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Tris Cocks

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Everything posted by Tris Cocks

  1. Try giving Academy a ring, I am only 24 and have got my 300tdi insured for £300 with everything declared and valued at £8000. http://www.academyinsurance.co.uk/
  2. Hi I've got a new x-brake which I was planning on fitting last night while I had a spare few hours. As with all good plans this soon went out of the window when one of the bolts decided to spin and wouldn't come undone, to cut a long story short I had to cut the bolt off and needs replacing. Ive got a New bolt but does anyone know how they are held in place so that they don't spin? Is it just a case of unbolting the output flange and slipping a new bolt in? Many thanks Tris
  3. I use on of these, it costs a few quid but its proved itself handy on more than one occassion - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rothenberger-Super-Fire-Gas-Torch/dp/B000TGNDO0
  4. This is the Socket ive got for my Hub nut and drive flange nuts - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Landrover-Classic-Hub-Nut-Socket-52mm-1-2-Drive-/180546993320?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item2a09707ca8
  5. Ive got a 300tdi 90 which when i took it for a drive earlier seemed not to behave as it normally does, the steering is normally free and self-centers reasonable easily. when i was driving earlier the steering seems to start turning then jumps, then continues turning fine until i have to straighten up and it jumps again and i have to pull to pull the wheel back to the centre whereas normally i can guide it back without and force. I jumped out and had a look underneat a few times expecting to see something hanging off or obviously wrong but coundnt find anything obvious. Upon further investigation ive noticed that i can rock the track rod back and forward on the track rod ends and it seems to click if i go from fully forward to back, i am assuming that the TREs are past it and could do with replacing. Could this be causing the steering issue as well? Cheers Tris
  6. Would there be any adverse affects of taking an old middle or back box and chopping a section out so that i am able to shorten it? would it still let the engine breath sufficiently?
  7. Ive recently made a new exhaust for my 300Tdi 90, I originally had a De-cat pipe and a middle box with the pipe modified so it came out over the top of the chassis rail behind the rear wheel. Ive now moved the pipe so that it come out behind the passenger door after leaving the end of the de-cat pipe and and sweeping up over the top of the chassis rail just infront of the a-frame crossmember. The pipe is now completely straight through and although it sounds great its a little bit loud when towing a heavy load etc. Can anyone reccomend a box to use to try and reduce the noise level slightly? Cheers Tris
  8. I can understand the use of a dedicated warning lamp so that you know whether or not the alternator is charging, but what does the relay control? Does energising the relay from the ignition complete the circuit from the battery to the reference terminal?
  9. My has put a 24v alternator onto his truck which is used for winch challenges. At the moment the reference signal is being taken from the reference signal on the back of the 12v alternator with an inline push to make switch. We put the switch inline as we found the higher voltage from the 24v was backfeeding the 12v alternator and telling it that there was plenty of voltage so it didnt charge. Without pressing the push to make switch the 24v alternator does not charge he 24v system. Keeping is as simple as possible what would be the simplest way of wiring in a more permenant solution? Cheers Tris
  10. Personally i dont see the point of using anything more that 50mm² as the cross sectional area of an M8 bolt as used on the motor and solenoid terminals works out to be 50mm².
  11. Right... Im back again I have been trying to send data over SPI for the RF Transceivers however im banging my head against a brick wall and getting nowhere fast! After a meeting with my project supervisor today (who is good with programming but has no prior knowledge of SPI interfaces) he has suggested that one option would be to use a different RF Transceiver that uses preferable Serial or I2C interfaces as he has lots of knowledge about these types of interfaces. Can anybody point me in the direction of a RF Transceiver module that would be suited to my project... although i have been tempted to rip apart a remote control car and see what information i can get from that! Thanks for the help Tris
  12. Thanks, thats a great help, i was starting to panic thinking that i had ordered the wrong bits and that they were not compatible together, Now you have explained it its clear. I was looking for pins that had the same name -
  13. I have now got all of the parts that i require to start building the project, I have decided to go with the arduino board as i have not got the experience and knowledge to create a board from scratch, if i can get the project to work i will then attepmt to use the ATmega chip as the basis for a stand alone circuit without the use of the arduino board - however the important thing is to have a working circuit. currently my biggest issue is trying to get the boards to talk to each other, ive got two of these boards - http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno with two 433MHz rf transcievers - http://www.rfsolutions.co.uk/acatalog/DS-ALPHA-TRX-5.pdf, both of these work with an SPI interface The Arduino website says "SPI: 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (MISO), 13 (SCK). These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library" so im assuming that it takes four inputs from the transciever, however from looking at the RF Transciever datasheet it only mentions two ports used for the SPI interface "Pin 12 SDI DI SPI data input Pin 13 SCK DI SPI clock input" How would i go about connecting these together? Cheers Tris
  14. Hi I am looking at buying some QT Challenege bucket seats and think that £85 +VAT for a lower seat base seems a bit excessive, Ideally i want to make the seats easily removable to access the battery under the seats, im planning on making something to pick up on the four existing bolt holes for the existing seats. Has anybody got any pictures or advice how i can make the seats removable easily, im thinking something along the lines of a bar going throught some holes with an R pin to stop the bar coming out, would this suffice to keep the MOT man happy? Cheers Tris
  15. Ive got two of of these batteries http://www.tayna.co.uk/Numax-CXV-X-1000-Amp-P7632.html the same ones that X-Eng sell but are a bit cheaper. They fit well under the seatbox and have never failed me, ive the two linked together in parallel and would reccomend them to anyone!
  16. Im assuming that by a VR Sensor you mean a Variable Reluctance sensor? what type of circuitry will be needed to detect the signal as (if i understand correctly) they give out a sine wave output? I havnt been able to find any information on whether they dectect the number of turns in both directions? Programming hasnt got to be a big part of the project (althought im aware that my project is becoming based around it) the project is more about being able to make engineering decisions and managing time to get a working unit and meeting all the critera deadlines etc. Due to this i am probably leaning towards the arduino boards with the aim of adding more 'wow factor' once have got everything link up and working together I have had a look at the link which says about programming using the ATmega chip, even thought this would give me a better speed the lecturer that I have been allocated with as a project supervisor has advised me against it as he is more familliar with the arduino boards and feels he is able to provide more support to me if i choose the Arduino board. With the range that is quotes from the transcievers, realistically as long as i can demonstrate that the 6 feet away on the project open day that is all thats required. Thanks for the advice about the breakout board, i will remember that when i come to ordering the components which should hopefully be within a few weeks.
  17. As you have probably worked out I dont know much about programming so i am leaning towards using the Arduino boards. I have ruled out the Bluetooth Arduino boards as i have had reports that they kind of work at a distance of 10m and anything over that ive got to be 'one of the lucky ones', and also they are almost £100 each! What i am hoping to use instead is an Alpha FM Transceiver Module that has a range of up to 300m which is more than i will need and they cost less than a tenth of the price. The interface is SPI so they should be compatable with the Arduino boards (hopefully). Does all of this sounds feasable or am i barking up the wrong tree? While looking into the switches i have come across Rotary Encoders that would replace the job of using multiple reed switches, but once again they could suffer when it comes to the mud! Althought realistically as long as i can demonstrate it in the lab thats all i need to do.
  18. Thats Definitely along the lines of what i am trying to achieve but controlling a motor in one direction on another. Ive been speaking to a coupe of lecturers and they have reccomended using an Arduino Protype board - Here which for about 20 quid is easily programmable and there is a fair amount of support with online forums etc. However im not really too sure how it can be linked up to a link (whether it be fm / bluetooth etc) It has got a Tx and Rx led on the board that can been see on page 2 of the Data Sheet but from my understanding of it The LEDs just show if data is being transfered via USB Would i be right in saying that i would need to use one of the 14 digital data outputs to send data to a bluetooth module for example and then have another Arduino board on the other end to control the solenoids? Or alternatively i have found out that Arduino do a Bluetooth Board Can i pair two of these boards together and use them to transfer the data from the vehicle to the controller? Another point which the lecture has raised is that there should be some kind of sensor to monitor the amount of rope left on the drum, I quickly dismissed his first idea of an optical sensor pointing out that it woudnt work well when the winch is burried in mud and water. The idea that we have come up with is using reed switches or similar to count the number of rotation of the drum and work out how many turns the it takes to go from a full drum to a drum with four turns left on it (assuming an ideal senario with no bunching etc). This would have to be fed back into the circuit and override the 'Winch Out' function of the controller.
  19. Thanks once again for the great replies, looks like ive got some reading to do. Ive been away in Scotland for the past couple of weeks with work so i havent been able to get online, hence the lack of replies. There have definitley been some valid points, reverse polarity protection and the current it takes to switch the solenoid. I will probably resurrect this thread once im back at uni and have had a chance to chat with the lecturer to see if he thinks the project is worth while.
  20. Nick, thanks for the offer, once im back at uni and have had a word with the lecturer i will probably be in touch. Ive heard people mention C+ and C++ programming before and that it is reasonably simple to pick up, Can anybody recomend some good reading?
  21. Si, I hadnt thought about using a touch screen as the controller but it sounds like a good idea, as my first thought was using some switches and a display for the meters. The only issue ive got with programming is that i havent done any but hopefully if there are some sample codes about it shouldnt be too hard to adapt any existing codes to suit my needs. although i understand electronics it isnt my strong point as up until the final year of the degree ive been doing the Heavy Current route at a partner college and have been put on the light current for the final year which has put me and a couple others at a bit of a disadvatage, so i will probably be back with questions once the project starts. The safety issue if a very valid point that i had overlooked while thinking about ideas for a project. for the emergency stop button do you think its a good idea to stop the winches quickly by briefly operating the winch in the reverse polarity to stop the over run or would it do more harm that good? The projects that were made last year ranged from a robotic hand that was controlled by sensors placed on the fore arms, too goal line techonolgy that consisted of an infra-red beam that set off an alarm when the beam was broken, so with regards to the amount of development that i can do there is no limit but the more that i can develop the project the better as long as i prove that i can make engineering decisions and have reasons to back up decisions. What do you mean about a heartbeat? something similar to a button that must be pressed every 90 seconds like the system that they have on trains or am i barking up the wrong tree? as far as im aware it is possible to achieve the same marks for both programming and designing circuits. Althought the basic idea has been thought around a product for a challenge truck it could i think that there is a lot i can write about the project with lots of egnineering decisions, safety, research and development. What would be the best way to control the relays from the remote? If i was to look into programming what is the best programme to look at? Cheers for all the help so far, Tris
  22. Hello Im about to enter my final year of uni doing a degree in electrical and electronic engineering, as part of the final year everyone needs to make a project rather than a dissertation. For my project ive thought about making a wireless winch controller that is capable of controlling both the front and rear winch (with the possiblity of a center winch). I am also thinking about having the ablility to display the voltage of the batteries and possibly the curent that is being drawn by each winch with a LED that comes on if too much current is being drawn so that the user knows they should double line the pull reducing the strain on the winch. Im starting to put some ideas together for what i may need to achieve this project and am thinking about a Hall effect sensor to measure the current for each winch, and the lecturer has mentioned about either using bluetooth or wireless for the controller but im not completely sure which would be better. any advise would be very much appreciated. Cheers Tris
  23. When i fitted a Mondeo fan to my 300TDi i had the same problem of it catching on the spigot. To overcome this i unbolted the motor from the shroud and placed it on the other side so tht the motor was protruding towards the radiator.
  24. Thanks for the response guys, The two numbers ive got are as follows; V5 and Chassis No - SALLDVA67WA156162 MOT and VIN Plate - SALLDVB67VA125955 Both of which say that its from a defender althought one is 1997 and the other 1998, guessi'll just have to see who comes knocking at the door
  25. Ive had my 300TDi defender for about 3 years now and it has gone through the previous MOTs without just the normal small issues, loose ball joint, worn steering bush etc. However during the last MOT i had a letter come throught the door a week or so later saying that there was a discrepency in the Chassis numbers between the vehicle, V5 and the MOT certificate, It seems that i have got two Chassis numbers Upon further inspection i have found that the chassis number on the Vin plate matches the MOT certificate.... But the number stamped on the chassis dumb iron matches the V5 If i post the chassis numbers on here is it possible to work out which one is correct so that i have a heads up before the DVLA come knocking? Cheers Tris
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