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Welcome to my digital home! There are lots of articles you might find helpful buried in this site on topics such as modifying an Alfa Romeo 159, rebuilding a Lotus 7 (Robin Hood 2B), not to mention a ton of stuff on technology in general. It’s all here somewhere, so use the search function or navigate using the menu structure. if you want to talk, reach out via the contact function, I usually do answer!

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Alfa 159The final stage was putting all the wiring in place. I opted for 4 gauge cable from the battery up front and a 4 gauge earth in the rear, both connected back to brass 4 way distribution blocks so I could pull 8 gauge runs to amps and the line converter. This also left me the easy upgrade route for adding additional amps to run upgraded mids & tweeters in the cabin, but that’s another project!! ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]  Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesA fresh mix for you all – Happy New Year! Track List: Albin Myers – Time Like These Robbie Rivera – New Direction Oliver Twizt – Yo’re Not Alone John Dahlback – More than I Wanted Chris Lake – If You Knew Doman & Gooding Feat Dru & Lincoln – Runnin Guetta Angello Gerraud Ingrosso Willis – Everytime We Touch Steve Angello & Laifdback Luke Feat Robin S – Show Me Love Planet Funk – Lemonade Kurd Maverick – Blue Monday Nari & Milani Feat Max C – Disco Nuff Kevin Bryant – Who You Wanna Be Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_Sunny_Side_Up_25012010.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]
InfoSecDani Web – February 2010 – Chip & Pin Daily Telegraph – February 2010 – Chip & Pin BCS Industry News – February 2010 – Fraud Rises Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesOldschool Hard House from the archives https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_16022001_Euphoric_Hard_House.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]
InfoSecThis is a brief interview about my role and the assessment process designed for the challengers playing the UK Cyber Security Challenge while at the Cyber Camp 2012: Related Images: [...]
Alfa 159 / ElectronicsFor a while now I have been looking into alternative power solutions for the Alfa due to its power hungry nature that is not helped by the many auxiliary systems I have added over time. For the most part, the stock battery can cope just fine, but I have always wondered about the use of capacitors and what real value they hold. In years gone by, the capacitors you could get hold of were simply not that useful. A 1 Farad 12v capacitor like you would use in an car audio installation was simply too expensive and had far too little power storage.  One reason I had been considering capacitors was not for power storage but for the side effect of cleaning up the overall noise introduced by the power system in the car. This would serve to improve the overall sound quality of the entire system as well as benefit all electrical systems with a cleaner supply. A good explanation and test is here: https://youtu.be/T9mlvbF0flM Capacitors have come on a long way though and the new generation of “Super” or “Ultra” Capacitors are starting to become a viable alternative to a battery in a car. Because of this, I thought it only sensible to buy some parts and see what it was all about 🙂 Here is a video of a car replacement battery using 6x 2.7v, 500F super capacitors to show you what I mean: Obviously starting the car and providing long term, offline power for the systems when its not running are two different things, so if you seriously wanted to replace your traditional battery you would need a hybrid solution that combined batteries with capacitors.  I’ll be looking into that next 😉 Super capacitors come in a few common shapes and sizes but by far the cheapest for the power are the common 2.7v 500 farad units. To hit the target voltage I needed (12-14v) I needed a few wired in series to increase the overall voltage. Fortunately this is a common solution as its a typical voltage used in solar installations. Wiring the capacitors in serial actually decreases the overall farads of the bank, so 6 x 2.7v = 16.2v but the farads are divided by 6 to give you 83.333F. You could add a number of additional banks in parallel to bring the farads back up, but it starts to get a bit big then and you would be better looking into a different style capacitor. such as the Maxwell Ultra 2.7V 3000F, 6 of which would deliver a 16.2v 500F pack ! Also, a point of note is that even though the planned bank has a capacity of 16.2v it will only operate at the voltage its charged too, so if the car charges at 13.5v then the bank will be charged to 13.5v. Its also important to balance the load across a serialized bank of capacitors to prevent damage. Fortunately due to the commonality of the target bank design, a balance board was readily available: The plan was to build a 12v 83 farad bank that would act as a power reserve for the bass amplifier in the boot as this would be a good starting point and bolster the overall power system on easily accessible, existing 4AWG wiring I first bought a few common, cheap and easily accessible parts off ebay: 6 x Green-Cap (Black) Super Farad Capacitor Parallel Battery 2.7V 500F 35*60MM @ 26.99 6 String 2.7V Super Capacitor Protection Balancing Board 100F – 500F 240x40mm @ 8.75 10 rubber lined 35mm pipe clamps @ £7.29 8 AWG power cable with in line fuse holder and fuse @ 4.99 So for less than £50 I had everything I needed for the experiment. I could have bought a pre-made board with unknown capacitors on for about £26 but I have read a few things about the capacitors being junk so went for a known good brand and DIY. I first assembled the capacitor bank with the balance board to achieve the target solution. Hot gluing the capacitors to the board before soldering them to make sure the finished unit was as solid as possible. It took some real heat on the iron to get the solder flowing, especially soldering in the 8AWG wires. I soldered the 8AWG cables directly to the board to ensure maximum power transfer: Once the bank was ready I used the pipe clamps to install the unit in a free space within the amp enclosure and connected it to the positive and negative 4AWG distribution blocks I already had in place from the original installation of the enclosure: I must admit, I was extremely worried when I first connected the fuse that it would just explode in my face, so it was a tentative and careful moment! Some people recommend installing a resistor inline initially to slow charge the capacitors and protect the systems in between, but as I was on a 4AWG connection direct to the battery I was not worried about the charge / discharge issues. They did make a fizzing sound for a few seconds when they took there initial charge but I was stood by with a fire extinguisher!  Once the fizzing stopped and nothing looked like it wasd going to explode I checked the units for discharge / earth shorts and also for temperature. As everything was ok, I decided to start the car and run the amp. The car started quicker than normal so clearly the extra high current supply had already made an impact on the overall electrical system. Its actually possible to start and run an normal engine on a bank of capacitors like this and replace the battery with them as can be seen in one of the videos at the top of the page. Although for the Alfa, I would need a larger bank with more capacity as the 2.4 is a bit of a power hungry beast! I ran a Bass test loop to get the amp hot and push the sub to its limits for 30 minutes. The amp got very hot as expected but the capacitors only got a little warm which is great as if they got very hot that would be a problem. Once it was all back together you could hardly notice the upgrade unless you looked very closely at the vent holes! All in all this was a great upgrade and I am definitely going to explore more super capacitors in the engine bay in some sort of hybrid battery/capacitor solution next! Related Images: [...]
Alfa 159Daily Power is a work in progress but boost is at 3500mbar and fuel is flowing at 130mm3 so it should be good for a solid 800NM+ as a daily driver 🙂 #noSmokenoPoke Power: Base Model: 2008 159 TI 2.4 JTDM QTRONIC (Diesel) Base Power: 200bhp / 400nm @ the flywheel Dyno Power: 317WHP / 793NM @ front wheels (with Water/Meth 500cc) @ 3200mbar Daily Power: TBC WHP / TBC NM @ front wheels (with Water/Meth 1000cc) @ 3500mbar The run above had a faulty water/meth controller which is why its a little jumpy! Old Dyno Runs of when it was around 250bhp: Dyno run 1 Dyno run 2 Dyno run 3 Dyno run 3 alternative angle Dyno run 4 Dyno run 4 alternative angle Engine Mods: Blow back Recirculation Breather System re-routed to exhaust via E-Vac Scavenger and one way morroso valve Swirl Valves fully blanked in the Manifold Straight through Wizard exhaust with no CAT’s, no DPF and no mufflers on 4″ tails 600 x 300 x 76mm core High Flow, Front Mounted Inter-cooler with custom pipework and mounts 18 row Mocal oil cooler (235mm) Hybrid GTB2056 Turbo (BMW 530D Gt22 Turbine Conversion, 62mm Extended tip billet Compressor Wheel with 4mm extended tips and 49.60mm inducer “62 trim”, Blueprinted, staggered gap oil seals on exhaust side, 15 degree cutback / clipped turbine wheel and 63mm custom  intake adapter) 4bar TMAP sensor 80mm BMC CDA direct to turbo on custom 2ft pipe run for maximum de-restriction Water Methanol System (AEM Pump & 1000cc/min nozzle + Devils Own 100psi/7bar Progressive Controller) Inline OIL sensor reservoirs on Engine and Gearbox Inline Mocal thermostatic control valve on gearbox oil cooler All ECU Mapping work courtesy of Jacekowski and Jabawoki. Handling Mods: 255/40/19 Vredestein ULTRAC Vorti Tyres Spacers on wheels to stance / prevent rub! Autolusso Braided Brake Lines Performance Friction Brake Pads @ Front EBC Yellow Brake Pads @ Rear MTEC Groved, Vented & Dimpled Discs with Black Treatment all round ATE TYP200 Racing Brake Fluid Bilstein B12 Pro Suspension Kit (B6 Shocks & Eibach Springs) Powerflex Front Upper and Lower Bushes Modified upper arms with greese nipples New 330mm Brembo calipers Lighting Mods: H7 LED’s for Driving & Main Beam including custom dust caps Full External LED Conversion Full Internal LED Conversion Cylon High Level LED brake light Project Halo – Tri-Halo DRL Conversion Electrical Mods: 16v 83.333F Super Capacitor Bank on primary electrical system 230v AC Socket in Glovebox Twin Digital Temp Gauge (Engine and Gearbox Oil) in air vent mount secondary fused distribution boxes under dash and in engine bay for ancillaries All wiring and ancillary systems wrapped to look stock. Gearbox Radiator Cooling System 100Amp Shunt and Volt / Ammeter from Capacitor Bank to Battery Multiple 2.2amp USB sockets and feeds for general convenience! Under Bonnet Temperature Sensor / Gauge  Audio Mods: Custom Sub Enclosure with 12″ Infinity KAPPA Perfect 12VQ M3D Sub Fully Soundproofed Modified Alpine MRV-T420 Amplifier Custom Wiring Pioneer AVH-X5700DAB FM/AM/DAB+/GPS Aerial Mod Visual Mods: Fog Lights removed from front bumper and re-grilled for greater air flow to additional radiators Latest Gen Badges all round Some stickers: Cloverleafs …because race car. Nurembergring Sticker …because she’s been 🙂 “Built Not Bought” …because she is. ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″] Related Images: [...]
Alfa 159Before I even started this project, I spent quite a lot of time figuring out potential box sizes and planning the acoustics of the project. The overall goal was maximum SQ & Power balance with the least boot space loss possible! No mean feet to achieve. I opted to retain the stock OEM head unit rather than go for an after-market double-din one as I wanted the overall look and feel of the car to remain normal, while improving the audio characteristics and overall frequency response. In order to achieve this I made use of an Audio control LC2i active, line level converter. A unit from the USA that is very special and literally takes speaker level outputs up to 400W RMS and then runs them through a series of electronic clean-up routines to get a perfect line level out for the sub-woofer, than can also be controlled by a remote gain control, and a perfect 2 channel full range output for a mid amp (to be utilised in a further project). This unit combined with an Infinity KAPPA Perfect 12 VQ (M3D) sub-woofer and an Alpine MRV-420 amplifier I already had was all I needed to put a little boom back into the boot! ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″] Related Images: [...]
GeneralWell, despite wanting to spend thousands of pounds on the perfect setup, I decided I had to transition away from Vinyl completely first and get used to the fully digital interfaces. So, in my usual, straight out of left field way, I bought myself an M-Audio Xponent and some new speakers 🙂 The Xponent is an awesome tool, it is the perfect transition medium for anyone thinking of moving into digital and is very well featured. Its a little on the plastic side, and the faders feel like they are fisher price, but it works like a dream and is portable enough to follow me around the country! I now have two primary setups, home & away. Home is the Xponent, married to my main desktop feeding a pair of KRK RP6G2 Active Studio Monitors, and it sounds awesome! Away is the Xponent. married to my X200s Laptop & feeding a pair of M-Audio AV20 portable studio monitors, although it lacks base, it has punch, power and clarity and lets face it, we don’t want to piss off the neighbours in the hotel now do we 🙂 I still suffer from the age old problem of not actually having time to use this lot, but the away kit helps with that problem a fair bit, so once I get fully transitioned, expect a flurry of new mixes on the way! Related Images: [...]
LiveMixesAnoter day another mix…… back in the style of electro madness! David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – When Love Takes Over (Electro Extended Mix) Melleefresh, Deadmau5 – Sex Slave (Original Mix) Costello – Girls Speak Louder (Donique Mix) Alexis, Darmon, Eran Hersh, George F – Girls Who Like Girls (Original Living Room Club Mix) Larry Tee Feat. Roxy Cottontail – Lets Make Nasty (Afrojack Remix) Jewlez – Get Down (Original Mix) Pain, Gubellini – Shake It Up feat. Darook Mc (Maurizio Gubellini & Stefano Pain Main Mix) Martin Solveig – Poptimistic (Bingo PLayers Vox) Mowgli – London To Paris (Original Mix) Laidback Luke, Lee Mortimer – Blau! (Original Mix) Funkagenda – H3lix (Original Club Mix) Wolfgang Gartner – Latin Fever (Original Mix) Starkillers – Bitch Ass Trick (Original Version) Incidentally, this is my first recorded mix on the APC40 with Ableton 🙂 https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_DirtyFriday_05032010.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download Related Images: [...]

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