CitroJim's AX, C3 Picasso, Cycling and Running Tales

[CitroJim]

Mike, forgot to say, the quickest way to build Ubuntu is on a wired network, not wireless... I found that out the hard way

The basic wireless driver used during a build is slow... Wired Ethernet is not...

Wireless is fine once built...

[myglaren]

Haven't tried wireless other than for an upgrade, always download to a wired desktop. Ten minutes to download, five minutes to burn a dongle, twenty minutes to install.

My machines are not quick by any stretch of the imagination as they don't need to be. I play no games and do no video processing.
Do some basic photoshopping (GIMP) and watch a bit of iPlayer now and then. YouTube is always running though.

The updates are no hassle. They do come frequently but again they install quickly in the background and they never nag you or try and twist your arm to download and install them and never intrude on whatever else you might be doing.

[DickieG]

Don't look how much it cost... I don't want to be responsible for any fainting episodes

let's just say a very decent car could be obtained for the cost...

I looked at the price

Are the Dura-Ace changers now electric or cable Jim?

[CitroJim]

I told you not to look at the price

Are the Dura-Ace changers now electric or cable Jim?

Both Richard.. Mine is mechanical Dura-Ace as I'm not fully trusting of electronic ones just yet... Also I don't like disc brakes on a roadie so went for one of the last well-specced bikes to have Dura-Ace calipers... They, even on carbon rims, are magnificent brakes..

The bike, minus the saddle bag, weighs 6.6Kg!

Tubeless tyres are the way to go

It is wonderful bike and I love it to bits... It is so responsive and an excellent climber

Steve, you're right that updates on Ubuntu, whilst reassuringly frequent, are no inconvenience at all... Often not needing a reboot

[myglaren]

I'd say very rarely needing a reboot Jim. It is ages since I have needed to do one.
In fact, don't actually bother with that, just wait for the next shutdown.

[ekjdm14]

When you say tubeless Jim, are they like car tyres e.g. Bead seals on the rim or are they a variation of 'tubs' that are glued onto the rim? If the latter they ought to be a lot safer in the event of a high speed puncture but I could never quite bring myself to trust the bonding not to allow the tyre to roll off on a corner.

Silly I know, as the pros have used them for years but all the same I always preferred clinchers when I used to ride. Decent Hutchinson or Vittoria dual compound tyres used to pump up to about 120-130ish without bother anyway so I never saw any benefit.

[CitroJim]

Yes, the bike tubeless tyres are just like car ones in principle... The only difference is we run them with latex-based sealant in them as the spoke holes leak a little... I find mine hold up well and in the event of a puncture they seal-seal. I always carry a spare tube and a few CO2 cartridges just in case though...

So yes, I'd say safer and more comfy too I find....

[Zelandeth]

Worth noting that updates on a Linux based system don't tend to drag the system to a crawl either as it actually handles task prioritization properly. You'll notice a bit of slowdown inevitably as it's a disc intensive process, but nothing like on a Windows machine where it seems to turn it into a doorstop for about ten minutes.

The only times I've found a reboot is needed is if you're looking at an actual new kernel version. Graphics card driver update (Nvidia in my case) needs the GUI restarting but that takes all of about 15 seconds.

[Mandrake]

OK, so next time I see Aldi or Lidl doing rechargeable batteries (and the charger) I will let you know. The batteries are normally around £3 per pack, and the charger (with a discharge capability) normally costs £12, and can handle Ni based batteries.

Thanks James

Steve, that 'scope is old now, it's got to be 40 if it's a day... It has a baby CRT in it and was really quite amazing when it was first introduced...

Now it is truly vintage but still very usable and useful...

I still have one of these Jim, which I believe was a direct competitor to the Thander:

I don't remember exactly when I got it but it was probably the early 90's and it is still going strong.

Unfortunately the batteries are pretty knackered now due to lack of use leading to them sitting discharged for a long time.

They're 3x 2 volt cylinder shaped sealed lead acid batteries, (about the size of a D cell, but with spade connectors on one end) which as you can imagine don't like being left discharged! One day I will get some new batteries for it...

The three cylindrical cells are held in the rectangular box on the right hand side:



A rather nice little scope for 1976, dual trace chop or alternate, external triggering, auto mode, from memory it goes up to 15Mhz...

[Hell Razor5543]

Something like this, Simon? Just watch out for the price!;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEAD-ACID-REC ... xyaURThbIF

[Mandrake]

Something like this, Simon? Just watch out for the price!;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEAD-ACID-REC ... xyaURThbIF

Yes that looks like the right ones.

I replaced the cells in mine once already in the early 90's when I first got it as the originals were shot but that was about 25 years ago, and especially in the last 10 years it has hardly been used, so I forgive the cells for failing....

They do still work but I don't get nearly the run time that I should. They last about 30 minutes when it should last several hours.

I wonder if the motorbike mode on my intelligent car/motorbike battery charger (the Aldi one I bought) could revive them ? The three of them together is 6 volts at about 5Ah.

[Hell Razor5543]

Fingers crossed.

[xantia_v6]

Now that's interesting Steve Thanks for that....

The only problem with my little Thander, one of these little bad boys:

Back in 1986 I spent a few months working for a company that occupied a couple of floors of the Rivermill in St Ives (Cambs.) which is the building where that scope was designed. During that period, Thandar moved out of the building and for a few weeks they were filling skips with obsolete components and half-built prototypes. We would stay late until the Thandar employees had gone home, and then go through the skip looking for interesting stuff. I got a couple of working Microvision TV prototypes (which were nothing like the production version), but others fished out working production quality items. I think someone got a scope. I see the scope uses the same CRTs as the Microvision TVs. There was a later version of the TV (I am not sure that it made it to production) which had a peculiar cold-cathode CRT where the gun was at the bottom, not the back, and the image was formed on the back of the CRT, which you looked through to see the image. I had one of those CRTs as a souvenir, but lost it somewhere.

I heard that someone found an early hand crafted C5 prototype in the loft of the mill, but I didn't see it. In one of our offices, while running a telephone cable across a false ceiling, a colleague found a stash of Sinclair/Thandar products which had obviously been hidden by an employee while Thandar still occupied it.

[ekjdm14]

Interesting stuff, even for someone who knows virtually squat about these things, and that scope a few posts up appears to be displaying potentially the world-first 'emoticon'

I had the misfortune to spend a few months doing agency work for LINPAC mouldings in Winsford & they had/maybe still have an early C5 on a mezzanine floor above some offices gathering dust... I can't honestly say theft of it never crossed my mind! Shame it was just sat unloved...

[Mandrake]

Fingers crossed.

I managed to actually find the scope (!) and removed the batteries. They've sat for at least a few months since the last time I tried to use it.

Two of the three cells were 2.05 volts which is OK for sitting so long, the third was 1.85 volts which is suspiciously low. So either there is one bad cell (which would explain a lot) or the state of charge of that cell has got out of balance with the other two - quite possible when they are series connected and there is no balancing system like you'd see on a modern lithium ion series pack.

I put the charger on for about half an hour, and because the voltage was fairly low to start with it started off in its pulse charge rejuvenation mode. After that the two good cells were up to 2.20 volts and the "bad" cell had climbed to 2.00 volts. I also noticed that during each pulse the good cells were increasing by about 0.5v and the "bad" cell was increasing by only 0.2v. This is consistent with the good cells being nearly fully charged while the "bad" cell is still very discharged. (The voltage of a lead acid cell becomes more "flexible" when charge current is applied the closer to full charge it gets)

So at the moment I'm going to work on the assumption that the cell is actually ok but it's state of charge is way lower than the other two - so I have now stopped the charge and put an 8 ohm bleeder resistor across the two good cells for a while to bleed them down to the same charge as the other one to do a bit of manual cell balancing. Once their open circuit voltage is balanced I'll put them all back on charge again.

Fingers crossed.