Just like this pics.. or should i mention Grass Hoppers? 
June 27, 2008
June 9, 2008
Land Rover 200 Tdi Thermostat (and overheating story)
Green Defender Water temp gauge doesn’t work very well, its always point to hot even i’m just started the engine in the morning. This problem is known since i bought this car. And i’m too lazy to fixed it. Well actually i’ve change the thermosender (its cost three hundred rupiah) to found that thermosender is ok. Flush the radiator, check the viscous fan to find they are also ok. I think the culprit is gauge itself and the Land Rover shop list them around 1.2 million rupiah, and i’m a cheap guy so i’m never buy this gauge hehe.
From time to time I notice slight water rust sign around water tank cap. And i’m told by some fellow mechanic that this is small evidence that the cylinder head is wrapped or blowned head gasket.
This is turn to disaster when water pump leaks the water. It doesn’t leak when engine at idle, but when you put a little force to the pedal, water leak at quite high volume.
21 April 2008
on the slight rain and busy morning, i must accompany my kid to his school. No time to do some ritual on water level check at that time. The engine run a little harsh, but i don’t think any problem because its still rev pretty good. Water gauge still show hot like always.
When i’m parked at school, the Defender show a slight water vapour from the hood. Oh no.
Quick check to water tank to find its empty. Open the radiator check bolt and find empty. OMG. That damn water gauge (and my cheap pocket) show its karma. With the engine off i turn on the extra electric fan and let them running for several minute till water vapour gone.
Then i take a bucket of fresh water and slowly refill the water tank and radiator. It takes around one and half bucket to fill, wow. Started the engine and do some quick flush, continously running the water via tank and rad. The engine run smooth. But.. water pump show some leak and water tank had high back pressure so every time i tighten the tank cap, its always hissing (small whistle). My conclusion is the engine had vacuum/air lock or at worst the head gasket is blown and the head wrapping. Dang.
Quick phone to kang Iwan and told him the problem, he agree with my conclusion.
Close but not tighten the tank cap i take the risk by slowly run the car to kang Iwan’s garage. Its around 7 km from my kid school. Keep the engine rpm low and at high gear i came to Iwan’s without any water vapour coming from hood, but surely my engine running quite hot.
Ordered the water pump from local shop (damage around 750 hundred rupiah) and Uking (mechanic) installed it in second. Flush and bleed the water system to find its still had back pressure. In the same time Uking suggest to change the viscous fan, as he found that one installed in the car is leak its oil and not work very well (damage 1.350 hundred rupiah).
Well, the head must overhauled. Iwan told me to prep around 10 to 15 million for engine stripping and overhaul incase i need new bore, ring, piston and cranskshaft machining. Ouch.
I have no other option, and this is my daily driving so im urge Iwan to take the head down.
22 April.
The head show some slight wrapping at center, and the head gasket mark some blow sign at number 2 to number 3 cylinder. Fortunately the engine block and piston still in good with slight usage sign for near 200.000km clocked odometer. Here came again the cheap guy hehe. I told Iwan to just overhauld the head, and let the piston/ring untouch. Ok he said, but he suggest to not machined the valve seating (skir klep), because he had previously bad experience with good valve seating and used ring/piston on 200 Tdi. Ok, that’s fine. In the same time i ordered to calibrated the injector pump.
24 April.
Bad news came from injector services shop. They said that all of my injector nozzle is out of spec. *grrr*. Quick phone to local parts shop told that they only have full set injector for 1.8 million each (its 4 cylinder btw) wow, im broke. The injector service shop said that they have alternative to change the nozzle only, not full set injector. Its cost around 5 hundred each for total 2.1 million for 4 pcs include service and calibrating. But they must ordered it direct from Bosch Singapore and take around 1 to 2 weeks to deliver. Well, the cheap mind said that i must accepted that. Part number for Bosch Nozzle is .. err i lost my noted, where do i wrote that. Sorry.
I phoned to Injector serviced at Jakarta (Tehnik Delta) they said that they had the parts i’m looking at good price, but will only sent it without warranty or wrong parts because the pump doesn’t serviced at their shop. Well fair enough, unfortunately i have taken the pump to local shop, so i cancel the deal with Tehnik Delta. Kindly good support from them though, maybe next time i’ll tried their service.
26 April
The head had milled down, its only very small, although the mill service does’nt note how much the mill (weird). Well, typically Indonesian hehe. Good work, good price with low on detailing that not suited curious customer . The complete head gasket kit has come and ready to install.
5 May
Its appear that the injector service shop can fullfill their promise. They said please allow some times again, nozzle has not came from Sing. Oh well, again typically Indonesian, not keep up with the promises, but i understand the situation.
In the meantime i bought some water temp gauge from Autogauge at Cihampelas motor to replace bad Land Rover gauge. This one is cheap ‘Autometer wannabe’ gauge made in Taiwan. Its cost me around 300.000 rupiah ($30) and the next days i find that part shop at Jakarta have same item for more cheap price. Not enough phone talk lead to buy more high price hehe.
Its Smoke Lens Series 90° Scale Gauge. Autogauge have full line of gauge, and later i found that this gauge is well built, they manufactured in the same factory and same component as other high-prices gauge. Pity local shop do not have many variant compared to Autogauge websites.
Included in the package is stainless steel thermo sender. Unfortunately the thread is different with 200 Tdi original thread, so i made simple alumunium custom adapter at local machining shop for 25 thousand rupiah ($3). I take some manual calibrating procedure using cheap Mercury (Hg) glass thermometer and find that the Gauge read high around 3 – 5 degree compared to Hg thermometer.
10 May
The nozzle has came, will installed and check so tomorrow the pump can test on the engine.
Hey, its turn to a long post, and im still not wrote about thermostat.. i’ll continued later yah..
June 6, 2008
My Land Rover Experience
Being a Land Rover Series II 88″ Pick Up owner for more than 15 years, with all bell and whistles and broken parts (btw, barudak’s Bandung joke, Land Rover is lifetime serviced haha). But i love it, it has PTO Koenig front winches, 7.50×16 Good Year Xtra Grip tires, Defender hood and windshield, and OME shock, the other is Solihull standard. Sure the vehicle sometimes stuck and refuse to run, but considering all of mechanical and electrical component is an old and simple technologies, it always can take me back home. Never towed as i remembered.
Now the vehicle is still running (not so well though) and used as our family farm vehicle. Its main duty is hauling trailer with full bag of compost and livestock feed. Transfer case on 4wd low range most of the time. What an natural habitat for Land Rover. A good ‘ol respected farm vehicle.
for you that don’t know, the landrover is at right. at left is my friends ‘1982 Suzuki Jimny (trepes).
Around 2004, I bought (my dad actually hehe) 1993 Defender from some friend. Its ex-Caltex oil mi
ning at Sumatra, double cab, 200 Tdi, turbo diesel intercooler with 110″ wheel base. Front Warn 8274 winches, side protection bar, hilift jack, 7.50×16 hi miller Xtra Grip (our tyre of choices, in term of price and offroad ability) and the other is dead standard. Oh yea, the car body is dented everywhere as the previous owner decided to take all of putty (dempul) and paint it back with caltex green without fix the dent. I kinda like his idea however. Every dent on the body help build Land Rover character isn’t it ? And this vehicle will see the rough environment, so i don’t really care about paint and body.
When I take the car from the seller, the odometer was dead but its clocked around 116.000 km. Fixed the odo and some of leak then install cheap turbo timer from local auto shop.
It doesn’t have air conditioner yet as of i bought it, but i’ve installed later as the climate on southern area of West Java are very hot for us. The unit kompressor is ND, coming from Suzuki Jimny, small power but surely enough for double cab).
The vehicle mainly base at Bandung, but sometimes drove to West Java southern area where me and my dad have some activities there. Its a lot of fun, and this cars never let us down. Uhm yea one time only when my dad (my dad has heavy right foot) stucked it on muddy V slope and burn the clutch. Oh dad, its turbo engine.. don’t slipped the clutch! hehe. Towed around 100km (towed by my sister’s Suzuki Vitara, what an incredible small but powerful car) to Iwan’s garage and got the clutch replaced and gearboxes services.
Even though the cabin comfort was bad due to loose alumunium panel joint but the green Defender still serve me and my dad (sometimes my sister and my wife) daily driving very well. Every time we go to south, we stuffed thing in the back cab and cover it with waterproof flysheet.
I wrote this article for talk about Land Rover thermostat, but apparently it become a story of my Land Rover experience, so i’ll write about thermostat later
March 16, 2008
Indoalert! and Indonesiaga!
Several days ago i’ve been busy creating some content mashup based on wonderful RSS technology.
The mashup is Indonesia disaster news agregator sources from various local online newspaper that i called INDOALERT!. The content feed then geoannotated and displayed on Google Map marker layer. This map called INDONESIAGA!, slank of Indonesia and Siaga (alert).
All of the system built based on open and free web services content that you can find easily on internet.
Meanwhile you can take a look at here
February 27, 2008
SMC 7801BRA Firmware
I’m using Telkom Speedy for my private internet connection. And the modem is SMC 7801BRA ADSL modem/router. Rather old but still functioning.
Several days ago the modem (or the speedy, i don’t know) become weird. Its always disconnected from time to time. Restarting the modem gave the connection back for a moment. Then the ADSL sync lamp become dead again.
The weirdiness doesn’t stop there. Every time I called the customer support the connection back to normal when i’m still talking with the CS.. but not long.
I come with conclusion that lift-up the phone (connected thru ADSL splitter) every time the modem disconnected will bring the connection. I heard the modem talking with remote modem on the phone (low volume though). Then after 10 sec the connection back to normal.. what .. ?
So i’ just lift the phone and just waiting for the SYNC lamp lit again. But the symptom goes much often. Finally i’m try to find updates for the mode, but googling doesn’t came back with answer, so i emailed the CS of SMC and they replied (very fast, good CS) that they have updates for 7801BRA in internal, not published ftp server.
It’s been 2 hours now and the connection still works well, hope will stay like there.
So i’ll share the firmware updates for you right here. Release date 2005-3-2. Pretty old heh.
Download SMC 7801BRA Firmware Updates smc7801bra-FW-0.58.bin
Download SMC 7801BRA Firmware Release Notes
There are pdf manual’s, but i’ll not upload it here as the size was quite big (4Mb)
January 11, 2008
Dieng Plateu Tourist Map
Traced from local tourist paper map. Not scaled, use at your own risk.
September 28, 2007
Gigapan: Create (and share) giga pixel images with common digicam
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Google and National Geographic have built robotic technologies that enables ANY digital camera to produce gigapixel panoramas images, called GigaPans.
GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas, called GigaPans stitcher and GigaPan Uploader; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community. Users of infamous Google Earth also can enjoy GigaPan growing panorama images directly from GE.
Read GigaPan press release or go straight to GigaPan websites and register yourself to win $279 GigaPan robotic device
Images courtesy of Charmed Labs.
October 4, 2006
(not so) SIMPLE TSUNAMI EARLY WARNING SYSTEM CONCEPT FOR COASTAL RURAL AREA
Someday Iam listening a radio interview with BMG folks (which i don’t remember his name) about a simple tsunami early warning system concept that is suitable to implement at coastal rural area in Indonesia, I thought the concept is interesting.
The main idea is building some connecting vessel system at coast area to detect seashore tidal wave. This vessel contain some floating buoy device (like you have at your water tower, to automatically stop the water current when the tower is full) which connected to plain electronic switch system and alarm circuit which is when active will generated alarm noise from big loudspeakers at coast watch tower. Really simple system, but please remember that this concept still never tried. So i can’t comment about the operational.
It was quite a month ago when i heard the interview. Today, the idea come back when im write the report document for the West Java Respond latest activity (building tsunami awareness: evacuation and simulation at South Cianjur, West Java – Indonesia), please note that the corresponding websites is in Indonesian Languange only.
So here it is, im create a jpg scheme to easeing the reader to understand the concept. In a progress of drawing the scheme, final draft was changing a bit from former idea, although the main idea is stay the same. Im changing it because i predict some weakness in original concept (not to say that my revised concept is bulletproof though hehe).
And oh, sorry the picture notes in the scheme is Indonesian, i’ll create the english if time permit. Meanwhile the threat to the concept which i already identified was:
1. Sea is corrosive, so avoid metal and moving parts as many as possible.
2. Seawater contain sand. It could build dune below the pipe and altering the buoy system.
3. The system must be relatively easy to remove and clean, so is sensitive to thief (yeah..)
4. Sea wave could interfere with pondation or the pipe.
5. Position of the system according to coast and tidal/withdraw wave and the length of buoy rope is very crucial to system operational.
Click on the thumbnail below to download the larger image. And don’t forget to share your thought
July 17, 2006
Porong, Sidoarjo Mud Flow
Since May 29th’ 06, incident at a gas drilling site left the area around Siring Village, sub-district Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java covered in toxic mud.
Today (July 17th), Kompas release an article and map show the covered area of mud, they state as a current (July 13th), mud flow has covered around 200 hectare. And approximately 50.000 meter cubic of mud continously flowing at daily rate.
As an exercise, first I get sat image from Google Earth (1), reckoning the point as show on images from Kompas (2). Then using Lat/Lon coordinate acquired from Google Earth, map the point on GPS image acquired from Navigasi.Net loaded on GpsMapEdit (3).
and overlayed the images and calibrating using OzieExplorer.
Then add a calibrated image to GPSMapEdit and trace it manually.
According to area calculation on GPSMapEdit, the mud ‘only’ cover about 160 hectare area.
This exercise was finish in about 2 hours, and as a newbie in GIS, this show me that calibrating and tracing image is a fun way to spend your time
Image:
(1) Satellite Image from Google Earth, reckoning the important point according to kompas image (2)
(2) Images scanned from Kompas Newspaper
—- arrgh, 15:19 WIB earthquake newsflash at Jakarta, Cianjur, Surabaya.. continuing write later.
News and Outer Link:
Kompas Cyber Media (bahasa Indonesia)
Reuters AlertNet Pictures
June 17, 2006
Yogyakarta Garmin GPS Map
In the early hours of 27 May 2006, an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale struck the ancient city of Yogyakarta and central Java causing severe and widespread destruction, as well as considerable loss of life and injury. Tens of thousands of people were displaced or made homeless by the disaster. The quake's epicentre was located about 20 kilometres south-south-east of Yogyakarta and tremors were felt across the region.
Due to this incident and possible eruption of Mt. Merapi, I made and recompile Yogyakarta and surounding map image comprising detail street level map for use as an aid for our fellow relief volunteer.
I can not guarantee the map accuracy, although its surely fine for basic navigation. Part of the map data acquired from freely available material on the Internet. If you think you owned part of the map data, and doesn't want to make yours public available, please contact me, i'll happily delete it from map object.
Garmin doesn't have object properties for damage area, so I used:
- Cemetery (0×1a, polygon) for heavy damage area,
- Hospital (0xb, polygon) for medium damage area and
- Intermittent water (0×4c, polygon) for moderate damage area
Please also note that damage area doesn't representing actual damage area on the field. This is product of image analyzing from UNOSAT and DLR satellite image that they provide freely available on their websites. And should use as a guide only.
Yogyakarta Relief Garmin Map v01
(yogya basemap 095+yogya settlement poi 01+preeliminary assessment damage area)
