Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

That's looking mighty sharp Kov!

 

2 Fisher Space Pen Renowned to be the first pen usable in space, underwater, at -50, on wet or greased paper.

 

Needed to replace the Mondeo, which was needing about £1500 to keep it on the road.
So I spent £1300 on this:



A proper car

 

So you're a Russian gangster now? Looks extremely clean & tidy for its age, nice.



Which is what I should have gotten the first time around, but never mind.

 

I have the Vertax grip on my D800. Finish is identical to the camera.

 

I have a mini one. I love it, it was a xmas gift from my bosses GF. Which makes it all the more special.

 

If I recall correctly, the last of the true handbuilt ones. A proper car indeed

 

You could have done so much better than that in a headlamp. Mind me asking what your PoU is?

 

PoU? Purpose of Use??

Cheap and cheerful, mostly for throwing in the boot of the car, walks back from teh pub, night BBQing.

No real use for it but a nice to have for the car just in case.

 

Developed at great expense for NASA. Russian Cosmonauts took pencils.

 

They all did at the start, but graphite shards are highly conductive and it caused havoc. Someone did actually spend $1 million of their own funds to research into a pressurised pen that is now used worldwide in zero-gravity conditions.

The urban myth of "NASA wasted money on an expensive pen, the russians used a pencil" is actually nonsense.

 

You're now the subject of my own :doh: - Read this:

edit:

Wow 3 people posting the same thing.

 

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

 

Close enough - Point of Use - LED Lenser have a generally bad reputation for build quality and performance in the flashlight enthusiasts community, not to mention overpriced for what you get. If it's just for occasional casual use you'll be fine, but anyone reading this and wanting something similar for any sort of serious or important work should steer clear of them and look at something like Spark or Zebralight headlamps instead

 

Fantastic buy Clegg, I'm highly jealous!

 

It's off ebay too so it'll probably be a fake, but as it's just for those odd occasions when I need a tad more light than my LED baseball cap clip will provide it'll do.

 

Where does one get an engine like that? What sort of assistance does it offer? Looks interesting!

 

Same price as my Beamer, £1300 buys you a lot of car nowadays (although I did have to get a full set of new tyres and I'm going to have to spend another £300~).

 

They're available all over the place - just search Google for 49cc (or 80cc) bicycle motor and you'll get literally millions of results. Managed to source mine locally for the same cost as it would have been to buy it online (when shipping was included anyway), so that was nice. Keep in mind that these things are quite cheaply made in Asia (all the writing on the motor and components are in Mandarin), so do expect things to break with regularity. So far I've broken the original clutch lever off, replaced 100% of the mounting hardware (because I didn't want this thing loosening off), and have a constant issue with idling and my clutch (doesn't idle, and clutch squeaks). So don't expect much and be prepared to work on it often.

Performance wise the motor all on it's own with a couple small modifications (rebuilt and modified the exhaust baffle) gets me up to 60kph without too much trouble during the break in period, but things are still settling in and loosening up so it should get better with time (at high revs it still doesn't run as smoothly as it should for instance). Once I can manage to go through a few tanks of petrol and put a few hundred km on it 70kph shouldn't be out of the question for the motor without any assistance from me. However, I have managed to get the thing up to 80kph by pedalling along side it, but I seriously would not recommend taking just any old bike up to this kind of speed or even attempting it if you've not done it on a push bike several times before (keep in mind that I'm well used to high rates of speed on a push bike, so other than the vibration and noise, it all feels entirely normal for me).

Biggest issue I've found so far would be hills as it just doesn't have the grunt to get up them at any speed. On a hill that most other cyclists I know would have to get off their bikes and walk up (super steep grade) this thing can only just manage 20kph - 40kph with plenty of assistance. So it's not too bad for the money, particularly when you consider that one doesn't need license or insurance for it!