Rick's b.log - entry 2024/11/02

Anaglyphs

You'll need 3D red/cyan glasses (or an overactive imagination) to make sense of these images. And, sorry, it's been rather unimpressive weather recently. It is, indeed, every bit as cold as it looks. I wish I could crawl under my duvet and not come out until... oh, mid spring or so.

Looking up the lane. This is the part that floods when the weather gets a bit crazy.

Looking at the itty bitty stream in its resting state.

Looking along the front of the property.

My pumpkin sitting atop the letterbox. It has been seen by me, and all of you reading my blog. There has been no post since... Wednesday, I think. That's not a bad thing, given my total lack of a social life, post is usually some sort of bill.

Can you believe this used to be an awful tangle of brambles?

And, finally, my desk in the living room just before writing this. I don't usually use the little desk lamp so I wasn't aware of how dusty it was until I looked at the photo and thought "damn". I'll need to find my soft paintbrush and give things a good going over.
Or the ADHD approach - just turn the light off and then the dust goes away. ☺

I know what like I am. I just rummaged to find the paintbrush to dust everything. But, no, I'm not setting up the phone and tripod again...

Car bug and battery

What I need to do is disconnect the cable, then wait about twenty seconds for the light to fade out. Then open the door (light fades in), put the cable in, close the door, lock the car, and a little later the light will fade out.

It is interesting, also, that if I unlock and open the door when the light is in, it will immediately turn off and then start to fade in. It's as if the charger-cable behaviour and the door behaviour are controlled by entirely different bits of code, and opening the door causes the charger-cable behaviour to be discarded while it is still driving the LED to full brightness. Hmm, does that mean it's also using two separate outputs to the interior LED?

I'd love to look at the source code for the dashboard controller. Given that it is all digital these days (the swing-needle gauges are simply stepper motors controlled by the microprocessor), I think it would be some interesting code in there. I'm guessing it also times the indicator flashing because my previous car (I don't know about this one, haven't read all through the user guide) would do the indicator ticking noise at double speed if one of the bulbs has blown. Unfortunately there wasn't a nag for failed tail/stop lights.

Oh, and the rear window demister seems to time itself for about five minutes. That's a little short.

Speaking of which, I went into the little nearby town to post a recorded letter to ask about the car payments. I was on half and figured since it was slightly closer, I could do the journey with a half charged battery and then charge from below a quarter.

I went from the post office to the pharmacy to enquire about vaccinations. I can get the flu when I want but Covid needs to be ordered, I should call on Friday to ask about an evening appointment as the ones in the coming week were in the morning.
Then I went to the little expensive supermarket to see if they had the organic sugar that I like (it is Blonvilliers, my usual supermarket stocks Daddy which is a rival brand) but they didn't. I noted also that they didn't have a Celebrations advent calendar. Are they not doing one this year? Fed up of everybody whinging about the Bounty?

Then I drove home, the entire journey was about 21km. And since the battery wasn't depleting like I expected, I drove back with the heater on the entire journey. Bloody thing still didn't drop below an eighth over quarter. And it was only 12°C. Like, what the hell?

Anyway, came home, left it on charge for two and a half hours. It's now fully charged. <shrug>

A final observation, it appears that the main battery has something that responds to Bluetooth. I took a different phone to listen to some music I had pulled from YouTube having heard it on streaming radio. As I was scanning to pick up the car media player, I saw a device called "AixBatt". Unfortunately it requires a PIN. And probably sends seemingly-garbage that needs a specific app to decode. Rather like those Bluetooth weighing scales.

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David Pilling, 2nd November 2024, 18:47

Most important points first, yes they're doing a Celebrations Advent calendar, and yes it contains a Bounty bar.    Car might be an example of the thing you most need to work, is most likely not to work i.e. battery range.    Yes cars are big lumps of code these days. Lights turn on when supposedly useful as do other devices. Odd behaviour of the lights.    Seemingly hacking car code is frowned upon (it has been done)- people not going to stop at interior lights timing, going to crash it, or blow up engine. Pity because being able to twiddle lights timing etc would be useful. An open system would be good - send commands to do various things like turn on light.

C Ferris, 3rd November 2024, 10:43

Rick could ask the car makers - about updating the computer prog plus whether being able to charge at Level/Type 2 stations.    But I suppose the computer controls the ABS brakes :-/

Rick, 3rd November 2024, 12:27

In my experience, companies do not like it when you ask about source code or reporting problems with their firmware. If I get any response, it's usually an "it is what it is"...which of course shows the reality of the thing being able to check for updates, it's all crap.  [example: SkyTune now has links to numerous podcasts; my SkyTune radio does not support this and won't ever be updated to do so (or fix other bugs)]    I think most people want to hack car code to override limiters and fiddle with the engine management to eke out more speed.    Honestly, I would consider a car defective if the dashboard unit was in charge of managing the engine/motor or braking systems. Those should be sealed-unit autonomous systems, so a duff input that causes the car to report it's going 999kph (and then crash) doesn't leave the floor pedal unresponsive and the brakes inoperable.  The dashboard should be for reporting state and controlling ancillary functions (like lights timing) only.    There are Type 2 to AC outlet adaptors, but it's worth noting that support for these depends upon whether or not the charging station requires the control pilot signals to be active.    The little supermarket I stopped at had two different charging stations. One was the fancy fast charger, and the other, older one, was a dual outlet Type 2 / AC. Sounds better, BUT, not only was the LCD broken (most of the pixels on), it also didn't work with debit cards. This, actually, seems to be something of a problem. This station needs a badge or app. There's a different station in a nearby town that needs a different badge/app. None of them appear to deal with payments directly, the only one that I've found that does is the one by the fast food place that doesn't support 220V AC.  Hmm...

C Ferris, 3rd November 2024, 13:50

Interesting - years ago say a Capacitor went duff in a electronic ignition - engine stopped - power steering failed - power assisted braking failed -Eeek

David Pilling, 3rd November 2024, 18:01

There's a whole business of 'engine mapping' - how do they get the information. In the UK there is a legal requirement to inform the customer what the results will be - poking bytes into random locations probably not good enough. Maybe the manufacturers sell some info.  Yes multiple computers for different areas.  My story about the wheel speed sensor - different computers but only one sensor.

Zerosquare, 5th November 2024, 18:08

I tried viewing the anaglyphs. The picture of your house looks fine and has a nice 3D effect. Others are more difficult to view clearly (I think the worst one is the picture of your computer). I guess the distance you move the camera between the two shots is critical, and you can't really get consistent results if you do it manually.

Rob, 5th November 2024, 21:13

I like bounty..    Have you checked the manufacturer doesn't have any updates available? Somr years back I was able to download a firmware update for a Ford Galaxy which updated the system somewhat, including adding provision for Android Auto, the reason I went looking.

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