The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

Just put my soldering and trouble shooting skills to use on my f'n car. The trunk light quit working a late fall. Put new bulb in and no good. Didn't feel like working on it at that time so I let it go.

Then lately while driving I'd here a ding ding from the dash. No lights on and nothing on the info display. Thought it might be low washer fluid and topped that up. Didn't help.

Then one day I caught a glimpse of a trunk ajar message while it was going ding ding. Figured it was the stupid little micro switch in the locking mechanism. I've had those go bad on another ford I owned. This is a Ford focus. Used my dremel to grind away the epoxy sealer and get at the contacts. Also had to grind off a rivet to get the cover off. Switch seemed OK, even with the epoxy gone it was hard to get a good contact with my meter. A new mechanism was 140 bucks. This is the jaws that latch it closed plus the motor to open the trunk and the switch. Passed on buying it for now. Back got sore so I took a break. I was going to just short the switch so it thought the trunk was always closed.

Then this morning the car alarm went off twice. Did some Googling to see if there was another switch I didn't know about and got hits saying its the wiring harness. Had a look see and it was. There were 6 wires, 2 were broken in half, another two were almost broken, and the other two had pinch marks on them. The only thing there was a zip tie to hold the harness up? No sharp metal etc? I had looked for this before but missed it, it wasn't a spot where I thought it should happen. Any way, I cut them all in half, striped and tined the ends, and soldered them back together. Heat shrinked each one separately, and then the bundle. Then put some hot glue on the switch wiring terminals so moisture won't get in, and put it all back together. Everything is working as it should now. It wouldn't have been long and my trunk release would have quit. I would have then had to crawl in through the back seat to pull the manual safety release handle thingy. No key lock or any other way to open it other than the electronic release. My high mount third stop light would have stopped working too, if it hadn't already. Luckily the alarm didn't go off in the middle of the night. It must have thought somebody was breaking into the trunk. No way to turn the alarm off either, not without disconnecting the car battery.

This was bought new in 2011. Seven years old now. I haven't had any real issues with it. Had to replace the battery a couple of months back but that's about it. If I had had the dealer fix this it would have cost me. Intermittent faults can be a PITA to troubleshoot. Working fine now though, knock on wood.

Pimoroni Bilge Tank Videos are back, I see mention of a Stereo Pirate Radio, might be worth a look see, https://www.youtube.com/pimoroniltd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSc1hFcQzCo
I had suggested this as an upgrade to the current kit and was told it was already in the works and prototypes were already done. I asked for more info and it went quiet. This was all via PM and private. I see why now, they didn't want to spoil the new reveal. It will be interesting to see if its a second speaker in a cut down case, missing the bit where the pHat Beat goes, that adds a second speaker to what you already have. Or an all one piece kit with a speaker on each side and the pHat Beat in the middle turned sideways, buttons up. I suggested better easier to use buttons would be nice too, we'll see in a few hours I guess. A pre imaged, working SD card would be cool too now that I think about it.

One of these day I'll have to sit down and read some of those MagPi mags, lol. I've read one or two articals but I don't think I've actually read one whole magazine.

The "Stereo" Pirate Radio is a second speaker in a cut down case, missing the bit where the pHat Beat goes, that adds a second speaker to what you already have. Believe it or not I'm the one they refer to as asking about it on their support channel. :)