Procurement Success !!

This weekend has been one big buying spree for Project KiTT

Thursday night - bought a bunch of fuses etc at JB Hi-Fi at chadstone, including the following
- a big 200A fuse for my amplifier wiring
- an inline fuse holder for the above
- a packet of 80A fuses with blue LED indicators
- two big 4G cable terminals for my capacitor.

Friday night - thought that i might as well purchase the rest of my gear as i'd been paid earlier in the week. Went down to Jaycar after work and bought
- 2 channel 150W(rms) power amplifer
- 2 x 250W subwoofers with dual coils and cool looking blue flashing
- 4 way fuse block for power distribution
- 8G red and black power cable for the amplifier wiring
- a few random lugs for earthing and connections

Sunday - spent most of the day in my workshop;

- tested my DC/DC converter and it was a total failure, apparently all it does is lose the voltage drop across the diodes and dosen't charge the caps so instead of 12/24 volts it converts 12 volts to 11.2 volts. I'll try modelling the circuit on my simulation software this week and see whats going wrong. Its possible that by changing the capacitors i have ruined the oscilator circuit. But then its equally possible that i need a complete extra stage on the converter because i didn't read the schematic right.

- Built my time flux capacitor!! i woke up in the morning and rolled over and said to myself - Today i build a time flux capacitor!! and i did !! used a wooden craft box, my lightning plate lamp, several bits of an old PC power supply, a motherboard from an AMSTRAD personal computer (Pre PC era) and several bits of clear pipe. Painted the craft box black and cut a hole in it for the lam at the rear. Chopped up the motherboard with an elecric jigsaw and plated the inside of the box with it and various other electronic parts using hot melt glue. built the capacitor itself out of clear plastic piping, some hose fittings and a little EL wire for looks. Now i just have to make a wiring loom to get the power and control inputs to it. prehaps some more LED's too, as its a little plain for the centerpiece of my conversion.

Monday night -
went shopping to bunnings warehouse and bought 10m of RED 12V ropelight for my charging circuits. I still havent decided if im going to run this in chain style wiring duct over the interior roof or just use it as and accenting brakelight for my "BakToTheFuture" either way at $1.50 per meter it is by far the cheapest ropelight around and if i don't ever use it i'm not going to be out of pocket.

Over and out

Mark

Expedition sucess

Spent most of Sunday working on KiTT is various ways.

Rewired my amplifier (again) as some of the crimp terminations had come loose. Fitted my new blue accessories - rear speaker grilles, window A/C vents etc, and painted some more plastics that i had from before (instrument pods from the dash etc.) Went shopping for parts, and found out that the only decent sized wreckers near my place "Pick pay and go" has no Exa's or parts thereof. Might go back later to look for Mag wheels as i have as good as decided that i'm gonna get some. What type of wheel is still up for debate. Also went on a tour of Pete's Bargian center and picked up (among other things) -

• 5 meters of 4G power cable for my new amp setup (thats the big stuff from the batery to the distribution block in the back)
  
• An old slide project cannister that will serve as the top of my fusion reactor
• Some braided steel hose that i will have to cut to fit for the reactor hoses

Still a lot of basic parts that i have to source from somewhere. Things like cap cans and the mesh, piping and brackets for the rear flux dispersal rails. I'm going to try and make up a rail for the front of the car as well, although this will be a later addition and may require a lot of fiddling around, as i'll want this to detach as easily as the rear hatch will.

As soon as my next paycheck clears then i'm going to go and by my new amp and subs. I've decided on them a long time ago and i think that i should capitolise on this rare decision (I don't make many of them) Plus i need them to start designing and building my replacement sub box, and until that is in then i can't put in all my new wiring etc.

Looks like i'm going to have to source a 12vDC to 12vAC power invterter to run my time flux capacitor display as well as a 12to24v DC to DC converter for my fusion reactor fog machine (i decided that this was a must have item, hopefully i can build it into the back of the reactor so it dosent have to be out in the elements) I'm also looking at smoke machines for the two vents and a way to light up the outside rails. I'm actually wondering if there is a case for another battery in the car after all these mods - or at least a bigger alternator, we'll see if i can afford it !!

Mark

LED Lighting Update

Bad news,

Last sunday i was playing around with my LED underbody light kit for the car and a multimeter and managed to blow the power transistors for one channel of the controller. Its a pain in the arse because all the pretty patterns are ruined by one set of lights which is now always on. But i was going to design my own controller anyway and this has just kicked me in the pants to get on with it. Pirated some digital logic software and set about making up a circuit model. Got just far enough into it to decide that i should just use a programmable microcontroller instead of a logic circuit because i want too much variety in light patterns. Will have to see what parts i can scrounge because i want it not only to be on/off switching but also fading in and out - so i might have to use analogue outputs - which means an expensive micro. Other option is to try and Rig up RC circuits that i can switch in and out with relays or better with transistors - don't know enough about circuit design to do it yet. Oh well i'm back to uni next semester so i'll learn it then.

Mark

BaktotheFuture

Below post has been lifted from my personal blog to make that blog more readable and so people will know what the photo's are of

I dropped in on a wreckers on my way home, cause there are a few little placky bits in the Exa which have been annoying me and i want to replace them. "Got any n13 Exa's" I ask - "Sure, we've got 2 in fact - one black and one red" hmmm well colours all wrong for starters - but the interiors are identical in all, so i grabbed the parts that i was after. Then my eyes got the better of me and before i knew it i was helping the wreckers lackey carry the entire rear hatch off the black exa out of the yard. Its not that i need a replacement but i have been looking for a second hatch - preferably a gunmetal grey one, and this one was in better nick than the white one that i have on the Exa at the moment. In fact it looks good enough to go straight on - but if i wanted to do that then i should have taken the black targas as well and gone for the whole black and white panda look.

Anyway $300 worth of parts later and i had the fun job of trying to fit the back of an Exa into the back of an Exa. Me and the wreckers lackey managed to violate several laws of geometery and fold space enough to make it fit. I drove home with my knees up near my ears. So now i have my "Baktothefuture" project to get my teeth (and bank account) stuck into. (note: the technical term Nissan uses for the rear hatch of an Exa is a 'HatchBak' as opposed to the 'SportsBak' which makes it into a wagon)

Wednesday night i got to work on my rear hatch, Starting by cleaning all the wreckers yard dust off. I removed the tiny Exa spoiler and made up a cardboard and masking tape mockup of the iconic delorean rear vents - it looks good. Will be even better when i have a mockup of the fusion reactor to build around. I'm thinking of using the inner hub of an old alloy wheel, as i'm going for a BTTF 1 conversion without the MrFusion on top; we'll see how that looks before i try and start mounting any Soda-fountains on the rear of my car. If the wheel hub is too heavy then i might have to cut up Sytrene foam and make it like a proper model maker - but it won't be as durable. I've been studying the design from pictures (like ones on the gallery page, and from a 1:18 scale model i have) and i know which parts i need to source now. If anyone has access to some old steel braided hoses then please let me know otherwise i'm gonna have to organise another expedition to Pete's Bargian center - or maybe back to a local wrecker.

Mark