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Bike Rides!
20060813
Leanna and Bryan and I biked to Sausalito and took the ferry back.
We took it pretty easy, leaving around 10, getting back around umm 2ish.
We got food at cafe trieste in sausalito, which for my money was sort of plain,
but the coffee was quite nice.
It was a good time.

The TrackStick GPS thingy was in a cigar box on the basket in my bike, facing skyward the whole way. More or less ideal conditions. Maybe it can't see thru a cigar box ?
As you can see it pretty much sucked as far as making an accurate record.
    With hopes of improving that, i plan to:

  • bump the operating voltage from 3 to 4.5 volts.
    ie, move from 2 AAAs to 3 AAs.
    (well actually two banks of 3 AAs in parallel, but that's an orthogonal story).
    update: this operation has been performed, and the device still works!
    it seems to have a little flakyness in the power connection now, which is a bummer, but i wasn't able to track down the source of that.
    note: the original two AAAs, under no load, were delivering about 4.6 volts. the three AAs are now delivering about 6, again under no load.
    this is probably why high-performance science uses expensive power supplies instead of batteries or wall-warts!

  • fool with maybe not having it in a cigar box.
    - it's in a cigar box because it has to point to the sky.
    I should find a better container i guess.

  • make sure it's trying to sample as often as it can. - which i think it is..

  • the design of this device is pretty atrocious. it's inherently a device which requires frequent changing of the batteries, but in order to change the batteries you need to use a jeweler's screwdriver and also remove the little carrying-lanyard if you've bothered to keep it.
    in addition, the manual tells you that when you're not using the device you should remove the batteries because even in "off" mode it sucks current. which as-mentioned, removing the batteries is kind of a hassle.
    needless-to-say-but-said-anyhow, the elenzil mod is way more convenient. altho does have wires and battery packs and such. but it all fits nicely with tons and tons of room to spare in a 5x4x3 inch cigar box.
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