Yikes! 6 Months!

It looks like I ought to use this a little more. Here's a quick update just to make sure that my blog doesn't get flagged as "inactive" (as if it ever was anything else).

Another Li-Ion recall and a new battery technology announcement

Bad news first: Lenovo and IBM announced a recall of another half million (500,000) Lithium based batteries manufactured by Sony. It seems that after one flamed out at LAX last month, they got the CSPC involved.

Good news last: We may be using the acronym ZMP a lot more in the near future. Zinc Matrix Power has announced their Silver-Zinc rechargeable battery that supposedly has twice the energy-to-weight ratio as current Lithium based offerings without the explosive side effects or transport limitations. They have a low enough internal resistance that a relatively low number (16, producing 20 volts) were used to produce 80 amps to MIG weld two pieces of 1/8" steel (article reference).

In other not so interesting news...

• I finally got those surplus UPS units converted and we gave most of them away (along with the power conditioners) at the annual Utah County ARES picnic earlier this month. Hopefully they're all set up with some Sealed Lead Acid batteries that have been neglected for too long. If anyone wants help converting a UPS into an SLA battery maintainer, let me know.
• We were at a wedding reception for my niece a few weeks ago and came out to find a note on our car apologizing for the alterations done to the front bumper. The estimate was $402 so we might not even want to bother the insurance companies.
• Last week, I took the boys to the Orem Rec Center to play racquetball. The next morning, one of us noticed another alteration that had been done to the right rear pillar above the window. We have no idea how it could have happened unless someone dropped something off a truck parked next to us or something. That one will cost more than the deductible; unfortunately, we'll have to get the insurance involved. They won't be thrilled after the bike rack incident earlier this summer...
• We ditched the VoIP phone service we had from ACN Digital. Their equipment didn't work right (QOS was horrible, telephone adapter lockups, etc.) and their customer service was pretty much non-existent. My sister and her family were on it as well and like us, they decided to pay the cancellation fee rather than keep it. If you're going to go with VoIP, choose Vonage, they were good for us - we only switched to ACN to try to help a relative who was making a commission on the sale. We decided to go to cell phones instead (I couldn't bear to go back to a land-line provider).
• On that note, I also switched to a new LG LX-550 Fusic phone (Sprint Review - C|Net Review)from Sprint. I like it, but there are some things from my Motorola V-360 that I'll miss. Best about it is the signal is much stronger at my house because the transmitter is just down the street (there are 3 big "flagpoles" at the Junior High about 2 blocks away) and we can get a signal downstairs. Worst is that the MP3 player is still poorly integrated with the phone operations (I can't make an outgoing call while it's playing, nor does it resume after I finish with an incoming call). All in all, I think it's a slight improvement, but nothing to get too excited about.
  

Talk Like a Pirate Day

International Talk Like a Pirate day is coming on September 19th (just like it does every year). I'm a little early this year, but I didn't want to forget again... I wrote this post last year, but forgot to post it. :)

Arrrr! Welcome to my blauggh. All ye landlubbers have got t' git yer own pirate name:

Fortunately I got a good one:

Red Harry Rackham

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com

Other pirate resources: talklikeapirate.com

Plastic batteries!

The folks at Brown University have been working on some cool stuff with conductive plastic. I don't know if their numbers are completely accurate (100 times the power of an alkaline battery?), but it's good news anyway. We really need better power storage for just about everything these days.

Engadget picked up on it and there are more comments there on their blog.

Dell & Sony recalling 4 million batteries

Dell (recall notice) and Sony are working together on recalling 4 million laptop batteries (CPSC notice, Breitbart article) that have been prone to burning, venting with flame, exploding, catching on fire, or whatever other terms you want to apply. My other entries here and here told some more of the story.

Hmm, I use quite a few of these Sony 18650 cells which have been removed from surplus (read: non-functioning, dead, bad, defective, etc.) Dell batteries I get from work. I've been careful with them, but I'll be even more so now!

More about Li-Ion batteries from Battery University.

100 MPG in a converted Toyota Prius?

This article talks about supplementing the battery pack of current Hybrid Electric Vehicles by adding your own batteries. The scary part with all the recent talk about exploding Lithium based cells is that at least one company's solution is a 150-pound, 16-inch-by-33-inch box of lithium-ion batteries that fits in place of the spare tire.

That said; I want one! It wouldn't be very practical right now and certainly wouldn't save me any money, but I'd sure have a lot more stuff to play with as I drove and maintained it. Maybe I should just see if any of the DARPA Challenge vehicles are up for sale instead...

How about this electric vehicle from Tesla? They claim 250 miles per charge and 0-60 in 4 seconds for somewhere around $100,000. People are talking after Engadget posted an article this morning .

More info on burning Dell at Novell

According to this article on CRN, the battery in the burning Dell notebook was not manufactured by Dell. I suppose that lets Dell off the hook for this particular incident, but I wonder if that will make anyone that owns one feel better...

In the article Edward F. Moltzen writes:

I asked Novell spokesman Kevan Barney if this was, in fact, the case. Sort of, he said, but there was more to the story.

Yes, the Dell notebook caught fire and, yes, Novell's Building D was evacuated. But a security investigator who looked into it said the person who was using the notebook inserted a non-Dell battery into the unit just before it went up. "It was not a Dell battery," Barney said.

The investigation is continuing, Barney said.

Dell Laptop battery trouble at Novell; aka "Venting With Flame"

After reading all the recent news about exploding and burning Li-Ion laptop batteries and this story today about Dell's new effort to try to buoy it's reputation, I decided to give this story a home online. Just to inform, not to bash anyone (my first Dell was a 286-12 back in 1988). It was sent to me on July 6th, 2006 by a fellow Amateur Radio operator in the local area.

"Building D of Novell in Provo was evacuated at about 1:30 PM today because of fire alarms set off by a Dell D600 battery "venting with flame" under normal use/charging conditions. It took the laptop out with it, of course.

Yesterday, he sent some pictures and I thought I'd share. Here's a sample:

Timely news story

I know this is old news now, but it was *relatively* new until 36 hours after I posted it! :)

In other news...

- I took our new car into the shop today to get the roof fixed after I tried to drive into our garage with my bike still on top. The bike (Cannondale F500) and the Yakima rack both survived (I rode 70 miles the next day). I hope to get some pictures back from the body shop when I pick up the car.

- Our dog caught (and killed) the neighbor's cat this morning. Unfortunately, it was the one that the kids in our cul-de-sac were most attached to.

- Just as I was going to leave for work, the sprinklers came on and I saw that we had a broken head right next to the house. Glad that cat slowed me down this morning or we would have had a nicely flooded basement!

- I found out that I'm not going to get the $50 rebate I was promised for buying a new cell phone a while back. It has taken a while because I kept forgetting to call the store and ask why I hadn't received it yet. When I purchased it, I was away from home and on my way to the airport to go on a trip. The store owner who sold it to me said that he'd send me the rebate along with the contract paperwork in the mail when he got the computer problems figured out. Unfortunately, it turns out that the deal he made me was only supposed to be valid at a "corporate" store. On the positive side, I have a new phone and didn't have to do the 2 year contract extension. Good thing, 'cause I don't really like the phone (Motorola V360) that much!

FON

I'm going be jumping on the Fon bandwagon. My equipment should arrive soon and I plan on putting up an antenna (got one like this) on the roof so I can access it while I'm out and about.