from here: Fuckyeah
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Friday, May 04, 2012
More lazy Links
Fer Reedin: Mr. jack
"The Slut Event Horizon, where everything having to do with young and young-ish men will probably be sold using as much sex, violence, and spectacular imagery as possible. Face it: this is how Jalopnik beat the car rags, and it’s how they will eventually be dethroned. Plain and simple."
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
ANOTHER PROJECT BUILD!
Been a long time.
Say your awesome bullet-style tail light on your cafe racer is too small and you live in the wild west where drivers are all maniacs: You're going to need MOAR TAIL LIGHTZ! (how did I survive two years without getting rear ended?)
This particular example was found on ebay for a low, low price and was claimed DOT compliant, but was still lacking. Seen here in all it's daintiness:
I first tried to fix the problem the simpliest (and therefor best) way I knew, with a bigger bulb. Somewhere outside of Montreal, sitting in traffic, the lens melted. (it remained deformed for several years)
Cheapness turned out to be the ultimate asset because I was able to buy a second victim unit to use for mock-up purposes. Obviously LEDs were needed. (i do that you know. LEDs. Professionally) The problem was packing all the photon punch into a small package.
Step one was smaller components. This relay on the right looked pretty small... until I found the one on the left. (why did I need relays? It involves science)
The relay was combined with a resistor-adjustable constant current driver, a heat sink (which in this application is more of a heat... capacitor) and some wires, in a boxy-bullet shape.
The innards of the old light needed to come out, but I was able to practice the surgery and test fit the bits on the second unit. Started like this:
This all came out:
Hook up some wires...
Jam it in the HOL!- Insert cautiously. Pack perimeter with foam. (Like I said, Heat capacitor. Though hours of bench testing reveals that the running light does not produce a perceivable temp change in the heat sink, and since these things are fine to like 90C, my judgment says we'll be operating "within spec.")
Conclusion: MOAR BRIGHTNESS. Obviously I finished with a new red plastic lens cover but pics do not convey the red lumen face punch. The three points of light are obviously discernible so I've lined up a diffusion material to smooth it out, but that shit robs lumens, so I may leave it be for now. And because the light is pointed slightly downward, I'm pretty sure followers will not be blinded. This weekend's cross-New Mexico adventures will reveals the truth.
Say your awesome bullet-style tail light on your cafe racer is too small and you live in the wild west where drivers are all maniacs: You're going to need MOAR TAIL LIGHTZ! (how did I survive two years without getting rear ended?)
This particular example was found on ebay for a low, low price and was claimed DOT compliant, but was still lacking. Seen here in all it's daintiness:
I first tried to fix the problem the simpliest (and therefor best) way I knew, with a bigger bulb. Somewhere outside of Montreal, sitting in traffic, the lens melted. (it remained deformed for several years)
Cheapness turned out to be the ultimate asset because I was able to buy a second victim unit to use for mock-up purposes. Obviously LEDs were needed. (i do that you know. LEDs. Professionally) The problem was packing all the photon punch into a small package.
Step one was smaller components. This relay on the right looked pretty small... until I found the one on the left. (why did I need relays? It involves science)
The relay was combined with a resistor-adjustable constant current driver, a heat sink (which in this application is more of a heat... capacitor) and some wires, in a boxy-bullet shape.
The innards of the old light needed to come out, but I was able to practice the surgery and test fit the bits on the second unit. Started like this:
This all came out:
Hook up some wires...
Jam it in the HOL!- Insert cautiously. Pack perimeter with foam. (Like I said, Heat capacitor. Though hours of bench testing reveals that the running light does not produce a perceivable temp change in the heat sink, and since these things are fine to like 90C, my judgment says we'll be operating "within spec.")
Conclusion: MOAR BRIGHTNESS. Obviously I finished with a new red plastic lens cover but pics do not convey the red lumen face punch. The three points of light are obviously discernible so I've lined up a diffusion material to smooth it out, but that shit robs lumens, so I may leave it be for now. And because the light is pointed slightly downward, I'm pretty sure followers will not be blinded. This weekend's cross-New Mexico adventures will reveals the truth.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Electric Car Industry is Melting Down. Again.
A recent trip home allowed for a brief survey of former coworkers, revealing two things: 1) Battery and e-car suppliers are getting smaller and/or facing hardship & 2) None of these companies have any projects lined up for next year. This information, taken in conjunction with the recent blow-ups of Bright, Azure, A123, Fisker... Things are obviously going to shit and by my count this is the third time EVs have failed to blow up. Here's my (current) theory why:
Any new technology left to a natural progression will undergo a predictable "adaptation lifecycle," Assuming of course that the technology in question actually survives to full adaptation. Here's a picture of what it looks like:
I prefer to think of the graph in terms of total market penetration, or the summation line in yellow. The time to adaption may vary (the internet took 15 years but singing fish were there in 6 months) but the curve always looks the same. Note the lower "tipping point" (transition into full adoption) and the upper swing into saturation, for future reference.
The problem is electric cars never had the opportunity to naturally progress through this adaptation curve; The whole market is fuxored because there are too many artificial forces repressing or propping up the technology, so it's impossible to know if they are market viable. Subsidies were used to (in theory) jump start the industry past the gestation tipping point which in fairness, has worked before (GPS, anyone? Okay, that's a little different, but still). But as much as I'd love to see a world of electrics, all that free money leads to shoddy start ups and rushed products. Maybe the cost of key components like batteries, needs to come down beofre the math actually works? Who knows... This early flood leads to the bigger problem, distortion of the overall picture, making it difficult to say "yes the world is ready for electric cars" or "no, we need to make them better than we can sell them."
Of course there's the old argument of "once EVs are being built in the same volume as internal combustion cars, the costs will come WAY down! Volumization can only do so much to drive down prices because lithium is expensive and neodymium magnets for motors are expensive AND being gobbled up by China. These materials DO NOT follow moore's law, unlike the internet. And singing fish. So jump starting the industry can MAYBE expose people to the tech and hopefully cause them to fall in love, but it will not necessasrilly drive the prices into the floor.
So now you're trying to introduce a technology into un-holy and un-natural market conditions, but wait: the electric car is a displacement technology. And the tech it is trying to unseat (gasoline) is the MOST un-holy market of them all. Subsidies, taxes, fuck.... WARS to maintain and control supplies. whether you're for or against them, any forced influences will have ripple effects when you're trying to introduce a competing technology. Remember the GPS analogy? Map makers didn't have the world's largest lobbyist group.
Here's the take away: This noise in the system makes the market picture fuzzy, people make mistakes, companies fail.
A vehicle like the Chevy Volt could be the perfect litmus for the new technology but nothing can be learned because it is a political cluster fuck and half the country would now rather suck a Middle Eastern Cock before they'd touch one of them, thar ObAma-Cars. You think GM had any idea what kind of shit storm they'd land in when they started designing this car A DECADE AGO? YOU want to be the NEXT company to sink a few hunderd million into an EV?
Oh but wait- Now gas is $10/gal... All of a sudden, riding around in your Obama-made, Middle East Cock-suck mobile seems pretty reasonable when it only costs $0.50 to charge it up, right? Ha- just kidding; Gas up the bombers.
Any new technology left to a natural progression will undergo a predictable "adaptation lifecycle," Assuming of course that the technology in question actually survives to full adaptation. Here's a picture of what it looks like:
I prefer to think of the graph in terms of total market penetration, or the summation line in yellow. The time to adaption may vary (the internet took 15 years but singing fish were there in 6 months) but the curve always looks the same. Note the lower "tipping point" (transition into full adoption) and the upper swing into saturation, for future reference.
The problem is electric cars never had the opportunity to naturally progress through this adaptation curve; The whole market is fuxored because there are too many artificial forces repressing or propping up the technology, so it's impossible to know if they are market viable. Subsidies were used to (in theory) jump start the industry past the gestation tipping point which in fairness, has worked before (GPS, anyone? Okay, that's a little different, but still). But as much as I'd love to see a world of electrics, all that free money leads to shoddy start ups and rushed products. Maybe the cost of key components like batteries, needs to come down beofre the math actually works? Who knows... This early flood leads to the bigger problem, distortion of the overall picture, making it difficult to say "yes the world is ready for electric cars" or "no, we need to make them better than we can sell them."
Of course there's the old argument of "once EVs are being built in the same volume as internal combustion cars, the costs will come WAY down! Volumization can only do so much to drive down prices because lithium is expensive and neodymium magnets for motors are expensive AND being gobbled up by China. These materials DO NOT follow moore's law, unlike the internet. And singing fish. So jump starting the industry can MAYBE expose people to the tech and hopefully cause them to fall in love, but it will not necessasrilly drive the prices into the floor.
So now you're trying to introduce a technology into un-holy and un-natural market conditions, but wait: the electric car is a displacement technology. And the tech it is trying to unseat (gasoline) is the MOST un-holy market of them all. Subsidies, taxes, fuck.... WARS to maintain and control supplies. whether you're for or against them, any forced influences will have ripple effects when you're trying to introduce a competing technology. Remember the GPS analogy? Map makers didn't have the world's largest lobbyist group.
Here's the take away: This noise in the system makes the market picture fuzzy, people make mistakes, companies fail.
A vehicle like the Chevy Volt could be the perfect litmus for the new technology but nothing can be learned because it is a political cluster fuck and half the country would now rather suck a Middle Eastern Cock before they'd touch one of them, thar ObAma-Cars. You think GM had any idea what kind of shit storm they'd land in when they started designing this car A DECADE AGO? YOU want to be the NEXT company to sink a few hunderd million into an EV?
Oh but wait- Now gas is $10/gal... All of a sudden, riding around in your Obama-made, Middle East Cock-suck mobile seems pretty reasonable when it only costs $0.50 to charge it up, right? Ha- just kidding; Gas up the bombers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)