Show Us a Tool

[PedalUma]

@PCeBiker,
I purchased a box of Crayola oil pastels for this purpose. Folding tires are the worst at wobble. I spin them and mark left and right for high spots, make adjustments, then use another color to track progress. It takes at least three tries and makes a world of difference. Then I use solvent to remove the marks. I just installed folding WTB Riddelers tonight on a beautiful IGH bike. Years ago industry folks thought I was nuts to true tires. The improvement is huge. This starter bike cost me $100. I put a lot into it and it is selling at the same price as a new eBike with a powerful torque sensor mid-drive. It is all about the basket with flowers.

 

[PedalUma]

Re_purpose old tire tubes as work place rubber bands.
Great for keeping bolts, washers, bushings and spacers stacked in order on a disassembly or for adding temporary physical protection.

View attachment 182895


View attachment 182896

I use old tubes as tiedowns. I slice them long ways at about 15mm. On many you can go around twice for length. Then I give them away to customers who need to carry their boxes of goodies, owner's manuals, chargers... They are so easy to tie securely. For big items use an X to self stabilize the tiedown. My favorite tools these days are torque wrenches. Everything gets torqued to spec. Pedals get 90nm.

What happens when you slice a Mobius long ways? Try it. Ever make a Mobius toilet seat cover and put it back into the dispenser?

 

[PCeBiker]

@PCeBiker,
I purchased a box of Crayola oil pastels for this purpose.

I remember you mentioned that before, so I bought a set of pastels.
My 30 yr old grease pencil was wearing down to a nub, and I only had one color,..

The grease pencil was hard to hold steady, and the tread kept taking huge chunks outta the pencil.

By the time the pastels arrived, I didn't need them anymore because my tire was finally seated properly.

Then I use solvent to remove the marks.

I just left them on the tire and rim.
I'll probably need them again and I never take notes and I forget to take pictures.
This way, I don't have to start over from scratch when I do it again.

Years ago industry folks thought I was nuts to true tires.

I don't care if it's crazy .
A properly trued AND balanced tire can only be a good thing.
Even if you add weight to accomplish it.

Years ago medical folks thought I was nuts.
It turned out to be true.

The improvement is huge.

40 years later and I haven't improved at all.

This starter bike cost me $100.

My last car cost me $6,300 used and lasted 13 years, doing all my own work on it, until I quit driving.
I was driving less than 500 miles a year. I didn't enjoy driving anymore and only drove to go shopping.

Then I bought my first ebike for $2,800 that arrived in November 2022.

Since then, I bought a second e-bike and TONS of parts, pieces, tools, specialty lubes, accessories and clothing for my new hobby.
I even bought a sextant when I was wasted thinking that I could use it to navigate, day or night, using the Sun, the North Star and my compass, if I got lost.

I've spent over $8,500 in the past two years on everything e-bike related.

It's been a fun ride. I bought lots of good stuff, and cool stuff, a lot of cheap crap too, but I learned TONS of new stuff !!

I put a lot into it and it is selling at the same price as a new eBike

I put a lot of money into ebikes that now sell for half the price.
Mine are worth ten cents on the dollar.
Free to a good home maybe?

with a powerful torque sensor mid-drive. It is all about the basket with flowers.

I don't do torque, or cadence, or pedal.

I just lock my throttle and cruise happily along riding no-hands at 20 mph.

 

[fooferdoggie]

stripping wires is always fun. was going to get a Klien one but I don't do it that often so I tried this guy. a whole 8.00 on Amazon and works great.

Amazon.com

 

[DaveMatthews]

stripping wires is always fun. was going to get a Klien one but I don't do it that often so I tried this guy. a whole 8.00 on Amazon and works great.

Amazon.com

View attachment 186497

 

[rob feature]

Started carrying this around a few weeks ago & am kicking myself for not doing it earlier. Sometimes you need to move a few electrons around while you're out & this is way easier than dragging out the charging cable, charger, unraveling the velcro, plugging it all in to see if the outlet works. It's super quick, super cheap, & hardly there. And it'll tell you if an outlet is miswired before you plug in and maybe get a surprise. Some of the outdoor outlets I find around here are kinda suspect.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

Started carrying this around a few weeks ago & am kicking myself for not doing it earlier. Sometimes you need to move a few electrons around while you're out & this is way easier than dragging out the charging cable, charger, unraveling the velcro, plugging it all in to see if the outlet works. It's super quick, super cheap, & hardly there. And it'll tell you if an outlet is miswired before you plug in and maybe get a surprise. Some of the outdoor outlets I find around here are kinda suspect.

View attachment 187761

I have the EXACT one. They are very handy.

 

[PCeBiker]

Started carrying this around a few weeks ago

I have the EXACT one. They are very handy.

We all made one of those in electronics class in 1981.
We made our own circuit boards with neon bulbs that they still use today in extension cords. (They're really durable a never burn out)

Then after we got our project together and tested, the teacher set up each one in a baby food jar and filled it with acrylic resin (Bondo for car repairs) and let it harden.
When it was hardened, the teacher smashed the baby food jar to release the tester from the mold.

There was no GFCI circuits in those days so ours didn't have that functionality.

Interestingly, there is no indicator for reversing ground and neutral, because they are actually the same.
The neutral wire is grounded at the Hydro pole, and the ground in your house uses copper pipes or a special heavy grounding wire to get to earth ground somewhere.

So if your outlet has ground and neutral reversed, all the power coming in on "Line" goes to the ground wire instead of neutral wire.

Your GFCI button might detect the swap?
It should know that that power is trying to go down the neutral wire instead of the ground wire?

 

[spokewrench]

I prefer non-contact AC detectors these days. You switch off the breaker and climb an aluminum ladder to replace a light fixture outdoors. If you then depend on a multimeter to be sure you turned off the right breaker, and there's a break in the neutral path or the meter is set to DC, you won't know there's voltage until current surges through you.

NCV just has to be near a live wire to light up. The little one can be removed from my shirt pocket, turned on, and used with one hand. It'll work on low-voltage AC, too. At an outlet, it will show the hot side and a lesser voltage at the neutral side. If the return path were open, I'd see a higher voltage than usual.

When the multimeter shows voltage, I can switch it to Live Ware. Then, either probe will tell me exactly which conductors are hot. Each time I bet my life on either detector, I first use a live circuit to be sure the detector is working.

 

[6zfshdb]

I use a different version of that gauge for the same reason.

Amazon.com

It also allows you to trace both energized and non energized conductors.

 

[Gionnirocket]

You boyscouts are prepared for everything!
Admittedly I almost never charge on the road or carry a charger.
But if and when I do... I think just plugging in the charger and checking the running light would suffice.
I don't think I'll be tracing circuits or confirming correct wiring at the Starbucks or gas station anytime soon.
Then there's the fact that none of my 4 chargers have a ground connection nor have a polarized plug!

 

[Kayakguy]

You boyscouts are prepared for everything!
Admittedly I almost never charge on the road or carry a charger.
But if and when I do... I think just plugging in the charger and checking the running light would suffice.
I don't think I'll be tracing circuits or confirming correct wiring at the Starbucks or gas station anytime soon.
Then there's the fact that none of my 4 chargers have a ground connection nor have a polarized plug!

Some stuff, like an electric light bulb, doesn't care whether hot and ground are reversed. But many plugs nowadays have a wide contact blade and a narrow one. The wide one is the neutral side (unless I've got that backwards). So you don't need a separate ground, as the neutral also serves as ground (as mentioned above). For those of us brought up on old automobiles, getting a solid ground with 12 volts or 6 volts can be problematic. The really old cars were 6 volt systems.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Some stuff, like an electric light bulb, doesn't care whether hot and ground are reversed. But many plugs nowadays have a wide contact blade and a narrow one. The wide one is the neutral side (unless I've got that backwards). So you don't need a separate ground, as the neutral also serves as ground (as mentioned above). For those of us brought up on old automobiles, getting a solid ground with 12 volts or 6 volts can be problematic. The really old cars were 6 volt systems.

Yes I'm aware of all this.
But no... The ground and neutral serve two totally different purposes and are not interchangeable. If there is no ground it is because the casing is either plastic (insulated) or if metal, double insulated internally.
But like I said... all of my chargers (and many transformer of which a charger is a type of) do not have a polarized plug. Meaning no wide blade. Meaning it doesn't matter how it's plugged in.

 

[spokewrench]

I use a different version of that gauge for the same reason.


It also allows you to trace both energized and non energized conductors.

I'll bet the tracer I bought 3 years ago isn't as good as yours. What they advertised as a sensitivity control is just a volume control. However, I can reduce the sensitivity by moving my hand toward the tip.

I wanted to find the electrical path to the fuel pump in a 1984 Nissan with fuel pressure trouble. I failed but that wasn't the problem anyway. The fuel rail was an oval. The inlet and return were on the low side. The injectors were on the high side, maybe 3 inches higher. The car worked fine for 33 years, when I frequently climbed a 10% grade a mile long. The trouble started when I quit taking it out of town.

A neighbor's mother also had a 1984 Nissan that she drove only to and from work, a mile away. It, too, ran badly. He said the lack of hard running had clogged the catalytic converter. Instead, I think our problems were the same. The fuel pump was bound to pick up some air bubbles from sloshing. The stupid design meant the only way to suck the air out of the rail was to run the engine wide open. Otherwise the injectors would give the cylinders shots of air, which doesn't ignite as well as gasoline. Modifying the rail would have entailed the risk of a gallon-a minute engine fire, and I didn't have a fireproof racing suit.

 

[spokewrench]

For those of us brought up on old automobiles, getting a solid ground with 12 volts or 6 volts can be problematic. The really old cars were 6 volt systems.

I would measure millivolts across ground connections while they carried current. Twenty years ago, neighbors had a Firebird whose battery was sometimes dead in the morning. It baffled an automotive electrical shop. Me too. One day as I walked past the post office, their car wouldn't start. This time, the headlights were bright. They didn't dim when they turned the key. I reached down along the fat red cable and felt movement at the solenoid. The car started right up.

The connection must have been loose a long time, and this was the first time that heat from the starter current hadn't made it work. I had checked grounds because I knew a little resistance in the charging circuit could cause the regulator not to charge. It was news to me that the solenoid connection could be part of the charging circuit.

 

[PCeBiker]

Some stuff, like an electric light bulb, doesn't care whether hot and ground are reversed.

It's not hot and ground that get oriented with a Polarized plug, it's line and neutral.

That Does matter when you're screwing in a light bulb,..

If the light socket is wired incorrectly, and your finger touches the metal base while you're screwing in the bulb (with the light switch turned on) you'll get a shock.

The bulbs outer base is supposed to be neutral with line being inside the socket where your fingers won't touch it.

My mother had a sewing machine in the 50's with a non-polarized plug.
There was a metal lever hanging down that you pressed your leg against to turn it on and speed it up, and she kept getting a shock when she touched it.

She told her brother who simply flipped the plug in the outlet and that fixed it.

I had an electric drill in the 70's that was advertised as "Double Insulated". (same idea as @Gionnirocket 's chargers)
It had a plastic shell and a regular two prong non-polarized plug.

Both line and neutral were insulated from the user, so you didn't need the heavy 3-prong grounded plug.

 

[PCeBiker]

,.. their car wouldn't start. This time, I reached down along the fat red cable and felt movement at the solenoid. The car started right up.

A freinds car wouldn't start about 25 years ago. He'd turn the key but there was no click from the solenoid, so I grabbed a rock and smacked the starter motor, and that released the sticky solenoid.

Same thing with a friends outboard motor. It would never start easily but would restart every time after it was warm.

You can just hold the key at the start position to run current through the solenoid to warm things up but that drains the battery, and not all outboard motors have alternators.

 

[spokewrench]

A freinds car wouldn't start about 25 years ago. He'd turn the key but there was no click from the solenoid, so I grabbed a rock and smacked the starter motor, and that released the sticky solenoid.

In this case, the solenoid clicked but the headlights stayed bright, so I knew it was the solenoid connection or the solenoid contacts. What I hadn't realized was that on that car, the output of the alternator went not to the battery but to that loose terminal, so on some days when they drove, the electrical system was running off the battery, and the next morning the battery might not be able to crank the engine.

My car wouldn't have had that problem. I took an analogue milliamp gauge, a zener diode, resistors, and cigarette lighter plug to make a console gauge that would swing 90 degrees between 11 and 15 volts. Before I cranked the engine, it showed me the battery's state of charge. As soon as I started the engine, it showed what charging voltage the battery saw.

 

[PCeBiker]

,.. I took an analogue milliamp gauge, a zener diode, resistors, and cigarette lighter plug to make a console gauge that would swing 90 degrees between 11 and 15 volts.

That's pretty cool.

I did something similar and measured the voltage across the battery terminals before and during cranking to check the condition of the battery.

If the battery fell below ~10 volts while cranking, the battery was pretty much shot.

 

[6zfshdb]

Tire inflator adapter

Amazon.com

Converts any Schrader tire inflator from a thread on to a lock on chuck.
The short hose is very flexible and makes it easy to get into tight spaces.