Posts Tagged ‘Voodoo’

Wheelchair Tuning I

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Frontpage

For each ambitious frequent traveller a

bicycle tachometer with mileage counter

on the wheelchair is a must.

It does make sense to let the Automobile Association know the kilometre on the highway in case of a defect on the wheelchair ;-)

I guess the pills are already working.

Never, no, no, never ever

you should have the idea like me to install a bicycle tachometer on your wheelchair which is working

radio-based

(at least supposedly) unless you are under psychological counselling at that time.

This device has almost converted me to

believe in Voodoo.

I won’t comment on the fact why the part is sold as solar driven and two batteries are enclosed.

This tachometer had an integrated

So-what-or-I-am-annoying-you mechanism. .

After a couple of hours the tachometer was fixed on the wheelchair, adjusted, programmed, and finally seemed to

work.

The next morning I was sitting on my dining table and had breakfast.

Now check it out:
The display started to

“run wild”

Believe it or not, I have covered a distance of

21 Kilometres (a half marathon)

while consuming

two pieces of toast.

Unimaginable what would have happened if there would have been an egg on top.
When I moved away from my dining table

one meter

everything was OK again!
When I turned out the

dining room light

I could move to my table again without any bugging of the tachometer.

I am a professional electronic technician and felt the inner desire to return my craft certificate to the chamber of commerce when it wasn’t possible for me to get a bicycle tachometer

working.

Four possibilities remained:

1. In future have breakfast in the dark or not at all.
2. Ignore the tachometer, or dispense it at a recycling site.
3. Contact the supplier and explain the issue.
4. Register myself at the Paralympics, it could be true?!

I discovered that the electronic transformer with its phase angle modulated power (even I have learnt something once during my apprenticeship) of the

dining room halogen lamps

was disturbing the wireless transmission of the tachometer.

Something like this should not effect the wireless transmission over 60 cm.
The mistake is not caused by my lamp.
But who would drive his bike in his apartment around his dining table?
Probably nobody has noticed it yet.

I think the technician of the supplier, whom I had on the phone, is still

laughing/crying.

Now I have a tachometer without wireless LAN which is working well.

For the truth of the story I stake with my right front wheel.

Translator BL