Unusual gifts

Must be Greek.

You realize how jealous all of us are for your employment there, don't you, Jim?

Was that just to get performance data on them during design and testing, or for continued input?

The new, smaller laptops with solid state disks would be easier now. Bolt a bracket surrounding the gas tank (remove laptop, open gas filler cap, fill with gas, replace), but even easier on an electric car.

That sure should keep the heat down.

How many were you thinking one of us was building?

Gunner Asch on Sun, 28 Jun 2015 09:48:57 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Which is one of the reasons you had made those investment - so that when you needed it, it was there.

Family is like that ... B-)

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

They hired me as a temporary, PTOC contractor while their lab tech was out for medical reasons. Like all R&D they struggled to keep engineers occupied after the product had been finalized, so it wasn't -that- great a place to work, especially for a temp. It went downhill once the principal designers left for Apple etc.

Just to match the motor controller to vehicle dynamics, such as acceptable motor speed ramp-up and ramp-down rates. I've had the new front and rear tires of a bike break loose in a corner on asphalt when I forgot about the mold release. I could handle it from dirt bike experience but still I almost banged into the far curb.

The "gas tank" was for appearance.

For engineering work I prefer older, larger (heavier), more capable business-class laptops, which approach the expandability of desktops but are portable on internal battery or external 12V. My Dell Latitude Ds accept both a boot SSD and a Terabyte spinning HDD in the CD bay, Cardbus plus ExpressCard plugins which I use for USB2 and USB3 or more datalogging serial ports, and a DVD or another large HDD in a special higher-power USB expansion bay.

I found that the built-in 15" screen was fine for detailing the CAD drawing of the trolley wheels and axles and I don't need to plug in the 22" monitor.

This IDE model made in 2005 is running XP from a SATA SSD in the CD bay.

The IBM Thinkpads and Toshiba Satellites at work were similarly capable. I happened to go with Dell at home because they are cheap and plentiful, including the batteries and accessories.

USB adapters like these connect a laptop to automotive and smart battery electronics:

-jsw

I have a 2006 Latitude 14" that weighs like sin, but I lug it with me on business trips, whenever I have to do a lot of writing. It has the best keyboard of any laptop I've used. Ir was my son's machine all through college and he's moved on, but it's just too good for my work to get rid of it. I've loaded it with RAM, fast Wi-Fi, and an ExpressCard USB3 adapter. It still rocks, even though I hate lugging it around.

I've seen a stack of still-working Latitudes whose metal shells had been mangled or punctured in transit.

These people sell individual replacement key caps for them:

The keys aren't easy to replace but at least it's possible.

-jsw

Thanks. I've saved that one.

Yabbut, working inside a Big Boy's Toy Factory...

Mold release? I expect to hear that during an injection molding discussion, but not in an electrics/electronics discussion. What meaneth thou?

I forgot myself. Then it should have been a clamshell (or simply a platform) for the laptop.

I programmed a voice card/telephone tree database for a guy who gave me a suitcase computer to work on. He sold classic hotrod refurb services. That was interesting.

That was a typical '80s business class "laptop". Your Latitude is a bit smaller.

Those are going for a song, wot?

Yeah, just mount the 22" monitor to the windshield...

How's the reliability? I hear the business models have been considerably more reliable than the consumer crap Dell puts out. I'd hope so, as they sold for $2-5k new.

How so? Not familiar with CAN bus.

nice.

Any short narrow ones for sale?

I have a 14" band saw that the drive wheel was really wobbly and the bearin g was shot. Except when I opened it up, the split pin had dropped out of th e wheel retaining nut and loosened it off. A zero dollar and two minute rep air. Emailed them they could come and get it, but they never did.

I got a small Emco CNC milling that could not be made to work. I found a 5- pin DIN plug on the back panel was missing. It just connected one of two li nes depending on set up to be used. A piece of jumper wire pushed in Pin-1 to pin-4 and bingo another zero dollar repair, well, after about ten minute s with the manual I found online. I offered to return this one but they had replaced it so said "keep it."

Quite a few others, 60W laser engraver, 65W CO2 medical laser tube and cont roller.

So much to explain. I'm glad I didn't describe the Inca culture as "chalcolithic".

Temps weren't numbered among the core Big Boys, or invited to contribute projects to Frog Days. I was nominated onto a three-man Tiger Team for a hot special project and paid the price in resentment from those not chosen.

The "Industrial Designers" rather than the engineers had final say on the appearance. Techs had no say at all.

"Portable" means it has one or more handles, as do upright pianos. I tried to spread the term "schleppable".

I paid $25 for the D820 I loaded the CAD program on. It inherited 4 GB of RAM from another one that went to 8 GB.

In July it will be illegal to draw while driving here.

There were real and alleged problems, like burning batteries, overheating nVidia graphics chips, mother board cracks, etc. AFAICT only the fittest have survived. They are relatively easy to open up and work on.

They aren't entirely suited to Windows 7 and may need suboptimal Vista drivers. Only the final x30 models have an AHCI option and ability to take 8GB of DDR2 RAM if you install a 64 bit OS. The fastest available processor appears to be an overpriced Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz T9500, my best one is 2.4GHz. The graphics are good enough for live HDTV but reportedly not for gaming.

"This model and Operating System is not supported by Dell."

-jsw, waiting for the weather to clear before I set up my log lifting equipment.

The controller on my '75 Fiat 128 conversion was dead seimple voltage switcher with switched resistance - 2 battery packs in parallel through resistor - short resistor, switch packs to series through resistor, short resistor - then weaken field with rheostat - motor was a military surplus aircraft generator.

Was it practical in city traffic?

It was actually pretty good. I ran 8 GC2H 215AH golf cart batteries, so 24 volts for startup, and 48 for cruise - through the Fiat 4 speed transmission with no clutch. 50 miles at 30mph, 30 miles at 50mph - slightly less in city traffic. Could spin the tires taking off in first with the small motor. In an attempt to get more power and more range, I installed a bigger motor, and it became almost undriveable - I needed a better controller because even on 24 volts through the resister it could smoke the tires - pulling away in second was more civilized but I had to be carefull I didn't pop the breaker (set to

400 amps or 600 instantaneous). The breaker was a big paddle right behind the shifter between the seats. In storage over the winter someone disconnected the battery maintainer and I lost most of my battery pack - and being a 7 year old FIAT the rust-worm had done a number on the undercarriage- so it sat another year and then was scrapped. Still have the motor and contactors, and I think the breaker.

Aren't people wonderful?

Oh, tires! Yeah, mold release. I was entirely in electronics mode in that conversation so you threw me.

Is that anything like "military intelligence"? Thot so.

Don't laws like that burn you up? They'll certainly save the lives of texters and sketchy people everywhere. Where's Darwin when you need him? I understand they're padding light posts in London for that same reason. Crom help us!

7? Hell, Win 3.1 had most everything we could want. ('cept memory)

I'll check it out. Yesterday and today each have 1.5 hours of work for me. It's nice to relax. I have Jupiter Ascending and Last Knights waiting for me in town at the local RedBox, too.

We've been toying with 100+ degree weather here for a couple weeks now. May we borrow your rain, please?

Very cool, all.

Har!

Why no clutch, or equiv?

Bummer on the loss.

Why? Didn't need it. Just remove power from motor and shift. No need for starting either - put it in gear, mash the pedal and go - maximum torque at zero RPM, unlike IC engines. I still had the clutch peral, but all it did was disconnect power.

How about some of our snow next January?

Dan