Crankbrothers PowerPump alloy failure

  

I love things well done and I must say this pump was and still is a very well done thing, almost.. It's almost because like any thing human does it has it's flaws. But enough talking, lets get to the real stuff

We're talking here about the Crack Brothers Power Alloy Bicycle Pump, a metal alloy bicycle pump with two heads that fit shrader (auto) and presta valves, dual piston design for high volume or high pressure output and a pressure gauge that tops at 160psi/11bar end scale. It's also light at around 200g (case included) and small with about 24cm/9.5inches long.

Tried my own blow out view just to see how complex it really is and I must say I was impressed as it showed to be composed of quite of lot of bits and pieces. I must mention that it's not even blown all the way as there was more to be taken apart. The head assembly is the interesting part. Pressure comes through a center canal that is tapped by the pressure indicator. In the end there's another tap surrounded by a rubber gasket that slides between two red plastic adapters for the individual heads.

While most bike pumps do offer dual valve support by using a single output head with reversible end piece, the guys at Crank Brothers went their own path with this dual head design. Can't say I see any benefit from this as this adds volume, weight and complexity to what could have else been an even better product. To make it worse, this very own feature was the cause of the failure. You can also blame it on user error but when using presta valves it's no way telling how deep is deep enough when you connect the pump with the valve head. Since I used it quite a lot on presta valves, my smart little pump failed about a year after purchase. When opened it turned out that the end of the presta valve from the bike chew up a groove into the rubber gasket from the pump head chamber during twisting in and out the head to pressurize the connection between pump and valve. That gasket is what seals the transfer of pressure between then pump piston and the head assembly. As a quick fix and another year delay I mounted the gasket upside down. Then it failed again and it was time to search for another gasket and sadly the manufacturer doesn't provide any spare parts for this pump. After a lot of search I finally improvised something but the material was softer and it didn't last long till it failed again.

Looking back at all this trouble I guess I could have taken the time to do some trials with mounting the pump on a presta valve without touching the gasket but it's not that easy to apply when you're on the run in a trip or you lend the pump to a friend. Funny thing is that on the product cardboard it stated "warranty: lifetime" :) not that I can benefit of it here in Romania where the reseller only covers 1 year warranty long gone. I still love my pump and hope to find again somewhere another replacement for that darn gasket but in the meantime I had to buy a second pump.

I chose a POINT GM-61 that's quite long, heavy and cumbersome but promises to be more reliable, hope the hose won't be a failure cause ;))

Sneak peak into Canon 60D

This summer unfortunately was marked by a few accidents among my friends including my girlfriend that fell from the bike while we were riding together.
Long story short, she had her DSLR dangling around her neck when it happened. Results? She got a broken arm, the camera lost it's battery compartment, back panel buttons functionality and overall scratches and dents, the lens got a broken filter and a scratched front element, luckily it was just the good old 18-55 kit lens.
After she got back on her feet it was time for the camera to be fixed so we went to Canon's only camera service in Romania. We weren't expecting to be a complicated matter as I suspected that during the fall a cable must have come loose or brake. Imagine our surprise when the guys from the service asked for 1/3 of the price of a new 60D for the repair with little further comment on why so expensive.
I had doubts on the price so we took back the camera, not before paying a nice beefy 25 something dollars just for looking at the camera.
After I had the go ahead I seized the poor camera and got her to pieces to see if anything can be done on the cheap.

Trying to remove back panel

In the end it turned out it's easier to take off the back panel and I unscrewed more than it was needed. Inside my assumptions turned right as the back panel film cable connector was torn out of the PCB. It's not a pretty site looking at a tiny millimeter wide connector with terminals thinner than human hair and thinking about a re-soldering job. About half of the tracks were ripped from the PCB with no chance of repair but I took a shot for the other half at least.

Half job done: panel removed

I had access to the latest greatest Weller soldering station with a thin enough tip, used a microscope for vision and took some two hours worth of work trying to suture the wound. First time I almost gave myself a heart attack thinking I messed something up as the camera wouldn't boot anymore but it turns out it has some kind of protection that keeps it dead as long as the back panel is removed and not in it's place. Didn't see any switches of other clear evidence of how this protection was implemented though.

At times I succeeded gaining back 3 buttons and the activity LED but it was still not enough for any real good use. And as I tried and I tried I lost some of them and ended up with only two buttons, Live View and  right arrow from the navigation controller. At least now I know why the guys from the service asked for nearly 250$, they wanted to replace the whole main-board as it's impossible to fix it anyway else.

Other half impossible to do 

Another Petzl Myo XP repair

As I've said before, my Myo XP was a ticking bomb waiting to blow after the last repair. Just like my NiteRider I was in a mountain trip when it failed.

I knew it from the start that it was the cable connecting the battery compartment to the light head. I twisted it around a little and got some mixed results but in the end it died completely. Back in the office turned on the lamp, grabbed my tools and got to some serious tearing apart. The light head wasn't anything new but it was a first timer for the battery compartment. I was surprised to find in there a fuse that was actually blown out from my screwing around back on the mountain.

A fuse can be seen at the left end of the red wire

Didn't bother to dig into the problem that much and just took off the old cable. Unfortunately it's not an easy kind of cable to find so I had to improvise and use an electrical outlet cord. I could have found thinner alternatives but I wanted a decent cross section for low voltage drops and increased stiffness. It's left to see how well the new cable will hold up with low temperates and mountaineering abuse.
This is what came of it:

Final "masterpiece" after cable replacement

NiteRider Pro 1400 LED failure

Sadly I had to get my feet back on the ground and realize that there is no such thing as a perfect thing, my NiteRider light system broke. More sadly is that I was in a mountain trip, luckily not in a critical situation and I could go on without a problem.

You can read my first review of the product, here.

Next day after I came back home of course I had to troubleshoot the problem. First I thought it was a problem with the connection between the cradle and the battery because the light went off as I pushed things around but in the end it turned out the cable was the culprit.

Battery cradle opened

Releasing the cable and sealed connector from the cradle is pretty straight forward and only requires a decent screw driver and some pressure on the sides of the cradle.

The problem with the red wire

Wire breakage

From what I could tell it wasn't that much of design or quality fault but rather too much abuse on my side. The red wire broke from too much flexing of the cable right were it exits the battery cradle. It wasn't a pretty or easy job to fix it but I wanted minimal impact so I soldered the wire back together and isolated everything with a few layers of black tape.

Job done

It's not as good as new as I'll have to be more careful now and avoid extreme flexing in the area but it will do the job just fine. Bottom line, take everything with a grain of salt, nothing is unbreakable.

Petzl Myo XP repair

My first headlight was the Petzl Myo XP and I loved it from the beginning. Very well designed and build with little things to pick on.

I was pretty amazed when after 1 year of use my headlight broke down experiencing cable problems on the side where the cable enters the light head. Didn't thought much about it and put it all on a bad production sample, just returned the product to the store and got a brand new one instead. I've got mine from a local supplier, Himalaya, having luck on my side as there the guys are big and serious about their business with all interest in keeping a good name about the products they promote.

All was back on track again till 1 year after when this 2nd headlamp failed with same symptoms. This time I was more than intrigued and determined to get tot he bottom of it on my own.

There's nothing you can't do with the right tools so with a T6 torx it was all pieces on my worktable in no time. As I was anticipating, the good design from the outside was found inside as well. The LED chip is mounted on a separate PCB that has an extra aluminum radiator for efficient heat dissipation. Even more, a thermal probe is mounted on the heat-sink for thermal shutdown protection.

The LED chip looks like a Cree product but I might be mistaken. All looked fine with the solder points but with a multimeter I found my problem to be inside the cable. Only solution now was stripping it apart little by little.

Need I say my surprise when finding the inner conductors? I couldn't believe my eyes, finding the wires in such a bad shape for such a high overall quality product. It looks like the wires suffered severe aging problems from low temperature exposures, at least that's the only thing that makes sense to me. The isolation layer lost it's elastic properties and cracked all around in multiple places. One of them got more mechanical stress than the others and that's how the electrical link failed.

The only thing I could do in this case was to cut away the most exposed part of the cable and resolder it to the PCB. Of course it got shorter in the process, of course I didn't solve the problem, just the effect but for now it will have to do.

UPDATE: Another Petzl Myo XP repair