Willdat?

2 hours ago, ul9601 said:

we get ripped off for brand new EV here compared to overseas like anything else, i presume?

Nope, well at least not compared to the UK. The Good cat can be had here for <$44k before rebate. In the UK the same model is £32k I think.

47 minutes ago, tortron said:

E-dax looks like a good runabout. Nice seat height for the wife too

 

Apparently only about $1500 here, how many should I bring back? 

Yes

8 hours ago, V8Pete said:

Why are CRZs not the hybrid more people on OS buy? 6 speed manual hybrid...

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/honda/cr-z/listing/4432430045

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/honda/cr-z/listing/4442645661

I think @Mof does/did?

I saw this listing you may be interested in: 2000 Honda Insight Hybrid Gen 1 / New Hybrid Ba... https://www.trademe.co.nz/4442646314

Basically a classic EV. Even manuel

Polishing pads and general touch up supplies, where does the hive mind get them from? The more YouTube I watch, the more I think I can't make these deep scratches worse...

Tune in next year for when I have to spray the boring daily in bed liner...

Ooooh someone else has an RMX50, here is the one I had 11 years ago!

Edit: just remembered that I rode that to my first OS event in Kaikoura. Met @governorsam , @anglia4, @Valiant and others no doubt. Vaguely remember speed runs up the driveway...

42 minutes ago, Snoozin said:

So, this thing's currently sitting in the shed gathering dust because I'm an idiot/terrible at riding these things, and I fell off it and broke something important.

But first, a wee yarn about the some misadventures.

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (145) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

About 3 weeks ago, I went for a skid to see @oftensideways up the line. I mainly wanted to hoon on Turakina Valley Rd as I'd been told the gravel bits were pretty rad. So I did, but to get there I did a pretty convoluted loop, taking in Zig Zag Rd, Ridge Rd, Peep O Day Rd, Sandon Block Rd and then doubling back to Turakina Valley Rd before running that all the way to Tangiwai. I made the journey to get to Sean's place about 280km in total (whoops) and did 450km by the time I'd gotten home. Big day for a rookie, bike ran flawlessly and I didn't fall off.

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (148) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

The next day though, didn't end so well (this isn't me breaking the thing, though, really). I tagged along on a loosely organised ride with a Manawatu Adv Facebook group (Blizzo went too, and Simon) which took in some roads/trails over Tararua way. All good on the gravel, zipped through Tararua Rd (I think it was) after a run over the Pahiatua Track on the tarmac (getting more and more comfortable on the road but still not totally confident to push hard), then the group headed further East to Puketoi Rd, which starts as a gravel road then turns into an unmaintained paper road/farm track basically.

Anyway, I struggled keeping up (a lot) on this one, mostly due to being inexperienced on what is a relatively hefty piece of gear (and probably, in retrospect not the best bike for tackling this sort of stuff, but here we are). It can be a bit demoralising when you lose contact with the group, but I soldiered on, concentrating on looking ahead, picking my lines and doing the best I could. Then the front end started shaking a bit at 30km/h and faster... shit, a puncture. Of course, I had a tube and some tools. BUT I was missing the 14mm hex key to remove the front axle. I turned around and went several KM back on a flat front tyre, and left the bike at the last farm house we'd encountered. A couple of the other blokes helped me out, and I got a lift back into town on the back of an Africa Twin (DCT gearbox is nice!) before hauling the trailer out and picking it up. 3.5hr round trip!!!

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (146) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

So that was a bit shit really. But I fixed it the next evening, threw a new tube in and all that, and decided I go for a burn later that week after work. I also fitted up some spare plastics I got from Japan, wrapped the minters with the nice stickers up in bubble wrap and stashed them away for selling time. Looks all right all naked and stuff I guess.

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (151) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

And so off we went on a Wednesday or a Thursday night or something. Off, back up the Pahiatua Track and this time turning off to the left at the top, and taking in North Range Rd. It starts off nice and smooth, as an access road mainly for the wind turbines, but quickly deteriorates into a 4x4 track, which posed some challenges to the novice rider.

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (153) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Nice views before it got a bit bumpier, though!

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (155) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

I went for a short walk to check out what I'd gotten myself into, before actually proceeding on the bike down some of these sections. They were relatively slippery clay-ish sort of stuff, but I managed all right, albeit at a leisurely pace. Thankful for a good tyre on the front!

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (157) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Plenty of rutted out areas. This one was extreme, and I didn't ride through it, but did some others... water in some cases was thigh-deep (I waded into a couple just to check first).

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (159) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

And this is probably indicative of most of the track, some of these holes/puddles were deceptively deep so I didn't risk hitting everything with lots of speed. 

But then I fell off (the first time). One particularly gnarly looking rut looked a bit daunting, so I chose to go around on the outside, following some bike ruts along a narrow ledge to the left of the big 4x4 hole. Was going OK, until I had to give it some throttle to get enough drive through a boggy spot, then the rear tyre jumped out of the rut I was riding in, and spat me and the bike off the 'ledge' to the right hand side, and into the mud hole. The bike went competely upside down dangling over the half meter or so ledge (it has an inertia switch to cut power thankfully) and I ended up in the mud. Lol. I laughed a bit to be fair, and then quickly focused on the "how the fuck am I going to recover the bike" task at hand. Turns out you can shift 170kg of bike pretty easily when you have to, and it wasn't as difficult as I feared to stand it back upright. We got out of that one OK.

Closer to the end of the '4x4' section though, I binned it again, just hit a submerged rock and got all out of rhythm - again, in a muddy/wet hole. I think this is where the damage occured, although it didn't make itself known to me until later.

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (161) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

This is just out the other side, at this point I was ignorant to the problem that would befall me only a few minutes down the track...

2007 Yamaha XT660R Phone (162) by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Here's the last pic I took, descending back down to Gorge Rd at the other end of the track. You can see the muffler has been tweaked slightly after taking a hit. I have ordered an additional bracket/clamp for it and will improve this. While taking this photo of the lovely golden hour views, the temp warning light came on.... bit odd, I thought, but didn't think anything of it and coasted downhill until it switched off before making my way down under power. Until it came on again.

I wasn't far out of Woodville when I thought I'd take a look and whoooops.... the somewhat vulnerable hose from water pump to the radiator had holed, I think mainly because the hose was old and brittle. I patched it with tape as best I could, and filled up a small amount of water from what was left in my bottle and continued home. The light came on again, the tape didn't do a perfect job.... so I pressed on. 

Hopefully no damage was incurred to the engine. It ran fine all the way home, and I figured as long as the temp light was on, there was still water in it... presently waiting for a hose from Yamaha and I'll have it all patched up and ready to go again. 

If you've stayed with me, thanks for reading. It's probably not that interesting to the experienced riders here, but very much a learning curve. I'm wondering if I've over-invested in a not very suitable bike, it would actually be nice to have a bit less weight to deal with and I think would help my confidence a bit. So the XT's future is in the balance. It's a wonderful gravel bike, but leaves something to be desired on the tight stuff, despite the list of upgrades it has. First though, fix it and hope it's all OK after running hot for a little while.

Far from being uninteresting, you take great photos and tell a story of adventure with humility.

I never rode a motorbike until I was ~25 (I'd been pillion with Dad but my unclle had died after a crash, so I wasn't allowed my own until I left home). I've been a mountain biker for a long time, but the weight, especially downhill on gravel I still find unnerving at times.

I've usually been on the smallest bike in the group. It's great when things get a bit wild to have something more manageable.

Last year I sold my WR250R to fund my NBC110 tweaks and that has worked pretty well. I still get to get places that are out of the way, but there's no pressure at all.

1 hour ago, jakesae101 said:

Anyone know if there has been any rumours past being charged RUC and claiming back for phev come next year? Been looking at a used outlander but if full price RUC come in it will kill off the savings for me with the cost difference between a petrol and the phev over a 5 year period.

You would have to expect RUCs to come in. But I'd imagine it will happen on all vehicles with a reduction/removal of excise tax on petrol at the same time. Probably a much fairer system than what we do currently.

On 10/11/2023 at 08:51, Sunbeam said:

Depends… the Leaf seems to change the battery recipe every 5 minutes. 2014 seems to be a sweet spot as mine is approaching 100,000km and still at 78% SOH. Will still do 110km open road.  But look at a 2013 and they’re nearly all buggered-even worse than the 1st gen. And yeah, for some reason the 30kwh one seems cursed too. I still think EVs are great around town and the burbs, but increasingly silly for most other tasks with current tech. No pun intended 

Yeah a mates 2013, early gen 2 is down to ~40% SOH. My folks have the basic spec Model 3 (with LFP batteries), drove it to Nelson -> Dunedin  (~800km) and back a few days later, takes around 11 hours. They've decided they prefer the style of driving with regular breaks too.

3 hours ago, Gyrocket said:

Pretty excited for this one fellas, 

I'll be riding my fresh build a bloody angry postie, should be fun

My monkey is also ready to go happy to bring it and chuck it on the support trailer as a backup for anyone that needs it if thats something people want, I rode a backup CT a couple years ago, figured I could return the favor

Either way looking forward to an epic few days!

 

Is that the 190 5 speed Zongshen?

57 minutes ago, Willdat? said:

It's an excuse to use my tiny bit set which will be fun.

Opened 'er up. Retensioned the clip on the power jack, no joy. Nothing obviously loose/smoke escaped which is frustrating, really want one of those PB Tech staff deals....

22 minutes ago, cubastreet said:

It's not uncommon for the solder joints to break on the mobo, so worth opening it up for a looksie @Willdat?

It's an excuse to use my tiny bit set which will be fun.

1 hour ago, locost_bryan said:

Have you seen this page? Acer Laptop Plugged In But Not Charging? Try These 9 Fixes (technewstoday.com)

Good suggestion, tried those Acer diagnosis tools but it reckons the battery health etc. is good.

Sooo, 5yo Acer Laptop stopped charging this week. Picked up a new charger off TM. No difference, still has charge so I can run diagnostics if hive mind has a strategy? Nothing needs to be recovered so not the end of the world if I need to replace it, but still has 4-5 hours of battery life/does everything it needs to if there's a repair strategy?

Sounds like there are some issues with 30kwH Leafs occuring now when under load, ie up hill at 100km/h where it will basically just shut down, even with plenty of charge remaining (maybe like a thermal overload?). Not so much around town. Happened to little bros one when new buyer was taking it home yesterday. He rang EVs Enhanced and apparently it's becoming a regular occurrence. I think he's just going to keep it until it dies as it still works fine around town. Any insights to add @Ned?

1 hour ago, V8Pete said:

I saw an irate lady in a Prius yelling at someone charging their MG/BYD/Kia(?) at a supermarket charger to go back to their own country the other day and said she'd ram them. Unfortunately for my chances of going viral on YouTube, no ramming took place 

It's all about what your daily usage is. Have I shared my spreadsheet with you? My gut is, unless your commute is 70km a day and you can charge at work (and RUCs don't come into play for PHEVs) that your existing Francophillic wagon will cost less than half as much as this beauty.

21 minutes ago, datlow said:

That's a long way to push a scooter.... 

Two fucked motors.... Don't think I'll rebuild either will strip and assess and let ya know 

Swaps for LA frog 

Hey hey hey, I said the equivalent of. I will likely have a very aged bottle sitting here for my 50th at the current rate of consumption!

37 minutes ago, DoBro Jesus said:

Oof 8 year thread dredge.

Been fiending to get my bike learners so I can legally ride something that's not a scoot/moped plated smol bike. 

Like the thought of something like an MT07 or similar but just can't justify throwing that much coin at something that I could well drop a few times, still a pretty novice rider.

What are your guys thoughts on something that's not a punishing gn125/250 but not quite a shit hot, top spec LAMS bike? Not into the cruiser style nor sportbike cause of the riding position. Thinking along the lines of a GS500 or VTR250, 250 bandit/hornet etc. 

Loved my DRZ400SM... Feel fast if you're used to cars, but with no wind protection you're not realllly going that fast. WR250 was sweet too!

2 hours ago, ajg193 said:

EV's towing trailers

Has anyone made a trailer/caravan specifically for being towed by an EV? Like would it make sense to have an electrical connection and a motor on the axle and use the car to power the trailer/regen brake the trailer?

I remember like 10 years back I saw something about trailers housing batteries to boost the EV range

My Dad has modified a 5x3 Briford for aero/camping which seems to make a difference to energy consumption. A scratch built alloy job would be better as I reckon the Briford weighs a lot for a start.

I'd also use the Tesla wheels, then the spare could be used on the trailer and the car as they only have compressor/goo.

To get the car to power the caravan you'd need a V2L capability which only some have from factory, and the Tesla's specifically don't.

So I messaged @h4nd earlier today to help me out with my inadequacies, he said I should repost in here to make you feel better/spread the knowledge.

Quote

Hey man, I'm doing a basic electronics project with my class with a light/dark sensor. I've got a circuit that works with an LED but wanting to swap in a piezo buzzer instead. I have the fear that I might pick the wrong type as I want it to oscillate as soon as exposed to 9V rather than needing a separate driver? Any tips on what hopefully cheap AF options I should be looking for? Thanks heaps!

Quote

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HMEPmaqcSKcSJj9h8

This is the circuit, will be switcherooed to on when exposed to light and an additional switch to stop it driving me mad...

Quote

https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2883277.pdf

I'm hoping that would work

This was his super helpful response, I've spotted that what I need is ~$2.50-$5/unit from somewhere reputable, I need ~30, so slow boat from Aliexpress will sort me out , we're pretty lucky to have clever chaps who don't make you feel like an idiot when asking the hard questions...

Quote

Good one posting the link and datasheet. It looks to me like it designed for ac input: '12 Vp-p square wave' (so, strictly the datasheet is wrong; it's a transducer (changes energy from one form to another)) rather than a buzzer.

nz.element14.com (local brand name for Farnell) is quick (1-2 days) if you check it's in stock in Oz;

but I like the Digikey parts selector, as they have better filtering: e.g:

https://www.digikey.co.nz/en/products/filter/alarms-buzzers-and-sirens/157?s=N4IgTCBcDaIA4EsCmAvA9gAgEYFcUqQCcQBdAXyA

note the 5th box:

• Driver Circuitry:
  -Indicator, Internally Driven
  -Transducer, Externally Driven

You can then find one(s) you like, and even go hunt for them on nz.element14.com

Shipping is expensive until you get to ~50-100 buck for those places.

Try this?

https://www.jaycar.co.nz/mini-piezo-buzzer-3-16vdc/p/AB3462

Cheers,

@h4nd

 

https://ev.ldv.co.nz/et60?campaignid=18138418727&adgroupid=147827881832&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhL6pBhDjARIsAGx8D58Lz0fUHMt_8G_mzW9-sIE7ag5AgB_sjHtg1oHp8IVTNgVbPLatVGAaAhv7EALw_wcB I hope no-one bought one of those LDV utes at $79,990...

1 hour ago, datlow said:

Cleaning shed to make room for them then I'll strip them

Just sort freight/OS freight and ya can have one 

@Willdat?

You're good to me, sans covers etc is sweet for me as obviously I can just swap off my complete one. If you need anything front end related I've gone to disc so let me know. Pretty sure you're not a la frog drinker but will sort the equivalent for you in cash so you can pick your own potion.

15 minutes ago, Raizer said:

I believe it was originally aimed at stopping mini choppers and pocket bikes being registered, and yeah shit like that lol

Hey hey, I did steal the front brakes off a kids bmx, and added a squeezy horn to meet the horn requirement. Head torch on the front, flashing bike lights on the rear. 37km/h top speed on an ~6" wheel with no suspension made pot hole encounters really wake you up... Yeah, sorry chaps.

20 hours ago, datlow said:

Might have accidentally purchased some broken nbcs 

Who wanted a (likely cooked) motor? 

Mememe I really want to build up a big block while keeping the existing donk in case I end out creating something less reliable and slower than my existing rattle-fest.

5 hours ago, tortron said:

If anyone has taken it in for inspection, is there an added cost? 

I obviously have all legit bikes so that's not an issue, paying for extras is tho as that eats into my buying more bike budget

As others have mentioned it appears to be a formality rather than a road test, to make sure you're not taking advantage of the system like this chap did back in the good old days...