Tucano Deluxe 36v Foldable e-Bike Bottom Bracket Problems

I have a Tucano Deluxe 36v folding bike on which the standard caged bearings /axle/cup bottom bracket arrangement is giving me trouble.

My wife Pat’s bike (same model) seems to be fine. At least, so far. Here is a recent snapshot of our bikes, taken during a quick rest break whilst on a 30 km wander.

Mainly, my problem is that the whole arrangement tends to work loose and/or the bearings get chewed-up, leading to an unpleasant, noisy, pedalling experience (yes, we do pedal our electric bikes quite a bit).

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I take the bottom bracket apart and put it back together again, or whether I vary the adjuster/lock nut tensions.

Here is what the bottom bracket axle, cups and bearings look like. The bearings were originally in a cage, but the cage got really badly chewed-up, so I switched to fitting loose ball bearings, which I positioned with suitable gobs of grease whilst carefully reassembling the parts.

 

Here are the components without the left hand (non drive-side) lock nut.

I purchased a bag of 100 grade 10, 6 mm ball bearings from http://www.simplybearings.com to replace the original chewed-up bearings. The original bearings were in a cage, with 9 on each side/cup. Without the cage, each cup takes 12 ball bearings.

This is what the cage looked like after I took the bottom bracket apart. This was less than a fortnight from receiving the bike as new and under 50 km of use. Suffice it to say that the cage was not caging anything much.

The inside of the bottom bracket frame was littered with metal filings that had broken away from this. The ball bearings were still in place, but badly pitted.

Like I said, there is one cage on each side of the bottom bracket assembly, each with 9 x 6 mm ball bearings.

I have several options to service this.

Firstly, I could just let the supplier sort out the problem. However, my confidence in the whole arrangement is already at a low and I would like to improve on the situation. Also, I enjoy a little mechanical tinkering – treating it as a learning experience for future maintenance. The argument for is of course that the supplier should ultimately be responsible for this fault and should bear some cost for fixing the problem. I will soon let the supplier know of this and a couple of other problems I have found and call them to account. I swear my bike was assembled on Friday afternoon and my wife’s on Monday morning!

Secondly, I could just simply replace the chewed-up caged bearings (9 ball bearings in a flimsy cage) myself. I don’t like this option since the failure of the cage seems to lead to a lot of shrapnel that could end up damaging other parts and it doesn’t seem to take much for it to fail.

Thirdly, I could lose the bearing cages and just fit loose bearings. In this case I would fit 12 x 6 mm ball bearings in each side/cup, since without the bearing cage there is more room. As mentioned earlier, I have some grade 10 ball bearings that I have procured for this purpose. This is quite a tempting option and is probably my fallback.

Finally, I could replace the axle/cup/ball bearing system with a cartridge bottom bracket. Because the bike has a controller box mounted behind the BB and a non-standard (normal bike), wider, BB shell, I am obviously limited in choice and need extra long BB cartridges. However, this is my preferred option.

So far, I have found this: http://www.eclipsebikes.com/153mm-cartridge-bottom-bracket-p-996.html – a 153 mm cartridge unit which I have managed to fit, but there are two problems.

Firstly, the shell is not quite long enough. It could do with being another 5 to 10 mm so that the end retainer does not have to be screwed right inside the BB shell. The Tucano Deluxe bottom bracket width is 83 mm, measured from the left outside of the frame to the right outside of the frame.

You can see this screwed-in too far effect in the picture. Fortunately the frame has a sufficiently deep thread to be able to do it, after a little cleaning up.

Secondly, the axle is not quite right on two counts. It is shorter than the original axle, thus altering the chain line – although to be honest the chain line looks passable to my inexperienced eyes. I rode 10 km with it and it seemed not to give any trouble.

 

With the alternative cartridge system, the chain sits straight on the 2nd gear cog (out of 6), instead of the 3rd gear cog with the original scheme. The original axle is a whopping 165 mm long excluding the threads on which the crank nuts bolt into, which makes the cartridge solution 12 mm shorter overall.

The second count is that the left/non-drive side of the axle is the longer side (by about 5 mm), rather than the chain/drive side. I am guessing that this BB cartridge was intended for a chain drive on the left side of the bike; and, of course, I cannot reverse the cartridge due to the thread directions – although I have thought about switching the whole drive train from the right side to the left. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around whether this will cause problems with motor direction as well as with other drive components.

However, the 153 mm cartridge arrangement does seem to work and has a smoother, solid feel to it, with very little lateral movement in the cranks. I will probably write-up a follow-up of this issue as time passes, or if I find a better cartridge to fit.

Seriously, Microsoft

On the subject of Windows Editions, here is a little snippet from the help files for System Backups under Windows 7 Home Premium:

You can only save your backups on a network location on Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise.

So no network storage boxes for you Mr. Joe Ordinary. Seriously? Oh yes, I forgot, you want us to buy Windows Home Server, or some other upgrade. Never mind that Vista Premium let you do it. It is always good to remove core features from your OS and downgrade your latest and greatest, right? Makes you want to try Linux (Any Damn Edition, of course). Seriously.

Restrictive Microsoft Language Policies

If you recently bought a laptop in a EC country, but want to change the displayed operating system language to something else – for example Spanish to English – you may be surprised to discover that Microsoft has some ridiculous and potentially restrictive practices in place, that prevent you from simply downloading a suitable language pack and installing/enabling it on your machine.

This restriction means that you need either the Business Premium or Ultimate editions of either Vista or Windows 7, before you can change the language that the operating system menus and such-like are displayed in, using the normal procedures documented by Microsoft.

The aforementioned formal procedure is accessed from the Regional and language Options function via the control panel, where you will see the following under the Keyboards and languages tab:

However, if you have Windows 7 Home edition, you will just see a mostly blank tab – even if you have the Premium Home edition – with the necessary button and drop-down list missing.

This mostly affects the ordinary man-in-the-street consumer who will have bought their machine from somewhere like Worten, Media Markt (for example), or maybe from an online supplier. Yes, they could search for machines that only come with the requisite editions of Windows installed, but that often limits choice quite severely, not to mention adding a premium to the price. Corporate buyers will either source machines with the appropriate Windows editions installed, or will simply use their volume license agreements to reimage the target machine and swallow the “Windows tax”.

The restriction is truly worthy of some European court action – much more so (in my opinion) than the recently successful challenge to “lack of choice” of Internet browser in Windows operating systems – because it really does smack of profiteering and goes against the rights of European Union members to live and work anywhere inside the European Community, that they choose, insofar as it imposes a handicap on these choices.

Sadly, it does not affect quite as many people, so I imagine that it has got less attention, to-date.

However, if you are willing to potentially break the Windows EULA (presumably the part dealing with modifying the software) you can get around this restriction. The Vistalizator site helps you install an alternative Windows operating system display language on many versions/editions of Windows and it does it in a relatively pain-free manner, at least it did so for me. I added English to a Spanish sub-laptop (an Acer Timeline Aspire 1810TZ notebook) running Windows 7 Home Premium. It took 20 minutes and a reboot. What’s more, the language pack is a standard Windows MUI which will be maintained by the Windows Update process.

It is also nice that the original language pack is preserved and one can use Vistalizator to switch back and forth as needed. The Windows language tab will continue to show a distinct lack of co-operation, but you will be able to ignore this with a wry smile.

Top marks to the Vistalizator people – even if the chosen name was a little short-sighted (it really does work on Windows 7 RTM/Gold). Let’s hope the keep it updated and working when the first Service Pack comes out for Windows 7.

As for MS, we need to find the dunce cap and a suitable corner to place them in for such a ridiculous restriction in this European Union day and age and for their blatant attempts at profiteering at the expense of the lowly consumer.

Samsung Omnia 2 de WM 6.5 con Simyo y KPN NED

Me hice la portabilidad desde Yoigo a Simyo, principalmente para usar mi SIM con mi PDA de Samsung Omnia 2 junto con Windows Mobile 6.5 y hasta este momento ha salido todo bien (si no contamos con un proceso de portabilidad con pocos informes). Incluso puedo establecer un túnel de VPN de L2TP/IPSec por su red (la red de Orange) a sitios de trabajo, sin ningún problema.

Sin embargo, antes de ayer, me salió un mensaje de actualización del SIM con parámetros de KPN NED.. Como iba un poco apurado, acepte la actualización sin pensarlo bien y desde ese momento se reconfiguraron los parámetros de comunicación, acompañado con el mensaje “Refreshing SIM Data” (Actualizando Datos del SIM), con el desafortunado resultado que ceso de funcionar el acceso a internet en completo.

El KPN NED claro, es el nombre asociado con los Países Bajos (Nederlands – es decir Holanda) – el país de origen de Simyo. Se supone que algún peón metió una mejora de software, sin configurarla bien, o algún bug que tienen en su software asociado con los modos de “roaming” se activo para mandarme dicha actualización errónea.

Como muchos han notado, Simyo, siendo un operador virtual, no tiene red propia y opera con la red de Orange. Pero como Simyo si tiene su propio identificador de ISP, el Windows Mobile (WM) se da cuenta de que el identificador de la red Orange no es el mismo que el identificador del operador Simyo y te marca la conexión en modo de roaming.

Así vivimos los usuarios de Simyo – casi siempre en modo roaming con el icono de roaming manifestándose en la barra de indicaciones superior del PDA. Además, de vez en cuando, el WM nos da por preguntar si realmente nos queremos conectar a tal cosa o otra, ya que estamos en modo roaming y puede que nos salga caro la operación – aunque en realidad estamos operando de forma normal (siempre que permanecemos dentro de nuestra querida patria). Para los que les interesa, este icono de roaming se puede desactivar con un cambio en el registro de WM – aunque esta modificación no cambia el cuento; solo es un cambio estético.

El cambio se hace en la clave \HKLM\Drivers\BuiltIn\RIL, cambiando el valor DisableRoamingIndicator, desde 0 (por defecto), a 1.

Bueno, todo sobre el icono de roaming es una digresión. Mi cuento sigue con el intento de corregir los parámetros de mi configuración para ponerla, otra vez, en marcha.

Resulta que la actualización del SIM a KPN NED termino en borrar la red “Simyo” que tenia configurada, con la conexión de modem GPRS que tenia el APN (Access Point Name) de Simyo (normalmente gprs-service.com), así que tuve que creerlo de nuevo.

Durante esta creación me mordió el bug que hay en esta versión de WM lo cual es que si no prestas atención, mientras creas una nueva conexión de GPRS, en lugar de pedirte el APN WM te pide un numero de teléfono – como si fuese una conexión de GSM y no una de GPRS. Además, si no te das cuenta de este detalle, puedes meter el APN service-gprs.com sin que se queje WM y con eso ya estas jodido.

A continuación se reproducen las pantallas asociadas con el problema (aunque siento que estén en ingles, ya que así es como esta configurado mi Omnia – pero todos sabéis speakin inglish ok ¿verdad?).

Primer paso. Creamos una conexión GPRS. Todo bien de momento.

 
Segundo paso. Nos pide un numero de teléfono. ¡Incorrecto! Es GPRS, no GSM. ¿wtf? ¡cabrones!

 
Esto es lo que nos debía presentar WM. Pidiéndonos un APN como dios manda. Para forzar esta pantalla, en lugar de la errónea, vuelve atrás, cambia el modem a otro (como Bluetooth), y luego cámbialo de nuevo a GPRS otra vez. Ahora sigue con el dialogo.

Pues lo largo y lo corto es que llamé al soporte técnico de Simyo, donde me informaron, que si, me había conectado en los últimos minutos, y que si, que mi conexión estaba funcionando. En realidad, la conexión tenia el aspecto de conectarse, pero no se conectaba y no podía navegar y, por supuesto, no me daba una IP dinámica la red.

A los 48 horas sin conexión, decide borrarlo todo y empezar de nuevo con tranquilidad. Fue en este momento cuando me di cuenta de lo que había ocurrido. Otro minuto mas y ya estaba funcionando todo, como dios manda, de nuevo.

En fin, no se si echarle la culpa a WM, por el bug, a los de soporte técnico de Simyo, por no decirme que en realidad no me conectaba o por mandarme un mensaje de actualización no apropiado en el principio, o a mi mismo por ser algo torpe en varias ocasiones. Mejor que me olvide de la experiencia en total – pero si hay otro desafortunado por ahí, al cual le sirva esto de lección, pues me alegro.

Para terminar, os comento que he cambiado la configuración de mi Omnia, usando el icono de “Servicio Simyo”, a Roaming Manual Nacional con la esperanza de que no me manden mas mensajes de actualización del SIM en el futuro, sin que me de cuenta.

De referencia os dejo con los parámetros de conexión Simyo, a continuación:

Conexión Internet GPRS

Nombre de perfil de red	Simyo	Para los programas que se conectan al internet
Nombre de conexión de Modem	Simyo	Tipo GPRS (marcado internamente como *99#)
APN	gprs-service.com
Usuario		déjalo en blanco
Contraseña	1234	No se usa, pero para que no salte el dialogo de login
Dominio		en blanco
Dirección IP	Asignado por el servidor
SLIP	No
Compresión de datos por software	Ninguna
Compresión de encabezados	Ninguna
DNS	Asignado por el servidor
Proxy	Ninguno	Mejor no pasar por un proxy, aunque se puede especificar
Autenticación GPRS	Ninguna
Conexión Navegador	Automática
HSDPA/HSUPA	Habilitado
Onda/Banda	Automática

Conexión MMS (Configuración en la función mensajes)

APN	gprs-service.com
Conexión de datos	Simyo	La de GPRS de arriba
Servidor de mensajes	http://217.18.32.180:8080	No se usa en el Omnia2
MMSC	http://mms-services.eu:8080
Tipo de Gateway	WAP 2.0
Dirección de Proxy	217.18.32.181
Puerto de Proxy	8080

SMS

Centro de mensajes

+34 644109030

Esta es la pantalla del programa de mensajes del Samsung Omnia2 donde se configuran los parámetros de MMS. Dichos parámetros se detallan en la tabla reproducida antemano.

Mi Omnia 2 tiene WM6.5 instalado. No se como ira el tema en WM 6.1 o otras versiones anteriores o lo de WM en un PDA no de Samsung, ya que estas pantallas están personalizadas por el fabricante.

Vemos que se puede utilizar la conexión de datos GPRS creada para acceso de Internet normal – es decir una conexión sin proxy, ya que los parámetros del proxy están ya escritos aquí por separados.

.Net 4 Control-C Event Handler Broken

The Control-C, cancel, event handler defined as either:

Console.CancelKeyPress += new ConsoleCancelEventHandler(myHandler);

or as an anonymous delegate:

Console.CancelKeyPress += delegate(  object sender, ConsoleCancelEventArgs e) { }

appears to be broken in .Net 4. Sometimes it will work, other times it will drop you into a program fault. In .Net 3.5 it works fine, every time. This was reproduced under the Visual Studio 2010 debugger.

Edit:

Thanks to the link posted as a comment below (from BigJoe714).

It appears that the issue has been registered and acknowledged (reproduced) on the Microsoft Connect site. Apparently the code works correctly outside of the debugger. Here is a link to the issue on Microsoft Connect.

Here is an image of the “error” that is triggered in VS 2010:

… generated by hitting Control-C during the execution of the following code snippet:

bool Running = true;
Console.CancelKeyPress +=
    delegate(object sender, ConsoleCancelEventArgs e)
    {
        e.Cancel = true;
        Running = false;
    };
while (Running)
    Console.Write("*");