klassicvwkampers.co.uk gone bust?
I've been converting my Ford Transit, ex-police van into a camper. I've installed a seat/bed unit and have faced up and insulated the bulkhead separating the cabin from what was the cells but is where I will keep all my paddock gubbins.
Supercharger Update
I've made some fair progress on the ECU wiring harness. I have one last wire to solder onto the socket, but as it was a bit of an afterthought I'm having to try and solder it in amongst a forest of pins already with wires attached. Rather than letting my frustration get the better of me and end up ripping the whole thing apart, I've revamped the progress reports and moved them from a blog-post to a dedicated Supercharger Project page in the 'projects' section.
DIY Camcorder mount
This evening, I decided to take a break from wiring the Emerald ECU harness for my supercharger project. I've got one wire left to attach, but it's right in amongst a forest of wires, and I can't be bothered right now.
So, tonight's fun was making a camcorder mount.
A couple of weeks ago, I picked up an HD camcorder from Lidl (1920x1980p) for £99. Not a bad deal, and pretty compact. Since it's going to be fitted to cars, bikes and boats I wasn't too fussed about spending a fortune on uber high quality kit.
I had one of those little mini tripods lying about (similar to this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mini-Tripod-Ball-Tilt-silver/dp/B0002W6E3S )
I found that the legs of the tripod unscrewed leaving an M10 threaded shaft protruding about 1cm from the bottom of the head.
I also happen to have some 1" aluminium alloy bar lying about, so I stuck it in the lathe, turned it down, bored and threaded a hole in the end and made this.
DVLA Changes
The DVLA is bringing in some long-awaited changes to their processes and requirements. Most notably...
MX5 Supercharger project
This post will not be updated, it's more completely documented in my Supercharger Project pages.
I'm documenting the process of installing an Eaton M45 supercharger in my 2002 Mazda MX5. I've read several build diaries on various forums and websites, but still find myself asking seemingly obvious questions about things that have been omitted from these diaries. I hope this this will provide a comprehensive, step-by-step account of what is needed and done to do this modification.
New proposals for motorcycle type approval
From the BMF via Motorcycle Trader:
Silverstone improvements
The next step in securing the future of Silverstone Circuit was taken yesterday with the submission of a comprehensive outline planning application to Aylesbury Vale District Council and South Northants District Council. The application conforms with the Silverstone Development Brief, issued February 2009, and comprises of:
More on the Squeezebox widget
A while back I blogged about a Squeezebox taskbar widget I created to control my Squeezebox from my desktop without needing the web interface open. I've noticed a reasonable proportion of traffic to my site which has hit that page, so I've put the code onto SourceForge to make it more widely available.
MySQL User Group
From discussions both at and after the recent MySQL meeting, it seems the way forward for this group, and the UK MySQL community as a whole is to move away from Facebook, develop it's own presence and community, and to fall under the wing of the UK OUG to take advantage of the "official" status it gives us. This also gives us the opportunity for funding and organising events as well as providing venues.
As part of that I'm looking at setting up a dedicated web-presence for the UK MySQL community, as I believe many of the members we lost when we moved off Meetup was due to them not using, or generally not liking Facebook. If you have any suggestions for a platform to use for a community like this, I'm keen to hear it.
There's also likely to be a MySQL stream at the UK OUG conference in Birmingham in November. If anyone has any information, wants information, or would like to be involved, please drop me a line.
Squeezebox controller
I can't find any simple apps for controlling my Squeezebox Boom. There used to be a Firefox plugin, but it seems development of that has stalled and it won't work with the versin of firefox I'm running. There is the web-interface to the squeezebox server, and while that does everything, it still needs you to find the relevant tab/window to be able to control the player.