Superpants

I am looking at the Ryders Retriver winch range with the possability of fitting them to a work vehicle, but can't seem to find much in the way of user feedback on them. Has anyone got experience in using them? In particular are they reasonable quality (or cheap chinese engineering re-badged) and are they reliable? Ta!

How about both? I might be complicating matters a little but an internal cab switch could trigger the relay and would be easily accesible to the driver, then a switch on the battery, or Simon's anderson link would be the ultimate failsafe, and would be accesible by the winch monkey (I wonder who that might be ) . Keeps all the power wiring together, and should be relatively easy to install. Just a thought!

My favourite of the Lake District Campsites would be the National Trust Great Langdale one too. It gets very busy on summer weekends, but generally isn't too bad during the week. If you are into walking or climbing at all, you can easily fill a week with some great routes walking out from the site (did that a few years ago), and has already been mentioned the nearby pubs serve good beer, and local food (best bit of lamb I have ever eaten was in one of those pubs). Facilities are good as well, including a drying room (which can be very welcome in the lakes!) If you want somewhere quieter, the National Trust site at Wasdale head is equally as good facilitity wise, but as it is further from the motorway doesn't get anywhere near as busy.

I'd go with XLRs too. even the cheap plastic ones are more robust than a lot of the cigarette lighter plugs/ sockets. Neutrix ones are great- they have a clever, secure cable grip and don't need fiddly little screws like some of the other makes

Seeing as the letters on the panel look very slightly wonky, they are probably letraset, maybe with a lacquer over the top to protect them. Letraset used to come with guidelines under the letters which helped with getting the spacing right. It is still available, but not in the range of styles that it used to be.

Returning to the actual volume of gas released: 1 mole of gas at Standard Temperature and Pressure (1 atmosphere- 1 Bar nominally, and O Degrees C) occupies 22.4 litres. Therefore as for 1 litre of Petrol releases, 6.46 x (8 + 9) = 109.82 Mols of gas, The volume will be 109.82 x 22.4 = 2460 litres of gas If the temperature is higher (as it will be in an exhaust or in real world driving), then the volume will increase. On the issue of particulate matter, the limit value in the Euro III legislation is 0.1 g/km. Compared to the several hundred grams of CO2, this quantity is tiny, and would have no significant impact on the CO2 emissions. I should probably adopt the mad scientist picture as an avatar

Most of the emissions on a diesel still come out as CO2 and H2O. The percentage that escapes as particulates is pretty small, so although it will affect the calculation a little, it will probably be in the order of a few percent- struggling to find details on the web in a useful set of units (g/kWh will be awkward to convert to something meaningful like g/l) to back this up though! By the way- thanks Adrian!

Every molecule of petrol burnt needs 12.5 molecules of O2 to burn fully, so the mass expelled is greater than the mass of fuel put in. There is a way of working out the volume of gas this would produce, but my memory is'nt good enough at the moment- I'll have to look it up. Maybe if I'm feeling enthusiastic I will look it up.

Feeling very geeky in my lunch hour I thought I’d try and work this out from first principals. It’s some time since I did any organic chemistry so I’m rather rusty, but with a bit of digging on the internet and scratching my head, I have come up with the following. Petrol normally has between 5 & 10 carbon atoms in the chain, therefore I will take an average length of 8 atoms. Therefore the reaction on burning is: 2C8H18 + 25O2 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O This assumes clean burning, which although isn’t strictly true (CO, NOx etc), shouldn't be too bad an assumption as the quantities of these are so low compared to the CO2 C has an atomic mass of 12 H has an atomic mass of 1 O has an atomic mass of 16 Therefore: C8H18 has a mass of 114g/mol O2 has a mass of 32g/mol CO2 has a mass of 44g/mol H2O has a mass of 18g/mol Therefore using the reaction above, 1 mol of petrol releases: 8 mols of CO2 = 256g 9 mols of H2O = 162g Petrol density is 737g/l therefore 1 litre contains 6.46 mols Therefore burning 1 litre of petrol releases: 6.46 x 256g = 1655g of CO2 6.46 x 162g = 1047g of H2O Using Ivan’s vehicle as an example then: 80 litres to travel 400km gives: 400/80= 5km/l So CO2 is 1655/5 = 331 g/km Which differs significantly to that given by the calculation shown by lars which quotes 480 g/km. So is it me who has got it wrong? Have I made some duff assumptions, or made an error in my calcs, or is it that the published info is out for some reason?

And a few more photos: Dicky and Jon attacking a punch Chris Adrian grinning inanely- presumably due to the V8 liking the water Team Pinzgauer Quite a few more are on my Flickr pages (linked on my previous post).

A few of my photos from the weekend: Before we left Guildford- There are more on my Flickr pages at Seven Sisters Photos and I will be uploading more when I have a spare few minutes. Thanks to the organisers for making us feel welcome and putting on such a great event. I had a really enjoyable time- and this time it wasn't me who broke Mark's disco!!

I have attached an extract from the BS. It comes from a book dated 1972 so isn't the current version, but may be of interest. 1387_20Extract.pdf

Sorry- table went a bit screwy! I'll try and sort it ou!

As you have found out, there are a load of different types of heat-shrink; however all are manufactured to the same basic principle. The tube is first extruded at its final shrunk size, it is then irradiated (with gamma radiation usually as far as I can understand) to form crosslinks between the polymer chains. The last step is to heat the tube again and expand it (using air) up to the full size. Moulded parts are manufactured in a similar way except that they are injection moulded first. A large range of polymers can be treated in this way, but the majority are traditional thermoplastics. A large proportion of elastomers are already crosslinked (vulcanised) as it is this property that is critical to their elastic behaviour, this is therefore likely as to why there is a small range of choice when it comes to elastomer heatshrinks. By choice of material, and control of process, a range of different properties can be achieved such as variations in shrink ratio, temperature range, stiffness, wall thickness, fire retardancy etc. The flexibility of the final loom is influenced by a range of factors; Material of the heat-shrink, which elastomers are generally the most flexible Wall thickness- a combination of shrink ratio and initial wall thickness Adhesive lining- generally adhesive lining will increase stiffness Loom makeup- Wire type, twist of loom (twisting with fillers to give a round loom improves flexibility), taping (some cables will have a thin non-adhesive tape wrapping the loom prior to shrinking to allow the tubing to slide over the bundle) So onto different types- This is all based on info from the Tyco/ Raychem catalogue- probably about the biggest manufacturer of these materials. Unfortunately it is not really easy to categorise the properties dependent on material, as there is such a wide range of options! The following is therefore a generalisation. Polyolefin Typical 2:1 to 4:1 ratio -40°C to 80°C operating Flexible & semi-rigid versions Elastomer Typical 2:1 ratio -75°C to 150°C operating Very flexible, Good diesel resistance Flouropolymer Typical 2:1 ratio -55°C to 175°C operating Flexible & semi-rigid versions Neoprene Typical 2:1 ratio -70°C to 120°C operating Very flexible Polyvinylidene fluoride Typical 2:1 ratio -55°C to 175°C operating Semi-rigid Silicone Typical 2:1 ratio -75° to 180°C operating Very flexible PTFE Typical 1.8:1 ratio -67°C to 250°C operating Semi-rigid

Blue Beehive do a selection of wire as well: http://www.bluebeehive.com/Stock_pages/Cab...p.html#8.75_Amp Been very quick, helpful and reasonably priced when I have bought crimp terminals from them.

How about Oxted Trimming- suprisingly enough in Oxted ;o) http://www.oxted-trimming.co.uk/ We have used them for one offs or short runs at work and found them very proffessional. Not sure if they are used to working on landies but probably worth a try.

For splicing, soldering is probably the way to go, as others have suggested- it will tend to produce a smaller, neater joint than a crimp which is an advantage if you have several to bury in the loom. Out of interest, a lot of vehicle looms now use ultrasonically welded splices when needed and covered in heatshrink as they are cheap and very reliable. For sleeving I tend to use PVC harness tubing, mainly as I acquired a couple of hundred metres of the stuff for nothing. If starting from scratch, I would tend to use the slit convoluted tubing as it is easy and offers a good degree of protection. Expandable braided sleeving makes a neater job in my opinion (and can be very cheap), but is not ideal on off-road vehicles as it tends to trap mud easily. If you want the ultimate in a tidy (and waterproof) job then heatshrink is the way to go- it’s widely used in military equipment and can be very hardwearing, especially if coupled with a braid under the sleeve. It can also be stiff- but there are a couple of tricks that ease this; twisting the loom up so that it lays like a rope will aid the flexibility (adding filler cores to build it up to round). As will using an elastomeric heatshrink, and picking the smallest un-shrunk size that will pass over the loom (as this will have a thinner wall thickness when shrunk). Military and motorsport harness builders tend to use Raychem DR 25 which is a diesel resistant & elastomeric, It is however significantly more expensive than standard grades (7 times the prices- going from Farnell’s prices!), so unless you have a cheap (surplus?) supply, then it is probably not worth trying. Heatshrink also has the disadvantage that additions/ modifications are very difficult to make.

I know it has already been mentioned, but it sounds most like a Supacat HMT to me. http://www.supacat.com/hmt%204x4.htm The SAS have recently bought some of these. They are bit of a big buggy looking type vehicles, and air portable, so would be small enough to fit in an ISO container. Had quick look on the web but not suprisingly couldn't find anything sensible about their role with the UK MOD.

Bought one of these sets a few weeks ago. used it in anger for the first time yesterday whilst fitting a towbar (albeit not on the landy). Very happy it! Been using the Halfords professional kit at work for a couple of years, and overall they have been good value and hardwearing. Especially happy with the ratchet ring spanners- nice action and compact round the head.

Only minor issue with a wheelchair motor may be the fact that it'll probably be attached to a worm gearbox. Not the end of the world to remove it, but may add a bit of work.

Probably unlikely as the Pinz WMIK variant is usually a 6x6!

Starter motors are not a very good idea as they are only rated for intermittent use. They are probably also far too powerful for this application, and so will drain your battery pretty quickly. Common(ish) 12VDC motors in the order of 1/4 to 1/2 HP are the ones used on electric wheelchairs. I have picked one up in a scrapyard before, and they do turn up on ebay. Less common now, but still possible are the old battery lawnmower motors. These are around 1/3 HP. Again picked these up at scrapyards, and have seen the mowers at bootfairs. may even find one tucked in the back of someone's shed. The last possibility is for a new motor is Parkside Electronics- (01282) 613646 (no web address). They supply into the model engineering fraternity and have a good reputation.

They are look like Hella Part number 2BE 001 298-011 (NSN 6220-12-151-4409) for the indicators and like 1XA 001 512-001 (NSN 6220-12-121-7310) for the others based the info in the Hella military catalogue (Can't be 100% sure as my German isn't fantastic!) You may be able to get new ones through a Hella dealer, or the above numbers might help searching. Hope this helps!

I have been lurking here on and off for a while, but finally have got round to signing up to the forum. Some of you may know me as Mark’s co-driver on occasion (South Wales last Feb etc). I do have a landy myself, owning a 1978 Series III LWB rag-top ex-military beast. Unfortunately it hasn’t gone anywhere for over a year! Anyway, onto the subject at hand…. I have been looking quite closely at the sort of connectors you are interested for a work project. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot on the market to help you, as in most cases the connector on the enclosure needs to connect down to a PCB. The one you have shown the photo of is actually a pretty good connector, but is only available in large volumes (in the order of 500 per batch), and there isn’t a wire to wire version in the range. I reckon the best bet would be to try one of the Deutsch Ltd parts. They have a few that may be suitable, dependent on the number of ways you need. For up to 12 way they do a flanged version of their DT series, for 48, 60 or 102 ways they have the DRB series, and for quantities in-between try the DRC series. Details are on their main site: http://www.deutschipd.com/Products/products.htm , The UK arm of the company is at http://www.deutschltd.com and their main distributor is: http://www.servoconnectors.co.uk/ They are waterproof (to IP67) if the correct wire sizes are used, and blanking plugs are used in the unused positions. They are widely used in industrial equipment (dumper trucks, backhoe loaders etc), and so may be available through spares from companies like JCB as another alternative route. I don’t know of any catalogue distributor that covers the part of their range that you are interested in. Terminals are crimp types that have to be inserted into the housing, however you will probably find the turned pin versions can be soldered if you haven’t got access to tooling (tools to crimp them are very expensive, even on EBay!) Hope this helps.