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AMB χ1: Complete

Published November 19, 2011

Yesterday evening I finished up retrofitting my AMB Mini³ headphone amplifier with the AMB χ1. This is a battery management board which replaces the original charging circuitry and 9VDC NiMH battery resulting in a considerably faster charge and longer runtime. By using a Lithium-ion polymer (LiPo) battery the runtime has been extended to ~25 hours (for my high performance version) while the charging time has been reduced to ~1.5 hours. (AMB.org claims that this is a 10x improvement in charge time and a 3x improvement in run time.)

The photo above shows the rear end of the Mini³ without the end panel, showing the two LiPo packs (the silver / strapping tape pieces) the edge of the χ1 PCB (top), and the bi-color charge/fault indicator LED. Assembling this involved removing a small handful of diodes, regulators, and resistors from the Mini³’s PCB, adding a header in place of the LM7812 voltage regulator, and plugging the χ1 into that. As documented on AMB’s site building the χ1 was pretty straightforward and involved only a handful of medium-size (and easy to solder) surface mount parts. I almost wish the design was all surface mount so I wouldn’t have to deal with as much through hole, but I understand his desire to not go all-SMT in order to keep things easy to assemble.

I use this headphone almost every day at work while listening to music from my iPod, and thus far it’s sounded great. However, due to my weird patterns of not being in the office I haven’t been leaving it plugged in for long enough lately, so whenever I’ve been wanting to use it I must plug it in to use it. Hopefully this new version with a shorter charge time and longer run time will sort out that problem.

Now I want to build something else, but I’m not really sure what. I’m somewhat considering a beefy Class A amp and new monitor speakers for my desk at home, all nicely integrated with a USB DAC and tucked under my desk. I could even build the monitors themselves, but this would end up being a pretty big project and I’m not sure it’d get me enough benefit…

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Why Intuit? Why?

Published November 18, 2011

Dear Intuit, why is this option in Quicken 2012 necessary? I would have hoped that a modern application would be able to detect a date change and handle this itself without needing a restart.

UPDATE: Here are two posts that Nick found where Quicken support folks explain the issue away as “…this would have required extensive reworking of Quicken, and possible other bugs while working it all out” and “The “Quicken Restart” process is like a mini reboot of the program, to make sure that all services are properly dated/timed/synchronized.”. Isn’t sorting those things out what the sales of Quicken are supposed to pay for?

I suspect that Quicken reads the date on startup, that gets used a bunch of places, and it’s presumed by most of the app to be static. I imagine this option is because they aren’t interested in doing the heavy lifting to have the date-consuming pieces of the app handle being notified of a date change. Or something. Either way, needing to restart an app just because a date changes smacks of incompetence.

Having been a regular Quicken user for more than ten years now, I’ve noticed that Intuit seems to have little interest in moving the app forward. I wonder if this is because they are hoping to get most people over to mint.com or something and let Quicken die.

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Keyboard Cleaning Time

Published November 18, 2011

A visible build-up of finger gunk on the flat surface and laser-etched numbers on most-used keys shows that it’s time to clean my keyboard. To do this I first use Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner at full strength, then a generic glass cleaner to remove the Simple Green residue, then 99% isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining residue. Each is applied to a clean paper towel and used to carefully scrub both the keys and gaps between. Being one of the (excellent) modern, flat, metal-body Apple keyboards it’s particularly easy to clean, and after I’m done the keyboard feels like new.

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Rainy Ride on National Guacamole Day

Published November 14, 2011

Just before noon Jeremy Verbeke and I set out for a ride through River Bends and Clinton River Park Trails (CRPT). I was riding my Mukluk 2 and Jeremy was on his new Specialized Epic Comp 29er and it was an excellent day for an autumn ride; cool, cloudy, and comfortable. While out at CRPT the rain started, so we hastily made our way back to River Bends and even managed to get sleeted on for a bit while in Utica.

Even though the ride got cut a bit short, it was still a really nice day. Hard riding on the way back was enough to keep warm despite the cold water falling from the sky, and I only really started feeling uncomfortable while sitting in the wet car on the way back. A warm shower once home sorted that out, just in time to get called by work and have to start looking into a problem. Oh well…

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Park Tool BBT-19 vs. Truvativ Howitzer Team BB

Published November 13, 2011

This evening when beginning assembly of a friend’s new snow bike I ran into a bit of frustration while fitting the bottom bracket. Due to the design of the Truvativ Howitzer Team BB that he chose it’s not possible to use a Park Tool BBT-19 bottom bracket tool to torque it to spec. Because the spindle has to be inserted before both cups are fitted and the tool itself isn’t very deep, the spindle keeps the tool from fitting on the cups for final torqueing. To finish the job I instead had to use a standard box-type wrench for external BBs. This did the job, but it would be nice to know that I got the torque spot on.

The stuff shown above is the initial assembly of Bob Costello’s new Carver titanium snow bike, and includes an E-Type front derailleur. This is the first time I’ve fitted one of these derailleurs, and it was a pretty easy task. However, as I was warned, the Finish Line Anti-Sieze (Ti-Prep) compound which needs to be applied to all metal fastener surface is quite a pain. It seems to be a fine metallic powder suspended in a grease, and the resulting compound is sticky, staining, and it ends up just about everywhere. Unlike grease it’s not easy to wipe off of anything but metal and solid plastic surfaces; it soaks quickly into skin and is even difficult to remove from nitrile gloves. Thankfully ProGold Lubricants’ Shop Towels do an amazing job of cleaning it up from both frames and hands.

Unfortunately, we ran into a little quirk with the acquired parts which put the build on hold for a bit, but I imagine that’ll be remedied soon.

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Onion Skin Clogs Garbage Disposals

Published November 12, 2011

Hey everyone, this is just a public service announcement reminding you that onion skin is a bit too tough to be chopped by the blunt impeller blades in a home garbage disposal and will tend to clog the outlet. When this happens water doesn’t drain well through the unit and the drain lines must be disassembled to remove plugs of material such as this.

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New Wheels, Great Test Ride

Published October 30, 2011

To deal with the rash of recent broken spokes (1, 2) I decided to build up a set of new wheels. These are SRAM X9 hubs, Velocity Blunt SL rims, and DT Swiss Competition spoke with black brass nipples. Last night I finished them up and today I took them for a test ride.

This ride ended up being really nice. I first set out towards Stony Creek, and when cutting through a service road past a local fire station (this avoids a bunch of sidewalk and an awkward corner) I came across a cut apart car behind the fire station. I suspect that this was used for a demonstration during the township fire department’s recent open house. (I attended another similar open house a number of years back, and photos of car dismanteling from that can be seen here.)

I next headed up Mound and wound my way through some neighborhoods to 25 Mile Road, which I took to Shelby Rd. and in to Stony Creek, climbing the (frustrating) paved hill at the entrance and then ducking into the Trolly Trails as soon as it began pointing downward. By chance I just happened to run across Pete Kresmery, Mark Senyk, Lloyd Lind, and Brad Byrne in there, which was a nice surprise. We all rode for a while heading north along the east side of the lake via the fitness trails, around the pavement for a bit to the West Branch lot, then for a lap through The Roller Coaster. After this we separated ways, but I just happened to run into Billy Kepsel, and he and I rode a little two track and then one lap of The Pines together before parting ways as I turned off to head to Rochester via Sheldon Road.

Unexpectedly, I then caught up with another guy riding along the road that I happened to know, Alex Mitevski, who was out for a pre-Iceman ride with his brother and dad. The four of us then rode together back to Rochester, where we had a rather interesting experience with an irate driver just as we headed south along Letica Drive through this intersection. I heard a horn honking a ways back and looked back to see a 20-30-ish something guy in an older Jeep Cherokee angrily honking and screaming while passing us with his window rolled down. I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying, but with headphones in and cigarette hanging out of his mouth he was horsely screaming something about getting on the (pedestrian filled, at that point) sidewalk before he sped off at 50 MPH+ into a 25 MPH zone.

Welcome to biking in Rochester, I guess. The last time I was on roads here, I was in another 25 MPH section when someone tried to question me about my right to be on roads because bicycle use supposedly doesn’t pay road taxes.

After parting ways with Alex and his family I headed over towards Bloomer, hoping to ride a bit of the trails there before heading homeward. Most of the trails near the river were wet, and as I didn’t feel like getting lost on the other single track I just rode the beautifully cleared (see above) lower ridge trail a couple of times, poked around the two track, then headed out the southern not-really-entrance at Dequindre. I’d wanted to cut through the foot path behind Yates Cider Mill and over into Holland Ponds, but with autumn cider season being in full swing I instead headed over to 23 Mile Road and wound my way to River Bends via the sidewalk and Mound Rd.

Just as yesterday when out riding the Mukluk the trail was in great shape, but with the addition of some water and frost parts were a little greasy. This resulted in exciting times such as what’s shown above, when I had a low speed, fun little fall when the back end of my bike kicked out on a wet climbing turn. The rest of the ride was uneventful, and I left the park via a back route across the train tracks and through Utica. I then had an uneventful ride through a typical route via some Utica neighborhoods, through a park, along 21 Mile, then north along Milonas and back home.

This was a really great day for a ride, the new wheels held up to the 41.95 miles (3:13:40 moving time) without issue, and I even managed to ride with a bunch of friends. I’ll try to clomp around on them a bit more this week to be sure, and then hopefully they’ll stay good during Iceman next Saturday.

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Code of Federal Regulations, Title 16, Chapter II, Part 1512: Requirements for Bicycles

Published October 30, 2011

In case you’ve wondered where to find the Consumer Product Safety Commission requirements for bicycles, here is a summary: regsumbicycles.pdf

While the previous PDF is a brief summary (described within as “…a simple unofficial description…”), the full regulations can be found here: TITLE 16–Commercial Practices, CHAPTER II–CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, SUBCHAPTER C–FEDERAL HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES ACT REGULATIONS, PART 1512–REQUIREMENTS FOR BICYCLES

(I looked this up this morning because I’d remembered that bicycles and pedals are supposed to be sold with reflectors but I wanted to find a citation. It seems that this is required even if a bike is custom assembled, unless it is “…a bicycle that is uniquely constructed to the order of an individual consumer other than by assembly of stock or production parts.”.)

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Salsa Mukluk 2

Published October 30, 2011

This past week I received a new Salsa Mukluk 2, and yesterday I finally finished assembly and got it out for a ride. In short: I really like this bike. Being a fat bike it’s got tremendously large tires which were originally designed for riding in snow, sand, and on other soft surfaces. This makes for a very interesting but really fun ride. I’m really looking forward to trying it in snow. As I already do a fair amount of winter riding (up until the snow is too deep to ride) this should extend the riding season for me even further. I am also really hoping to take it up north to the area around Sleeper State Park and Danielle’s aunt and uncle’s cabin so I can explore riding it on beaches and on sandy roads.

This bike was purchased via our team shop, Trail’s Edge Cyclery, and this allowed me to receive it unassembled and have fun building it up myself. Over three evenings I slowly (and enjoyably) put it together. This involved putting all the major pieces together, cutting the steerer tube while fitting the fork, cabling the whole bike, and setting up the drivetrain. Putting it together myself gave me a chance to set up the bike fit things (seatpost height, saddle fore/aft adjustment) from the get-go, and careful measuring of my other bikes resulted in the Mukluk being wonderfully comfortable for the first ride.

I also made a few slight modifications during assembly, including switching all cage mounts to stainless steel fasteners, filling empty (potential water ingress) holes with screws, converting a downtube bottle cage mount into additional cable retention points, wrapping the chainstay with an old tube, soaking the rust-resistant zinc-coated chain in ProLink Voyager, and fitting Ergon GP1 grips. This was a really enjoyable process and I’m very happy with the results. Due to the larger wheels I also had to fit a spacer kit to my bike rack so the wheels to fit, but this generally went well and works as advertised.

Yesterday I took the bike out for a first ride at River Bends, and it went rather well. I’ve got a small tick that seems seatpost/saddle related that I need to look into, but other than that I had no issues with it. The twist shifters seem nice but will take some getting used to; having no particular indexing for the front derailleur is quite a change, but being able to trim the front derailleur on the fly is nice.

In the photo album Salsa Mukluk 2 you can see a number of photos that I took during the unboxing, build, and first ride. Click here if you’d like to see them.

(Incidentally, this just happens to be post #1000 since March 31, 2008 when I moved to using WordPress for blog posting.)

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Salsa Mukluk 2 is Here!

Published October 26, 2011

Yesterday a friend played delivery driver and picked up my new (but unassembled) Salsa Mukluk 2 from our team bike shop, Trail’s Edge. Last night I mostly unpacked it and took pictures and hopefully I’ll get it assembled by the end of the weekend. There’s a lot to do and I’m intending to be particularly picky during assembly, but I’m also really looking forward to riding it.

The photo above is of my workbench with some of the parts laid out on it and the front wheel aired up to 30psi in order to stretch the tire to shape and get the bead seated properly. These wheels are massive.

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