Archive for the ‘Product Reviews’ Category

HIR Bulbs for High Beam

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Being a keen experimenter and open to new ideas, I decided to try the cheaper HIR bulb option in my ’98 100 Series Landcruiser High Beam as opposed to the HID kits. The ’98 Cruiser runs a traditional glass multi segment fresnel lens with two parabolic reflectors. The reflectors are separate for High and low beam with separate bulbs. The later year cruisers have changed to a faceted reflector with a clear polycarbonate unbreakable lens.

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.

eBay Chinese HID’s and Hella Rallye 4000 Review

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

I first saw Hella Predator HID’s back in 2000. I *nearly* managed to steal a set from Possum Bourne’s (RIP) support truck in 2001, but the mechanic got suspicious when I borrowed his spanner to work on his truck. It was a good Rally Qld. Unfortunately at $1200+ / piece they were out of my league.

Olympus u720SW Owners Review

Friday, September 15th, 2006

The camera that goes EVERYWHERE

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.

Review – Logitech V270 Bluetooth Notebook Mouse & IBM T40p

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006
  1. It works
  2. Nice Size / shape
  3. Heavier than corded notebook mice due to batteries. Recommend Lithium’s to reduce this.
  4. Battery Life – 3 to 6 mths depending on use
  5. Little fussy about surfaces – doesn’t like gloss – more fussy than MS USB optical mice.
  6. No dongle is nice – Bluetooth straight to laptop
  7. Includes batteries and soft case
  8. Could be smaller / lighter, but quite acceptable.
  9. Have to remember to switch off before putting in bag
  10. Runs fine on one battery if you want to reduce weight

DLink DWL-2700 AP Review

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

Impressive looking external AP.

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)

DLink DWL-2100 AP Review

Thursday, February 23rd, 2006

1. Nice AP for the price – not much else out there to compete

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.