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DIY Lake Depth Maps for old Garmin GPS

My wife bought a pontoon this summer and while I’m not an avid angler, it has given us more opportunities to go fishing. If you’re out on the lake, why not drop a line in? 🎣

I’m normally one of those guys that buys the waterproof lake map to keep in the boat:

These Minnesota-made lakemaps are no longer produced and considered “vintage” – but you can still get them at bait shops around the state. What about something a little more high tech, but not too expensive? I went to eBay looking for an old multi-mode Garmin GPS and got a nüvi 500 that has modes for driving, hiking, biking and boating.

Knowing that it was pretty easy to load Open Street Maps onto my handheld Garmin eTrex Vista HCx, I assumed I could do the same thing with the nüvi 500… Yes and no. You can do it, but it’s not easy.

Sea vs. Lake

The first thing to understand is commercial and free maps such as Garmin Bluechart and Open Sea Map are for ocean-going. The only lakes they cover are the Great Lakes and some very popular inland waters, such as the Boundary Waters. Loading those maps will allow the nuvi to switch to “Boat Mode” (you must have a nautical map loaded to switch), but they won’t have any info about your local lake. Also, the older Garmin Inland Lakes maps that used to work for this unit is no longer available. Planned obsolescence is an art, not a science 😩

Boat Mode

I found Jeff Jahr’s boatmode.img file which is an empty map with the nautical flag set that allows me to choose “Boating” as the mode. The file needs to be renamed to gmapsupp.img and placed in a garmin folder either on a microSD card (inserted near the battery) or on the device’s internal memory.

But you can really only have one or two gmapsupp.img files on the device (one in internal memory and one on the SD card). How can I add more map data? It turns out these img files act as containers and can contain many maps 💪 Here’s how I put them together

The Process

To put these together I used a Windows computer. All of the software shown here is available for MacOS as well. It is probably possible in Linux, but I don’t (yet) know how to do the GPX to IMG conversion. If you have Linux tips, share them in the comments.

Download Lake Contours

I get the lake depth contours from the MN DNR “Lake Finder” – just search for the lake you frequent and click the “Google Earth / KML” link in the sidebar.

Example: Lake Minnetonka https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/lake.html?id=27013300

That will download a lake.kml file. I always rename them to lake-name.kml (lake-minnetonka.kml in this case) and put them in a folder with the lake name, because we’ll be repeating this process and adding more files later.

Convert KML to GPX

Use Garmin’s free BaseCamp program to import the KML data into “My Collection.” With BaseCamp installed and started, drag and drop the lake kml file into the “My Collection” folder in BaseCamp.

I like to use BaseCamp because it keeps the contour depth labels when converting to GPX. The downside is it wants to copy those GPX files to your GPS device, so you need to have your GPS plugged in during the conversion.

Select your imported KML lake under “My Collection”, right-click and select “Send To…”

Choose your GPS’s memory card “User Data” folder and the conversion will start. There will be a progress bar under “User Data” while it’s working.

All of the lake depth GPX files will be on your GPS’s memory card in the Garmin -> GPX folder. I move those files back into the lake folder I created earlier for my KML file.

Alternative:

gpsbabel is a cross platform (Windows/MacOS/Linux) program to convert the KML files to GPX, but I couldn’t figure out how to retain the track labels (5ft, 10ft, 15ft, etc.) during conversion. If you know how, let me know in the comments!

Create IMG from GPX

I installed IMGfromGPX (Windows & MacOS only) to turn the lake contour tracks into a map. With IMGfromGPX started, drag the GPX files created by BaseCamp from your lake folder into the main IMGfromGPX window:

I set the Map ID to the last 4 or 5 digits of the Lake ID on the MN DNR site – just in case they need to be unique. Set the computer/device names to the lake name – that name is what shows up in the “Map Info” screen on your Garmin. For TYP file select “Thin.typ” to keep the contour lines thin. I don’t mess with track color since the default has been fine.

Check “Include creation of gmapsupp.img file” and then push the “Create map” button. It will prompt where to save your data – choose your lake folder. Ignore any prompts to run registry files – we’re not using these maps with MapSource or other mapping software on the computer.

Linux Only:
I think that mkgmap can turn GPX files into a Garmin IMG file. If you know how to do it, let me know in the comments.

Combine multiple IMG files

Repeat these steps for whatever lakes you frequent:

Download Lake Contours
Convert KML to GPX
Create IMG from GPX

Once you’ve got a few, we’ll combine them into one IMG file map using mkgmap. To install mkgmap, I unzipped the mkgmap folder in C:\Program Files\mkgmap-r4807. If you installed yours in a different place, your command for combining them will look a little different – just replace C:\Program Files\mkgmap-r4807\mkgmap.jar with the path to where you installed it.

Since my individual lake folders were all in my Documents\Garmin\Lake KML folder, my command to combine them looked like this:

D:\Users\jrfoe\Documents\Garmin\Lake KML>java -jar "C:\Program Files\mkgmap-r4807\mkgmap.jar" --gmapsupp nuvi500boatmode.img bass-lake\gmapsupp.img lake-george\gmapsupp.img lake-minnetonka\gmapsupp.img long-pike-lake\gmapsupp.img moore-lake\gmapsupp.img

Once they’re combined, you can copy the master gmapsupp.img file to the garmin folder on your microSD card, or directly to the garmin folder on your GPS’s internal memory. When you restart it, you should now have contour lines on the lakes you added:

Conclusion

Yes this process is a bit tedious, but it might give life to an old device that would otherwise get tossed out. I’m not sure if I’ll stick with this unit or not. It’s got some other quirks too – I immediately noticed the clock was wrong as part of some bizarro Y2K for GPSes problem that happened in April 2019.

If I try something different, I’ll probably get a Navionics subscription next summer @ $15/year and use my phone. But if I do ditch this GPS, hopefully this information will be useful for the next owner ♻️

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I bought a new car w/o a test drive – no regrets!

That’s a click-baity title. But seriously I bought a Chevy Bolt without ever driving one. However, I had ridden in one and it seemed perfectly fine. It also met all of my criteria:

Is it all-electric? Yes ✅
Does it have a good range? Yes ✅
Does it look like a normal car? Yes ✅

Great! I’m sure whatever other quirks it has I can get used to. Even with an open battery recall, I think it’s a fantastic car.

I got a great deal on a new 2021 Bolt from an out-state dealer, and they just dropped it off at my house. My first “test drive” was picking my daughter up at school. After driving it for a couple of months I’ve gotten used to it. The number of settings that you can configure is rather daunting, so I put this reference together 😎

My list of settings isn’t exhaustive, but one of the best resources for all things Chevy Bolt is here: https://allev.info/2020/02/chevy-bolt-most-frequently-asked-questions/

Settings

You can get to these options by going to the Settings icon from the all-icons menu.

Rear seat reminder: off. This is probably useful if you’re traveling with small kids or pets.

Radio settings

Auto volume: medium-low. This setting seemed the most natural to me where I didn’t notice the volume actively going up and down with the vehicle speed.

Vehicle settings

Remote lock / unlock / start

Passive lock / unlock: on

At first I wasn’t sure if I liked this setting. Mostly because my alarm was blaring when I was trying to get in the car. Later I realized it was from unplugging the charge cord before unlocking the vehicle (see charge cord theft alert below).

I’ve since gotten used to keeping the key fob in my pocket and pressing the door handle button to unlock the car.

The car locking on it’s own after I get out is mostly convenient, but sometimes the car locks while I’m getting out and walking to the other side to get something out of the back seat. No worries, just press the unlock button on the passenger side.

Energy Settings

Energy settings are always accessible at the bottom of the screen. Energy settings are kind of weird. You may want to turn location based charging on while you’re parked at home. Once your home location is set you can have separate options for home and away. To configure the away options, you’ll want to set them while you’re away from your home.

Charging options

Location based charging: on
Charge cord theft alert: off. I turned this off in case I’m at a charging station and someone else needs to charge. Otherwise the alarm will honk when you unplug it before the car is unlocked.

Charging

Home

Make these settings changes after you’ve set the home location, and while you’re there.

Charge mode: Departure
Portable cord limit: 12 Amps. Setting this to 12 Amps will only save if location-based charging is on. Make sure you’re on a 20-amp circuit or on a 15-amp circuit with no other loads.
Target charge level: 80% (the recall letter I received suggests 90%)

Away

Charge mode: Immediate
Target charge level: 100% (this is currently not recommended until the battery recall has been performed).

Verdict

This car is great. Even with the battery recall I would still buy one. Heck now would be a great time to buy a used Bolt (privately) because it’s going to get a brand new battery with a 100k mile warranty.

Several people on the r/BoltEV subreddit complain about the GM experience. Sure the dealerships aren’t as clean or well lit as the others, but does that matter? I bought my car over the phone because I don’t like going into any dealerships – no matter how nice they are 😱 My sales guy was great, I knew what I was getting in to, and he helped me get the best deal possible.

I’ve taken several road trips (post upcoming) and it’s been a pleasure to drive. Cheap and cheerful, would recommend.

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Dell XPS Developer Edition Battery Puffed

Dude… you’re getting a Dell(?)!

The last 4 laptops I’ve owned went like this:

2004 – ThinkPad
2009 – Dell
2014 – ThinkPad
2019 – Dell

Whenever I had the Dells I would tell my wife: “Remind me to get a ThinkPad next time.” I wish I listened to my own advice. They’re well thought out – ThinkPads just get a little more love when it comes to design and build. While they’re not without fault, they are generally better than your average laptop.

The Dell laptops I’ve owned have felt cheap and both have gone in for repairs. The good news is, Dell support is pretty good about fixing things. But I wish I didn’t have to send them in for repairs. Sidenote: my old ThinkPads have made for excellent loaners during repair periods. Dell really should be cheap and cheerful, but the whole experience leaves me feeling a bit “meh.”

The latest issue on my 2019 XPS 13 is that the keyboard appeared to be getting out of whack. I noticed the control and function keys were sitting at different angles.

Then I realized: my battery is puffed. I confirmed it when the lid wouldn’t close fully.

After reflecting on the situation, I realized my laptop has spent the better part of 1.5 years (since COVID started) operating on AC power. Normally on my ThinkPad I’d use TLP to keep my normal battery charge at around 60-80%. But those features aren’t available on my XPS:

$ sudo tlp-stat
...
+++ Battery Features: Charge Thresholds and Recalibrate
natacpi    = inactive (laptop not supported)
tpacpi-bat = inactive (laptop not supported)
tp-smapi   = inactive (laptop not supported)
...

Other TLP features (like disabling wifi when plugged into the wired network) do work on my XPS, so I leave it installed & enabled. For battery management, you must use Dell’s own Command Configure tool: cctk

There’s a great write-up on the XPS 7390 over in the Arch Linux wiki.

So I set up cctk to keep my (new, now replaced) battery at 80%.
sudo crontab -l

...
@reboot /opt/dell/dcc/cctk --PrimaryBattChargeCfg=Custom:75-80

And I have a shell script that I can run to bring the charge up to 100%:
vi ~/bin/full_charge.sh

#!/bin/sh
sudo /opt/dell/dcc/cctk --PrimaryBattChargeCfg=Standard

Do yourself a favor – next time get a ThinkPad.

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Remapping Keyboard Keys in Ubuntu with udev / evdev

A coworker gave a lunch and learn about mechanical keyboards. I should have known it would be an entrance to a black hole… it all started 25 years ago with my beloved Zeos Keyboard with Alps keygates – which I consequently wrecked after spilling a beer into it 🍺 Then onto my HHKB Lite2 which I still have but need a host of adapters to connect its PS/2 connector.

Now I’m entering the modern mechanical era with a Keychron K6 – a 65% keyboard that closely resembles my HHKB layout. It has Gateron Blue (light and clicky) switches that remind me of my famed Zeos board. Here’s the original layout:

My first issue is I have a bit of OCD when it comes to pairing. I expect insert/del, home/end, and page up/down to be at least near each other, if not next to each other. So I changed the keycaps in the far right row, around the corner to the FN1/2 keys. I used low(ish) profile DSA keys on this edge to mimic the lower arrow keys from the HHKB. Also I got custom colored beige/blue FN1/FN2 keys to quickly remind me that FN1 is for the gold functions and FN2 is for blue.

Now I needed to change what the swapped keys did when I pressed them…

When it comes to customizing keyboards in Linux, there are at least 10 ways to skin this cat 😼 but for a one-to-one replacement, evdev is the answer. Why? Because it’s low-level enough to work with everything, whether you use Xorg or Wayland. It even works in the console.

Getting information about your keyboard

For our research you’ll probably need to install a couple of things:

sudo apt install evtest evemu-tools

You can use evemu-describe to get information about your keyboard. If you run evemu-describe without any arguments, you’ll be prompted to select the input device. I’ve highlighted my input in bold.

$ sudo evemu-describe
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:	Lid Switch
...
/dev/input/event19:	Generic USB Audio
/dev/input/event20:	Keychron K6 Keyboard
/dev/input/event21:	Keychron K6 Consumer Control
/dev/input/event22:	Keychron K6 System Control
/dev/input/event23:	BluetoothMouse3600 Mouse
/dev/input/event24:	BluetoothMouse3600 Consumer Control
Select the device event number [0-24]: 20
# EVEMU 1.3
# Kernel: 5.11.0-27-generic
# DMI: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.7.0:bd10/22/2020:br1.7:svnDellInc.:pnXPS137390:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0G2D0W:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct10:cvr:
# Input device name: "Keychron K6 Keyboard"
# Input device ID: bus 0x05 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
# Supported events:
#   Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
#     Event code 0 (SYN_REPORT)
...
#     Event code 15 (SYN_MAX)
#   Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
#     Event code 1 (KEY_ESC)
...
# Properties:
N: Keychron K6 Keyboard
I: 0005 05ac 024f 011b
...

Take note of the properties line towards the bottom:
I: 0005 05ac 024f 011b
It is the Bus/Product/Vendor/Version identifier that we’ll use that to identify the keyboard in our hardware DB file.

Gather Keycode & Scancode Information

Along with the Bus/Product/Vendor/Version identifier, you’ll need scancodes and keycodes for our configuration file.

The keys I wanted to replace on the far right are:

Home -> Grave/Tilde
Page Up -> Insert
Page Down -> Delete

To get scancodes, run sudo evtest and select the input device you want to test (same as above), and then press the keys you want to switch out.

$ sudo evtest
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:	Lid Switch
...
/dev/input/event19:	Generic USB Audio
/dev/input/event20:	Keychron K6 Keyboard
/dev/input/event21:	Keychron K6 Consumer Control
/dev/input/event22:	Keychron K6 System Control
/dev/input/event23:	BluetoothMouse3600 Mouse
/dev/input/event24:	BluetoothMouse3600 Consumer Control
Select the device event number [0-24]: 20
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x5 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
Input device name: "Keychron K6 Keyboard"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
    Event code 1 (KEY_ESC)
...
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 1629497486.881450, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 70028
Event: time 1629497486.881450, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 28 (KEY_ENTER), value 0
Event: time 1629497486.881450, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1629497489.406440, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 7004a
Event: time 1629497489.406440, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 102 (KEY_HOME), value 1
Event: time 1629497489.406440, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

For example, the scancode for the HOME key is 7004a. The keycodes are printed in all caps, such as KEY_HOME. You can also look up keycodes here, or if you’re trying to add a new key that isn’t on your keyboard, you can find all keycodes in /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h

We’re going to put this all into a hardware DB file. The filename is arbitrary, as long as it has a .hwdb extension. I put a number at the beginning because config files like this are loaded in filename order. If something should load before or after, it can use a lower/higher number (respectively).

sudo vi /etc/udev/hwdb.d/50-k6keyboard-bt.hwdb

# Input device ID: bus 0x5 vendor 0x5ac product 0x24f version 0x11b
# evdev:input:b<bus_id>v<vendor_id>p<product_id>e<version_id>-<modalias>
evdev:input:b0005v05ACp024F*
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004a=grave
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004b=delete
 KEYBOARD_KEY_7004e=insert

It took several attempts to get this right. I didn’t realize that the format is very particular and it should look something like: b0000v0000p0000e0000*. Don’t include the hex prefix of 0x. Also hex values must be capitalized in udev version 220 and above. Lastly, put a * at the end to capture all the versions. You can verify your version of udev by running:

$ udevadm --version
245

The keycode remapping lines must look like this:
KEYBOARD_KEY_<scancode>=<keycode>
The keycodes must be lowercase on the right side of the .hwdb file.

Build & Test

Once your hardware DB file is saved, you can test out the setup, by running these commands:

$ sudo systemd-hwdb update
$ sudo udevadm trigger
$ udevadm info /dev/input/event20
P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:256/0005:05AC:024F.0007/input/input41/event20
N: input/event20
L: 0
E: DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-7/1-7:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:256/0005:05AC:024F.0007/input/input41/event20
E: DEVNAME=/dev/input/event20
E: MAJOR=13
E: MINOR=84
E: SUBSYSTEM=input
E: USEC_INITIALIZED=4366743414
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004a=grave
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004b=delete
E: KEYBOARD_KEY_7004e=insert
E: ID_INPUT=1
E: ID_INPUT_KEY=1
E: ID_INPUT_KEYBOARD=1
E: ID_BUS=bluetooth
E: XKBMODEL=pc105
E: XKBLAYOUT=us
E: BACKSPACE=guess
E: LIBINPUT_DEVICE_GROUP=5/5ac/24f:90:78:41:ca:1e:02
E: TAGS=:power-switch:

The first command (systemd-hwdb update) reads the hwdb files and rebuilds the binary hardware database from the text files. The second (udevadm trigger) tells udev to (re)scan hardware for matches. The last (udevadm info) helps verify that the configuration – remember to replace event20 with your device ID.

You can see in the output that my KEYBOARD_KEY entries are there and they do indeed work 💪 It will also be there after you reboot.

My next step will be adding home/end and page up/down modifiers to my arrow keys…

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Schwalbe Big Apple Tires

This is a love letter to Schwalbe. I love their Big Apple bike tires. If you have a mountain bike that is going to serve most of its life pounding the pavement these are for you. My Redline 29er mountain bike does 95% of its miles on the pavement, and it does it on Big Apples.

They’re big and fat so you keep the same look and level of comfort, it just lowers the rolling resistance because you’ll sound less like a jeep driving down the highway.

Changing tires has an immediate and apparent affect on how your bike handles. The same thing goes for toy cars and full-sized ones. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2-wheels or 4, those little patches of rubber are the only thing connecting you to the road.

More Big Apples

I got my son a set to put on his Haro Flightline. We’re going on some longer rides this summer – mostly on Minnesota’s expansive network of paved bike trails. He doesn’t have the luxury (or allowance) of keeping a separate road & mountain bike like dad.

It’s a relatively quick change (~30 minutes) to go back to stock tires if we’re going to head out to the single track trails.

Miss brakes on the tops? Try cross levers

Remember how your dad’s 10-speed from the 70s/80s had an extra set of brake levers by the “tops”? They were for the top part of a drop style handlebar, like this:

They are called extension levers, or sometimes colloquially suicide levers because some couldn’t actuate the brake fully.

Whatever the case is, I’m still fond of them and wish they were still a thing. Bike manufactures mostly solved this problem by putting ergonomic hoods on the brake levers so you can rest your hand on the top of the bar where it curves down.

Like driving with your hands at 9 & 3 the paddle shifters are easier to reach… but I can still press the brake when I’m cruising at 12 & crotch 😎 I want the same thing on my bike. I like keeping my hands on the tops when I’m relaxing, and I don’t want to do an emergency hand move if I need to stop quickly.

Enter cross levers

These cute little add-ons go in-line with the drop levers to provide full braking ability from the tops. When you’re adding them, you’ll need to remove and reinstall your bar tape, so I took the opportunity to get some new bar tape – went with Lizard Skins 3.2mm tape in blue to add some color.

Another thing to know is that there are several sizes of cross levers for several sizes of handlebars. Tektro offers sizes in 24mm, 26mm, and 31.8mm. My handlebars from the original Cross Check complete spec are 26mm at the stem, then taper down to 24mm. After removing the bar tape, you can see this is the farthest inward I could place the levers:

If I wanted to go closer to the stem I would have had to purchase the 26mm version – just be aware of what your setup is before purchasing levers.

You’ll need to cut your brake cable housing. After removing your bar tape, pull out the brake cables. Keep in mind that you might need to replace your brake cable(s) if they’re frayed. Figure out where you want to cut your cable to put the new levers in-line – remember to measure twice and cut once! I cut my brake cable housing 65mm from the brake hoods.

Brake Cable & Housing Tools & Tips

I cut my brake cable housing with a standard side cutter and as you can see above, the cut was rough at best. Then when I went to thread my front brake cable back in, it split and frayed 😩

So I went to the bike shop and bought a new front brake cable and a Park Tool CN-10 Cable/Housing cutter. I noticed on the new brake cable that the manufacturer spot-welds the end to make sure it won’t fray:

I thought to myself, why not do something similar at home before cutting the cable so it won’t fray? I decided to try and solder the cable with my TS-100 soldering iron. Apparently this is not a new or novel idea 😎 I started by applying some flux to the place I wanted to cut:

Then I added enough solder to soak into the cable and create a “solid” section:

I cut it and it turned out pretty good. In the image below you can compare the soldered section (left) with the original spot-welded section (right).

Bar Tape

If you’re anything like me I suggest setting aside a couple hours for this project as you’ll be wrapping (and re-wrapping) your bars to get it just right. Two reference materials I kept close at hand were the Lizard Skins instruction diagram:

And the figure-8 diagram for going around the brakes out of my Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair – as they don’t cover this part in the Lizard Skins guide:

You can see I kept this diagram open (in the grass) to reference as I was taping the bars.

You can also see in that photo that I wrapped the right side wrong coming off the main brakes.

That mistake may have cost me $40 in handlebar tape 😩 I only wrap my bars once every 5 years or so. Next time I might practice with a strip of paper and memorize that figure 8 pattern.

I did manage to undo and redo it correctly. Notice the tape angles are all symmetrical. We’ll see if it holds 🤞

Post-Ride Verdict

The top levers work great – I don’t have to frantically move my hands from the tops to the hoods if I need to brake quickly.

I like the bar tape so far, the best part is Lizard Skins come with screw-tighten bar ends. My old Cinelli bar tape had press-in ends that would fall out on occasion.

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1:1 Scale Electric Car

The post 1:1 Scale Electric Car appeared first on Meatball Racing.

When I was getting back into R/C for the 2nd time, circa 2003, I made a conscious choice between getting an HPI Super Nitro Rally and the HPI RS4 (electric) Rally. The music of 18,000 RPMs sounded like a ton of fun, but in the back of my head, it just wasn’t worth it. Smelling like nitro fuel, tuning the engine for the weather, proper maintenance and storage were just a few reasons. Plus all my previous experience was electric.

At the end of 2020 I donated my Subaru WRX to Newgate School. It was feeling its age and had several gremlins that I didn’t want to deal with: a fuel filler neck that wouldn’t refuel at full speed, an undiagnosed misfire on cylinder #1, and a slipping clutch. Like my decision to bypass nitro, the time was right to give up the rumbly EJ motor sound for the whir of a 200HP electric motor.

Introducing the official Meatball Racing vehicle: Chevy Bolt

Continue reading “1:1 Scale Electric Car”

There were only ever two Chevrolet vehicles I ever considered buying, the Bolt and the Corvette. Yes, these vehicles are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but they both serve a different niche, and I’m a sucker for specialized vehicles. The Corvette is a no-nonsense performance machine. The Bolt is a no-nonsense electric vehicle (EV) – long range for a comparatively low price.

But the Bolt is no slouch either – my WRX could do a quarter mile in 14.3 seconds. With a couple bolt-on modifications my personal best was 14.001 at The Strip. A friend at the track suggested I unbolt the passenger seat and try again for a sub-14 run. I declined as I always wanted to run my WRX in a streetable trim.

The Bolt can do a quarter mile in 14.9 seconds – less than a second slower than my turbocharged performance car – and the Bolt is made for efficiency, not power. Electric motors are just great for both

Similarities to modern RC cars

The Bolt has some interesting similarities to modern-day RC cars, mostly in regard to the batteries. Lithium batteries’ cells need to be balance charged, so the charge rate slows as you approach 100%. Not everyone understands this because they’re using to pulling the gas pump lever to full tilt all the way to the top. On EVs the fastest charge rates happen in the first 2/3rds from 0%-66% charge. After that the charge rate needs to slow so balancing can take place effectively.

Also, lithium batteries don’t like freezing temperatures. It’s well known that EV range goes down 1/3 in the winter – even more if you’re blasting the heater. For those that like to run RCs in the winter, you probably know that charging your batteries right before you go out helps. This is because the heat from charging helps them start warm. When they’re cold you lose maximum power (amp) delivery – effectively cutting the C Rating down.

To combat this many EVs (including the Bolt) have a charge schedule and departure settings. You tell it when you normally leave and it will charge the battery right before you go to help retain some of the heat from charging.

But my favorite similar RC feature is the way it drives. Instant torque at zero RPM! There’s no gear shifting as the motor has enough torque to get it going quickly from a stop all the way up to its maximum speed of 93mph with a single gearset. Check out how simple the drivetrain is in this video:

Also there’s one-pedal driving – this is the way driving electric was meant to be IMHO. Shift to L and it’s like you enabled drag brake on your ESC. Press the accelerator down and you go, lift off and you brake. It puts the regenerated power back into the battery, and once you get used to it, you rarely have to use the brake pedal – the car has the smarts to put on the brake lights appropriately.

Track Hauler

I’ve already loaded it up to take to the RC track:

This 1:1 scale electric car is a great addition to round out the current 1:10 scale buggy, car, and truck collection

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Shipping your RC car, racing out of town

Our family did our first post-COVID airplane trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. We were there for a week, so I looked up Intermountain RC Raceway (IRCR) – a place I had visited before but never raced at. Their off-road club racing is Wednesday night, so I got the B6 ready to hit the clay. […]

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It was also the first airplane trip that I wanted to bring my RC car on. Normally on road trips it’s a no-brainer. This would be a learning experience – hopefully you can learn from my (many) mistakes.

I could (and probably should) have just packed my car to travel on the airplane as it was only $30 per checked bag – I thought it was going to be $50. Instead I mailed my car to a relative at our destination for $40. If you’re looking for a good video on packing your car for air travel, check this one out by Team Associated:

Continue reading “Shipping your RC car, racing out of town”

I also don’t have a fancy Ogio bag. But I do have several boxes from package deliveries. I saved a larger one to pack my 1/10 scale buggy:

What to bring

Before I packed my car, I went club racing at my local carpet track. While I was there I took stock of everything I used throughout the night. Since I know I won’t need everything, I wanted to make sure I had enough to work on the car plus some extras so my night wouldn’t immediately end if I broke something.

Here was my initial list:

Car and Radio
Car Stand and Pit Mat
Traction Compound/Tire Sauce (sealed in a bag)
Tire Cleaning Station
Charger and Power Supply
Collapsible cup for tire gluing (more on that later)
A parts organizer box with tools and spare parts

What’s in the box?

For the parts organizer box, I had to make sure it would fit in my shipping box with the car. Then I had to choose what to put in it. I started with my spare parts – I only packed the ones I was likely to break – suspension arms, castor blocks, etc. Then I only packed tools that I would likely need:

Hitachi electric screwdriver (life changing!)
TS-100 portable soldering iron
Ride height gauge
Turnbuckle & cross wrench
Small side cutters & needle nose pliers
Tire glue & CA kicker

Airplane Goods

An aside about the bare wheel mounted on my buggy in the photo: When I went to switch my car over to the clay setup, I remembered I purchased and glued up a set of new Electron & Positron tires. The sad news was that I screwed up on the Positron rears – they’re a directional tire and I mounted one backwards Rather than delay my shipment, I mounted a wheel and sent it. Then I took some time to un-mount the tire with acetone so I could reverse it and re-glue it.

I brought the (correctly mounted tire) and the LiPo batteries on the airplane. I put the batteries for my car, transmitter, and screw driver in a lipo bag for the trip. It saved from having to pay a hazardous materials fee at the post office.

Tires

Tires are the biggest difference maker on your car when it comes to they way it drives. Rather than guessing or bringing a bunch of different tires, I called IRCR to see what the preferred setup was. Luckily most of the guys driving stock 1/10 scale buggies run a the same setup as they do at clay tracks near my home:

I spoke to IRCR race director on the phone and he said that when grip is really up they’ll switch to Shadow (S3 compound) front and rear. He also said they have them for sale in the pro-shop at the track. I opted to bring my Electron/Positron setup and would purchase additional tires at the track if necessary.

That’s why I brought the collapsible cup – to quickly mount up tires. I glue one tire bead to the wheel, spray some CA kicker into the cup, then put it upside down over the tire. The glue dries in seconds while I’m gluing the next bead. Rinse and repeat.

Local Purchases

I purchased some Simple Green for $5 at the local Walmart to clean tires in the cleaning station. I should have instead asked on the phone about cleaning stations – the track had several ready for racers to use. One less thing I had to bring.

Practice & Preparation

I meant to get to the track around 4 on race day to have a couple hours of practice before qualifiers started at 7. With traffic, I arrived at 5 and still had to make ride height and camber adjustments.

I realized quickly during practice that my tire package was wrong. When I spoke to the race director (RD) on the phone, he mentioned that it would be a new layout. My thought was it would still be a little loose, so having new treads would be beneficial.

I think the RD thought I was coming a week earlier than when my travel dates were. The track was clean and compacted.

Everyone else was on slicks and I had fully treaded tires. I didn’t give myself enough time to prep and glue a set of Shadow S3 tires – plus I forgot my tire punch

If I were super serious about racing, I would have come to practice the day before and had everything dialed. But I’m just a casual club racer looking to have some fun.

You know what’s fun? Just driving the car. I got used to it being a little loose during practice, so I just keep running it as-is and worked on my racing line.

Changing tires for the main

Then another racer named Jason lent me a spare set of Shadow S3s for the main that were ready to go. The only laps I was able to test them out on were the check-in laps before we lined ’em up and sent ’em for the race. It was quite a difference maker. I felt a lot more confident in the corners and probably could have squeezed the trigger for more speed, but I just wanted to stay consistent. My goal was to try and turn a 16-second lap, but the best I managed was a 17.01

I still had a great time despite the lackluster finish. Honestly it was just fun to turn some laps. A local friend who races 1:1 scale cars competitively met me for the mains. Afterwards I dialed the throttle down a bit and handed him the controls. After turning about a dozen laps he said “This is addictive!” Maybe I can convince him to race my B6.2 when I upgrade to the B6.3

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Sea vs. Lake

Boat Mode

The Process

Download Lake Contours

Convert KML to GPX

Create IMG from GPX

Combine multiple IMG files

Conclusion

Settings

Radio settings

Vehicle settings

Remote lock / unlock / start

Energy Settings

Charging options

Charging

Home

Away

Verdict

Getting information about your keyboard

Gather Keycode & Scancode Information

Build & Test

More Big Apples

Brand Loyalty

Enter cross levers

Brake Cable & Housing Tools & Tips

Bar Tape

Post-Ride Verdict

Similarities to modern RC cars

Track Hauler

What to bring

What’s in the box?

Airplane Goods

Tires

Local Purchases

Practice & Preparation

Changing tires for the main