In the UK, my 77 year father calls the strutting between floor joists "noggins" this is also spelt noggings in some circumstances. Trying to search for spacing for noggins, is tricky. You may have more luck with "strutting"
So I found the below table on NHBC Campaigns Website , which gives spacings fro strutting as follows:
As the below image shows for me I needed a row of noggins or strutting in the centre of joists only. If you are using joist hangers however, you will perhaps need a row of noggins down each side. This is not always the case, but you may wish to check with building inspector, or building regs plans issuer.
Are you in the market for a Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Directional Cross Polarised LTE MIMO Antenna? Here are the wheres and whys, and my findings having purchased one.
Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Review & Install - What is It?
The Poynting XPOL-2 V2 (Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Directional Cross Polarised LTE MIMO Antenna) is an antenna (like an aerial) that you attached to your 4G router, and it "collects" more signal strength from the available signal, leading to the following advantages:
Lower latency
Higher Bandwidth
Less Drop Out
Stronger Signal
The antenna consists of 5 meters of high quality low loss coaxial cables, and gold plated SMA connectors, and the antenna itself, which is at 25cm x 25cm (9" x 9") plastic box with female threaded attachments on rear.
The cable come pre-attached, and the box included mounting brackets. You will need a round section pole to mount it on.
Square 50mmx50mm lower section with round tube on top.
Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Review & Install - How to Install
In order to use this antenna, you will need a 3G or 4G router such as:
TP-LINK TL-MR6400 (As pictured below - I have this one)
TP-LINK AC750 MR6400
Huawei B593 B315 B525 E5186
NETGEAR M1 MR1100 NIGHTHAWK ZTE MF279
Huawei E5186
Some of the later model of the TP Link MR200 (Version 3) do not have removable antenna, make sure your router has SMA connectors, or you will have to buy adaptors TS9 is another popular fitting that is easily adapted.
Open the box, and inside you will find all that is required to attached the antenna to a pole it will not be easy to mount to a square post, or a wall, as setting the direction of the antenna, so its front flat face is pointing at the nearest mobile mast. It will require a round post to the mounted on.
It is important to note that this antenna will likely improve you 3G 4G experience whether it is mounted internally or external. External is preferential owing to lack of obstacles such as walls.
In my case I used, a square wooden lower post, and a short length of round tube, on the top, which allowed for rotation. If you are looking to fix this to a wall then perhaps a "Satellite Wall Mount Bracket " would do the job.
The cable is 5 meters long. So this runs down from where you have mounted the antenna (some report putting in loft works OK) and at some point you will likely have to drill a hole in the wall. You need a 20mm drill bit, so you can get both connector though side by side. It is best to wrap the connectors in a little masking tape, to stop them getting dusty or scratched.
Drill a hole in wall to pass through cable (on right in this picture)
One of the trickiest parts of the setup is pointing the antenna accurately at the mobile mast. If you can see the mast then that is all well and good, but if not it can be tricky to envisage where the mast is. I guessed at first and I was around 5 degrees off, which was the difference between 75% signal and 100%, so it is worth getting right.
I used the "measure" function on google maps to draw a line from the antenna location, to the nearest mobile mast. The line will cross something that you can see (house next door for example), and it is easier to line up with something close by than trying to guess. It transpires it is 1.9miles to my nearest mobile mast.
Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Review & Install - Why Would I Need One?
If you are in any of the following situations, then you might benefit from using this XPOL-2 antenna:
Rural and urban areas
Poor data signal reception (indoor or outdoor)
Slow data transmission connection areas
Unstable connection
Increase system transmission reliability
LTE fringe areas (close to an LTE area, but just out of reach)
In my case I was probably non of these, as I could get about 16MB a second using a cheapo external antenna, but I needed a higher bandwidth so as to get more data (I had three kids using video chat during lockdown for CV19 2020), and had read that a good quality antenna would help. It did.
The new antenna, nearly tripled by down load speed, and upload speeds. I also noticed a slight drop in latency time (a good thing).
Strangely enough despite this large jump in performance the signal strength did not change. With my router still telling be 75%, which was the same as the cheapo antenna. However, after fine tuning the direction of the antenna, which was off by about 5 degrees this did go up to 100%.
Download speed went up to over 50MB/s after this fine adjustment.
Poynting XPOL-2 V2 Review & Install - Conclusions
This is a high quality directional antenna, that really works. If I had swapped this for the stock internal antenna, I would have seen a 500% increase in bandwidth, as it stood I still managed to get a 300% increase even when replacing an external antenna from another manufacturer.
It is quite expensive, at £110 (compared to £25 for cheapo version) but I am very pleased with it.
If you are out of reception, or not getting enough bandwidth, I would give this a wizz, it works miracles.
I have a
couple of home made TPA3116 boom box (es). I was looking at ways to
connect these two up to a single source, and after trying a splitter
cable, decided to try pre-amplifier to boost input signal.
The result were that I destroyed my amplifier board and had to spend £7.50 on a new one. I would guess that these cheap amplifier boards are built to deal with a certain level of input power, and although the overall power was increased, and did not sound distorted, damage still occurred.
Burnt Out Inductors - Too Much Current through a thin wire?
The TPA 3116 board used already has a pre-amplifier built in. 2 x NE5335 chips. I decided to try pre-amping gain using a Behringer HA400 Microamp, as stated above this did increase the volume considerably, but had I checked the temperature of components on the board I would have found that bad things were happening.
No doubt this post will annoy some people as I showed disrespect for the electrical engineer process, and ignorance of basic concepts, but I just like to try things out and see if it works.
DIY Mountain Bike / MTB Mudguards / Fenders - Intro
I was a little pissed at the thought of having to spend £7 on a piece of plastic, which is literally no bigger than the lid off an ice cream tub.
But here's the thing, why not buy a tub of ice cream, eat it, and use the plastic there in to make a set of DIY mountain bike / MTB mudguards.
This design of front mudguard is a far sturdier mudguard than the zip tie offerings, and unlike the down tube style guards has the advantage of moving with the wheel when you turn around a corner.
The rear option sees you spending money on a rear luggage rack, which weighs next to nothing and using that as a mount point for salvaged plastic. A rear rack is so so handy. If you don't like handy and prefer trendy then you are reading the wrong blog.
DIY Mountain Bike / MTB Mudguards / Fenders - Ingredients
It doesn't have to be ice cream, just keep an eye out for a any sort of suitable plastic, and lets face it we are drowning in the stuff, it needs to be quite thick and rigid. The sort of plastic you might get from a 25 litre container of something (cooking oil?), or the lid off a 10 litre paint tub that sort of thing. Nearly all of the below you could probably find lying around.
Hint: Before you throw stuff away start taking it apart and keeping the nuts, bolts and screws, as they come in handy.
Snips or Jig Saw
Strip of Steel
Drill Bits
Rivets or Small Nuts and Bolts
Plastic (HDPE Preferentially - Number 4 Plastic)
Star Nut Sized to Stem
Zip Ties
Now right about now, you might think that £7 doesn't sound so good, if you don't have this stuff already then, the outlay may not be worth it, although it will set you up for future projects. You could do this in a community work shop.
DIY Mountain Bike / MTB Mudguards / Fenders - DIY Front Mudguard
For the front mudguard will need a piece of plastic around 30cm long and 10cm wide. You cut this in the shape of a podgy wine bottle. You then place a 10cm length of strip steel, or hammered flat steel tube, over the thin under an rivet in to place. Finally you drill an 6mm hole in the end of the strip about 2cm from the outside end.
Hammer a stat nut in to lower end of your fork steerer tube. You then bolt the front mudguard to the underside of the steerer tube. Done.
At this point you might be thinking you don't want a rear luggage rack. . .
But you soooo do want one: You can get a rear luggage rack on eBay for £10 with postage (which is less than some mudguards). This opens up all-sorts of options, for off-road touring etc. If you are thinking bike packing, well you can still strap trendy bags to it, that would otherwise be mounted further up under the saddle, where they will raise you centre of gravity. For practical types, you can add a pannier to store water, food, and clothing. I recently did a stretch of the south downs way (off-road) carrying 2 litres of water, lunch, clothing and tools, in a pannier it worked a charm, I can swap the same bag on to any of my other bikes, in 5 seconds.
Any hoo.
Simple cut a piece of plastic the same width as you rack's underside and secure with zip ties. I you had a long enough piece you could extend this down to the chain stays, but I have found the the piece jutting out at the back as shown in images is fine.
I doubt you have seen my
original DIY BMX EBike build, as it is the worse thing ever, and
although a "good laugh" was pretty much useless. The main problems were
lack of weight on the front wheel, battery in the way of knees, and
rubbish brakes. If you would rather watch on Youtube, then there is a video.
MK1 and . . . . MK2
BMX Ebike MK2 - Improvements
Planned improvements were to mount the battery to the rear of the saddle, this required lengthening the rear stays, otherwise there would have been heel strike. Lengthening the rear stays also moves the centre of gravity forwards. I also needed to reduce the top speed, add some mudgaurds, lighting and improve the brakes.
BMX Ebike MK2 - Drive System
The drive system although weird is as good as I can make it for the components used. I did not change this.
You fit a rear wheel (110mm wide) in to a front fork, by cutting a re-welding the left-hand side drop out. This is easy to do as you can use the axle and nut to hold the drop out in place as you weld.
The motor is then mounted so the chain line is straight. The motor needs to be geared other wise you bike will be all speed and no torque which is not very good. An ungeared motor may go really fast on perfectly flat ground, but even a shallow hill will result is doom. i.e. slowness.
The key is to add a plate of steel on which to mount the motor.
If the steel is quite thin it will flex when you are using the motor and the chain will not stay tensioned. Add in a brace as above or use thicker steel. The holes which are used to bolt the motor, should be elongated, this allows you to slide the motor up and down, and thus tighten the chain.
BMX Ebike MK2 - Frame
I needed to make room for batteries, and alter the front rear centre of gravity.
I added in this lattice structure between the new rear sat tubing, I cut the stays and then bought tube from eBay that would fit in side, I bought stuff with quite thick walls as I was not worried about weight.
Next up was to add in the battery holder frame. This was cut off the MK1 BMX Ebike and welded on. The tubing is thin so you can also hang a pannier bag on the sides too, which is handy. If the battery fit down in side without poking out of the top, then perhaps you could make a seat at the rear.
But is does poke out of the top, so no seat. The battery is held in place using a zip tie. A big zip tie.
Here is a close up of the area of frame were it has been extended. The tubing was placed in a vice and bent by hand until it all slotted together, no measuring or anything, just bend a bit and then try it out.
BMX Ebike MK2 - Electrics & Sundries
A few extra bits were added to make the bike a bit more practical. To recap the the bike is powered by a MY1020z, with a YiYun Controller with 48v of headway LiFePO4 at 8ah. I had to work out how to slow this thing down, as I had reduced gearing as far as possible, and still it went 30mph, which is just silly and against the law in the UK. So I figured out how to reduce the speed of the ebike.
A "kill" switch for the controller (ebay: engine stop switch). This is wired in to the "ignition" loop of the controller (yiyun) where the key would normally be. It allows me to kill the system if anything is going wrong. Sticky throttle for example. Next to that is a small toggle switch which is used to switch the lights on and off.
In this picture you can see mudguards have been added, and a front head lamp, this is a 10W LED floodlight, it is a poor choice for a headlamp and the beam is wide and shallow, and does not reach very far up the road. The lights are power by a Shido Lithium battery at 12v which is taped to the handle bars. The battery is quite light.
Lastly the controller and all the spare wiring are tucked inside this webbing pouch to keep them tidy, and a little dry.
BMX Ebike MK2 - Video
If you would like to here my annoying voice, talk about this for 7 minutes then there is a video below.
The pleasure of being outdoors is often spoiled by rain and cold weather. Those summer evenings when you sit and contemplate life over a glass of red wine, whilst listening to the birds and the wind in the trees start to become less frequent come late summer / early autumn.
We all love a good shed, or a hut, or a log cabin, but these generally disconnect you from the outdoors. Enter the hovel! A quick to build open sided "structure" enabling you to enjoy the outdoors even when cold and rainy.
A Bout 4 Hours to Build - Not Counting Stove
It is a nice place to go if you are an indoor worker. It is a "different" place to chill to signify a Friday. It is a bolt hole to escape from world pressures.
2 - Where to Build a Hovel?
Not in plain site, these are ugly shelters that will annoy most people. Of course you could make a pretty one, but then it would take on another name like a gazebo or something.
Something like this goes best in the corner of a garden partially obscured behind a large bush, or a short piece of fencing.
3 - How to Build a Hovel?
Build a shack or hovel with whatever you have to hand. You may need to buy some bits and bobs such as wood, plastic sheeting, screws. You also need a heat source, please see detail in Chapter 5.
4 - How I Built my Hovel?
I used a sheet of 8 x 4 ply, for a floor. You don't really need a floor, but it will keep your feet warmer in the winter. I used some willow staves for uprights, and cross pieces, and then screwed various corrugated sheeting off cuts on to three sides. I then stapled some woven polyester type material over one other side, leaving the front open. A plank of wood is used for a bench seat.
5 - Heating for your Hovel
Unless you live in Equatorial Guinea you will need a source of heat. I have made a chiminia type thing out of an old gas cylinder. There are lots of ideas for making a DIY wood stove, that you can follow, but most require welding.
However, mots towns have some one who can weld, you may live on the same street as a hobbiest that will weld for you, for a small fee. Ask around.
A balloon gas cylinder, and a few length of pipe is all you need. You could do the ducting you self with a hack saw blade, and then get someone to do the welding for you.
Ventilation ducting or steel down pipe make a cheap chimney. Because the sides of the hovel are open, air can circulate and so a few leaks may not matter too much, although wood smoke is full of carcinogens, and maybe CO1 so a good chimney is better.
6 - Video Tour of Hovel
7 - Conclusions
A fun project. Ask any question in comments please.
It cost a fortune to buy ready made passenger / grab handle for cargo bikes such as the Yuba Mundo or the Xtracycle. Why not make you own with some wood. Plywood is best. You will need a jigsaw and some sand paper, fabric tape optional. Some screws and a screwdriver.
A stiff wooden hand lke this is good, because it does not move around, unlike a rope loop or similar which is lousy for keep balance when the driver brakes.
Aim is to make a some rigid handle that kids or other passenger can hang on to to stop them falling off when you wizz around corners etc.
Simply cut out a shape, similar to above using a jigsaw. You could use a brad-saw, or even the saw on a swiss army knife if you are patient.
Attach the handle by screwing up through the base of the rear deck, use fairly long screws you want about 2" / 50mm of screw in the handle after it has gone through the deck. If you deck is plastic drill some pilot holes.
Done, sane done splintery edges, and then you could wind some tape around the grips. I used some cloth tape I had hanging around. Video on bike here.
This is a series of photos on the construction of a TPA3116 2.1 Channel Potable Speaker. The speaker uses wooden casing, up-cycled driver units, a 12v battery and can be adapted to run on main power also. If you would rather watch this on You Tube then please click here > TPA3116 Build Video
Finished Thing
TPA3116 is an amplifier, which runs on a variety of voltages. This "2.1" variant has stereo speaker out puts but also a third channel of sub-bass. This is my second build with this amplifier and it works well.
TPA3116 2.1 Speaker Build - Shopping List
For this project you will need the following. However, please do not be afraid to substitute materials, or even the amplifier board itself, for another model. For a smaller speaker you might try the PAM8610 which is a good little amplifier. For a very small speaker you might try the PAM8403.
I should also point out that if you are using recycled driver units, and they are still in the speaker case, why not re-use the case as well. You could glue, screw or bolts the two speaker together, and mount all wiring in side the speaker. This would avoid costs of buying wood.
For my speaker I used:
12mm Shuttering Ply - Main cabinet / box
9mm OSB (thin sheet wood - speaker grill support)
Screws
Two Part Filler
Paint (Optional)
Fabric or Cloth or Mesh
Amplifier Board
Speaker Cable
12V to 24V boost convertor
Switch
3.5mm jack cable
Driver Units
Insulation tape
Tools
Drill / Electric Screw Driver
Jig Saw
Tape Measure
Soldering Iron
Solder
Pencil
TPA3116 2.1 Speaker Build - Using Recycled Speakers
Making the box is perhaps the most demanding part of the whole project. As mentioned above perhaps re-use you speaker cabinets if you are recycling. I had some large sony speakers and the cabinets were fiar quality (not very weather proof though) and could have been bolted together, and used as is.
Most speakers will have 2 or 3 driver units inside.
Once you have removed the driver units from their original cabinet have a look on the rear of the speaker to try and figure out what ohm rating they have. For this project 4ohm speakers are best, but 8 ohm are OK, although the speaker will be quieter overall.
TPA3116 2.1 Speaker Build - Speaker Holes
You will need half a 4 x 8 sheet of ply to make this cabinet. Plywood is good, because you can get it wet, unlike MDF which swells when wet. Shuttering ply is a low garden water resistant ply, which can be sourced from most builders merchants.
Before you cut the panels, cut the holes for the speakers, it is easy to use a jig saw when the board is still in one piece.
Cut holes for driver units.
Try ou the driver units frequently to check fit.
Do not make the mistake of drawing around the driver unit and then cutting, the hole need to be large enough that the screw holes sit on the wood.
Mark past inner edge of screw hole.
Rest the driver unit where the hole is intended, then mark the very inner most edge of the screw hole. Do this for all the screw holes. Then take away the driver units and join up the marks to make a cut circle.
Cut Line Smaller than Full Diameter
TPA3116 2.1 Speaker Build - The Cabinet
Once you have cut your speaker holes (for mounting driver units) you can continue with the rest of the cabinet. The front panel of the cabinet is the deciding factor in term of measurements for the rest of the cabinet / box. Take care cutting this panel, to ensure it is square.
Taking Shape
Cut the sides the same size as the front panel. Cut the top and bottom the same BUT 24mm wider to account for overall. Always cut bigger if you are unsure. You can always cut off excess with the jig saw although this results in a messy finish.
Blood, Sweat . . . but no Tears
Once the cabinet is complete you can paint it, and add a front mesh cover. This could be stapled in place or glued, or anything really. Just have fun choosing what ever you have laying around and do it!
At 24V (max voltage) you are building a 40W amplifier. It is a class D amp, very efficient, so you get a lot of noise for those 40W RMS.
Hopefully your board came with a wiring diagram. This will show you which wire go in which clamps etc. Here I am running 2 x 8ohm speakers run paralleled to give 4 ohms.
Board Mounted on Steel Plate or Plastic Sheet Material
The board is supported using the 3 potentiometers, that control volume, treble, and bass. You could use the mounting holes also, but I find this unnecessary.
A 12V battery feeds a 12V to 24V boot converter. This is better than 2 x 12V batterys, as 2 x 12V batteries linked in series can be 28V fresh off charge which is too many volts! 24V is maximum.
The power switch on the side of you build, should switch the BOOSTER on and off.
Externally, cut a neat hole, and then drill holes in this for RCA Sockets, Volume Knobs and Toggle Switch. Finally, you can add two protruding bolts, that can be used to charge the battery without opening the cabinet up every-time.
Not all TPA3116 2.1 boards are made equal, if you are driving 8 ohm speakers get a board with high "gain" (36db) as this will help with output.
TPA3116 2.1 Speaker Build - Conclusions
On completion you will have a loud speaker that give very good low bass sound. The cost can be a bit high, but for me this was becuase of the wood. I bought a 4' x 8' of plywood, why cost £40. But I still have over half left. . . . the battery would also be a significant cost.
Total cost disregarding these would be £20, with the added bonus that you can fix it when it breaks. You built it after-all. Oh! Its pretty heavy.
If you would rather watch this on You Tube then please click here > TPA3116 Build Video
Upcyling / Recycling an Old Stereo Amplifier - Chapter 1 - Intro
I am not overly interested in electronics I find it fiddly and not very satisfying. However, to me throwing a large complicated piece of electronic equipment in the bin is a literally a crime. . . or it soon will be. E Waste in Ghana
For someone with low skills such as myself the percentage of what can be upcycled / reused is fairly low. But it saves some waste at least. It may also save you some money, by re-using the case, power supply and connectors you are perhaps saving £50 / $100 on a DIY build. . . . . . I hope to complete this project for about £20 / $40. Bear in mind you can buy a cheaper amplifier for £30! But where is the fun / satisfaction in that I ask. . . . .
I should point out that my first attempt at this build went horribly wrong. I did not understand the power supply and some of the other wiring. I fried all of my new circuits! So more rubbish for the scrap heap! So you know where you stand perhaps use a modern switching power supply. . . but then our goal to prevent waste is very much reduced. I am only really reusing the case, and a few connectors. Hardly worth the effort.
Upcyling / Recycling an Old Stereo Amplifier - Chapter 1- What You Need
A minimum kit list of attempting this project is:
Voltmeter / Multi-meter
Soldering Iron
Screw Driver
Wire
Replacement Circuit Board with Suitable Voltage
Upcyling / Recycling an Old Stereo Amplifier - Chapter 1 - Whats Inside?
The below amplifier is an old friend I bought this when I was 18 (over 20 yeas ago) and it has been used for countless parties, outdoor raves (linked with friends amplifiers), run on generators, used as a seat at bus stops. . . . . hence dent in lid! But alas it no longer works, and having checked the side I found the circuit board had a large crack running through it, and some of the leg have been torn from one of the large Class A Amplifiers.
WARNING: On the back of you amplifier there will likely be a message saying "Danger of Death" or "Risk of Electric Shock". This is there because there are bits inside that will kill you if you touch them. So if you do take the lid off you amplifier, that is what might happen. I am just explaining what I did. Only copy me if YOU choose to do so.
So next I took off the lid, and had a look inside and found the following (click to enlarge):
You will note the large brown circuit board that cover most of the inside of this amplifier. I have no idea how to repair this, so will be replacing this with a small circuit board purchased from eBay. The boards look like this:
There are lots to choose from I will deal with which one later in this post. I am using the TPA3116. As I have some past experience with this board.
Upcyling / Recycling an Old Stereo Amplifier - Chapter 1 - Which Bits to Keep
So after removing all of the bits you do not need you will end up with this (click to enlarge):
I have removed the large heat sink because I am using a Class D Amplifier so I will not need the large heat sink, if you are choosing a Class A or Class AB amplifier then it would be a bonus to reuse your heat sink.
A good quality power supply will cost quite a lot, so the one you have is worth keeping. The power supply might be AC rather then DC current, check this with a multi meter. If it is Look out for the bridge rectifiers and keep those too so you can make DC current for new amplifier board!
This power supply gives out multiple voltages, which is very handy. I suspect most amplifiers will have this arrangements as they will need to power low voltage lighting and higher voltage amplifier chips. The voltages from this supply are "non" standard. They are not 12, 24, 36 etc. they are 17, 27 43 etc. thye go up to 93V so risk of a shock there if I am not careful!
Also the RCA inputs and Output Terminals and any other input / out put parts might be worth keeping. There were also some large capacitors, which may come in handy for decoupling.
Upcyling / Recycling an Old Stereo Amplifier - Chapter 1 - Watch a Video Summary
I have tried to summaries findings in Chapter 2. . . although for a full description of what went wrong perhaps head over to DIY Audio.
