem either.

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Nokian Hakka WXC300

Published November 2, 2009

Through the Daily Deal at Alfred E. Bike I was able to get a set of Nokian Hakka WXC300 studded mountain bike tires for just under $150. This is far cheaper than normal, and so low that should I not like / need / want the tires I will be able to sell them for what I paid.

When the tires are brand new, Nokian recommends that one ride for 30 miles on paved surfaces to finish setting the studs in the tires. I intend to do this, but only after looking over the tires and fixing the not-quite-seated ones, as shown above. I’m hoping that the tread of these, combined with the spikes, will make for nice winter riding on the mixed ice/snow that ends up covering local paths. Normally the ice isn’t an issue, but there were quite a few times where I flopped over quickly as the front wheel slid out from under me.

Here is a photo of the Nokian Hakka WXC300 tire in the package showing the general tread pattern and the terrible “Deserve Them” company slogan. I expect that the large well-spaced, abstract edge knobs will work nicely in snow.

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It’s Made Of People!

Published October 29, 2009

This power supply, the Solytech Enterprise Corporation AC Adapter Model AD5012G came with the Vantec NexStar NST-400MX-UFB that arrived today and I keep misreading the label as ‘Soylentech’. This disk enclosure will eventually be used with the replacement for my Mac Pro, a 27″ iMac with Core i7 processors. Since the iMac only has one internal disk I’ll be using Firewire disks to add additional spindles for virtual machines, Time Machine, etc. I’m still not sure where I’ll put the drives, but my current thought is either on the back side of my desk, or in the basement, suspended from the ceiling.

After first disconnecting it I found the fan in the NST-400MX-UFB to be necessary, as the drives were becoming quite warm without it. As this fan is fairly loud, I think I’ll be placing the drives in the basement, in a slightly soundproofed enclosure. Today after work I picked up a rather lengthy roll of neoprene from the foam factory and it should go quite a ways towards eliminating fan noise that may emanate from the enclosure through the floor. Some smart baffeling may cut down one the sound in the basement too.

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