Scooter Testing and MORE Brake Repair

Last night from 10-11pm Shane, Charles, Franco, and I did some testing of our scooters in the Albany St. garage. The test consisted of a hill climb from the bottom of the garage to the top level (driving directions: right turn x 20), a distance of about a half mile.

Energy = Power x Time

Deathscooter's results: 11.8 Wh in 78 seconds

11.8 Wh = 544.6W x 78s x 1h/3600s

P=IV

544.6W=26.4V x 20.6A

20.6 Amps average going up the Albany St. garage. Learn something new every day.

"Not enough gang signs."

The Sisters of Anarchy

On to the brake repair portion of the post. Five minutes prior to leaving for the test, I let one of my floor mates who will remain anonymous use my scooter in the hallway. He accidentally made the scooter run itself into a wall which knocked the brakes loose.

"But Adrian, you said the brakes were welded to the front fork!"

"Yeah, J-B Weld."

As a result, the brake calipers now clamped the 'spokes' of the wheel instead of the rim, providing almost no braking at all. On the trip over to MITERS I went full throttle all the way used my shoe to slow down. Good thing I didn't need brakes for the testing.

First attempt: Use picture hanging wire to provide tension to hold the calipers in place.

Looks good, right? No, not right... and not left either.

Now I can't turn.

Attempt 2: Use longer picture hanging wire to provide tension to hold the calipers in place and attach the other end of the wire to something that moves with the wheel.

Several minutes, a screw, and three zip ties later, we have wound the wire around the front of my scooter in such a way that accomplishes our goal. 

Used a screw to tension the wire.

Another discovery during this process: my brake pads are depositing themselves onto the wheel. 

I did reach home safely after this quick fix, but as much as I enjoy the thrill of speculating on whether or not I'll be able to stop the next time I use the brakes, I need to fix this for real. I'm going to try to get access to one of the TIG welders in EMB and mount a steel plate to the front fork, which will hopefully allow for sturdier brake mounting.

FIXED: Ibanez SB7 Synth Bass Pedal

Tonight I was presented with two tasks. The first was to repair Garren (roommate a) 's  ripped backpack strap, which I did with gorilla glue and some sloppy needlework. The second task was to fix Pat (roommate b) 's synth bass pedal which had been out of operation for a few months. He claimed that the pedal worked on AC adapter power but not off of the built in battery.

Let'd do this.

And so the quest for 80's grooves began.

The initial disassembly showed some funky internal PCB circuitry which made me doubt that the battery power ever worked. The negative terminal of the 9 volt didn't go anywhere except a long line of solder-covered copper that wrapped around one edge of the main board.

Just...why?

I tested the continuity of the power port and took a moderately educated guess that the negative wire would be the pin in the middle, not the ring surrounding it. Then I desoldered the leads from the battery adapter to the board, and that's when I realized that I didn't have any solder, only a soldering iron. I'm not an EE after all...

Good ol' multimeter.

Please don't be backwards.

And so the battery adapter was "soldered" to where the wall power adapter should go in, and lo and behold, the pedal worked!

A few wire extensions later, the pedal was reassembled and some groovy music was created by our resident bass guitarist, Pat Mars. Yes, that's his real name, yes, he is from our world.