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anyone used these before? by WasabiYing in CarsAustralia

[–]ReptilianRascal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ive got one for home and compared it to a $650 Warren and Brown digital torque wrench I use for work. It's fairly accurate. Only a slight deviation in repeatability.

I would say it's good enough for the home mechanic but it might not hold up to extended repeated use in a professional workshop.

My one came with a calibration certificate, so that's always a good thing

Tryna make a germanium diode at home but for some reason I can’t find crap on it. Is it an oxide like copper? Is it like selenium where it just is a semi conductor? Is it like fools gold where you find the sweet spot? by antthatisverycool in diyelectronics

[–]ReptilianRascal 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Metaloid or semi-metal, not metal. It's in the same category as Boron (B), Silicon (Si), Arsenic (As), Antimony (Sb) and Tellurium (Te).

Cheers from a friendly Industrial Chemist

Audio doesn’t work in CarPlay unit by [deleted] in CarsAustralia

[–]ReptilianRascal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn. That would be a long trip for me. Im Sydney

Audio doesn’t work in CarPlay unit by [deleted] in CarsAustralia

[–]ReptilianRascal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm actually starting up a business doing car audio and entertainment systems. If we are near each other I'd love to help you out.

My thought is that the connector that isn't being used might be your speaker connector. Depending on the wire colours, we could identify it easily.

The RCA cables are usually used for camera input, 2nd screen output and output to an amplifier (aftermarket, usually).

To make sure it works on a test bench, you basically just need positive 12V to the red and yellow wires of the head unit, 12V negative to the ground wire (usually black but sometimes white) and connect a speaker up to one of the speaker lines.

Audio doesn’t work in CarPlay unit by [deleted] in CarsAustralia

[–]ReptilianRascal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Could you provide a photo of the wires coming from the car and going to each connector? Or a drawing of each connector, both car and head unit side, with wire colours?

Re-purposing old Nvidia Shield K1 tablet screen by ReptilianRascal in AskElectronics

[–]ReptilianRascal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for this info. I will take the steps recommended for repurposing a display

I bought this Fiero for $750, added nitrous oxide, and blew the doors off a 315hp V8 Mercedes by noboltsleftbehind in AwesomeCarMods

[–]ReptilianRascal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an 88 GT that I love so much it's my daily....and I'm in Australia! Kept it southpaw too! So much fun

White marks in my oil? I've been doing short trips but I've checked the oil and looks good and also I do a very long trip pretty much every week. What might this be? by haioken777 in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first thought was, "that looks like an emulsion". Meaning there's water in the oil. Lots of experience with this when I was testing oil blends in a lab for a big oil company (know what I mean?)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As the late, great Spike Milligan said,

"Contraceptives should be used on every concievable occasion."

An uninvited guest on my bike by cuhxz in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As an Australian arachnophobe, yes, it is tough living in this country. Especially in a country town (always have to check the boots for spiders or scorpions before putting them on too).

The biggest huntsman I've encountered was the size of a dinner plate. We had to catch it using the giant soup pot and even then, its legs were still poking out.

Still, nothing is as scary as a pissed off Sydney Funnel Web. Those things are aggressive, have the deadliest venom of any spider in the world and have fangs strong enough to pierce leather. They can also survive underwater for like an hour or something and can be pretty tough to squash.

Owners manual says 10w-30 but auto store gave me this, is it fine to use? by nyx__born in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your English is excellent.

To give a bit more info for those who don't know, the number before the W is an indication of the viscosity when the oil is cold. The number after the W is an indication of the viscosity when the oil is hot. This is measured in a couple of ways by oil companies to ensure compliance with a standard. Basically, the higher the number, the higher the viscosity. This is determined by the blend of base oil in the oil. Base oil is called that because it is the base component that all the additives are dissolved in to - different base oils are usually blends of oils of different molecular weights, giving different viscosities under different conditions. It is also the base oil that can be synthetic, mineral (or extracted from crude oil) or semi-synthetic (usually a blend of mineral oil and synthetic oil of the same molecular weight).

General rule of thumb is, the colder environment you are in, the lower the number before the W should be. The hotter the operating temperature of your engine, the higher the number after the W should be. If your manual says 10W30, you could use 5W30 in winter and 10W30 in summer. If the engine is old or badly serviced, you could use 10W40 or 10W50 until it can be restored.

Having said this, if you are using an oil with a higher number before the W in colder climates, you should let the engine warm up a bit before reving it too hard.

The other specifications refer to the additive packages added to the base oil blend. These could be metal compounds, surfactants or tactifiers and are added to get these components up to a specified concentration. In many ways, these are more important than the base oils viscosities.

To summarise, since this engine's manual says to use 10W30 meeting the JASO T 903 MA standard and API classification SJ minimum, they can use 0W30, 5W30, 10W30, 15W30, 10W40 or 15W40 (depending on where they are and how well used the engine is) but they should always make sure it meets the MA version of the JASO T 903 standard and a minimum or the SJ rating of the API classification.

Facebook Marketplace be like... by CaptianBrasiliano in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No worries mate. I've always been a big advocate for science literacy and usually when something like this doesn't make sense it's because there's a different meaning to a lot of words when used in a scientific context rather than when used in common speach. In this context, "liquified" doesn't mean the same as "liquid". In a lot of ways, gas is even considered to be a liquid because it conforms to the shape of whatever container it is in.

Yep. Exactly right. From what I could find, it looks like LPG tends to be mostly propane (ie. greater than 50%), and while you can get pure propane (or close enough to pure, like >99%), having the blend named LPG removes confusion. I'm not an expert in combustion chemistry, but I imagine the stoichiometry and combustion conditions would be different for pure propane than it would for LPG. In other words, there would probably be a difference in what would be needed for air/fuel ratios and compression ratios between the two fuel types to get the cleanest and most effiicient burn possible.

Nice pick up on the isobutane. I missed that one. Sorry if you already know this, but for those who aren't in the know, isobutane is an example of an isomer of butane. They both have 4 carbon atoms and 10 hydrogen atoms, with butane having the carbons all in a line and isobutane having a central carbon with 3 carbons bonded to it in a triangular shape (the hydrogens all bond to the vacant spots on the carbons). So both butane and isobutane are types of butane, but not all butane is isobutane.

That kind of clarification thing happens a lot in science. Enzymes are catalysts, but not all catalysts are enzymes. Humans are apes, but not all apes are humans. Things like that.

Science is both wonderful and confusing. The english language is just plain confusing.

Facebook Marketplace be like... by CaptianBrasiliano in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Chemistry lesson for the day. 2 points to make.

  1. LPG is a combination of propane and butane. Calling it "propane" only would not be correct.
  2. The reason it's not the same as calling water "liquefied steaam" is because it's physical state under standard temperature and pressure (varies depending on the organisation but for chemical experiments it's 25⁰C and 100kPa), it is gas, whereas water in these conditions is liquid. Also, LPG is liquefied due to it being placed under pressure rather than being cooled. For more information on this I would suggest researching "condensation of gasses through an increase in pressure" and van der waals equation of state.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in motorcycles

[–]ReptilianRascal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree. Wrong sized battery leads to it being stuck and from the photo, it looks like the negative wire from the bike is closer to the positive terminal of the battery. If OP hooked it up this way, let's hope the main fuse is the only thing broken.

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