Comments (0)

By Jerome, May 23, 2011 8:00 am

I once bought this neat charger from Hobbyking. It can charge four 6S battery at the same time! It was working fine until one day, one of the LCD stop working. I then took a picture.

I then send it back to Hobbyking to get a new one. Took a while until I had to send them a email go get feedback on this return. They explain that they tried it and it was working. Here is is 1 out of 3 pictures they took.

Ok fair. I have proof it does not works and they have proof it works. What happen next?

This mean that the charger has some intermittent problem. I tried to explain that to hobbyking customer service and they told me that I need to pay $23.59  for shipping to get it back or they can send it with my next order. I said no, your product is defective, send me a new one!

But check this out, I when in the reviews of the items and found this:

Thought I found the perfect charger.. Worked great for 2 days charging 4x 7 cell nimh packs at 5.3 amps each! Fan was quiet, temps were good, then port#1 failed for no apparant reason. Waiting on HK’s response. Hoping I can return to US warehouse.

First, within a day of receiving one of these chargers, one of the LCD readouts went bad (Port 4). I have confirmed that the problem is with the LCD unit and it needs to be replaced. Contacted HK to see if hey could send me a LCD module but they said no I would have to return the unit. By the time I get done with shipping both ways, this unit is no longer a good deal.

I also had problems with output 4. If I started charging the display shows error messages, unknown characters or nothing, and it stops immediately charging.

This charger works. It’s not the best balancer, but it works. I did have a temporary glitch with the 4th port display, which seems to have sorted itself out somehow.

I have had this charger for several months. It worked perfectly for quite a while, now charger port 4 does not function correctly.

You can clearly see that there is a problem. That problem is intermittent. I did mention those review but they said nothing back in return.

Who is going to win?

I just send one last email explaining all that in a very simple way… Let’s wait and see!

Comments (0)

By Jerome, May 22, 2011 8:39 pm

Hey world!

It’s been a while! I just finish my semester and going my last intern in Québec. I will be working all summer long until September.

Here is my latest research on fingernail growth rate.

This is serious experimentation! I was watching TV with my dad and they where talking about this woman who died in the woods and explained how long and where she been before she died by analyzing her hair.

An university in Ontario have developed this technique where they analyse hair to see what type mineral is found in it. They explained that she was a traveling along the west of Canada because certain mineral are found more in Alberta. (Something along those lines)

So anyway, my dad and I where wondering how long does the hair growth after death. Then we start talking about other stuff that still growth when you are dead, like fingernail. We then both made a marking on our thumbs with a razor blade and start forgetting about it… till one day (may 5th) I took a last picture.

There you go! 96 days!

So what about the electric scooter you ask? Well, I am waiting on my broken charger from hobbyking to ride it soon! I will explain tomorrow in my next post.

Comments (2)

By Jerome, February 17, 2011 1:22 am

Hey, I am back from Hong Kong and here is my lastest project for instructables. I made that thing in less then 13 days!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Fart-O-Meter/

Yes you read “arduino” and “fart” in the same sentence!

It’s already featured on:

• Hackaday.com http://hackaday.com/2011/02/16/arduino-fart-o-meter/
• Hackedgadget.com http://hackedgadgets.com/2011/02/16/fart-meter-project-build/
• and Solarbotics.com http://www.solarbotics.com/news/2011/02/ex-interns-and-their-projects/!

This video will explain everything!

Here it is mounted on the chair directly. It is wireless!

This is the emitter on the chair. That is a barebone arduino.

And here is the receiver. The servo motor simply points to the fart intensity on the white sheet of paper.

Those are nRF2401A Transceiver with Chip Antenna (Sparkfun sku: WRL-00152). Pretty small and easy to use with the Arduino. There is a library for those modules.

I had a lot of fun playing with the MQ-4 methane sensor. The black thing around it is a protective sleeve that I ended up not using. Those suckers heat up and consume 175mA! There is a little heater inside. The moment gas is present, it evaporates and change the output voltages! Fun to use but hard to test… I always had a hard time to try to fart on that thing, I could not fart on command. It’s only when I disconnected the sensor and Arduino from my computer that I started farting like hell! I was piss because it takes up to a minute to heat up and be ready to use. (btw, you can use the butane from a lighter to test it. There is less joy)

Comments (0)

By Jerome, November 16, 2010 9:00 am

Hey, my website was down because I uploaded some plugins in wordpress and that corrupted some files! I immediately started crying alone in China.

But my good old friend Manuel Grégoire save the day by fixing everything like a pro! He also study EE with me at school  and he is a very good webmaster!

Thanks Manu!

Check his website  Agence Web Sherbrooke !
http://www.ivizion.ca/

Comments (1)

By Jerome, November 10, 2010 10:14 am

Hey!

I was lucky enough to be in HK for Halloween! It was insane!

Why am I wearing this costume of “NO PICTURES”?  Here is a hint:

They are everywhere! They made me fell like a STAR!

Check out this awesome panoramic pictures taking with my Sony camera! It is photoshop to make it clear and nice (ok not really).

I have uploaded all those pictures on my flickr account. You can see the set here http://bit.ly/brtmqC

I also made a instructables for fun on how I made my costume. You can vote for it too.
http://www.instructables.com/id/No-pictures-costume-for-Hong-Kong-Halloween/

I explain everything about my story on how I got the idea.

I also meet those awesome yoyo player from Hong Kong!  Yeah, I use to play yoyo like a maniac back in the days. Here is a pictures with the gang. It’s because of them that I when to that crazy Halloween party (twice)!

If they look good, it’s because the guy who took the pictures is a good photograph!!