I wanted one cost effective, light weight battery charger of 13.5V 2A. I have purchased an electronic T/L ballast (40Watts) shorted connections going to T/L filament; wound thin teflon coated secondary winding from the available gap and tried to rectify the out put using fast diodes recovered from my junk PC SMPS. When I connect a small filament bulb 6V and unknown wattage it is working but not producing DC volatage..still working on the project. can any body put more light on my DIY by providing number of turns, wire gauge, etc? Since this electronic ballast can work from 80V to 270V in future I want to integrate to a solar system or a wind generator by in-putting DC instead of AC.

What you are attempting to do may be exceedingly dangerous as I believe that the output of such a ballast is NOT isolated from the mains, at least not on the ones I have in fittings in my kitchen. There is a label warning about this on mine....

This could mean that you could get full mains voltage between your 12 volts connections and ground!! Via your body!

The other problem is that if you want to charge batteries, you need about 15 volts at your charging current for it to basically work (assuming a 12 volt battery), you may find that the output voltage of the ballast is too low.....it will usually be exactly 12 volts!!

Is the output AC or DC? Have you checked it with a meter? If yes, what did you measure voltage wise!!

I do not know how much you know about battery charging, but there are some very important areas that need to be covered and fully understood, what is your knowledge level?

Yes it is high voltage present. I am an electrical engineer with lot of experience. The teflon wire I used is out of my junk box, that withstand 5000V insulation. There is a gap between spool and ferrite core through which I wound about 33 turns. AC Voltages can not be measured as it of very high frequency and most house hold digital meters can not measure. We can measure after converting to DC only. A filament bulb can lit as it is resistive. I think may be my diodes are not enough fast. (Trr may be high). It is possible to convert T/L ballast to PSU without danger if one is aware of it's working principal.

please giveup experimenting with 220 V electronic ballast to work as battery charger, as Andy has mentioned its outright Dangerous; what do you mean by "wound Teflon coated wire in gap" which gap in the ferrite core inside ?

rest assured even if your contraption turns out to be a SMPS by fluke it would not give your 12volt battery a helping hand !

write battery charger and see what google does for you.

pkd

I have made the pulser pump. (Uses water power with no moving parts) and is just over 20 years old and still pumping. I made the mechanical mathematician in late august and have high hopes for it helping people across the world to make good cheap solar cookers. And I have just put info about how to make cardboard solar cookers using a parabolic dome mould as your template on utube. I think that a dome mould is a must in refugee camps. People can use waste cardboard or other material, and kitchen foil to make good large solar cookers. I think the little cardboard pannel cookers that they use are too small, too few, too expensive and too imported. Check it out on utube. http://www.youtube.com/gaiatechnician Brian

I hope I don't sound ungratefull, but your link has:-

a) not been properly linked to allow someone to just click on it, correctly it should look like this:-

http://www.youtube.com/gaiatechnician

Then you highlight it with your mouse, then click on the small globe above with a chain (LINK), click submit and then it looks like this:-

http://www.youtube.com/gaiatechnician

simple!

b) you have not even finished the clay parabola, where is the rest?

We are interested in the complete project.....

Hi, andy, I did actually complete the clay parabola. It was 18 minutes of poor quality video. (I had to split it into 2 videos due to utube restrictions on video length) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9okRZqcx40 is part 2 I thought up the mechanical mathematician in august and got the clay reflector operational in september. Decent sunlight ends here in early october so I have since demolished the cob reflector and reused the cob as part of the wall of a shed. I also have explainations at http://www.instructables.com/id/ERKOK1WF5Y3YSRE/ (for people who do not have a fast connection for video).

Did you post video part II at all somewhere?

Hi Moose I wonder why you are interested in these stories.

I am a mechanical engineer but I was born during the second world war which meant that in South Africa goods were very limited especially toys. At an early age I was forced to make things or to fix them and this became a hobby with me. I always look around for things people throw away and then I make something from it. This has three advantages namely it gives me great pleasure to make these, it saves me money and it rids the environment from scrap.

Some of the things I have made that I am currently using are:

A motorised profile cutter using a wiper motor (oxy-acetylene steel cutting).

An hydraulic H frame press built from an I beam somebody took out somewhere.

A slotting attachment for my milling machine from some gears I found.

An engine lift from an hydraulic cylinder I found.

Styrofoam cutter I made from a discarded power supply for a cell phone.

An electric kit I built for my grandson from odds and sodds to teach him basic electricity.

I could go on with this list but I assume I have bored you enough for now.

Good luck for all the DIY'ers out there. (Necessity is the mother of invention)

Mr Niekerk you bored nobody on the contrary we are enlightened, take the trouble of publishing a few sketches and many lazy's like me would venture into making one or two of your designs

thanks

Pkd.

You haven't bored me, except with the lack of details!!!

It's good to hear from your, Mr. van Niekerk. And welcome to CR4! As others have said, you haven't bored us at all. On the contrary, you've piqued our interest.

To answer your question, I'm interested in these stories because I'd like to turn them into articles for CR4's Workbench Creations blog. The owner of that blog, frankd20, has been blogging about his own projects for almost a year now, but would like to hear from other members of the CR4 community. I would, too.

If you'd be willing to share your stories, I'd be willing to help you get them ready for "publication" on CR4. You don't need to write like Ernest Hemingway (or any other famous author) to a blogger. You just need to be able to describe a completed DIY project in 250 - 350 words, and answer a question about them. I've worked as a technical writer and an editor for a while now, so I can help polish the final text.

I'm not sure whether you've subscribed to this thread, so I'll also send my response in a private message to you. Again, thanks for contacting me.

Best,

Moose

Hi Moose,

I am willing to provide you with the write up. On some projects I have drawings and pictures.

Give me the address to send it to then I will start with one at a time.

Johan.

Thanks, Johan! I'll send you an email so that you can get my address. Look for a message from a globalspec.com account. That will be me.

Moose

Does my bath thread count ? I'm gutting the entire room. Demolition of 'bath' has been accomplished, but there is a whole load of other stuff to do. I've removed the old heating system and installed a new gas boiler etc, but there is still a ways to go. Luckily I have a second base and can pace myself on this project, but it is a bit of a nightmare. Simple stuff like fixing a new wash-basin to the wall just isn't that simple - the wall is 'lath and plaster' so I've had to fit some cross bracing to affix the thing. Just fitting the taps and waste outlets to bath and sink seems to have taken forever. Next I have to fix both items in place, check functionality and then tile around them. The plaster work in the room is rubbish and so needsd attention as well. After, I will be installing a shower. It seems to go on forever. If I had Hemingway's gun I'd probably have put it to my own head by now for not having simply paid a builder. It seemed like a good idea at the time starting this project. It will be a miracle if I can get this all done by X-mas.

Thanks, Kris. Glad you don't have Hemingway's gun close at hand. And to paraphrase an American politician who will remain nameless, "I feel your pain". I just finished remodeling my kitchen, a project that started in September when the weather was 95 degrees and ended in December when there's over a foot of snow on the ground.

To answer your question, your project sounds like it would make a good blog entry. Have you described this elsewhere on CR4, or is this the first we've heard of it? In any case, we'll want to "beef up" your story to about 250 - 350 words. Would you be willing to spend some time telling your tale for CR4's Workbench Creations blog?

Thanks moose . It got started as a slightly tongue in cheek story . A simple tale about how to remove a cast Iron bath. http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/13355#newcomments but ventured a bit further. The whole saga is however genuine and will progress in time to what what we euphemistically call 'the smallest room' in the UK . It's part of an overall house renovation project. Now that the destructive part of the project is done, and I have heating back in the house, I'm going to relax a little over X-mas. However the project continues, and I'll try to link further developments up with you here. Doing a house renovation while living in the thing is not the easiest of things to do, but it does make life interesting . As said, I have a second abode, so things are not too catastrophic, but it does give me lots of room to play. The only pain is trying to keep dust off my computer here !

I look forward to your updates, Kris, and couldn't agree with you more - renovating a house that you also need to live in can be trying. When all is said is done (and there's no more dust on your computer), would you consider writing a blog entry for "Workbench Creations"? You could probably piece some it together from your past entries.

I'd be happy to write up some sort of sensible entry for a blog (post X-mas) but am not sure about the mechanics of doing so, having never run a 'blog' as such. Do you mean a detailed post that I can submit somewhere appropriate within CR4. I'd be happy to do so ( the 'bath' thread is a bit long now for anyone to newly delve into, and several people have asked if we can 'start over' so that it's more easily navigable) and answer questions if I miss anything out. Let me know in a little more detail what I need to do. There may be some useful lessons I've learned that others would like to hear about, and I'd keep it serious (for once in my life !). I'll begin assembling a description of the project over the next week or two. Hopefully I can have something ready to submit in early January.

Hi Kris,

Yes, a "detailed post that I can submit somewhere appropriate within CR4" is exactly what we're looking for. And that "somewhere" would be the Workbench Creations blog that frankd20 has started. In terms of mechanics, my suggestion is to use Microsoft Word (or some other such software) to write a 250 - 350 word description of your project. Follow a narrative format that uses the first-person, and don't be afraid to inject some humor where it's appropriate. If you'd like to see some examples of what other have written, just click the link I've inserted above to go to the Workbench Creations blog.

When you've finished writing your blog entry, there are two ways to proceed: 1) you can send me the document and I'll post it for you in the Workbench Creations blog, or 2) I'll give you access to that blog and let you post it yourself.

Does this answer all of your questions? If not, just send me a message within CR4 or reply right here.

Best,

Moose

Many thanks Moose, it's a spot-on answer. My only trouble will be restricting the length. My project was/is an entire bathroom/heating system, but if I restrict it to changing the bath tub for now that should do. I'll check out the link and post direct, as soon as the holiday period allows. Perhaps I can add other elements of my own home DIY projects 'as and when' (eg dealing with lathe and wattle wall fixings etc).Thanks again, and have a great Christmas.

Kris

Sounds good, Kris. We'll start with your changing of the bathtub then. And if you find that you enjoy blogging, submissions about those other projects would also be welcome! There's plenty of room in Workbench Creations for this type of stuff.

Merry Christmas to your and yours, too.

Best,

Moose

I am rebuilding my kitchen and due to it being an old house (timber frame) I am rebuilding new inside walls using 18mm OSB boards, OSB being a modern version of chipboard, but stiffer and better in all ways.....

I did it 21 years ago with Chipboard, but decided to redo it, even though the old walls were still in relatively good form.....I have also raised the floor to match all other floors using OSB. Its my favourite building amterial. If you want a picture of how it looks (compressed shavings) then I will post one.

You can gle them using conventional wood glue and I join two boards to make them long enough to go from floor to ceiling....let is set 2 days and then it is really hard and its just like having one long board!!

You can hide all plumbing and electrical work behind it and hand any weight you like on it provided you have a few good fixings for it it at the top, bottom and middle..it sits on the floor of course for its main support!!

I have built several "Built in" cupboards with it in my lounge and my Daughters bedroom....I can post pix of these to if you wish.....

Thanks, Andy. When the project is complete, would you be willing to describe your work in a blog entry for "Workbench Creations"?

Do you not think it is a bit too boring? I am willing though!!!

Regards,

Andy

Hi Andy,

I don't think it's boring at all. Most houses I've ever lived in have their own peculiarities - stuff that leaves you wondering " why was it built like that". Also I've seen odd situations left by previous occupiers - wiring that has been run through all sorts of weird places etc. It sounds like a good blog. Minor details that we all know can be skimmed over, but the overall project plan could be good to hear especially those unexpected surprises that are often found when embarking on a bit of DIY.

As a 'for instance' my loft has close spaced joists (about a foot I think), and an access hatch to match. Of course insulation 'wool' is wider than that...... more on that one at a later date perhaps, but hopefully you see my point. What seems not to big a deal to you or I may be of use to others.

Glad to hear you're interested in moose's idea for a blog here too.

Thanks, Andy! To improve this story's visibility, could I move it to the "Workbench Creations" blog? - Moose

Of course, no problem....

Fantastic! I'll cobble it together from your various posts and then mail you the text I'd like to use. Pending your approval, we'll run the story in January.

I'll add more comment when moose has shuffled the post, but meantime excellent story Andy ! 10/10

Thanks.

Hi Kris,

With Andy's permission, I've moved his longer entry (the one with pictures) to the Workbench Creations blog. It will run on 01/02/08 as our first such entry of the new year!

Moose

Thanks for the update moose. Andy's post was excellent, and I look forward to contributing something in the New Year. Fantastic blog idea and I will be following. I'll follow up on this when we all have more time in the new year/post X-mas. Some posts/threads etc deserve a bit of consideration/thought and this is one of them. Nice one !

All that dust is maddening isn't it ! A lot of the plaster I've got has horse hair mixed into it, which would probably make it worse for anyone with allergies. One day I'll have to tear down the kitchen ceiling, and I'm not looking forward to it.

Oops! I meant to get this to you quicker, this is what I have used and recommend highly:

http://asafetysupply.com/detail.aspx?ID=1428 breathe easier get more done. The battery belt pack I use is only 8 hours but you can get for 12 hours if you have the energy. Nothing better than fresh HEPA filtered air blowing in your face (:

When I was a kid I made a double barrel slingshot from my sister's bra.

After graduated from primary school, I made a chinese noodle by myself for my family.

wondeful, its very good to eat.

my project never failed i have atleast 22 year experience,man ok my project never failed.i have full believed on me ok

How about a pedal powered 3 wheeler (2 in front, 1 in rear) made from an old 10 foot dish antenna and some bicycle parts? It does have a 2 cycle trolling motor as a helper. When the snow melts I can get some pictures of it to send. The fabric covered shed it's in is somewhat collapsed under the weight of snow (quite a bit more this year than last).

The clay parabola interests me. I have had some experience making fiberglass parabolas. We stretched latex over the lip of a 55 gallon drum. We filled the top with glass and it sagged into the barrel in a very convincing parabola. This is an idea I found somewhere on the internet and really wish I could remember where so as to thank the clever person who first considered it.

In respect to the success of this experiment... well, fiberglass can be messy stuff and a great deal of material was wasted. However, in the end we did come up with something useful. I am sorry to say we took no photographs during this adventure.

Perhaps this will be of interest to the gentleman working in clay.

The Parabolic Solar Collector thread has dwindled away a bit, but here's something I found that is stunning in its ingenuity and ease of realisation:

http://www.amasci.com/amateur/mirror.html

The use of silicone-mastic 'hinges' for the individual mirror-elements, the fine-adjustment on a grid nearer than the focal point - just brilliant!

Haven't made one yet; will wait for spring, perhaps, but this is a kitchen-table project...

Shine On!

The use of the 'post-it' notes for culmination was inspired. That is the kind of fiddly little detail that would drive me nuts. Very well thought out concept and the explanation was written in a straight forward easy to follow way. This looks very promising.

However, if I remember the threads beginnings (and forgive me for being too lazy to look) there was some mention of building these in third world locations where I can only wonder if items like these would available. Not having traveled these regions extensively I would leave that thinking to the originator of the thread.

This is very interesting and though I had no plans for a project like this I can't help but confesses some blossoming interest. Keep me posted and I will do the same regarding anything I might fool around with.

I recently visited New Zealand (Hastings is a very sunny place) and made a model to demonstrate how the tracking solar accumulating barbecue might work. The model changed the design of the reflector a bit. I hope to make one end of march. I found it useful to attach the reflector to a semicircular "fin" that cuts THROUGH the dish. The fin can have lines on it to define the focus and show exactly where to aim it to be directly at the sun. Very useful indeed to have the fin on it! (because it is not the centre of a parabolic dish, rather a dish cut out of the side of a normal dish. (So guessing where it is pointing is really guessing) Anyways, the plan now is to make a clay dish and use this as the mould for a sheet metal or cardboard dish. I think 4 ft by 4 ft in size will be big enough. Still havn't found something cheap to turn the reflector at 15 degrees per hour. I uploaded a suggestion to solar cookers international as regards tracking and they have it on their site now. (15 degrees per hour on equatorial mount tracks the sun and if the focus is on the axis, you got a fixed focal point all day) Which is very useful indeed. Anyways, I took video of my crappy model and as soon as I am over jet lag, I hope to put it online. (To get concepts across, the model does not need to be perfect, right?) A couple of the New Zealanders are interested and might make a barbecue soon. They certainly have the perfect weather for it. Brian

Seems to me you might make use of an old telescopes equatorial mount for the gearing on your barby. Just a thought. So you will hammer sheet metal over the clay mold to make the dish? Perhaps I've misunderstood.

I've been amazed by what I've seen done with cardboard or paper to be less specific. While in East Germany I was stunned to see motor vehicles made from paper mache (spelling). No, they weren't holding out too well, but then steel rusted so why would dissolving be any bigger a deal. But all joking aside it is true, treated paper products were used for automobile bodies on the other side of the iron curtain.

It will be thin sheet metal, and it gets cut radially so it fits together (overlaps) like flower petals and just fits. That way, you do not need to be super accurate with cuts. (I hope). Then, tape it together, and stick the alu foil to it. Thats the theory. I might use cardboard or sheet plastic or wall board. With the stiffer materials, probably you lay it down in the mould, and mark where the cuts overlap and then cut out the overlapped bits, then tape it together. Sounds tedius BUT the alternative is to solve the math for an off the centre piece of parabolic dish. Anyways, i am jet lagged still. Bye Brian

The latest on the clay or cob parabola. First a confession, I am more concerned with getting stuff done than doing a perfect job. I am much more concerned with getting the ideas and concepts out into the world than i am with stylish production. Others can make a great tracking solar barbecue to my formula and I would welcome it! Anyways I recently made a clay mould, (using a "mechanical mathematician" again) to do the curve, about 4 ft by 4 ft, dropped an old corugated plastic sign onto it, cut lines in the plastic about 6 inches apart, pushed it down to fit the mould, and then cut the "underlaps" away.. Then I taped it together using masking tape and glued kitchen foil to it using ordinary white office glue. I put struts on it to hold its form, a wooden attachement to put it on equatorial mount (and to both point at the sun and at the focus) and then I took it out of the mould and tested it in the sun. It was a pasable parabola mirror with the focus right where it was predicted to be. (I didn't attach the foil very well (crinkley) so it wasn't great). It definitely worked though. Hurah. Next I mounted it on a gerry built equatorial mount in my backyard. (You just point the axis at your latitude angle exactly towards the north pole (not the magnetic north). Southern hemisphere it is towards the south. So, I had a theory that a Clock could do the tracking for me and the webmaster of solarcooking dot org made up a tracking wiki page and put my and other peoples low tech trackers on it. Check it out! Anyways, when push came to shove I couldn't find the right clock to make my super duper low tech tracker. So I was stuck! Last year I tried to let the water drip out of a coke bottle to make a timer but as the water drips, the level gets lower and the drip slows. It HAS to be linear and steady to make it work. So I came up with a 2 bucket dripper tracker. It has a little cistern with a valve before the dripper . Now the water level above the dripper is constant so the speed of the drip is constant all day! I have the top bucket about a ft above the bottom bucket. This allows me to fine tune the drip speed by raising or lowering the roughly tuned drip to get it to the exact right speed. Higher slows it, lower speeds it up. Hurah no. 2! I havn't checked reliability or accuracy too much yet. It is the crappiest april ever and the sun hardly comes out at all. But for sure I can get 7 8 or 9 hours of tracking out of the dripper tracker with ease! Hurah no 3! is damping. The wind is a big problem with dishes. I think trackers have to overbuild motors and gearings so that the wind does not do big damage to delicate machinery. I weighed my floats (Just another slightly smaller bucket half or 3/4 full of water) floating in the water in the tracker bucket. My floats are 5 or 6 kg each (no bigger or there is no room for water to drip through the tracker!) so these act as the damping mechanism as well as counterweights to keep the dish steady on windy days. So far, they have worked great. Please anyone in the tracking industry concider the 2 bucket idea for damping with your fancy photodiodes too. You can have high spec large diameter pipes with flat bottoms instead of buckets of course! The 2 types of trackers are on http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Tracking http://solarcooking.org/ has a link to one of my crappy video's at http://solarcooking.org/ in recent news and all my videos are at http://www.youtube.com/user/gaiatechnician Probably only the recent ones are relevent. Comments would be great, but please concentrate on content NOT dilivery of the message.

That sounds really cool ! I can't see in my head what your bucket arrangement is - how does raising a bucket increase the speed of drips ? I know that a lot of water-clocks rely upon graduations in a fill bucket, but have vague recollections of seeing ones that don't; clever syphon arrangement etc, and the type of thing designed by Hero of Alexander. A passing thought - can a wick be arranged in such a way as to give a constant drip-rate ? Also, what's wrong with mechanical clocks, is it just an aesthetic thing ?

There is a diagram at http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Tracking (first diagram there) and you do not raise the bucket, rather, you move up or down the drip valve to fine tune the speed. Please check the diagram out. And also check the other one out too (currently the 3rd diagram. That one is NOT a water clock and is fundimentally simpler. It has the potential to be really accurate (and cheap) and could be controlled with a stepper motor or whatever. The same type of 2 bucket arangement could be used with it for damping (The exit of the pipe could feed into the second bucket) except that bucket size does not need to be linked to the radius of the wheels. I strongly believe that both systems could have first and 3rd world applications immediately. Alone, I can never get the message out, there is no hope. But if some of you have a bit of spare time, you can build your version and do some simple tests and publicize them and basically help make the world a better place. Even for simple box cookers, this would make a difference, for large parabolic cookers the difference this could make is HUGE! Brian in cloudy Victoria.

This isn't too exciting, but perhaps will be good info for someone. I build a number of different "gadgets" here. From time to time I solve a problem or two. But it seems as though I spend a large percentage of my time building power supplies.

Anyhow... one day after getting done ordering a basal of power supply parts I noted my neighbors VCR on the tree belt. On quick inspection it became obvious that everything I needed was in fact right there in the trash. Not wanting to wait, and intrigued by the possibilities I dug in.

Indeed I built a very useful power supply and even cut up the VCRs case to make a nice case for the finished project. Since then I've built a number of these and they all work like champs. And I've also gained a smattering of VCR knowledge along the way. One important fact for anyone considering this: VCR power supplies don't seem to fail all that often. After retrieving dozens of VCRs I have yet to find a bad supply.

This isn't too exciting, but perhaps will be good info for someone.

On the contrary! I think there are many CR4ers who would be interested in your projects. Would you be willing to describe some of them for CR4's Workbench Creations blog? If so, send a message to Moose (me) or frankd20 (the blog's owner). We'd love to hear from you.

Sure, I'll send along a text file and few jpgs sometime this weekend.

A couple of heating things that I have found out and tested to be good (personally) that might interest others to do with central heating.

1) Never have a heating system of less than 28KW if you want to have a shower with floods of hot water and quick effective house warming, no matter what your plumber tells you! With 28KW or more (bigger here is better!), you can heat water almost instantly and do not need to store it, which is a very wasteful method indeed. The shower will be good and you will not have to jump around to get wet. The electric showers in most British homes are just simply appalling!!!!!

2) Size radiators for a room at approximately 4 times larger (double thickness or better) than the plumber calculates. You can warm up a room quicker, the temperature stays stable longer and you can run a lower boiler temperature, good for your pocket book and the environment.

3) Always run thicker copper tubing than you may think you need to supply the rads around the house, too big is not a problem, but too small is.

4) Always insulate all pipes even for cold water (in a bad winter with a defective heating system, you will thank me!).

The hot pipes should be really well insulated so as not to lose heat on the way in places that are not useful to you!!

5) Always install a valve at the bottom of every rad, so you can remove the rad for decorating without draining the system. Have an air bleeder and water valve on each rad so that you can let air or water out (air in) when decorating, after the thermostat and the shut off valve are closed....

6) Remote radio operated thermostats are a Godsend.....you will never regret buying them.....and they are individually programmable, so you only heat when required!!! A good money saver, but they also have an "Off" temperature to make sure that the room does not cool down excessively.....

Hi Moose,

A couple of things that might be of interest.

Moved a "school room set" that is 21m long and 10m wide around 15km and modified it into a house. Took 7 hours from start of dismantle to roof back on in the new location. (Then 1 year to modify the interior.)

We have a small treb that I've been talking to DTC about. Some pictures should be coming to you soon. The prototype can launch a house brick around 50 feet. Yet to load and run the real thing!!

I hope you won't be using the trebuchet for house moves ! You're building move sounds interesting, did you get any pictures in progress ? The conversion I'd like to hear about is one of those shipping container ones.

Not sure if this qualifies or not;

A few years ago I purchased a Land Rover Defender 90 from an auction of ex-mod vehicles, and being a military vehicle it had NO comfort items of any kind. Once delivered I stripped it down to the point no two parts touched an started a re-build.

I replaced the original engine with a more modern turbo diesel, changed the suspension, added a rear axel from a Land Rover Discovery so I get 4-wheel disc brakes.

Essentially I have replaced/upgraded everything only reusing the body shell and chassis, I am considering changing that for a different wheel base as well.

This project was initially completed in 3 months, but I have made numerous revisions since and I am planning more for this season.

Seems I have created a bit of a monster, but a great expedition vehicle that has provided hours of fun and capable of getting me to where ever I want to go. The plan this year is to have her as a feature vehicle in the SEMA show, because I can really, no other reason. Some of the details of this years build will be on www.difflock.com in the e-magazine. I sort of write for them.

more details? just ask glad to post more.

Hi Dances with Trees,

CR4 has a new forum specifically for all the auto fans here ; http://cr4.globalspec.com/forum/automotive

You might be interested in checking it out.

Thanks you very much I will check it out.

Oh, it qualifies! I've sent you a message, Dances with Trees. We'd love to have you describe this in more detail for CR4's Automotive blog. Sounds like great stuff.

Sounds like fun, I have been modifying various automotive products since I was old enough to pick up a wrench.

I also have a 55 Chevy pickup that is going to be a mean street rod, saving money for a diesel motor for it, projected 800 Hp/1000Lbft torgue, she will be sitting on air bag suspension so I can have her sit on the ground when parked.

i also have plans to build a completely green RV, 45 foot Class 'A' industrial luxury, capable of off road adventure seeking. When I say green the whole project has to be ONLY from recycled materials, trash to treasure approach. again, awaiting funding, my wife seems not to have a sense of humor about my automotive spending.

My third project on the books is a ground up hot rod build, again diesel, this one I am designing/making almost everything outside of the main drive line components. i will have to recycle a engine, transmission, and wheels, brakes hubs. I just don't have the machinery required to make my own, or the time, some things just are not worth the bother. It would be a fun exercise though.

I made this..

Hi, JE,

Don't know what you've got on your screen, but I've got this:

Itching to know what it really looks like!

_{[Edit - sorry, folks, meant to mark it OT to save screen space, but forgot. Please feel free to mark me down.]}

All I got was a Blue square, did you make some sky?

what the??

Here.. if you really want to know.. google this...

"puppet bike"

To protect the innocent, I used a bit of artistic license;

It looks like fun !

It's a lot of fun... It's green, and it keeps a few friends of mine gainfully employed. What more could you want!

I also made this...

Thousands of contractors use these every day.

JE, You seem to be well practiced in the fine art of producing little red crosses! Unfortunately, I don't think these will save the planet! It may have an adverse effect on the teachers among us but for me, it is a red cross! Please can you enlighten us as to how a red cross can be of benefit! Apart from that, I do like the little black box that surrounds it!

Do they really!!!

I am surprised and what do they do with a blue square of color????

I am dying to know!!

Jet Rack™ Step Ladder Storage System

Did it work this time???

Result!

Nice one.

I like that!

Cool !

Really good, thanks for the "repair"!!

You did good!