Inexpensive In Ear Monitors and rigged up ear mold adapters

A while back, my friend Jason was telling me about some really affordable in ear monitors that amazon was selling. These seemed to have some buzz going online, and it sounded like other audio pros he knew had them or were interested in them as well. [Some review links here: rtings, Soundphile, Forbes, Audiofool]

The product in question is the KZ AS10, a Chinese import retailing at Amazon under $60. [https://amzn.to/2RaGWQ2 – This and other product links here are Amazon referrals. Feel free to search for them yourself if you don’t want to mess with it] They can be found even cheaper on Alibaba and other import sites if you’re willing to gamble with authenticity and long shipping times.

Stock photo from Amazon

I was a little curious, but I had no real need for IEMs, until I tried to practice using acoustic drums outside of a band context for the first time in some years. (shoutout to soundspace in Indy – If you need a rehearsal space downtown-ish, check them out) I tried playing along to a CD with my apple ear buds, but the drums drowned everything out. I used to have some sealed vic firth headphones that were better for this, but I couldn’t find them. I think I threw them out because they were so uncomfortable. For that session, I ended up having to blast the CD through a PA system to hear it, and even that wasn’t great.. This kind of practice seemed like a decent use for some $60 IEMs. So I bought em.

I’m no stranger to the world of “Chi-fi”. A few years ago I bought some of the much ballyhoo-ed Mrice E300’s, again, from Amazon. I think I paid less than $20 for those, and while I didn’t find enough a reason to use them for much more than a backup for listing to tv on the iPad while laying in bed, they aren’t bad, and the low price keeps me from feeling too bad about the purchase. I’ve heard them referred to as “beater ear buds for audiophiles”, which seems like a good way to put it. I don’t know, maybe they are just over-hyped, but not any worse than the stuff being sold for a lot more $$, IMO. [for in depth reviews of the E300 check out these links: Wired, AudioBudget, GadgetViper, Jan Beta]

Amazon stock photo

The KZs showed up in a modest but not totally useless box with 3 sizes of ear tips, and an over-the-ear cable with mini (1/8″) jack. They are pretty comfortable. I listened to some music, and played some video games through them and found them to sound pretty ok, if not actually good. I’ve heard of people saying they have a “burn in” period, but I haven’t taken the time to do anything like that.

I guess the real selling point with these is the low end.. the KZs have 5 drivers and they are all of the balanced armature type. I don’t know much about it, but apparently balanced armatures aren’t great at low frequency production, so other similar IEMs/headphones use a different kind of driver, dynamic drivers, for the low end. The KZ AS10 seems to be the first wave of products using a new balanced armature that can do the low stuff. And these did have some low end. The weak link in it all might be the rubber ear tips though – if you get a good seal by pressing the headphones into your ear and holding them there, the low frequencies sound great, but otherwise it’s kind of hit or miss. I’ve heard people say that the memory foam ear tips that you can buy separately work better.

One thing that I really like a lot about these is that they get loud without a ton of power, which I assume has something to do with the balanced armatures. A lot of the headphones I have need an additional dedicated headphone amp to drive at realistic volumes. The KZs had no problems here. Everything I plugged them into could push them just fine.

After I had used them for a bit, I got to wondering how they would do when connected to ear molds. I think for me, this idea is one of the more interesting parts of IEMs – stage use, and blocking out other sounds so you can completely control what’s in your ears. I have some old Sensaphonics silicone ear-mold “musicians ear plugs” that I got from Dawn at earEverything 10 or so years ago, and figured there had to be a way I could connect these to the headphones.. and there was..

The Senaphonics use filters made by a company called etymolic research to block sounds. I figured I could buy some extra filters and drill them to accommodate the KZ’s. I looked around, and found that the filters are kind of expensive.. ($30/pair) and then used this all as an excuse to play with some 3D modeling and printing. I modeled the exterior of the filter matching the originals, and made a channel through it that would fit the nozzle of the KZ. There are some little retaining barbs for the rubber tips, and I tried to design a groove for them, but didn’t anticipate it working really well since it was all pushing the tolerance of most 3D printers. And speaking of 3D printers, I don’t have one, and I don’t know anyone close by who has a real hi res one, so I decided to use this as an opportunity to try out Shapeways.com.

Shapeways worked out pretty well.. I did 2 of the filter “blanks” each in two types of material, just to see what it would be like. The total came to $30, which for such little things, seemed like a lot of money, but hey, it’s an experiment. They somehow only delivered 3 of the 4 pieces, which was kind of annoying, but thankfully, I got both of the ones in the material that I liked better.

Shapeways print on the left, etymolic research filter on the right

The blanks fit in my ear molds fine, but the channel for the KZs was a little narrow. I busted out the Italian file set and opened them up pretty quickly. The fit is snug. I had imagined that the fit wouldn’t be that tight and I’d need to put some rubber cement on to seal them, but it seems to be unnecessary. Re: the retention barbs – the barbs didn’t seem to cause a problem, though I suspect the ductility of the headphone tube is the cause of this, and may fatigue if I take these on and off frequently.

When connected to the ear molds, the whole thing sticks out from my head quite a bit, but the ear-loop cable still goes over my ear and at least so far hasn’t been uncomfortable. The overall seal of the headphones is definitely better and the low end more prominent. I do have some concern over the ear-molds and adapter altering the sound passing through them. the adapter’s channel has a reduction in it. I guess the place to start on figuring this out might be Kirchhoff, but it’s all stuff beyond me, and I really don’t have the interest.

ear-mold on KZ AS10 earphone using adapter

the headphones stick out a little further from my ear when used with the ear-molds and adapters

I’m toying with the idea of making a pile of these and selling them, but I’m not sure. If you’re interested, drop me a line.

Sound comparisons from my experiment:

I used the first couple tracks off of Hum’s Downward Is Heavenward as a reference, played lossily from Spotify through an Avid MBox mini 3. I listened with Sennheiser HD600’s and Mackie HR824 nearfield monitors for comparisons. Take all these opinions with a grain of salt, because I certainly am no Golden Ear.

Listening to the KZs with the earmolds and adapters, the bass was definitely more present than with the rubber tips, or in my monitors. Bordering on Metallica – ..And Justice For All level “whoomping”. It didn’t necessarily sound unrealistic or over accentuated the way Beats headphones sound, but I think these just go lower than any of my other references. Overall, the music didn’t seem to have the “glue” that it does when listening on other devices. Maybe more mids than usual, but I don’t know if that’s true or me second guessing myself.

I switched to the HD600’s. Whoa.. these really make the high end come forward in a crispy way, though I don’t think I necessarily like it. A little more of the glue that was missing with the KZs/ear molds. Nothing going on in the low end, which isn’t surprising since these are open backed.

I switched to the KZs with the rubber tips installed. The low bass is gone. There are still lows and more than the HD600s had. Glue is still missing. Highs are less prominent/affected than the HD600s. I had the same questioning of the mids.

Finally, I brought up the Mackies.. Probably the reference I’m most used to, and it shows. None of the low low stuff. The glue is here. The highs seem “normal” and not accentuated in any way.

These comparisons all may be for naught because honestly, IEMs aren’t for critical monitoring, they’re for the stage. Well, I guess they’re for whatever you want them to be for. It would be nice to compare them to one of the more traditional IEM options like the Shures or Westones, but I don’t have any handy. At the very least, the KZs are an interesting toy for $60 and maybe the option of a rigged up ear mold configuration adds to the novelty.

Concrete Fence Posts

Since moving back to Indiana in April, I’ve done a lot of cycling. It turns out, even though Hoosier drivers aren’t the most amenable folks to having bikes on their roads, there is so much space in-between everything that riding is pretty good. It doesn’t take long to get out to gravel county roads, and away from most cars. Riding through a lot of areas that time seems to have forgotten has really engaged a standing interest in Indiana history.

One of the things in particular that has interested me as I’ve been putting on the gravel road miles are all the old farm fence posts still left intact.  They are an interesting artifact of a time when (I assume) roads, as such, didn’t exist, and the fences held up by these posts were the divider between farmers fields. This dovetails with some longstanding field-based Indiana location names – Westfield, Greenfield, Bloomfield, Chesterfield, Plainfield, Wheatfield, Winfield.. And probably several more defunct ones.

I’ve snapped pictures of a few of these posts haphazardly. Most are concrete, but there are a swath of weathered lumber, with various forms of bracing, both wood and steel.

A Dip in the River – An interpretation of John Cage’s A Dip in the Lake for Lafayette Indiana

Over the past semester I did a re-imagining of Cage’s A Dip in the Lake for the Greater Lafayette, Indiana area. It was a pretty interesting process, and despite my love of recordistry, not something that I’d have usually embarked on.

Background
I think I’ve gotten deep enough into this piece that it’s a little hard for me to describe what it is concisely. The original A Dip in the Lake is a kind of Visual composition for a sound collage. I’ve not been able to find a lot of detail on his composition process, but it looks like Cage just selected random points on a map of the Chicago area. A list of addresses was created from this map. The composition was published in 1978 by Henmar Press, Inc, and copies are available in some libraries. 

Aside from the location list, little direction is provided in the original work beyond the text:

A DIP IN THE LAKE: TEN QUICKSTEPS, SIXTY-ONE WALTZES, AND FIFTY-SIX MARCHES FOR CHICAGO AND VICINITY

for performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)

(Transcriptions may be made for other cities, or places, by assembling through chance operations a list of four hundred and twenty-seven addresses and then, also through chance operations, arranging these in ten groups of two, sixty-one groups of three, and fifty-six groups of four.)

Funny how seeing the above direction describes the work better than my earlier attempt. The lack of specificity is really nice. It opens the work up to be as simple or difficult as you want, and free for all kinds of interpretation. There are so many different ways you could go about this! One that just dawns on me is use of video instead of just audio..

The lack of specificity could also be a burden, depending on how you look at it. I generally like to have specific direction when I’m working on something like this. Having a logic, or an ideal outcome, or even a reason for doing the project in the first place are generally important, and not knowing these things can be crippling. [This is probably the biggest issue in my life right now as I go through a graduate program in Art and Design.. Specifically the areas of Industrial Design and Visual Design. I’m learning _creative_ professions, but in reality I’m just learning to spot and regurgitate trends.] This is where I really got into Cage’s philosophy. It’s almost like decision nihilism. The artist’s choice is totally irrelevant, or rather, the beauty lies in choas, and making decisions undermines that.

My Version
I’m getting too far into the theory. To step back, for my re-imagining and realization of this piece, I fought to use chance where ever possible, and beyond this, I used more technologically determinate methods for doing so than I suspect Cage did. I guess this really makes it easier to be “random”, which I think is a good thing. It also highlights our default use of technology for completing everyday tasks.

To start, I chose my locations randomly. I used a website called GeoMidPoint. It was really the first thing I found in a Google Search, but it turned out to suit my needs. It generated 20 GPS locations for me in a radius I specified that mostly encompassed Lafayette and West Lafayette, IN. I only used 20 points (down from Cage’s prescribed 427) to make this complete-able in the given time frame.

My next step was to visit all of these locations to record audio. The quickest means I could think of to get to each GPS position was to enter it into Google Maps. Interestingly, this resolved the locations to street addresses. This was a form much easier for me to use, but it also distorted the data a bit – Google Maps “thinks” in terms of streets, not in terms of locations, and this was evident in it’s translation of the GPS coordinates. For example, one of my GPS locations was in the middle of a corn field. Rather than giving me directions to get to the middle of the corn field, Google Maps gave me directions to the closest road to that point in the corn field, as well as a picture of that spot on the road. It was interesting what we lose in the augmented perception offered by Google Maps. ..You can’t see inside structures either.. or hear sounds from the location.. etc, etc.

I recorded 2 minutes of audio at each location and then proceeded to my next step, which was figuring out how to combine the audio together. Peter Gena, who did the first realization of this piece in 1982 was my primary source of information for the processing of the audio. [1. isn’t it interesting that the composition sat around for 4 years before it was ever performed? 2. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have relied on prior methods in figuring out my own] Gena had the luck of being able to ask Cage himself how the sounds should go together, and it was suggested that he use a similar method to one from another of Cage’s works called Rozart Mix. This involved some interesting (and random) editing of magnetic tape. My recordings started off in the digital realm, so I had to adapt. I initially planned to cut up the audio segments “by hand” in editing software and recombine them according to chance operations, but before long I realized that even with my reduced number of recordings, it would take a really long time. Instead, based on a suggestion of a friend, I used Cycling’74’s MAX software to build a processor that automatically did what I had planned to do manually. It worked wonderfully, and as a side effect, can run infinitely. This immediately made me think it would be something cool to use in a gallery show.

Long winded enough, I suppose. Here is a video for the first of the 4 pieces that came out of this. Photo’s of the 5 locations included in this work are shown – first what Google Maps showed me followed by what I found when I arrived there. There is also video of the MAX patcher at work.

Related links:
More details in the paper for this project
The MAX Patcher I used
Other realizations of A Dip in the Lake: Chicago, Washington DC, Luxembourg Germany, Potenza Italy

Some things I learned about Campagnolo ergopower shifters..

[Updated: 1/2020 – I realized that the reference links at the end were all dead, so I updated them to go to the archive.org versions. I don’t know if this info is still useful to anyone, but this page consistently gets more hits than anything else on my blog.]

I have to admit that I can be pretty frugal when it comes to bike parts. A part of me likes the challenge of building something on a limited budget, and another part of me just can’t believe some things are as expensive as they are.

In my most recent attempts at a cheap build on my CX bike, I went with a Campagnolo setup as I got a wheelset and complete drivertrain sans shifters for $75. I bought a pair of mirage 8 speed shifters off of ebay without really understanding what I was getting into. Turns out, they were pretty gummy and the left one couldn’t pull the derailleur into position. Initially, I didn’t think that these were the “ergopower” levers since they were so old, and I assumed that they weren’t rebuildable. Turns out, ergopower goes back to ’92, including mine. Good news, right? Well.. kind of.

My shifters were of the first generation of ergopower, given away by the pointy hoods. (as opposed to the later, and current, rounded ones) Apparently some people consider this second generation, as the original ones had metal bodies, and these had “carbon”. I don’t know what actual Campy cannon is, because they rarely label anything, a major problem in the whole process of working on old stuff. Regardless, first generation (metal bodied or not) don’t have replacement parts available.

Not that I even knew what parts I needed. It seems like it’s mostly a mystery except to the few big shops who do tons of rebuilds. Some folks in my local club and online pointed me in the right direction though. Apparently, the “g-springs” should be changed every 10k miles, and are a common culprit for problems, and the “carrier” that the springs go in can also be cracked and problematic. I was told that modern g-springs will work in first generation shifters if you put them in backwards. The springs come in sets of 4 (per side) for about $15. So I was looking at $30 + $25 for new hoods to fix my $40 ebay levers, and I wasn’t even sure if they would work.

I gave up. I thought about switching to a shimano setup, or maybe going 1×8 (cringe), or 1×10, but the cost would have been significant. Fortunately, the manager at the shop I work at happened to have a set of broken, but good shifting chorus 8 speed, first gen shifters. One of the bodies had cracked where the lever pin attaches. I used these, and swapped one of my mirage bodies for the broken chorus one. With the help of a Campy rebuild video on youtube, I was able to get the lever apart and back together pretty easily. The video was for a 10 speed, modern lever, and had a few differences, like the return spring on top, and the posted, plastic carrier, but it was still pretty easy to follow. The only tricky thing is that bolt that holds the whole mechanism together is left hand thread on the right lever of the first generation.

In general, this experience makes me feel even more non committal towards Campagnolo products. They certainly have some good things going for them, like the ease of rebuildability, and the ability to upgrade 9 speed levers to 10. Unfortunately the scarcity of parts and information for them, at least in my geography, makes them a huge pain.

To do my part, here are a list of links that I’ve found useful in this drivetrain adventure. Hopefully they help someone out there.

Ergopower overhaul instructions from Campyonly.com (link defunct, this now goes to the archive.org version)

Part numbers (incl early Ergopower shifters) from Campagnolo.com (link defunct, this now goes to the archive.org version)

Second generation Ergopower parts and kits from Branford Bike (link defunct, this now goes to the archive.org version)

Generative modeling – grasshopper

In the past week, I’ve been doing some early explorations of generative modeling. In my case, I’m using Rhino 5 with Grasshopper. I have to admit that I’m still a bit stymied in terms of finding a _good_ use for it beyond adding some weird detail to surfaces.

If you want to see some examples, check here.

For whatever reason, I set out to build surfaces from joined spheres. It makes an interesting surface.. kind of like lizard skin or some such. Initially I was assigning a random 3D pointfield to a cube (which is the default shape for Grasshopper’s 3D populate) and then using those as the center point of a sphere of random size. It’s pretty, but limited in usefulness.

Sphere-ish object generation with Grasshopper.

I really couldn’t wrap my head around a way to limit the point field to a non cube object, (I suspect I need to use “inside” and then “cull”) so I decided to do it by surface, which seemed like it would limit the number of spheres. (good for processing time)

Sphere surface

Next I started putting in whole objects. I ran into a problem where the random generator started making the same number a lot, but with the help of my prof, it now works reasonably.

Input and Output

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close to what I want. The next step is using this for another project – I’m doing a bronze casting, and thought that this kind of form would be perfect for it. These kind of shapes aren’t great for a lot of manufacturing techniques, but casting should work well.. the only problem will be cleaning up my initial model. It will be a 3D print of this form, and in the nature of the prints from the 3D printer at school, it will be very grainy. I’ve really not come up with a good way to sand a sphere yet…

Anyhow, I think the object I make is going to be a drum lug – a part of a percussion drum that allows the head to be tightened down. see illustration.

Drum Lug

I figure I can have 8 or 10 of them cast and build a drum with them as a good way to show off the casting design. We’ll see how it turns out. If you’d like to play with this yourself, here’s the setup I’m currently using.

Grasshopper script

CX500 handlebar surgery

I’ve put off modifying my CX500 for a while. Mostly due to lack of time and funds. My ignition switch started randomly cutting out on me, and since I had to take the bars off to get to it, I thought it might be a good time to “chop and flop” the bars  for a more sporty riding position.  This is an idea I had after seeing the grab bar made out of bmx bars a couple of posts ago.

Stock bars

I cut a couple of inches out of each side. I’m not really sure how you’re _supposed_ to measure where to cut, so I eyeballed it, marked with tape, then checked that the tape marks were parallel with the bottom (clamping area) of the bars. Seemed to have worked ok. I cut some small sections of pipe off an old mic stand I had in the scrap bin and welded them inside the handlebars. This probably wasn’t necessary, but since my welding is pretty bad, I figured it would give me a little bit of safety cushion – if the welds give, the inner pipe should keep the bars from completely falling apart.

Chopped

I tacked them up and test fit them on the bike. Master cylinder was totally in the way of where I wanted them to be. It was hitting the turn signal pod. I pulled the pods off while formulating a plan for the turn signals.. Up to this point I still didn’t have a clear vision for what I wanted the front end to look like. I had been thinking about putting the cx500 Custom headlight bracket on, but lately I’ve been thinking about trying to stay with the standard’s mini fairing; especially after discovering that there are little windscreens that fit them. I came up with a way to integrate the form of the turn signals into the fairing. To do this and make more room for the master cylinder, I chopped off the signal pod arms.

Chopped signal pod stalk

Back to the bars.. The shape wasn’t the greatest, but I was working with a lot of limitations. (restricted by the tank / back of the fairing and also the existing curves of the bars) I settled on a shape and made a half-assed jig on my work bench with C-clamps and files to keep the curves where I wanted them. My welds were ugly, but I think I got decent penetration. once cleaned up with the grinder and flap wheel, they looked ok.

Welded in pseudo jig

Here they are on the bike in the position I ended up with. Trying to reroute cables to account for the excess length was a PITA. I’m not totally happy with it. There is still some tweaking to be done. I rode it around the block and it was kind of painful to disengage the clutch in this position. I don’t know if it’s just a bad hand position or  if the snaking of the clutch cable under the tank is making it harder to pull.. It was pretty stiff in the first place. You can also see a bit of my turn signal plan here, but I’ll save the rest of that for later.

Back on the bike

Homebrew diaries – robust porter experiment

If you dig back deep enough into the archives on my blog, you’ll see that I’ve done some brewing in the past, but I haven’t done an actual beer. For some reason I got all motivated to do an all grain brew, so I stopped by Great Fermentations in Indy to get some stuff. I wanted to make something I would like to drink, but I also wanted to find something that could be developed into a platform for experimentation. I’m a fan of big porters, and I’d also been kicking around the idea of doing a persimmon porter, so it was kind of a no-brainer. The guy at Great Fermentations pointed me to one of the kits they had for a recipe called “Porter, Call me a Taxi”. It looked good, so I had him get me the stuff for an all grain version of the kit. It was about 10lbs of 2 row malt, and then another two pounds that was a combination of chocolate, caramel and black malt.

The Recipe:

“Porter, Call me a Taxi” all grain recipe

The Gear:

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as prepared as I’d thought for this brew. My plan was to batch sparge, and I picked up a couple of water coolers with the intention of using one as a lauter tun. I expected to make my own false bottom for the tun, but it didn’t turn out to be as simple as I’d hoped. After getting nervous about my grain sitting around for a few weeks, I decided to grab a mesh bag from Northern Brewer and try my luck using it as a filtering medium.

My modest brewing setup

I’d also gotten ansy about the size of my brew kettle. I’d been using a 4 gallon kettle that came from harbor freight, but I got the idea in my head that I should really get the whole boil (7.5 gallons) in one vessel. I ordered this one from amazon under the logic that 30Qt = 7.5G = enough. Unfortunately, this is bad logic. Yes, 30Qt is 7.5 gallons… right up to the top. This means that there is no room to have a boil, let alone a vigorous boil. To add to frustrations, this kettle doesn’t actually hold 30Qt. It’s more like 24Qt. I don’t know what the deal with this is, but I decided to just work around it. It’s a nice kettle otherwise, and worth the modest price.

Alpha 30 QT Heavy Gage Stainless Steel Stock Pot with Glass Lid

The Science:

I’ve read a reasonable amount about the all grain brewing process, and could probably go through the motions, but I wanted to actually figure out what I was doing. I started by reading some first person tutorials including this one where I saw some of the mashing process. The point of the mash process is to generate fermentable sugars. The author of the site started off with a two part rest. (this means bringing the grain and water to a certain heat and leaving it there for a certain amount of time) The first part is the sachrification rest whose goal is to get the starches out of the grain. Next is the protein rest, whose goal is to convert the starches into sugar. Apparently for the homebrewer, any more than just the protein rest isn’t necessary, but I figured that since this is the source of the fuel for fermentation, I ought to spend a little time with it.

Next I checked out the all grain section on www.howtobrew.com and found another rest schedule. This one used 3 rests at 104 – 140 – 158°F, as specified in the hombrewing book by George Fix. In this case, the low temperature rest is to help liquefy the malt to help release the starches. Some slight detail is also given on how modifications to the rest times can affect dextrosity, alcohol content and malty-ness in the end product. These temperatures are what I went with for 30 minutes each rest.

mash

I also looked into water quality.. I was lucky enough to find a recent water report for my city from a user on the homebrewersassociation.com message board.

Lafayette, Indiana municipal water.

pH              7.3
Alkalinity      225 mg/L (as CaCO3)
Fluoride        1.1 mg/L
Orthophosphate  0.6 mg/L
Total phosphate 1.5 mg/L
Chloramines     1.1 mg/L
Lead            undetectable
Copper          undetectable
Iron            0.189 mg/L
Manganese       0.210 mg/L
Chlorides       39 mg/L
Sulfates        61 mg/L
Conductivity    670 µm HOS/cm
Total bacteria  0 (per what???)
Total hardness  350 mg/L as CaCO3
Grains hardness 21 grains/gal

The city uses chloramine to treat the water, so I’m a bit hesitant to use it at all, though I do now have a faucet filter.  Brewing suggestions for this water?  (And yes, I agree that my city certainly didn’t give me much to go on here.)

As the OP stated, it’s not a lot to go on, but I guess it’s nice to have a record. The chloramine freaked me out a little, and I didn’t have any campden tables to add. I just boiled all the water in advance, and hopefully it neutralized most of the crap.

My final bit of research was In regards to hop schedule. Let it be known that I really don’t like the flavor or aroma of hops. My recipe only called for 1oz of hops, but I decided to half it anyway. I read a bit about the hop infusion process on this page , which I think also drew from the George Fix book, and ended up adding them for the last 30 minutes of my 60 minute boil.

The actual brew:

You can see my complete procedure notes below for intimate details, but all things considered the brew went ok, and mostly to plan.. One deviation from plan was that I did a second small batch with the later runnings that I wanted to use as an experiment with persimmons.

Brew Notes

The biggest problem I had over all was temperature regulation. It took a long time to get my initial boils going, then it took a long time to cool down to my target temperature. I didn’t have a whole lot of ice on hand, so I tried putting an ice pack in a ziplock bag and submerging it. It had practically no effect, and the zip lock ended up leaking. I had the same issues in post striking processes. Even with the wort chiller, I was only able to get the wort down to 90 degrees. I suspect the high ambient temperature in the kitchen (~80) had something to do with this. This gave me some interesting design ideas, but I think in the immediate, I’m going to have to bolster my chilling system.

Ice pack – not worth the effort

Another problem I had was consistently stuck sparges. I suspect the mesh bag was getting bunched up in the cooler’s drain hole. Using my long spoon, I was usually able to move the bag away from the drain and get most of the wort through. I’m sure this effected my efficiency quite a bit. I wasn’t getting the full batch out of each sparge, so I think I ended up doing around 4 batches. The last one was for my secondary small batch.  I just picked up the bag, and squeezed, getting most of the wort out. I think I got about 2 or 3 gallons.

Lauren helping me with the sparging process

From this point out, everything went pretty much according to plan. For my small batch, I added 1 cup of strained persimmons that my Grandmother gave me last year, in the last 5 minutes of the boil. As I understand it, adding a fruit adjunct during the boil will provide more aroma than taste. Thus, I plan to add another 2 cups of persimmon during secondary fermentation which should work more to the flavor.  I used a different yeast for the small batch than what was called for in the recipe. I had some saferment ale yeast in the fridge, so I went with that.

Persimmon slurry from Grandma

Having never done an actual beer, I wasn’t sure what to expect in regards to primary fermentation activity. What I witnessed was fairly tame, peaking at the first and second days of fermentation. Now, two weeks later, there is no visible activity. This seems like a pretty short time, but I suppose only a gravity measurement will tell. FWIW, my post boil gravity showed an ~80% brew house efficiency. I don’t know if I believe that calculation. Also notable, the coarse mesh bag didn’t do as good a job filtering as I’d hoped. There was quite a bit of traub, and even after careful racking, there’s a lot of sediment in the bottom of the fermenters. I’m going to have to add some kind of filtering step, but I’m not sure how short of buying a pump and force filtering, which is kind of out of the budget.

I’ll probably rack the main batch to a keg this weekend for a long secondary fermentation, and add the remaining persimmon to the small batch and let it go for a while before kegging. Watch for a result update in the future.

Weird bicycle brakes.

While googling for dimensions of cantilever brake bosses, I encountered this oddball, found on this page of strange brakes. It’s ABS for bikes! When engaged the wheels contact the rim and the rotation turns a cam which moves the brake pads in and out, “pulsing” them as in the automotive equivalent.

I can’t say that I see much need for this, however, the engage-able rollers could be a novel way of transferring energy to dynamos and the like.

Originality..

I have a real weakness in my creative endeavors.. It’s originality. It’s not that I’m unoriginal, it’s that I feel like I have to be entirely original. My mind tells me that an idea that’s been done isn’t worth touching. Realistically, I know this isn’t true; almost anything can be improved upon. Regardless, I struggle with this.

Along these lines, I’m currently trying to decide what to do about my IBDC project. I spent a few weeks developing an idea, and have been slowly modeling it and working out details only to find that someone has already done something very similar.

So I’ve been working on a design for the International Bicycle Design Competition for the past few weeks. My idea targets 3rd world and developing countries by 1. allowing individuals/communities the ability to use this bike to pump/transport water and 2. charge cell phones, as they are becoming more important in lesser developed countries where many people don’t have electricity in their homes.

So I work up this idea. It’s a regular bike, with a rack on the back to hold a water tank. the rack can rotate down to form a stand (like a bike trainer) so the bike can be pedaled while stationary. The drive system for the pump and generator run off of a hub mounted disk, not dissimilar to a disk brake.

A couple of days ago, I’m googling around for info on pumps and bike parts, and I encounter this project:http://thecoolprojectsite.org/?p=845 (or here for more details on the build: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A … df&h=fc315 ) Basically, it’s the same rotating stand idea. instead of the pump/generator on a ring/pinion drive system, they are run as a traction system from the tire.

My working model:

Model from http://www.mayapedal.org:

So now I’m left wondering if it’s above board for me to continue with my project as planned, or scrap it and start over with 6 days before the submission deadline. I really don’t yet understand the social / ethical landscape of design enough to know for sure. I’ve posted the question over at core77, so hopefully I’ll hear back. In the mean time, I’m trying to come up with a new idea that I could knock out quickly.

All that said, definitely check out the link to http://www.mayapedal.org. Some really cool and useful projects made from junk. If I wasn’t stuck here, I think it would be a ton of fun to work on this type of stuff for people who could really use it.

Designing bicycles..

So I intend to work up a submission for the International Bicycle Design Competition over the summer. You would think that this might be an easy task given the amount of time I spend on a bike as well as the amount of time I spend keeping up on products and emerging technologies in cycling. Sadly, it is not. I’ve a bit of “designers-block”. You see, it’s not enough to simply make a cool looking, functional bicycle; you need to have a gimmick. My experience in Industrial Design remains somewhat limited, but in the year I’ve been involved in it, it seems like the gimmicks are the fuel that makes things happen in most cases. So-called “green-ness” is a hot topic, as is helping 3rd worlders. (regardless of their thoughts on the matter!)

So I need a gimmick. I initially was on the “3rd worlders” band wagon until I did some research on what they actually need. Turns out it’s additional inner tubes and trustworthy mechanics. This is not to say that I haven’t considered turning my design eye towards those matters, but I rather feel like I’m reinventing the wheel.. er solid innertube, as it were.

I’ve got some business/empowerment ideas kicking around, and they might even impress the contest judges, but I really doubt it’d do much for the end users.