I own a large heavy car trailer, so this was to be light and simple instead. Up to the legal un-braked limit of 750kg. As I am legally limited to this weight, it made sense for the trailer to be as light as possible. This would leave more room for payload. Making it extra heavy duty wouldn’t let me carry any more load. I wasn’t planning on using it off-road.

The flat bed with sides would let me use it in more ways. I also wanted to store it winched up to the roof of my carport, over my cars. This would get it out of the way when not needed and keep it out of the weather.

Shopping around at various trailer manufacturers offered almost nothing in the way of flat trailers with removable sides. Several quotes where well over $2000. I considered making my own using an alloy ute drop-side tray, but the cost was still up there. Several manufacturers actively laughed at me when I said I didn’t want a  “heavy duty” trailer. I laughed at them when they said their trailers weighed 200+kg, leaving less for payload.

Then I came across Easy Trailer. A company that gave me lots of options, made a lightweight trailers, and encouraged their customers to customise their trailers. They order over the web and deliver to you.

They specialise in folding trailers, but for me that wasn’t a critical feature. Mine would be stored on the roof, not folded against a wall.

What I wanted would cost me about $1000 from them, and about $400 in extra bits. With rego that’s under $1500, not bad.

Options

I selected a 8ft x 4ft trailer that could tip as well. I added a spare tyre and tie down loops. I recommend 8 tie down loops.

The floors have an option of steel or ply. Aluminium is not an option. Plywood is very good as it gives a “softer” surface that won’t damage what you are carrying. I had 5mm alloy checkerplate at home, so didn’t need a floor supplied.

The sides are the optional heavy duty sides. The front and rear gates double as loading ramps for anything you want to roll onto the trailer. They can come open or with a steel skin. No aluminium option.
Again, for weight and corrosion reasons, I went with 2mm aluminium from a local supplier.

The jockey wheel they have as an option didn’t do what I wanted, so I grabbed a lightweight folding one locally from Repco.

Electrical

The lights supplied are conventional bulb types – that means unreliable. I threw them in the bin and bought better sealed LED lights from eBay. Lights on trailers are a constant source of problems and I hate chasing dodgy light peroblems on my trailers.

To mount them properly, the LED lights I used do need a small backing plate made up to cover the rear. 1.6mm alloy is fine for this. You’ll also probably have to move the number plate and get a light for it. Whilst most conventional lights have a number plate light built in, this is uncommon for LED lights.

As far as I could find, on this size trailer, clearance lights are not required. Despite this, I fitted a set of low profile LED clearance lights to replace the clearance lights supplied with the trailer.

The wiring supplied uses the trailer as an earth – a likely problem spot. As such I used some of my own wire to run a full earth, ensuring all connections where sealed. I don’t solder vehicle connections anymore, finding a soldered connection less reliable than a well sealed crimped connection. The heat causes more fatigue on the wire and corrosion seems to get into the wire further.

Assembly

The trailer comes in lots of bits, with a lot of bolts. Plan on 4-6 hours to assemble it for a first time user. It’s easy enough, just a little tedious.

My assembly tips would be

a) Watch the direction of the C channels, it matters

b) Don’t fit the brackets for the timber stakes, you’ll just have to remove them later.

c) The tie downs replace bolts, figure out which ones as you assemble to save re-doing it.

d) Consider fitting nutserts / captive nuts to hold the sides on. Much less tedious than nuts and bolts.

Sides, Ramps, Tie Downs

Flatbed stored under carport roof (with safety tethers)

Nicely loaded

Sits nicely

Replaced loose nuts with captive Nutserts
They can be installed with no special tools
if you are careful.

LED lights are a great improvement

Brackets and backing plate for LED lights

LED Clearance lights

Swing up Jockey Wheel from Repco

Lightweight frame

Spacer for sides

Review

The trailers are imported from Taiwan, and in some ways it shows in the quality. They are obviously sold worldwide, as I saw one used on the tyre throwing rig on episode 80 of  mythbusters.

The powdercoat finish is ok, but the corners are sharp and will rust there where the coat is thin. I personally wouldn’t leave it out in the weather for too many years, but I say that about any trailer that isn’t hot gal dipped.

The frame is folded U channel steel, bolted together. This gives some flex that should relieve some point strain issues. Unlike a welded trailer, it is unlikely to crack from fatigue. The nuts are all nylocks, so it shouldn’t rattle apart too easily, although it would pay to check the bolts every so often.

The axle is folded steel, not solid bar. It would not stand overloading well. The drawbar is also C channel, so I wouldn’t overload it.

The compliance plate on mine was for 500KG. I spoke to Easy Trailer and they sent me another one for 707kg, the advertised max weight. The design is clearly for a distributed load, so if you are planning on carting large rocks or engines, be careful where you load them.

The wheels are 12” cross ply tubeless tyres on cheap steel rims. This is good for me as they keep the trailer low to the ground and keep the overall weight down. Cross ply tyres have a much heavier load rating, – these are a small narrow tyre.  The studs on the hubs weren’t drilled particularly square, my only complaint. Some people worry about small tyres at highway speeds. Mini’s work just fin on 10″ wheels at much higher speeds than this trailer will ever see. A wheel bearing’s RPM has nothing on a tailshaft.

I added an extra brace for the spare wheel to stop it twisting when stood on. I also added a swing up jockey wheel and extra tie down points. I tend to modify my stuff though.

The assembled trailer with sides on weighs in at just over 100kg, leaving 600kg of payload.

I have used it to transport my 200kg motorcycle, mates bikes, mulch, cane mulch bales, timber and other random items so far. I would not overload it badly. I would not take it over 1000km of corrugations and expect it to survive.

I like it, I love the lightweight design, I like the suppliers attitude to customising it, and I like the price. It tows well and is very flexible.  It’s unfortunately invisible behind the Landcruiser, I’ll need a reversing camera to see the thing.

I love my Maglites. I know technically there may be better out there, but they have such a nice solid feel to them as you thump them over someone’s ….. err, well, anyway.

Whilst they are good quality, they very old tech, so a swap to LED’s was in order. LED’s offer greater output, 5 – 10x battery life, and are much more shock proof.

The debate as to “which bulb is best” goes on endlessly, so I settled for those that I could source from eBay and post to Australia.

The direct bulb shaped replacements are very rare in high output versions. Most inserts offer an unusual shaped fitting and often a different reflector.Standard shaped bulbs often can’t dissipate enough heat to keep an LED cool. LED’s hate heat for effective output. Some LED’s will start out quite bright when turned on, then dim somewhat as they heat up.

The Maglite brand LED replacement bulbs are nothing special according to most reviews, and I wanted something with some more power.

Manufacturers appear to have come and gone, so don’t be surprised if the bulb you want is no longer around.

One downside with many inserts is you lose the focussing ability. In some cases they are do much brighter it doesn’t matter.

Terralux has a good range of inserts, with a balance of cost, features, output and availability. They are readily available on eBay US.

Candlepower Forums has in depth discussion and reviews, detailed comparisons etc. As the space changes so quickly, many of these are out of date.

Regardless of which bulb you choose, it should by preference be regulated. This keeps a constant brightness and gets best possible use out of the batteries. You don’t need to throw them away until they are fully used up, and lose very little brightness as they discharge.

Alkaline batteries have limits on how much power you can pull out of them. Essentially, if the bulb you choose will flatten the batteries in under 10 hours, the battery won’t give it’s full rated output.

When I started this I was going to do lumen comparisons and shots of beam patters, but honestly, it changes so fast, and others have done this already. I figured I would just put down my experience and you can pick bulbs on your own.

5 lights, all Terralux’d

Bulbs disassembled

Bulbs disassembled

Maglite 4D Cell – TLE-300M-EX
The brightest insert I could buy, with 3 x 2w elements. It’s not focusable, but so bright, it doesn’t matter. 3 brightness levels. The three elements produce a consistent beam pattern. 700 Lumens. About $70

All the other bulbs have been discontinued already.

An eBay search shows most bulbs are around 100 – 300 lumens and about US$20ish.

They are all an upgrade. Every brand and model seems to differ in it’s focussing.

Factors I would consider are

1. Price
2. Lumens Output
3. Focus – ability
4. Regulator

Not pictured is my Maglite solitaire, it was upgraded with one of these.

Yes, that is an active device, there is a regulator in the round disk.

For about $150 all up, it was well worth doing the six lights.

The problems ranged from

1. Failure to ring
2. Low Volume
3. Dropped calls mid call
4. One way voice
5. Poor call quality

After 12 mths of drama’s I found only Panasonic DECT handsets where reliable with the VOIP solutions.
I also found that running a “single box” solution is less hassles than “multiple box” solutions.
DECT has a much greater cordless range than most other handsets.

Here are the combinations I tried and the issues associated.

Routers

Netgear WNDR5500 + Netgear DM111p + Open Networks 812L VOIP

1. Rubbish combination, awful reliability, even after warranty replacement.
2. VERY unreliable, mostly due to router
3. Telstra DECT and Uniden WDECT = heaps of problems as well
4. My WNDR3300 review here

Netgear DG834G v3 + Open Networks 812L VOIP

1. Very reliable, very stable, but limited features
2. Reliable with fixed handset
3. Unreliable VOIP with Telstra DECT and Uniden WDECT Handsets

Billion 7404VNPX

1. Single box resolves interop issues on volume and ringing
2. Took a few firmware versions to improve reliability
3. Still needs rebooting for DHCP reliability
4. Fast
5. First unit was buggy, replaced under warranty
6. Reliable calls only with Panasonic handsets
7. Billion recommends only using fixed handsets, not cordless (from their support line and whirlpool)

Cordless Phone Handsets

I prefer to use 1.8GHz DECT handsets where possible, they have MUCH (2x-10x)greater range than 802.11, and don’t use the same 2.4GHz wireless spectrum. 5.8GHz has worse range than 2.4Ghz or 1.8Ghz. Higher frequency = less range.

There seems to be some issues with call stability and cordless handsets. I can only guess from all my testing that it relates to off-hook detection. I played with every setting under the sun, and nothing helped. 12mths of stuffing round to find that Panasonic handsets work well.

1. Telstra Touchfone T200
   Fixed handset – works well in all circumstances, if the router allows the call in.

   

2. Telstra DECT Cordless – Poor quality and hang up problems, poor call quality and cheap handsets.
3. Uniden WDECT – LOTS of problems with VOIP, don’t bother. AWFUL.
   The problems are twofold. Radio interference is a nightmare, even when seperated by 10+M
   The on/off hook sensing of the router and the base station appear incompatible, hanging up on calls all the time.
   
   
4. Panasonic DECT – Worked well
   
   
5. Panasonic DECT – Works VERY well
   

Cheapest LED Bulb

Here’s a great hack. KMart is selling these torches for about $3.50 with batteries. The LED in this is fitted to a normal sized bulb fitting, meaning it can be taken out and put directly into any 2 Cell torch, AA, C or D.

http://www.dorcy.com/products.aspx?p=412503

It’s a very bright 10mm LED in a normal bulb fitting. No regulator circuitry.

This has to be the cheapest source of LED drop in bulbs for torches I have found. Or you could just use the torch.

The beam is much brighter than a normal 2 cell torch. Runtime would be significant, although I haven’t done a full runtime test. You’ll use far less batteries, better for the environment.

Beam pattern is an average spread.

Summary

Despite very similar specs, these are two very different bikes.

Versys is more “fun” to ride round town, but not so comfortable on longer rides in stock form.

VStrom is better to customise and tour on. it has ABS.

The Versys had Michelin Pilot Road 2 tyres – wonderfully sticky. Despite having very similar dyno charts, the Versys definitely feels more torquey and pulls much more when over 160km/hr. The Versys suspension is far to harsh on less than perfect roads, even after tuning it as far as I could. I find this a major failing on a bike sold for it’s long travel suspension.

The VStrom tyre choice on road is not as sticky, but has a better range of off-road tyres.
The VStrom with Racetech fork valves and springs is a much better beast than stock, with steering sharpening up, and brake dive disappearing. Before it was a bit soft and somewhat harsh.

Drag racing them side by side shows the acceleration from 1st to 6th is basically exactly the same. Seat of the pants though feels like the Versys is MUCH snappier. Ass Dyno wrong again.

Braking is interesting. The ABS gives the VStrom an unfair advantage. I have tested the ABS in both wet and dry conditions finding it reliable in both. It tested at 1.05g using Dynolicious on the iPhone, vs only 0.82g for the Versys.

I am replacing my Versys with a VStrom, as I prefer the range of parts available, ABS and the different feel especially on the highway. The Versys is more fun to ride round town, if you can ignore the issues.

I was never happy with the kitchen bench though – it wasn’t bright enough. I recently bought a light meter from eBay and confirmed my suspicions. 60 Lumens at the bench top whereas kitchens are recommended to be around 150 lumens.

Surprisingly under my range-hood with it’s pair of (yuck) 20w G4 halogens scored 140 lumens.

I tried replacement bulbs in the downlights to get additional brightness with no success. The 18W Philips reflector is larger and does just fit. It’s only available in Warm White which made it seem no brighter and not match the rest of the house. I tried a larger 23W Par 38 spotlight, but it doesn’t fit into the housing, and is too large and heavy.

I thought I might need more spotlights on the wall until I made a new discovery.

     +   

http://www.pierlite.com.au/au/3091/dot-110 is a silvered reflective downlight housing that takes a normal ES bulb. By putting the silvered reflector in the housing, rather than the bulb, means you can use a normal bulb without losing all the light.

It comes with a Philips 20W ES Warm White bulb. I tried both a Philips 23W Daylight and 23W Warm White, much preferring the Warm White.

I’m impressed – this thing is BRIGHT. You do not want to look at it running. The benchtop now measures 160 lumens, up from 60. Great for a kitchen

23W is 3W above the rating of the fitting, but being CFL – I’m confident it won’t bother it. The 20W is also available in Dimmable, for those that want to replace 50W halogen downlights, although an electrician will be required, and the fitting is somewhat larger.

Another excuse not to go CFL’s down.

These new thingies work on a very cool principal of thermodynamics. Normally when you pump heat into a material it’s temperature increases. If however that material is at a point where it’s phase changes (solid – liquid or liquid – gas), then until the phase change is complete, all the energy you put in will not increase the temperature of the material. This is known as the “Enthalpy of Fusion” and the “Enthalpy of Vaporization”.

The really nifty thing is that with the right material, it can take huge amounts of energy to change it’s state compared to simply changing it’s temperature.

Quoting from Wikipedia

The high heat storage capacity in the phase change from solid to liquid, and the advantageous phase change temperature of 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) makes this material especially appropriate for storing low grade solar heat for later release in space heating applications. In some applications the material is incorporated into thermal tiles that are placed in an attic space while in other applications the salt is incorporated into cells surrounded by solar–heated water. The phase change allows a substantial reduction in the mass of the material required for effective heat storage (83 calories per gram stored across the phase change, versus one calorie per gram per degree Celsius using only water), with the further advantage of a consistency of temperature as long as sufficient material in the appropriate phase is available.

As such – it literally soaks up the heat without getting significantly warmer itself. There is a caveat though – once it’s adsorbed all the heat it can – it will start getting hotter along with the laptop. For this reason you can only use it for a certain number of hours before letting it cool down and “reset”. The manufacturer quotes 8 hours, however this would vary significantly depending on the power of your laptop, and the ambient temperature. Mine works fine for 3-4 hours. As my laptop only gets hot on one side, I can just turn it around to get twice as much use out of it.

They also have a dimpled surface to allow some air to the laptop, and mesh underneath to help keep some distance. They roll up, but aren’t super light. I wouldn’t bother travelling with mine as I don’t tend to sit with my laptop on my lap very often when away. I could see it being useful watching movies in bed where the sheets stop the ventilation.

The only issue I see is they do limit airflow somewhat, possibly making the laptop run hotter.

You can buy them online at the link below.

http://www.crazysales.com.au/revolutionary-laptop-notebook-fan-less-thermal-cooling-mat-black_p7279.html

Recommended – 4/5 as I love thermodynamics and this is cool!

BUT – interestingly enough, every single helmet you could buy had passed the crash test standard, so the better / worse was opinion, nothing more. In Australia this is an Australian Standard (similar to the US DOT standard, and many others). Really, it’s a “minimum”, everything on the market is better than the standard, it’s just a question of how much.

There was a defacto “better” standard – Snell. This was only issued to the “best” helmets, so if you cared, you bought a helmet that also had Snell certification.

Well now there is something better. The UK govt has setup a research and testing laboratory to test and rate motorcycle helmets like they crash test cars – with a star rating. You’ll find it at http://sharp.direct.gov.uk/ 

The testing is based on the new EU standard ECE 22.05 and discussed on webbikeworld.

I just bought a new Shark RSR2 to replace my aging Arai Qantum(1996). The new Shark is comfortable, quieter than the Arai on my head, and has a 5 star rating.

I prefer the new EU standard over Snell etc after reading this debate on MotorCyclistOnline and the testing they did. The base concept is that the Snell standard is very tough, and a tough helmet is not as soft and squishy. Soft and squishy is more likely to be useful to you in the accidents you are most likely to die from. The more serious accident that the Snell rated helmet is designed to protect your head for, will leave you dead from other injuries and with brain damage anyway.

Of course nothing will protect you from those big ones that just leave you dead.

I’ve been trying to reduce the power of my Home Server and Media Centre. Since my Power Meter debacle, I am now re-testing all the equipment and getting some rude shocks.

One of the positives out of this is that my 1TB Western Digital  My Book Essential and 300GB Western Digital My Passport Essential both spin down and save power. On USB, this is a nice feature, as many of the generic external cages don’t spin the drive down.

The WD’s spin down on XP, Vista and Windows Home Server which is based on Server 2003. The timeout appears to be independent of the OS settings.

They support several power modes, and my current meter is not accurate enough to report which one they are in.

The WD 3/5″ Black is the 7200RPM desktop drive.
The WD 3.5″ Green is the 5400RPM drive generally in the MyBook
The WD 2.5″ Blue is the 5400RPM drive generally in the MyPassport

The other thing I noted was that my new power meter (which is not rated as accurate below 10w) indicated that whilst sleeping, the 3.5″ and it’s power adapter were drawing less than 1w. The power adapter was only just warm, much better than the usual little heat wasters. Well done WD for killing the parasitic standby power.

Overall, they get my vote as low power green storage.

The Green 3.5″ and Blue 2.5″ drives are also very quiet – both operating and seek. The 2.5″ is quieter, but with half the capacity, may not stack up overall.

And you can always decode the Morse Code on the outside!

I wanted to keep the weight down, so decided a 9500lb was smaller and lighter than a 12,000lb. If I needed more pulling power, I would use a pulley block.

After reading the SA 4WD Winch Review, and getting a good deal, I bought a 9500lb Ironman Winch for $625 w/ 3yrs warranty. They are claimed to be waterproof and come with what I needed. I would have preferred a Premier winch due to the brake not being in the drum making it more suited to synthetic rope, but it was out of my price range. I would really have preferred a hydraulic Milemarker, but that was really really out of my price range, especially when I factored in questions around power steering pump flow rates.

After using steel cable and hating it, synthetic winch rope was a requirement. I figured 100ft (28M) of 5/16″ (8mm) rated at 13,700LB breaking strain would do. Less rope on the drum keeps the winch closer to it’s rated pulling force. I specifically bought their “Hybrid” line, where the first 25ft is a Technora based rope, and the rest is Amsteel Blue. The Technora is more temperature stable for use on winches with a brake inside the drum. I bought mine from www.cseoffroad.com, along with the alloy fairlead, rope protector and safety thimble. The alloy fairlead was a free bonus at the time. I also grabbed 100ft (28M) of 3/8″ (10mm) Amsteel Blue winch extension rated at 19,600lb breaking strain. The separate extension allows the flexibility of simply extending the pull, connecting two different points, putting a winch block in between the two etc. You need the thicker rope size if you are going to use a winch block, as it will double the pulling force – 9500×2 = 19,000lb.

The next item was a mount. Other mounts I have seen use 6mm steel plate in various arrangements. I settled for the thickest and strongest alloy channel I could get – 8.4mm x 6.8mm tempered alloy. It doesn’t have a rated “strength” in this configuration, especially after I chopped it up to get the winch to fit. I can say that in a pull to stall test, the rope snapped before the winch stalled, and the mount, while having a slight twist, suffered no permanent deformation. The winch is in an ideal position, directly between the chassis rails, very low, and as far back as possible. The mount acts to protect the radiator from sticks etc.

The fairlead I mounted into the bullbar with 20x heavy gauge rivets. Whilst I am not that confident as to their strength, in shear the steel pins combined with the tight fit should be very strong. At a 45deg pull they will be in both tension and shear, a less desirable situation. The alloy bar mounts are particularly weak in a sideways direction, so I think I’ll be avoiding heavy angled pulls. The fairlead needed to have it’s inside edge rounded a lot, as the winch sits quite low in relation to the bar.

Finally it was just a matter of the control box hidden inside the bar, the wiring and lockout switches. I recommend the lockout switches be waterproofed underneath with silicon, and rubber caps fitted (I used rubber “feet”). Water pulls inside them and the copper contacts stop working.The winch is wired with a switch to each AGM battery, letting me use either one, or both.

By dropping the steel cable and roller fairlead, using an alloy mount, not using a 12,000lb winch and keeping the alloy bar I have kept nearly 75KG off the front of the car. Just as importantly the weight is as low and far back as possible, something most winch bars don’t do. Whilst I accept it’s not as strong as a steel winch bar, it has passed every test I can throw at it so far.

Finally – it’s a whole lot cheaper than driving into ARB, and with Mickey T MTZ’s, twin Air Lockers and some lift, hopefully I won’t need to winch too often (yeah right).

The heaviest aluminium alloy channel I could find. It is also tempered (or so the guy said). 8.4mm base, 6.8mm walls.
Trimmed to fit winch and chassis rails with lower bull-bar mounts. I should have rounded the corners more to stop fatigue.
Winch fits nice and snug.
Alloy hawse fairlead mounted in the factory bar. Yeah I know, I know. If it snaps the rivets then I’ll do something sttronger. The alloy is 6mm checker-plate. The bar is not that strong, nor are the bar mounts.
Terminating the high temp Technora fibre.
Had to grind the allen key to fit the link on the rope.
All spooled up. Rope protector is the black bit. I have a strong plastic / rubber  flap that covers this gap keeping grass and mud out.
Pic when fitted. Yes, I suspect it may snag something one day.
The lockout switches with waterproof covers. They don’t like water in them, and then don’t work.
Internals of the waterproof control box. It’s zip-tied inside the bullbar.

With the release of Power Pack 1 (PP1), and support for external USB backups, I decided to take another look. I have not looked back.

OK – at it’s simplest WHS does three things

1. It backs up all your home PC’s using what has to be one of the most innovative and useful backup solutions I have ever seen.
2. It’s a file server
3. It’s a Terminal Services & Web Gateway – you can get access to your desktop PC’s and Files from the Web

WHS is managed by a really easy to use interface – it’s not a web interface, it’s actually a Terminal Services Published App. Anyone with a modicum of IT knowledge can drive this thing.

The hardware can be any old PC with more than 512MB of RAM. I run 4GB so I can use VMWare are well for testing. It will need a few HDD’s, either internal or external, USB, PATA, SATA, eSata, it doesn’t matter. They can be any size and speed, it will sort out the storage. Ideally there are four HDD’s, one for Boot / Temp, two for storage with duplication between them, and an external USB/eSATA for backup. I’m using a WD 1TB Mybook Essential for backup as unlike many enclosures, it will spin down saving power, and has no fans making noise. I’m running 1 x 80Gb, 4 x 500Gb, 1 x 1TB USB.

Install

Installing and setting up the WHS is pretty simple. I had one weird error that caused it to fail due to it not liking the PATA setup on my M/B. Changing the DVD to it’s own controller solved that.

There is one strange requirement, that is the server must be plugged into an Ethernet interface, not wireless. It’s something to do with the compression algorithm and streaming of the backups. It’s documented, but I haven’t found the solid reason yet. The clients can be wireless, but not the server.

Next step is to configure any storage. Plenty of guides on that around. The very interesting technical brief / whitepaper on WHS Storage is here. It must be noted that WHS does NOT support RAID. You can run hardware RAID, but it’s not recommended. Please read the whitepaper to gain a better understanding. Basically any of the file shares can have “duplication” enabled. Initially to me this sounded like a mirror (RAID1), and as I was running RAID5, I wasn’t particularly interested. After reading the whitepaper, it is fundamentally different. Not better or worse, just different. I would kinda still prefer RAID5 – it’s more efficient, and protects the whole system, not just the file stores, but this is much easier to expand and configure. I’m neutral on this feature vs RAID5, but would be very happy to give it to a non IT person to run. I think that’s the main point, anyone could drive this and have their data protected. It does NOT protect the WHS OS in any way. It does not duplicate the PC Backups unless you hack it.

Once the server is setup and configured with storage you install the WHS connector on each PC in your house. There is a tray icon that will run on each PC in your house – it alerts you to any problems, provides shortcuts to the file shares, manages backups and allows you to manage the WHS. It makes it much easier to trust the status of the server than having to remember and check Event Logs every so often.

Backups

The backup function is split into two components. PC backup and File Server backup. The technical brief for the PC Backup is here

PC Backups

The PC backup runs once a day, waking the computers from sleep, and putting them back to sleep when complete. The backups are particularly clever, tracking each NTFS sector backed up. If any sectors are the same, either across backups of the same machine, or between machines, the sector is only stored once. This is all transparent to the user. The space saving is dramatic. My three computers at home are using 168GB backup space, and that is with plenty of data on each, and nightly backups for a month. The backups are cleaned up to manage space on a schedule you can define.

Restoring of PC Backup’s can be done in one of two ways. You can browse the backups to restore individual files, or you restore the whole machine like an image. The restore is particularly clever. You boot the PC from a generic “Restore CD” that comes with WHS. All the drivers for that PC are sitting in a folder on the WHS ready to go – it has automatically found them on the PC when it was backed up and prepared them for this purpose. They go onto a USB thumb drive. With the drivers available, the PC can get onto the local network, connect to the server and retrieve the backup. It will put all the files back, OS and all – presto – rebuilt client PC from backup. That is much easier than the usual “restore the OS first”. Unlike most Bare Metal or Image restores, there is no need to keep regular updated images, meaning less maintenance and less space consumed. It’s very elegant really.

Server Backups

The server backup can backup any of the file shares (not the Server OS or the PC backups) to any HDD in the “Backup Storage” list. The server backup must be triggered manually, it cannot be scheduled or automated (A glaring oversight). It uses NTFS Hard Links to make sure that any file is only stored once, even though it may appear to be copied up each time. This saves huge amounts of space, and can be read on any machine. Again – this is transparent to the user. The external backups must be cleaned up manually when you run out of space. It would be ideal in future versions if these external backups could be duplicated somehow, to allow for an offsite copy. The current solution would be to perform the backup twice. This is not a significant overhead, as the backup only copies any changed data using a very efficient algorithm.

Storage / Shares

The other function for a WHS box by default is as a local file server. It is very easy for anyone to configure this, and can be controlled with easy to manage user accounts and permissions.
The interesting feature in this area is “Duplication”. Each share can optionally have “Duplication” enabled. This will then have the server transparently copy each file to a separate drive. The process is described in the storage whitepaper. This is all hidden from the user by using NTFS links and other NTFS trickery. The advantage is that in the event of a disaster of some kind, the drives are fully readable on any machine. It also is dynamic enough that the drives can be any type  and size, it will share the data round and balance the storage as required.

Web Gateway

I haven’t played much in this area yet – I’ll update when I do. It uses UPNP to publish a site to the internet through your router. The domain homeserver.com lets you register a free subdomain to get to your data. You can access your files from anywhere. There is a Terminal Services Gateway function to allow remote access to your home PC’s – I haven’t investigated this yet. It probably depends on your desktop OS version, user account configuration and if the computer is asleep.

Add In’s

There are a reasonable and expanding number of AddIns that can be installed. These offer increased functionality through the WHS interface.

Notes

It is worth checking the Power Settings on the WHS, as mine was set not to spin the drives down. This wastes a lot of power and will reduce their life. I tend to set mine to 5 minute spin down, as this is longer than any streaming period. The machine isn’t user interactive – so spin up time is not a concern.

Non-WHS Apps

WHS is actually Windows Server 2003 (possibly with some SBS stuff – I have noted). It will run nearly anything W2K3 Svr will. BUT, you need to be particularly careful with your drive management. Use of Disk Manager can kill the special WHS stores. Whatever apps you install needs some careful thought as to where the data will be stored.

Conclusion

I’m very impressed with the data storage and backup solution used in WHS. It can be driven by anyone with a modicum of computer experience and meets it’s goals very well. It is more limited than a full W2K3 server, but offers some brilliant functions that are difficult to find elsewhere. It’s simplicity is wonderful, and with some care, offers a wonderful solution.

The Future

What should have been included that wasn’t? Hmm, well. I have a list, as do many others on the Connect forum. If I had to narrow it down it would be.

1. WHS + Media Centre in one – so you can just run extenders around your house.
2. Scheduled External Server Backups
3. OS Backups
4. A 2W Atom CPU / MB & 95% efficient CPU – drop the consumption from the 30w idle of my Home Server
5. Better power options. It would be good to have the box sleep for much of the day, waking only to do what was needed when we were home.

Good Resources

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/

I like to be able to resize stuff easily and quickly for a number of uses. It’s one of the main reasons I use Live Writer for this site – it’s quick and easy to to the image management.

Luckily a free replacement with all the simple “Right Click – Resize” features turned up – VSO Image Resizer. And it’s free for personal use.

No spyware, no crap running in the taskbar, no background services. It runs the way an app should – right click – “just do it”

Highly recommended.

It also needed to be small an un-intrusive, and fit on some small bookshelves. This ruled out most amplifiers, as they just don’t come in small sizes.

For the speakers I settled on a set of Paradigm Atom bookshelf speakers as reviewed here. Steve at Eastwood HiFi was most helpful and I recommend them and his entertaining site.

I initially considered a Fatman Valve Amp to power it, but with my green bent, the inherent inefficiency of vacuum tubes, and the cost, I looked at other solutions.

The T-Amp got amazing reviews and some impressive comparisons in it’s various incantations based on the Tripath Chip Class T Amp.

I picked up a Gen2 T-Amp from eBay.com for US$60 plus postage. The power adapter was full multi-voltage / multi-frequency and worked on Australian power. The unit is TINY, you can see from the pics below how small it is.

Once powered up, I connected the iPod and started to test. I was initially concerned that the 90db efficiency of the Paradigm speakers wouldn’t be sensitive enough to get reasonable volume from the meager clean 10w/channel and 15w maximum.

Amazed is an understatement. The volume is more than acceptable, although not ear shatteringly loud, it’s more than loud enough you can’t talk over it. Beautifully clear,  and very simple and clean. The efficiency must be well over 90%, as several hours in, there was no heat from the amp whatsoever.

This thing gets my vote, beautiful clean power, dirt cheap price, tiny size, and as eco friendly efficient as you can get.

I’m very impressed.

Now for 802.11g, MIMO will improve your coverage, but seeing as N is just around the corner, and uses MIMO as part of the draft standard, it made sense to just jump to 802.11n. My house is two storey, and getting good reliable coverage over both floors has proved difficult. I always get a signal, but not a good one, and for streaming my Vista Media Centre from my Home Server, I needed a good signal. I could have run Cat5, it’s what I had done in the past, but I figure, in 2008, I should be able to make all this new fangled stuff kinda come together smoothly.

Just released by Netgear and Linksys amongst others are new Dual Band draft N equipment, this runs in both the 5.8Ghz and 2.4GHz ranges. The argument being that the 5.8GHz range is far larger in frequency space, and far less utilised by other things that can interfere. Made sense to me, and at a small price premium, was worth jumping onto. Teamed with a new naked ADSL2+ service, I figured I would “embrace the future”.

The new Netgear model is WNDR3300 and the Linksys a WRT600N. I was more familiar with Netgear, it’s cheaper, and more easily available in Australia. I teamed it up with a set of Netgear USB WNDA3100 adapters. The unit supports QoS for my new Naked ADSL w/ VOIP service and has the widest range of features of the current netgear lineup.

8 Weeks after ordering, the kit finally turned up, with delays from Netgear getting it into the country. Looks like this stuff really is new – oh bugger, that’ll mean bugs.

It looks the piece, big, black, no antennas thanks to the secret metamaterial. The power pack is switch mode and small, and it comes with a few cables. Inital setup is manageable. The flashy lights on top are very very irritating, allow an extra $2 for a roll of black tape.

The first problem was the Router doesn’t have an integrated ADSL modem. Guess I should have read the specs a little better there. It’s almost impossible to purchase an ADSL modem only unit in Australia today, everything wants to route. Two routers in series = problems. You can convert the DG834G into a modem, but I had another home for mine, so I bought a DM111P to run as an Ethernet to ADSL2+ bridge. Getting the DM111P to be a modem means putting it into “RFC2684″ mode, something not covered in any of the docs.  This way the DM111P handles the ADSL settings, but the WNDR3300 does the ADSL PPOE login with credentials etc. The downside is that you can’t see your ADSL line connection performance figures, and whilst the DM111P is in bridge mode, it doesn’t have an IP address, so you can’t get information off of it either. You have to configure your WNDR3300 to login with “Other” and not “PPTP” or “Telstra Bigpond”. Either way, I’m getting about 7Mbit.

Once running and configured I fired up the WNDA3100 units in my partners desktop and the Media Centre. Install went OK, although I hate the “app” type driver installs. I much prefer just having the driver and managing it through windows. I figured being new, that doing it the “right” way with the vendor, and having additional signal information would be useful. Longer term, once smoothed out, I’ll be uninstalling the netgear apps and just running the driver. That said, I have to figure out how to extract it, as it’s all packaged up, and not easy to get into. Finally, there is some sort of script it runs on every login, looks dodgy to me.

The coverage is good, and speed ok. Plenty of other reviews there, no need to re-cover that. Interestingly most of the clients could only see the 2.4Ghz signal. The 5.8 signal gets wiped out by my walls too quickly. As this review covers, you can only have DraftN on either 5.8 OR 2.4 at once, so I dropped the 5.8 signal and got the speed where I could. That pretty well negates the point of having Dual Band.

The comments I have had so far are below

1. Integrated WNDA3100 drivers mean more junk running
2. The pretty blue flashing ultrabright LEDS on the router are really really irritating, and there is no “off” option. (Update – press the dome over the lights – they turn off)
3. The router firmware is very flaky. It drops wireless signal every so often. (Seems better now)
4. The WNDA3100 drivers are less than ideal – more work needed here to improve performance.
5. My 802.11a/b/g laptop only wanted to see the 5.8 signal, not the 2.4, until I turned off the 5.8 on the router totally.
6. My HP printer wouldn’t work with WPA2, I had to turn on WPA/WPA2 compatibility mode.
7. If running in 2.4/5.8 Dual band mode, you get the option to run two different SSID’s. If you run the same one, your client can be confused as to which one to use. There is no guidance I have found on this function anywhere, and I’m still confused. Caused me some grief, until I made them different, at which stage the WPS auto config function stops working properly.
8. My Outlook w/ RPC over HTTP refused to work until I upgraded to the Beta firmware. (Fixed now)
9. Netgear has a Beta program going for firmware and some decent forums
10. There is discussion of other USB NIC vendors with the same Atheros chipset having performance issues.
11. The modem and power adapters all produce a bit of heat, meaning they are not particularly efficient. I am trying to cut my power use.
12. The DM111P comes with an old style power brick, whereas the WNDR3300 has a much smaller and more efficient switch mode power adapter. C’mon Netgear, catch up.
13. Coverage is much better
14. Speed is much better
15. No driver support for the WNDA3100 and Server 2003. I haven’t done video tests yet until I get a NIC for the server.

Next time I think I would consider the DG834N with the integrated modem, unless I had spectrum issues, possibly in densely populated areas.

Update (31/07/08)
I have updated to the latest release firmware – this has helped the stability significantly. Coverage is still ok, but not excellent. Primarily, I still can’t reliably watch DivX/XVid movies on my Vista Media Centre PC from my Windows Home Server. They play, but often judders and stall. The signal strength an quality are about 70% – but it still doesn’t cope. I think I’ll have to run Cat5 to the Media Centre after all. The Home Server is already running Cat 5 to the WNDR3300 – that is a requirement of WHS.  My house is two storey timber and no too huge. Due to placement, some transmission paths are less than ideal – high angle to the walls / floors increasing apparent depth.

 
Router

Router w/ VOIP adapter from Internode

 
Router, VOIP & ADSL Modem

WNDA3100

UPDATE:
I have decided to ditch the WNDR3300 and replace is with *something* else. I ahve gone through 5 versions of the firmware since I bought it. The 5.8Ghz is a waste of time, it has very poor penetration. www.smallnetbuilder.com shows average-poor wireless performacne in comparison from other devices. THe unit was replaced under warranty a couple of weeks ago when the QoS rules would not remain set to custom.

 The final deal breaker was my VOIP phone dropouts. I have an OPEN networks VOIP ATA behind the router, and frequently get “one way voice” on a call. I put this down to VOIP issues. Whilst the router was away under warranty I used my old DG834G – and had NO call dropouts. It doesn’t even have QoS and the call quality was better. As soon as the WNDR3300 went back in – dropouts came back. It’s going to be replaced, this time with somethign with an integrated ADSL modem.

I would not recommend this device.

“”

The one I bought is worth the money as scrap steel however – weighing in at 20KG, it weighs more than my entire drawer system. I’ll be “modifying” this to reduce weight significantly when I can afford a plasma cutter.

It’s a fridge slide. The fridge slides in and out. It kind of stays out, depending if the locking mechanism lines up that time or not. The straps it came with were a joke.
Looks like slides from a computer server or filing cabinet. Surprisingly they don’t rattle. The locking mechanism does however rattle a little, as sympathy with the travel stop which squeaks.
Very solid construction. The amount of plate steel used here is amazing. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to stop the carpet bowing it up in the middle and rubbing on the sliding tray. You can see the rub mark where it has damaged the paint and scored the steel. The clearance here was inadequate to start with.
You can see I have screwed it down. It comes with 4 small screw holes, 2 of which are covered by the tray. Total disassembly is required to screw it down firmly.
The tray rubs underneath as well.
The offending locking mechanism that needs a grinder taken to it.

Well it’s difficult to install, requires modification from new, squeaks, rattles slightly, slides poorly, jams open, doesn’t lock open, and weighs far far too much.

BUT it is pretty solid, and could be modified to be better.

Score: 2/5
I’ll get a lightweight one. Or one of these drop ones for the missus although $449 is a bit more expensive and I haven’t seen a weight.

1. They are difficult to tighten as the lop just goes round and round as you try and tighten it.
2. They make it very difficult to remove the fridge as each strap has to be unthreaded back through it’s buckle. A tedious job for the rear ones.

Loop straps on a fridge are a silly idea.

Just Straps to the rescue. These came from BCF, even though I hate the place. Super Cheap Auto of the camping world. They are 25mm webbing rated at 150KG each. A big accident might break them loose, but I think the fridge or slide mounts will fail first.
They are in two pieces with a strong steel hook and loop connecting them. One part stays with the fridge, the other with the slide or tie-down points. The fridge end has a loop to feed through itself. The base end has a length adjustable steel buckle.
The loop that connects is together is a gripping “tiedown” tensioner, allowing a 2:1 mechanical advantage. Great for getting it down nice and tight.
All tied in, it won’t move no matter what happens.

Highly recommended. 5/5
They are quick, simple, easy and strong.

A while ago due to a combination of circumstances I decided to build a Windows Media Centre PC. A few friends had them and spoke highly and being stuck on an island it seemed like a bright idea to pass the time between dives, fishing and drinking. I started, but never had the time to get it completed.

Then I moved back to Oz and it got put in a box for 12 months.

I recently resurrected the project and decided to fire the thing up with Vista. This is the story of woe that followed.

OS Installation

Well, one would think that for a system designed to live in the lounge room displaying on your huge energy sucking plasma TV using a flash as wireless keyboard then you could install it as such. Fat chance. Installation pretty well requires you to plug in a normal USB keyboard, mouse and often LCD PC screen into something that is not supposed to need a keyboard, mouse and screen. DUMB

My disk had been used for XP. As I alluded to here, you can’t install Vista onto a Dynamic Disk with a partition on it. Pull apart your PC and play the HDD shuffle to fix this moronic decision. I haven’t had to do this since I chipped my first XBox. DUMB

Drivers & Hardware

Next step was to get the drivers to work. Scarily enough all the Hardware was over one whole year old, so I figured my chances were limited, seeing as it was released before Vista. Most manufacturers have a “don’t look back” policy. (If you think large company means better driver support – HP, Sony, Dell, IBN etc – you are kidding yourself, they are worse). I spent a significant number of hours throwing ideas round the XPMediaCentre website with little to no success.

Tuner
Dvico Dual Digital TV Tuner Card – Hours (many hours) wasted, drivers give combinations of “unknown devices”, single tuner only, or dual tuners with non visible to Media Centre. Nightmare stuff.
I replaced it with a Dual Digital Hauppauge to much greater success.

Video Card
I was recommended a HIS X1300 as it had the fanless option I was after. It’s up to the task, but the drivers are rubbish. They don’t have all the options covered on the ATI site. Support for varied resolutions or dual screen doesn’t exist. You can’t drive the VGA and Component outputs at the same time.

It’s impossible to get a colour signal through the component output to the TV. The TV is a native 1366 x 768 wide picture. The best the card will deliver is B&W at 480i. There is no option in the HIS driver to setup the component outputs. The ATI driver doesn’t work with the card. I would like to video switch with my amp, and component will give the best quality to do that. I ended up driving the screen with VGA @ 1360 x 768.

Comments on the boards abound about Video output, quality and alignment issues. The justifications given are basically that TV and PC signals are fundamentally incompatible and can’t work well together. I have an XBox that says that is rubbish. It should be very possible to get good TV support from cards with TV outputs, anything less is a sign of immaturity in the industry. VGA is analogue, TV is analogue. DVI is digital, HDMI is digital. Either way, a good signal at any resolution should be simple.

Case
The Zalman HD 160 looked good and had an excellent layout internally for quiet airflow. Unfortunately the drivers for it were a mess.

The card reader comes up an an Unknown USB device.

The IR receiver reception is poor and only works when the software is running.

The software doesn’t autorun, so you have to do that after install. It may also may stop receiving IR when the machine goes to sleep.

The display on the front does work when the IR software is running, however if you then use the MS IR receiver as it gets a MUCH  better signal, the two conflict. It is supposed to be possible to turn the built in one off, but I can’t figure out the software options. I gave up and ignored the display.

IR Keyboard
The Microsoft IR Keyboard is rubbish. Total and utter rubbish. There is a 70% chance that the key you press will end up on the screen. As it’s impossible to touch type on your lap, you have to look up and down after typing each key to see if it worked. This becomes frustrating after about the first 3 keys, before I gave up and plugged in a USB keyboard to work off. IR works, it doesn’t have to be that bad. JUNK

Lockups
These aren’t resolved yet, but I suspect the Asus MB. I’ll update when it’s solved.

Audio Out
The digital audio out seems to work OK, although my distrust by now extends fairly wide, so I would really like to see some sort of display to tell me if it’s decided to output Stereo vs 5.1.

Software

Codecs
Amazingly enough Microsoft bothered to include the codec to play DVD’s, I suppose MCE 2005 didn’t even get that. Unfortunately not being able to play Quicktime, DivX or XVid rules out a good 50% of the content out there. The codecs for these can be problematic, especially with AC3 audio. Quicktime is still giving me grief.

Lets get this straight, my chipped Xbox with XBox media centre written by a bunch of hackers worried about prosecution played more stuff, more reliably than Microsoft multi million dollar effort. That’s a JOKE.

Codecs and Media Centre
OK, so I have the Codecs installed and can play the video through Media Player. But not through MCE. It still doesn’t recognise stuff. So I still can’t play Quicktime through MCE. Great effort. You write Office for the Mac, but you can’t licence Quicktime. Marketing Morons.

Screensaver
I worry about burn in on my Plasma. It seems pretty simple to me. If a movie or TV is playing, don’t let the screen saver run. If a movie is paused or not playing fulls screen, make sure it’s enabled by default and kicks in after 5 minutes. Simple. Of course it doesn’t work that way. When it will kick in seems to be dependent on it’s mood, what erroneous input the IR receiver has seen or a set of undocumented rules, it may, or may not come on.

Guide
It’s crap in Australia. Enough said. If I pay for ICE TV it may work better than what Microsoft should have sorted out years ago. I mean they have enough experience in court, what’s another court case.

Library
You can only add shares to the Library, not individual sub-folders. What year are we in? They sorted that for Home Drive mapping back in Windows 2000!

Aspect Ratio
I suspect this is more to do with the huge range of aspect ratios and how they are recorded onto DVD, but after owning a wide-screen TV, it really is a dogs breakfast and all over the place. I frequently find myself trying different screen formats to see what fits best. Immature industry this wide-screen HDTV.

Summary

Well the driver support is poor. The hardware is poor. The Microsoft components are not well integrated. The codecs are non-existent. The setup is a nightmare. And they expect this to replace my mothers VCR one day?

Lets get this straight. The ONLY thing Vista MCE does that a chipped XBox running XBox Media Centre can’t is record TV. The old cheap simple reliable modded XBox does more than Media Centre, with less hassle. And you can buy HDD recorders for recording TV.

I would think twice and then think again before I set my heart on this rubbish. I’ll persist and get it working, but this is definitely v0.02.

Package – Excellent
Price – Good
Features – Excellent
Auto Install Scripts – Excellent
Upgrades for Hosted Products – Yes – Scripted
Multiple Domains / Shared with mates – Yes
Heaps of space – Yes
eMail Limits – Good
WebMail Interface – Bad – only on weird port (But you can install and run Roundcube, and that is a good webmail client)
Help / FAQ – Excellent
eMail responses for Help – Excellent

Overall, I’m rapt.

 

 The website is here

These things are excellent. 15W each. AU$40 for a pack of 4 from Lighting Illusions.

They are a reflective compact fluorescent downlight. The glass cover keeps the bugs out from between the tube elements as a bonus.

Startup is electronic and nearly instant. Warm up time is minimal, about the same as your eyes.  

The bulbs are 5000K colour – Daylight. It is a very white light, makes the 50W halogen downlights look dull yellow in comparison. They look far whiter than the 3800K Warm White reflective downlight I tried.

They don’t shed as much light per watt as a straight or round tube, but not much does. For a downlight they are far far more efficient than a Halogen.

If you want to go green, with a modern unobtrusive look, these are a great product.

Highly Recommended – 5/5

The High Beam bulb in my cruiser is a 9005 HB3, Low beam 9006 HB4. These can be swapped with a HIR 9011 bulb that is very similar in design. A small plastic tab needs to have about 3mm of plastic trimmed to fit in the socket.

I purchased mine from www.finemotoring.com in the US who has plenty of information on HIR bulbs. The bulbs arrived in about 10 days, and I found the service prompt and friendly.

HIR bulbs are brighter than conventional Halogen bulbs, including the high output types, and cheaper than HID. I went for them as they are on instantly (HID needs to warm up),  cost effective, simple drop in, no ballast to mount, and I wanted to see what they were like. There is also less legal concerns running these bulbs than HID’s, but I’ll skirt that issue as it seems to be somewhat murky. Headlight and vehicle modification legality debates are contentious at best.

The HIR’s  draw 65w, meaning there is no need to re-wire the car to get a reasonable voltage to them. Running 100W or 130W halogen’s requires re-wiring in most cars. Failing to do this gives a significant voltage drop through the loom, and low voltage at the bulb. Halogen’s hate low voltages very quickly falling in brightness. A 130w bulb underdriven will produce less effective light then a well driven 55W. I have rewired the headlights in several previous vehicles, but am getting lazy in my old age. I haven’t measured terminal voltage to check the amount of loss, but with the engine running and 13.8v at the battery, they seemed fine.

The bulbs that I removed where Silvania 55w units of unknown age. There was no visible material deposited on the glass and the filaments were in good condition, so I would estimate their output to be well within 90% of new. Bulb’s tend to lose output as they age. High beam doesn’t get as much use as low beam, likely contributing to their good condition.

ARB and IPF are flogging HIR as the next best thing, with prices to match. I don’t know where they are sourcing theirs from, and some of their information seems contradictory with other sources on the web. Well, that’s this new intertechnoweb thingymajig for ya.

Fitting was moderately easy. The sockets for the bulbs are tight and tend to hold dirt, with difficult to remove plugs. They are also require removal of the battery to access the sockets, and lifting 35kg of AGM battery out of the tray is great fun.

The outcome is “acceptable”. The light is whiter and brighter, but not hugely so. These are not HID output colour’s or levels. The photo’s don’t give a good comparison as the camera light metering affects what you see. I would estimate the increase to be in the realm of 30 – 50%. Due to the lens design it doesn’t throw the light that much further, maybe 10 or 20m, but the fringe regions are more clearly lit, and the colour is less yellow, probably about 300K whiter at a guess. The centre area’s have more white light in them, but were acceptable before. There is some colour difference when projected onto the garage door, or when you look at them, however the camera doesn’t capture it. They are NOT blue or purple to look at.

I would score them about 6/10 – acceptable as a quick, simple cost effective upgrade with more, but with the falling price of HID kits, I think I’ll just go HID in everything.

 
Low Beam – Conventional

High Beam – Conventional
(Landcruiser keeps Low Beam lit when High is on)

High Beam – HIR Bulbs

Then along comes 2007, eBay and the advertising below: “UNVEIL THE NOBLE’ SGASEITY, DISPLAY THE KING’ DEMEANOUR” How could I resist? I love dodgy asian translations to advertise stuff. It was the above eye catching statement that made me decide this had to be the best HID offer on eBay. Oh, and it was the cheapest. The guy said he was in Australia, but the excessive postage cost and long delivery time seemed to put some doubt on that fact. The ratings on the account were good, and the product arrived OK, but he did cancel his account 2 weeks later. Dodgy? I’m still not sure. I did order and pay for extra High Tension cables, and had a longer 12v wiring loom supplied instead, but this could be simple mis-communication.  

So I am now the proud owner of some shiny kit to fit the shiny Hella Rallye 4000′s that came with my cruiser. I went with 4300K (the lowest colour temp) bulbs after doing much research across the web. It’s not a pretty purple colour, but far bluer than a normal Halogen. Whilst it might look cool, blue is very hard to actually see anything by, especially in dust or bad weather. That’s why fog lights are yellow, it penetrates more, and reflects less. I know in the rally car, in bad dust, you could see more with the driving lights off. White light reflects badly. Dull yellow headlights work best. 4300K is not yellow at all, but it is very easy to see by in good weather.

These are 35W units, the most common. There are some suppliers out there with 50W units. After testing, I don’t need the 50w units, these are fine. For those that aren’t aware, colour temperature has NOTHING to do with brightness. There is a large range of what people call “white” light. It is measured in degrees Kelvin. It is based on a block of pure carbon being heated in a vacuum. As is gets hotter it starts to glow. The actual temperature of the carbon is used as a reference to the colour it is glowing, from dull red (1500K), to yellow (2000-3000K), white (4300 – 5000K) , blue (6000K) and purple (7000K) as it gets hotter.  I decided to put them into the driving lights for a number of reasons

1. If they play up it’s no big deal
2. They take 30secs to warm up – not ideal in normal headlights
3. I want these for LONG range, and the driving lights are for that purpose
4. I did always want those Hella Predators

All required equipment and safety gear

I was not impressed when I pulled the Rallye 4000′s open and found that they were NOT watertight. They are designed to shed water, but there is no ring seal, and no seal near the bulb. The sealed electrical connection at the rear becomes a bit of a waste. So much for the overpriced driving lights. The Lightforce 170′s I put into my brother’s Jeep were far more waterproof than this.  I have had some comments from a friend with one that the reflectors don’t corrode like many lights, even with cracked glass, but I still prefer mine sealed. I was further unimpressed with Hella pricing a replacement lens within $20 of the cost of a whole new light. At $220ea for a light, no clear lens protectors and no reasonable replacement cost, that’s just rude.  I put $40 Lightskinz on mine, having been happy with them before. They don’t collect dirt like normal clear plastic protectors.

 
 I was rather impressed with the top quality silicon High Tension leads, and the silicon rubber seals on all the electrical connections. Cheap chinese perhaps, but very well presented with a high quality feel.  You can see the standard halogen vs the HID bulb. It looks like they simply change the plastic base for the bulb, and keep the capsule the same. When you buy them you generally have a choice of colour temp and base style to suit you vehicle and preference. The short High Tension leads are a problem. You need to put the igniters/ballast unit close to light, possibly where it will get wet. I would prefer well back in the engine bay. Oh well, have to see how waterproof it really is. Mine is mounted inside the bullbar. You can’t extend these leads easily, as they may carry 6000V+ to fire the bulbs. That needs special connectors and insulation, like your spark plugs.

 
The HID Bulb is slightly wider than the standard glass envelope. This makes it a touch fit in the Rallye 4000′s. I am still concerned about the touch fit becoming a break fit when things get hot, but seems OK so far. Ideally I should file the glass reflector a little with a dremel or something, but can’t be bothered. You can see the silicon sealant Hella uses doesn’t go 360 deg around the socket. The reflector is upside down in this pic. It’s only designed to deflect the water, not handle submersion.

 
Round plug (seal) – Square Hole. Bugger. Oh well, silicon fixes all ills, and it’s out of sight when on the car.

 
There are lots of comments on the web debating how HID’s may not work with normal reflectors due to the light coming from a ball as opposed to a filament, or not being at the focal point. They may be correct, but seems to work OK with these lights, and I suspect with most others. You can see the actual glass ball within the main capsule.

 
HID on the right, standard on the left. You can see the colour comparison. Real colours are hard to capture with a camera as the brightness throws it’s metering out badly. Regard it as comparative as opposed to qualitative.

 
HID on the left. I would estimate at least double the standard brightness, and close to triple. The standard High Beam on the outside looks very poor in comparison.

 
Slightly longer shot. The beam is fuller over a larger area, and far more intense.

 
Now for the acid test. This is standard Landcruiser High Beam. That is a 55w low beam and 60w high beam both operating together.

 
Add HID – presto – we have daylight. Again the camera changes it somewhat, but to get the best idea look at 3 things.

1. Colour – far whiter light
2. Distance – You can see the end of the street
3. Spread – that 1/2 circle is very bright in real life.

I don’t particularly love the spread of the Rallye 4000′s – it’s too narrow. They need another pair of spread beams. That said, I had a single Rallye 4000 spread beam with a 100w Halogen in it, and you couldn’t tell the difference with it on / off to the normal headlights. They need a set of spread beams with them. My plan is to HIR the high beams and HID the low beams. That may give me enough spread light to supplement the spotlights. Once warmed up they stay warm for several minutes, so dipping your lights for passing cars doesn’t mean a significant time without bright lights. It takes about 20 seconds from stone cold to get to full brightness. Even when warming up, they produce light, probably as much as a normal headlight, but you notice the difference compared to the photo above.

Conclusion

Rallye 4000 Spots: I don’t particularly love the spread of the Rallye 4000′s, or their waterproofing. I’m tempted to eBay these and buy Lightforce.  - Not recommended 3/5

Chinese HID’s: I do love the 4300K H1 HID’s. I’ll advise how they go in the long term, but for now – highly recommended. 4/5 until I trust them.

Pro’s

• It’s Very Small
• It’s Waterproof to 3M
• It’s Drop/Shock Proof to 1.5M
• It looks Normal – not all clunky and rubberised.
• There is NOTHING else on the market like it.

Con’s

• Battery Life is “acceptable” – about 100 – 200 shots, many with flash.
• Video is very average. 15fps max and fills 1GB card in 15mins.
• Video is Quicktime output format – yech.
• Shot to Shot is 3 secs – slow.
• Switching to Video invloves a lot of menu buttons.
• No image stabilistation except digital, which is just ISO really.
• I don’t really like Olympus. Fuji, Sony and Canon are “better” brands.

Summary
If you want to do lots of video – move on. If you want a camera to be with you all the time outdoors – this is your camera.

They SUCK. 

Look like they should perform. Great blurb, solution looks good – BUT they fall over all the time, whatever firmware you run. If you like your wireless Up and Down – these are great. Hope you like night drives to power cycle equipment. (I have 12 of them – it’s not just 1 faulty unit)

2. We have about 50 – expect a 20% failure rate / year. They do NOT like the sun, very heat sensitive (even in aircon room)

3. They have major issues talking to IBM Gigabit Ethernet. Took me AGES to track this down. They will respond (ping, HTTP), but will NOT pass from the Ethernet to the Wireless interface if you are using an IBM Laptop or PC with Gigabit interface (running on a 100MBit switch). Yeah, I tried cables, switches, different PC. Same results. Talk to it, not through it.

4. When in AP Client mode they are REALLY REALLY crap. They translate the MAC Address of the host to their MAC. 3 hosts behind – all appear to have the same MAC to the server. The AP is supposed to sort out this shamozzzle when the packets return – guess what – they can’t. 50% of data packets it drops is bundle and you can’t talk. Another mongrel to diagnose, I love sniffers. Client side looks like packet drop. Server side looks fine – till you check the ARP table. Symptoms are 3 PC’s behind 2100 configured as AP Client. All 3 will get IP’s thru DHCP no problems with correct MAC addresses in DHCP server (only translates some packets obviously). Try doing stuff – each host will work then drop out in turn depending on who is sending what. Looks like the 2100 has limited buffers and can’t cope.