Track Truck Breakdown — failure #1

5 January 2015 David Leave a comment

I guess it was bound to happen, but after only 4 days? This might not bode well for my project.

While out making this test video…

I lost the electrical system out in the boondocs of Hwy1, with not a 2×4 of civilization in sight.

By the time rescue (wife) arrived, it was dark. Having lost my jumper cables during the last move (how do such things disappear, my battery charger went MIA as well) we had a quick scramble to acquire another set! Lucky for me, Ace hardware was still open at 5:30PM on Sunday and they had a bad-ass set of 4ga 20′ “Mechanics Grade” jumper cables. 🙂

Back up Hwy1 we went for what turned out to be a rather hair raising series of events to get it back into town. Long and short of it.. here are the highlights:

required three road-side jumpstarts
van lost all lighting, and got stuck in 2nd gear on a 2-lane section of Hwy1, in the dark (max speed 30 MPH)
there are NO lights on Hwy1, so if you have no headlights are 7:00 PM, it’s pretty freaking dark out there
Sprinters do all sorts of weird things when the voldage drops below 10v, including many warning lights, things turning themselves on and off on whim, and locking the shifter into park, just to name a few
pushing a 5000 lb Sprinter is mostly a no-op

Back at the shop, some diagnostics were attempted, but without a way to charge the battery, it too was a rather hopeless affair. I’d need to get a proper battery charger and work on this again another day.

automotive, Motorcycles, Trucking, YouTube

Sprinter 3500 Track Project – Day 3

4 January 2015 David Leave a comment

Another day, another pile of pictures. Today was more of a ‘get things done’ day than the rest. Here is how things are looking:

Removing the flooring

Having already removed the rear 8′ section, to find that the van’s floor already has sound damping material laid out upon it. Awesome! 😀 This means a lot less expense in re-doing the floor, since that won’t have to be done.

It was quite a mess under the flooring, so some multi-purpose cleaner and brush were put to work cleaning things up.

Starting the application of the sound deadening material to the wheel wells. First sections were easy enough, the sides, not so easy though.

In the following image, you can see the channels where passenger seat brackets would bolt to the floor. A cargo van this is, obviously those parts are not in place. They are on my list of things to do when converting this to my version of a Toy Hauler.

Next up was a mounting system for a navigation solution. I was shown this cool system at a local car audio shop, so I bought 3 (one for each car)!

I’m not ready to pony up for dedicated GPS, and I had this Android table with celluare LTE that cost me 99cents… and it was just looking for a good home. Now it will have one.

Below is what the mount looks like. Just a magnetic pad with a rubber fact to keep the device from moving around too much.

For now, the Android phablet thingy will be powered from a 12v lighter adapter. When I get a new head unit installed with USB power, this cable will be hard-wired into the dash, or some other more suitable solution. As is, it’s within reach, has power, and is ready to nav!

Adding one of the little steel plates by my iPhone, it too can serve as navigation, audio source, entertainment, whatever need be. This is the coolest product for using mobile devices in a car that I’ve seen yet!

Software Development, Technology

PHP single vs. double quotes what’s the diff?

4 January 2015 David Leave a comment

Using single vs. double quotes when handling strings in PHP (and code in general). This article is a re-hash of experimentation done about 6 years ago with PERL. It was very clear that unless you have a VERY compelling reason to use double-quotes with strings.. you shouldn’t do it.

Some people will ask.. “Why, what’s the diff”? Well, simply put.. double quoted string are more work for interpreted code languages such as PERL and PHP (and possibly others too, but I’ve never tested them). Compiles languages should not be subject to such unfortunate circumstance.

The Short of it

Using double quotes vs. single quotes in string copies or setting will cost you and extra processing time (proofs follow).

However, when it comes to variable substitutions, that’s where you’ll see more of the speed benefit, when not forcing PHP to interpret the string looking for variables to substitute.

Although, one interested finding after multiple test runs was that bounding the variable with brackets does not offer a consistent benefit, and often it’s a slight loss of speed.

Here is the raw comparison of the following string copies (heavily iterated):

The Raw Data

$x = “THIS IS A STRING” 1.336
$x = ‘THIS IS A STRING’ 1.187
$x = “THIS IS A STRING $i” 3.004
$x = “THIS IS A STRING ${i}” 3.015
$x = “THIS IS A ${i} STRING” 3.448
$x = ‘THIS IS A STRING’.$i 2.647
$x = ‘THIS IS A ‘.$i.’ STRING’ 3.488

automotive, Motorcycles, Track Bike Project, travel, Trucking

Sprinter 3500 Track Project – Day 2

3 January 2015 David 1 Comment

If it fit’s you must use it!

Barely, but it does fit. Now to paraphrase Quinn “You’re going to need a bigger garage.”. It would seem so… or external storage lot (there are a few around).

Bought this fancy Magic Eraser thing to try and remove the plethora of hideous graphics on the van. It was $14 at the local auto parts store, I bought both of the ones they had. Sorry, didn’t take a photo of it, yet.

After a few hours of grinding off decals from the driver’s door.. it’s looking just a tiny bit better!

Taking a break from vinyl / decal / sticker removal, I started to measure out the interior of the van for how things are might fit. First was measuring off the back doors to see how far the track bikes will intrude into the cargo area (7′ 6″ minimum). The black line is where it will likely end.

Van has a cargo floor with several anchor points. Good for hauling gear, bad for adding a 2nd seat row as I’m currently planning.

With a lot of 10 year old halogen lighted vehicles, the plastic lenses age, yellow and during into little more than a diffuser. Not good for night time driving. A kit was “On Sale” at a chain auto parts store (I later saw it for the exact same product at another locally owned parts store for the same daily price).

About an hour of sanding on both lights and polishing netted a decent result. I think I need to spend more time working on these lights, it’s still not a like-new effect.

Much more work to be done to bring this thing back to a more presentable condition.

automotive, Track Bike Project, Trucking

Sprinter 3500 Track Project- Day 1

2 January 2015 David Leave a comment

It’s January 1, 2015. Not only is it a new day, and a new year, but a new project.

It’s Project Track Truck. Prepping for the next season of track days begins now, with the end of a 3 month search for the desired track vehicle. After much deliberation, waffling, searching (including writing software to find these elusive beasts at less than insane prices), missing out deals…. I finally (think) I have it.

A 2004 Dodge Sprinter 3500 Long WB, High Roof, Extended Box. Yeap, it’s as big as big and heavy duty as they came in 2004.

With a GVW Rating of 9990 lb., this is just a couple of happy meals shy of a commercial vehicle. Powered by a 154 HP, 5-cylinder diesel engine (yes, it’s forced induction by way of turbocharger). It’s no sports car, and it’s also not very pretty. In fact, I believe the first words out of the Mrs. mouth were: “Holy crap, that thing is ugly. Have you lost your mind?”

Perhaps… but it’s my mind to lose (I think), and this is how I plan to do it.

Cleaning it up

Later in the day, I assembled a crack cleaning crew, consisting of myself and my 12 y.o. son. We embarked upon a clean-up effort to remove the gruesome letting from the van.

After nearly 4 hours of labor, a trip to the hardware store, and some failed ideas.. we were able to mostly clean up the passenger door and the two rear doors.

It might not seem like much, but it was some progress, and even though I might still shudder when visible in daylight, for now, at the moment, at night… with poor lighting.. it almost looks OK.

David DeMartini actual

Monthly Archives: January 2015