Opel TIS

 

Ever need to know how to renew your timing chain on your Opel vehicle? What’s the right torque on those cylinder head bolts?

Opel TIS is the best thing since sliced bread. The system is chocked full with lotsa vehicles. To do a search you simply have to plug in the VIN, don’t even have to know the other details and it’ll do a search for ya, listing out the correct engine and vehicle options installed. Here’s an overview.

Before you can do that, you’d need to install TIS on a PC. I did that on VMware (not too sure if it’ll run properly on Win7). My installer had problems initiating the JSDK install process, so I manually downloaded that and afterwards it ran properly.

So yeah, this is really cool if you ever need data for Opel/Vauxhall vehicles.

VMware Can’t Connect to Host USB

 

Had this stupid problem today, when I was trying to get VMware to work with a thumbdrive.

Recently hooked up a Sony Ericsson smartphone to my PC, so I figured out that might’ve been the cause. Anyways here’s the cryptic error message Vmware throws out @ you.

To fix that I simply rolled back my USB root hub drivers from the SE ones back to the original Microsoft stuff and hey presto, VMware started working normally again.

Don’t know if the SE phone will now let me update it’s firmware with the M$ drivers, but that remains to be tested another day. I really hope the VMware people will fix this. *shrugs*

Seagate FreeAgent|Go

 

Got one of these passed to me to try and pull data off it. HDD was dying (1st symptom was that it wouldn’t let you write files to it). Initially thought it was some kinda cable/interface issue. Turned out to be the HDD was developing bad sectors (actually over 2000 of them already).

Luckily though the drive managed to move all the affected data to spare sectors and using just the standard windows cut + paste operation I was able to move all the data to a spare HDD I had lying around (200GB of data took like 9hrs to move). In between transfers it froze a couple of times and I had to restart the process, pretty nerve wrecking I’d say, but I got all the data out fine.

Quite amazing no data was lost in the process, am now creating a RMA to send this back to Seagate for repair/replacement. Within it is some kinda Momentus drive I believe. Hopefully this process doesn’t take too long (I’ve had pretty fast response from them previously) and then I’d need to move all the data back in…ah well…

Tearing up and Fixing your Hailea chiller. (HC-150)

 

This is from awhile back, putting it up if someone ever needs it.

*Disclaimer, be careful working around mains voltages. Water and 220VAC do not mix well together. Although unit is pretty well sealed with plastic shrink tubing and RTV on splices, its possible water may enter connections and electrocute you if you’re not careful. You’ve been warned.*

Had a unit in that was thermal cycling, compressor and condenser coil were getting real hot, compressor kept resetting with a constant burp burp burp sound (according to him, I never did run the unit enough till it reached that state, leaving the compressor to cycle like this is a sure way to end its life prematurely.)

Bought unit home, together with a loaner pump to test the system out and hopefully fix it (still don’t quite know what’s wrong yet, for all I know, it might be the compressor. Was lucky this time though.

The victim. I think this has a 1/10HP compressor.

The pump, pretty solid unit, I just submerged it and fed the output into the chiller.

Tools you need, yes that’s an ice-cream stick. You need something that’ll not damage the plastic later, a plastic or wooden dowel will work as well. The test pen on top left is optional. You can tell a lot by feel and sound. A small rubber mallet is way better than whacking with a hammer.

To remove the outer plastic shell. First undo the screws near the base around, there should be 7, 3 on either side and one on the back.

Next you need to remove the fittings on top. As well as take out the lock ‘nut’. This is accomplished using the Popsicle stick and mallet as shown here.

Gently ease the bugger out, the back end of a plier would probably work also, don’t use the pliers’ jaws as it’ll damage the plastic.

Do the other side and then slide the cover off gently, don’t yank too hard as the control panel is still connected.

To disconnect panel, press on tabs and pull apart firmly, grasp by the connectors and not the wires. Pulling out the wires will not be fun.

Removing the panel is easy, just push on the 2 tabs on each side of the panel and slide the whole assembly out. Like so.

A close-up of the tabs here. To get a better idea.

Once out it should look like this.

Connect the panel back temporary for the testing phase. Setup the test bed now; I used a clothes peg to hold the tubing. You need to provide some flowing water, without water the evaporator coil would probably freeze up pretty quickly.

If the unit was ever turned over (upside down) at any point during the disassembly phase, it’s a good idea to let it sit (right side up of course) for at least 30mins to let the refrigerant settle down.

Here’s what it looks like inside.

It uses a fixed orifice system, pretty normal for a small setup like this, and yes it does have a $$$ non-copper evaporator (titanium probably).

The compressor uses R134A refrigerant, no valves for filling/manifold gauge attachment. No idea how much refrigerant is supposed to be in there (usually fridges or such will have a refrigerant weight stick or label somewhere, sight glasses also don’t work to quantify the charge level on fixed orifice systems, some guesstimation might be in order if you ever need to fill yours).

My test setup.

Turn the power on and let it run, set the required temperature to something low, say 18deg, after a bit, a relay in the control panel should click and the compressor will hum to life.

This is where it gets important. Look carefully at the fan; it should start spinning the second the compressor comes on. If it doesn’t its broken. You can later confirm by disconnecting the fan and measuring the resistance across the 2 wires. If it’s infinity (open, like on mine), the fan’s broken.

If the compressor doesn’t startup, it might be the relay, loose connections, the startup PTC located near the compressor, or a broken compressor.

If you blow a fuse it’s likely the compressor (or it’s startup PTC) or fan is shorted, disconnect the fan temporarily and let it run, 2-3mins of running and it doesn’t blow the fuse again should mean the fan is borked (can re-confirm with a multimeter), if it still does, try swapping in a known good PTC, else the compressor is the culprit. No real way to fix it unless the compressor is replaced, probably non-economical.

Remember to unplug the power before working on the inside (removing fan etc.)

To remove the fan, undo the 4 screws holding the fan. You might need to use a 6mm spanner to break it loose.

Here’s the broken fan.

Locate a close enough replacement (current required, blade design and dimensions). Splice the wires in, heat-shrink the wires for water-proofing, cleanup the stuff, put it all back together and it should run good again.