dealing with heat

Its not just people who get hot, gear gets hot too.

Just the other day we had over 35C in my area (and my house insides too) and I observed that my phone had not charged much when I had put it on the charger (I know how fast it usually charges).

A bit of investigation revealed that the internal temperature (reported by an App that reads the temperature off the sensors inside the phone) showed that it was very close to 50C inside the phone, so I whacked it onto a "cold pack" until I could come up with a better solution.

This wasn't an ideal solution as while it chilled the phone it took it too cold and moisture condensed on the phone (known to technically apt as a "bad idea") and so I sought a proper solution at my earliest convenience. Indeed I expect that as battery damage occurs when temps are over 50C and would logically block or seriously slow charging (if you're an American reading this and don't know what 50C means then I expect the rest is technically over your head too, so don't worry).

From battery university:

Solution: get rid of heat

This is a heat sink.

its made out of aluminium to enable it to rapidly conduct heat (from the source) and disappate it via the fins (which being black also allow for good radiation too).

So with my phone sat on this it was only a few degrees above "ambient" air temp.

which is great.

Somehow it happens that I didn't blog about my "home made phone stand" (from old wood) which I also made a few of for office colleagues:

I sit it like this when not charging:

but as the charging port is on the side, I turn it sideways (notifications harder to read that way as orientation sensor does not do everything everywhere) when charging. As it happens my "home made stand" also works to allow heat dissipation through the screen in this orientation..

I've always disliked phone covers (which will act to also trap in the heat) and so this only works well because the phone is in good thermal contact (it has an aluminium back even) with the heat sink.

Sorta looks funky too dunnit.

Camera Mentat

being a Dune fan I don't know why its taken me this long to come up with this:

Camera Mentat

It is by will alone I set my lens in motion.
It is by the choice of ISO that sensors acquire speed, 
the files acquire noise,
the noise becomes a warning. 

It is by will alone I set my lens in motion.

So its unsurprising that I choose to use manual focus and manual aperture control lenses ;-)

the EV "Fest" at the convention center

being intersted in (despit appearances) EVs and EV development  (I have no doubt that it is the future for many vehicles, just "when" remains uncertain to me) I went along to the Brisbane Convention center with a mate and had a look around. It was nice to see some offerings from mid priced manufacturers:

such as Hyundai as well as a bunch of home brew stuff (which I always love to see done well). This little Suzuki 4WD was excellent:

 and showed how much space can be made in the engine bay without as much engine there

I didn't find out about the engine on that, but instead got chatting with the owner of the orange beetle behind it (visible in the above photo).

The guy was probably the most down to earth (realist) in the whole place and he seemed to enjoy chatting to my mate and I about his vehicle (perhaps because we're both interested in older cars too). His view was that the EV conversion made his (mid 60s?) beetle a great daily driver and increased its reliability.

This is the "engine" he had in the beetle:

which was quite compact (as can be sen from the automotive clutch and ring gear here to fit the VW). Details on the makers website here, but a very tidy little conversion. The owner has said he's modified the original gear box to have only 2nd and top ... works well with the torque range of the motor.

Naturally there were some EV bicycles which I also have an interest in (being in my view the most desirable city EV to have). I liked this one the most, and it happens to be a folding type so you could easily bring it into your apartment:

love that single sided front and rear swingarm:

A little pricy for my taste (just under AU$5000) but if I lived in the center and wanted to get about it would be a very tidy choice ... (although myself I still lean towards an actual 200cc motor scooter like the Honda dio), but with rego costs and access to bike ways it may eventually balance out as the ideal. Just make sure you don't forget to keep it charged because you can't really just "go to the servo and fill up" if its flat.

All in all a great morning (thanks Dom)

Pretty Scenery

I went for a ride down to the Coast yesterday and took my new Sony A7 camera with me, there was opportunity on the way home to snap a couple of things (one planned, one impromptu) which I thought I'd share here not least because they're (to me) images of beautiful countryside.

On the way home I passed this "wetland" area (which is flooded because of a water dam).

I wanted to explore this area in a little more detail so I switched out the wide angle for a mild telephoto (100mm). First the silo

I was just stunned with the image quality which the a7 gave me, so lets look at a segment of that image closer:

well ... wow ... great handling of highlights and shadows (photographed in RAW and processed on my tablet) with very little noise and even at 100% ... The details in the rusted tin roof, the birds on the fence and rock. All this with a 1979 Canon FD lens (which was purchased used for $130)

Another shot of the "wetland" over near the dead trees (with the 100mm)

myself I would have wanted to wait for more like sundown to get the reds, but still, this was a "test run"

On the way home I was glad I didn't linger, because I had opportunity to see a magnificent sunset with rim-lit clouds and smoke in the skies (from some small fires). I saw the sun going down from further away and around that ridge.

 If I'd had any other camera the above picture would have been inky, and attempts to resurrect it in post processing would result in horrible noise in the shadows with many cameras.

So ... WOW

Moving further along the valley (towards that ridge on the left, which I needed to ride up) I was greeted by this wondrous scene just as the sun had set (which I again snapped).

And again was able to get the brilliant beauty of the clouds and (to my eye) the right level of "evening" in the valley.

Loving this camera ... and the well priced, optically excellent lenses from nearly 40 years ago that it enables me to use (for the first time on Full Frame, as no other DSLR can).