Recent content by spokewrench

Hi. No offence meant here, either. Just my five cents! An ISO 2936 H8 hex key is only 12.5% longer than an H6, but I can apply twice as much torque with the H8. The slightly fatter handle has a big effect. The screws for my stem, riser, and handlebar clamp are marked for maximum torque only...

In 2020 Radpower said to leave a new battery on the charger 12 hours 3 times. I didn't like that advice, and they now say balancing isn't necessary. I don't think that's exactly true. I like Battery University. They say cells should be matched for voltage and capacity, but for packs of more...

Probably most e-bike batteries lack active balancing, but if they didn't have passive balancing, their service life would be short. In passive balancing, each cell is protected by a shunt which at a certain voltage begins bypassing current. That way, if there are 13 cells in series, you can shut...

I'd see what the watt meter reads with the timer on but the charger disconnected from the battery, probably under 2.0 watts. With the battery connected, that's what the watt meter should read if the BMS has really switched off; sometimes I've seen a green light on the charger, but the wattage...

Not me... I didn't understand how it could be okay. I double checked it with my incandescent lights, which drew 13 battery amps. Clean and dry, I think the drop from post to cable terminal on each side was maybe 2 mv. With silicone grease, it was the same. When my Nissan was maybe 30 years old...

I, too, accepted it. After all, the typical resistance of silicone dielectric grease is about 3x10^16 ohms times the thickness in cm divided by the area in cm^2. How could a film be so thin that resistance wouldn't matter? Yet the electrical engineer said that at RCA they would put it on the...

That happened to me because a bike had sat too many weeks or months. I plugged a watt meter into the wall, a timer into the watt meter, and the charger into the timer. (Watt meters and timers can be under $10 these days.) The watt meter gave me an idea of how much charging was going on at the...

Come to think of it, I have a pound of Deoxit Marine Grease, made for electrical connections.

I replaced the controller on my Aventon Abound. Generally, I find e-bike connectors difficult to disconnect, and this was especially bad. Vaguely I remembered a tool. Later I remembered what it was: my hose removal pliers. Using them might require me to put some sort of hose clamp on each half...

Amazon has lots of "gas can replacement spouts" if you can get one with the right threads. Maybe they're standard. https://www.amazon.com/EZ-POUR-40051-Replacement-Spout-White/dp/B00YP3YTXM I see this one has a flame arrester. In 1957, an older friend stunned me by fetching a tin 1-gallon gas...

Until 2 years ago, I'd always ridden with hub gears or no gears. When I finally got a derailleur bike, downshifts while climbing were horribly violent. At 2500 miles I found that the chain pitch was still slightly under 0.5", like new, and I saw no wear on the rails or the cassette. I guess I'd...

The 2.5 gallon can is so many decades old that I don't remember if it was a purchase or a gift. For a few years, it tended to leak around the base of the spout. A new gasket fixed that. The 4 gallon can came from the widow next door about 10 years ago. It was old, and she didn't have the cap to...

Well... if she took custody of your bag to prevent theft, she could not in good conscience surrender it until you had demonstrated that you were the owner and not an opportunist. One Sunday afternoon I passed a billfold on the road. It was on edge, forming a V. That seemed an odd way for a...

Yesterday I switched from semi-metal back to the OE pads in front. With the right tools, it was my smoothest replacement yet. I put my collapsible stool by the front wheel, set at about 12". On a chair beside the stool I put: OE pads and spring, H5 ball-end hex key of good hard steel, spreader...

Remember these? They didn't always work for me. I bought an electric impact driver as an easy way to remove a blade under a mower up on ramps. I don't use it. My usual go-tos are a Craftsman #2 Phillips with an 8" shaft and an unlabeled Klein with a 7" shaft. I like to put a palm on the end of...