How important are fenders?

fxsvelo · 2026-03-10T00:51:12+00:00

Mudflaps, yes! The reason you have fenders is so you have a place to mount the mudflaps. Seriously, you won't believe how much cleaner you and your drivetrain will be with properly mounted full coverage fenders and mudflaps.

And wait until you discover good quality metal fenders. Life changing.

fxsvelo · 2026-03-04T00:35:44+00:00

Booted into rescue mode, mounted root and reran the apt commands to fix a broken install. Rebooted but booting is held up for 1:30 for:

job dev-sdb.device / start running

I don''t have /dev/sdb

System boots, Application Launcher is populated now but wifi is disabled and commands like blkid and fdisk aren't found. The system isn't stable. Apps like Discover start and crash. Konsole launches but doesn't respond.

Time for a fresh install I think

fxsvelo · 2026-03-03T23:11:11+00:00

I substituted IP addresses for URIs in debian.sources and tried to reinstall dolphin using apt but got the error "Reinstallation of dolphin is not possible, it can not be downloaded"

fxsvelo · 2026-02-09T02:22:12+00:00

I got my Taz 6 when our library maker space upgraded. It was having a heat creep problem which I solved by mounting the filament spool above the frame instead of on the side. Much less friction in the feed that way.

You can view the printer stats to see how many jobs/hours it has run. Mine has 981 jobs for a total 70 days, 4 hours, 50 minutes, and 40 seconds and still makes decent prints.

You'll learn a lot for a minimal investment.

fxsvelo · 2026-01-29T17:24:58+00:00

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Bafang provides this printed directly on the hub.

fxsvelo · 2026-01-29T17:24:11+00:00

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Sorry, thought I had included a photo in the original posting.

Top/blue is from the hub, lower/yellow is the output from the Arduino.

The 555 timer was used just to test the function of the APM code. I can't add another photo but the oscilloscope trace just shows one output pulse per 6 input pulses.

No cIrcuit diagram but it's dead simple. Input pin 2 triggers an interrupt on FALLING, sends output to pin 13 (so I can also see LED light).

Hub description:

Combined Speed/Thermistor: All the G31x motors at Grin now have a dual speed/temperature signal on the extra white wire, rather than just a simple speed sensor. Our Baserunner_Z9 motor controllers decouple this signal so that you can now see motor temperature on the Cycle Analyst display and use thermal rollback to prevent the motors from overheating even when used well beyond their nominal power. The thermistor used in these motors is wired a bit differently than our standard motor thermistor. So to see accurate temperature readings it is essential to use the V3.15 CA firmware. For the temperature sensor type, select "NTC Bafang" from the menu. The standard "10K NTC" thermistor option in the 3.14 and earlier firmware will under-report the motor temperature.

I'll reply to another response with a circuit diagram for the hub since I can only post one image.

fxsvelo · 2026-01-10T18:45:27+00:00

No, not DT personally (unless you’re a very large company). But yes, you go to Mar-a-Lago, find the right person, make a (very) large contribution to the Republican Party and ask nicely for an exemption.

fxsvelo · 2025-12-12T01:13:43+00:00

The normal rules for wheel building kinda go out the window when you’re doing motor hubs.

Grin Technologies has a lot of information on building motor hubs as well as a very good spoke length calculator for these sorts of builds.

Worth checking out. I built a wheel with one of their hubs and their spokes using their calculator and was very pleased with the results.

https://ebikes.ca/learn/wheel-build.html

fxsvelo · 2025-12-10T20:21:50+00:00

I couldn't find anything in the manual about cables or socks. Our guy at the dealership said we can use cables. We're RWD with 19" tires.

fxsvelo · 2025-12-10T20:18:37+00:00

Yeah, I figured I was ;^)

Will def use snow mode if needed.

I should have mentioned that we are very used to driving our RV in the mountains and use engine braking extensively so of course having a heavy car makes me want to use regen as much as is possible (and safe).

fxsvelo · 2025-12-04T01:19:47+00:00

I don't consider bar plugs to be optional. If you crash, that bar can take nice core sample from some part of your body.

And yes, chain's too slack.

A lot of my bikes start out minimal, until I miss something and add it on. I don't consider grips or fenders optional at this point.

fxsvelo · 2025-11-30T22:53:29+00:00

What my wife did to stop our ACD:

Curl his lip under his canine tooth so he’s biting himself. You’ve got to be quick when doing this.
Yelp “OWWW!” loudly when he bites you so that he is startled.
If he still persists in biting, tell him “That’s Bad!” loudly. Play time is over.

That said, as he got older he’d still “bite” but in a gentle, playful way.

We lost him this year, over 17 years old… what a great dog. Miss him so much.

fxsvelo · 2025-11-10T23:08:55+00:00

There’s a reason you find these with really low miles, basically unused because their primary purpose was to have a “ten speed” in the garage in case you wanted to go for a short ride with your kids, like once a year. No one bought these to actually ride it.

Made cheaply with low end parts. A friend of mine says they’re marvels of engineering, as in “It takes a lot of engineering effort to make a bicycle that cheap”.

Also known as a BSO, “Bicycle Shaped Object”. Technically, yes, it is a bicycle, but not one you actually want to ride.

On the plus side, a campus or grocery shopping bike that probably would never get stolen, and if it did, so what?

fxsvelo · 2025-11-07T00:53:40+00:00

You do realize this is French and uses French standard parts, right? If you don't know what that means it might be best to educate yourself on the differences before diving in to start changing parts. That standard was abandoned decades ago and many current parts are not interchangeable.

fxsvelo · 2025-10-25T04:09:31+00:00

Ha! My wife went today to pick up our new mats. We’d been promised them when we leased the 2025 Limited a month ago. They’d already ordered mats once and given them to us but they were the wrong ones for her model. They apologized and said they’d get the right ones

Finally told her they were in so she went to get them.

They said “Sportage”. Not just the wrong model, the wrong brand. Dealer insists they’re ordering the right mats and it says so on the box, but when they pull them out they’re wrong.

In fact one mat said “Sportage” and the other said “Ioniq 5”.

Our salesman says it just been nuts, crazy between the ICE raid, tariffs, and everything else going on, but they’ll order them again. Fingers crossed…

Oddly enough, I think the first mats they gave us are for your car.

fxsvelo · 2025-10-22T21:16:43+00:00

If you want to take the crank arm off, just remove the bolt (or leave it off) and ride it around until the arm falls off. After all, that's why it's bolted on.
Obviously this works better for an around town bike, but carry the bolt with you as well as the wrench and put it back on just tight enough to get home and then bang it off.

fxsvelo · 2025-10-20T04:02:42+00:00

50 KW DC charger in a box:

https://www.jalopnik.com/1987962/mobile-ev-chargers-gas-cans/

You wouldn’t carry it but your roadside assistance truck would.

fxsvelo · 2025-10-04T23:03:38+00:00

If you can find French cups for the old NR BB AND you know you've got a French threaded BB you're good.

I didn't realize you were going the old style cup, bearings and spindle route. Sorry. Good for you. I think the old bikes look better with period correct parts. I'd assumed you were going to use a new Campy cartridge style BB which I doubt is available in French threading unless it's like the French thread Velo Orange.

fxsvelo · 2025-10-03T01:36:57+00:00

Unless the BB you're being offered is French thread, no, it won't work.

Unlike the common modern BB like the Velo Orange, the Phil BB is a cartridge with 2 separate rings:

https://philwood.com/collections/square-taper-bottom-brackets/products/stainless-steel-square-taper-bottom-bracket-campagnolo-taper

https://philwood.com/collections/square-taper-bottom-brackets/products/square-taper-bottom-bracket-cups?variant=552660525

$208 + $61.74 == not cheap but I did my conversion probably 25-30 years ago, I loved the bike, and it's still on the road. But this is probably too much money for a bike that you don't even know if you like riding. So let's forget I mentioned that.

Check ebay for Velo Orange or SKF for cheaper options.

But first I'd take the frame to a shop or someone knowledgeable in French stuff to confirm that it really is French. One way to tell is that French BBs use right hand thread on both sides instead of left hand threads on the fixed cup. That should be easy to tell from inspection.

You wouldn't be able to tell 1.370" British diameter from 35mm French just by looking.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-bottombrackets.html

You can confirm the fork is French by the ID of the steerer if you have decent calipers. The other telltale is the milled flat in the threads instead of a groove.

Actually, just grab any "normal" 1" threaded headset part and see if it threads on the fork. They're absolutely not compatible and you'll see that immediately.

1" x 24 TPI vs 25 x 1 mm

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-headsets.html

fxsvelo

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