Ed Poore

Should be having two arriving in the next week or so

I'm disappointed. I would have thought you'd have investigated harder or created some wacky device to muffle it.

Probably (was given it as a present) - does the job though, people get a bit of a shock when they try and open it and it's a bit stiff but given I spent quite a lot of the summer with it parked sideways on a 1 in 3 loading logs in the back door it was quite handy that it could stay open even with the spare on (not massive but substantial being a 265x75R16).

I have a spare wheel carrier (Bearmach through paddocks or something like that) that bolts onto the door. If you don't grease everything up then it locks into place nicely - plus gets the spare wheel off the door hinges.

Hopefully you have some luck in tracking it down. Shame this weeks' so busy otherwise I'd pop over and give you a hand. Quite funny that my work is now designing complex electronic circuits and I don't have any on my 110

Just checked and apparently there's a battery backup for the sounder alarm. Are there any other symptoms other than the beeping (no lights on the dash etc)?

I don't know anything about Td5 alarms but do they have a separate internal battery? Just wondering whether it's something like the battery isn't holding its charge and trying to warn you, would make sense not to beep it when the engine isn't running as that would deplete a potentially dodgy battery. I seeing something about our Shogun's alarm that would warn the driver when the battery was causing issues.

I presume all the voltage levels and fuses are normal? It's not just tripping the alarm continuously?

Well yet another person with Academy now, pleasure dealing with them. Only danger is they said that they'd insure any mods so big V8 is sooo tempting now if it wasn't for the fuel cost...

If you've got access to a .ac.uk account then you can get a permanent (or at least 3 year license) from Autodesk for Inventor Professional (see students.autodesk.com I think). Not used Solidworks extensively but find Inventor a damn impressive package.

Ok to put it another way. These funky little creatures called electrons give off light when they get woken up. In order to wake them up you need to give them a good kick (potential difference aka voltage). The more often you can kick the more electrons wake up and therefore the more light you get. Now sometimes you find you have to kick them through lots of mud (this is a Land Rover after all) therefore there is some resistance against your boot which means that your kicks per second fall off but you can still kick with the same amount of force. This can be written down by the following equations Brightness ~= Kicks / Second ~= Force of kick / Mud thickness. (Or I = V / R).

Not quite correct. They will be affected by adding a resistor in series with them but because it's changing the flowing through the pn junction not the voltage. LEDs (like diodes because they are effectively the same thing) will always drop a constant voltage across them which relates to the wavelength of light that is output (see Wikipedia for a table) but typically ranges from ~1V to 3V. So you need to provide at least that voltage in order to "activate" the LED and provide enough of a potential difference for it to start emitting light. For a bog standard 5mm LED the forward current required is ~30mA. You should always limit the current somehow, usually with a resistor for simple stuff picking an appropriate sized resistor therefore controls how much current flows through the resistor and subsequently the diode. For examples sake say that for 100% brightness you require 40mA with an LED that has a diode drop of 2V. Therefore from a nominal 12V supply you have Vled = 12 - Vdrop = 10V and for 40mA you want I = V / R ==> 250R. If you want to dim the led (current is not directly proportional to perceived light output if I remember correctly) then say put 20mA through it so a 500R resistor would halve the current. Hope that helps

I'm more than happy to run it down to the Forest of Dean however if someone's able to get it a bit closer to Surrey then it would be most appreciated. I could run down to Ringwould and back but if someone else can save me the four hour round trip then I'm all for it.

I am definitely heading back to Wales on the weekend of the 29th of April (probably leave Friday night or Saturday morning) and usually go through the Forest of Dean so like James if it'll fit in / on a 110 CSW (I have no bench seats in at the moment but do have a gun cabinet which isn't a biggie to remove) then I can do Surrey to Forest of Dean (or further west if it's advantageous) since I'm heading to near the Pembrokeshire / Carmarthenshire border. Where abouts in Kent is it?

I suggest just having a look on Farnell (RS website is horrendous at finding stuff). You can just exclude anything that isn't IP67 and should have loads of choices then, depends on what you want to look for but I just searched for IP67 power connector and loads turned up. You may be able to source them from somewhere else that is cheaper but it'll at least give you an idea of what's out there.

I based my code on a control called GMaps.net (hosted on CodePlex). If you're interested in the code then could discuss it over pm so as not to pollute this discussion. Ed

Yep my one and only experience of them put me off completely. I ordered a set of push-rods along with various timing things for the Series and needed them 'like yesterday' and when I went through the process I selected everything and wrote where possible that I was willing to pay for next-day delivery. 7 weeks later they show up. Ironically I ended up phoning a local dealer and the one set of push-rods they had in stock were just the ticket so jumped in the 110 and picked them up. Ironically they were cheaper!

Something that being pondered amongst some friends who are into the amateur rally scene is to build a kind of KERS / regenerative braking system. Except rather than store the energy in batteries you store compressed air into a dive cylinder. When you want a boost you can then dump that air through the intake.

When I bought a switch or two I found Si was cheaper than Mud due to postage.

Technically everything is replaceable - it depends on the style of the battery and how good your skills with a soldering iron are... I have seen some which are simply located in a slot on the motherboard (similar to those used in rifle scopes - odd comparison but watch batteries are smaller diameter and thicker but one of my rifle scopes has an identical battery in it for reticule illumination). Other boards I've seen have the batteries soldered in whilst one I have seen just used a hefty capacitor (well it is kind of like a battery after all ). Without opening it up I'm afraid you're not going to be able to confirm whether it's easily replaceable or not. If you're feeling adventurous you could always drop in a voltage regulator and power it off the Landy's battery . Depends what's more likely to go flat first

Do you lose the time as well? It might be conceivable that the battery on the motherboard which is there to keep the clock running (and perhaps keep power to chips that store the BIOS' settings) is knackered.

If possible try and find out what the weather is as late as you can before you set off. Because of the terrain there it's very prone to flash flooding and the like. I was supervising a Duke of Edinburgh expedition there a number of years ago and witnessed one of the rivers nearby rise by a total of 8ft over the course of the day.

Perhaps I'm in the minority here but about 5 years ago I bought a 10,000lbs Champion winch from Winch Solutions and to say that I've looked after it is a gross overstatement. It's been swimming and through a bit of mud and all I've done is once in a while un-spool it and re-wind it, I've even given the wire rope a spray of WD-40, once... Having said that it's never let me down (touch wood) and always dealt with what I've thrown at it. The only time it really had any difficulty was in rescuing a reasonably heavily laden Series III that was up to it's axles in mud and sitting on it's leaf springs rather than the wheels (and it's not the first time John's done that either, seems to drive in a very bouncy manner). What ended up happening was the winch was struggling and eventually made a little bit of progress, pulling the 110 towards the Series... So a snatch block wouldn't have helped in this scenario if we'd been able to rig one up, keeping the 110 on firm ground meant that the winch cable was fully spooled out and even then we threw caution to the wind and included a large tow-rope in the mix. I've typically used it more for pulling trees and so on around the farm (and lifting gearboxes etc) than recovery situations and gets used regularly in short bursts but with minimal maintenance it's been superb. If it does break then in all likelihood I'll just repair it or may go hydraulic instead. The only criticism I have of it is that it's slow, particularly when spooling out and since it doesn't have a free-spool option you'll inevitably end up on your back in the mud as you lose your footing dragging the cable out.

Just to clarify a few things in case they get misinterpreted: I assume what you mean here is that a lower geared winch will draw less current than a higher geared one. Introducing a snatch block will in in effect halve the gearing ratio of the winch and thus reduce the load on the motor and subsequently reduce the current draw. I challenge you to find a fuse reasonably cheaply (other than an M8 bolt that is) that will deal with the kinds of currents that electric winch motors are capable of sinking...

I can't remember off the top of my head but the current to the starter motor is already switched by the starter solenoid. I think the earth is the column itself. Since you have the dash apart I would clean all the contacts thoroughly. Any chance of a of pic of the damage?