Is your bike... PAINTED?

Pretty much anything electronic generates some noise, as pretty much everything has some sort of oscillator in it, because these days everything has some sort of microprocessor in it. Even if your device is off, its battery might have its own processor ticking away. Any device which remembers the correct time through power-down must have *some* oscillator running ALL THE TIME. Your phone probably has 3-4 radios in it (1/2/3/4G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, FM). There's so much complexity hidden in modern stuff (not just obvious electronic devices like phones/laptops) that people forget it's even there. And sometimes made very poorly.

I realise there's a low quota of hardware nerds on here, but most electronics gets washed on the production line to remove flux and contaminants.

The biggie with *any* electronics is to not use anything that causes damage or corrosion, and to have the device powered off until it's absolutely dry (if using water) to prevent shorts or electrolytic corrosion.

The best thing is isopropyl alcohol, aside from being a bit of a hazard to some paint/stickers etc. it's about the top thing for cleaning electronics.

Are you sure it's not craploads of shit? Whatever it is, there's a fuckton of it.

I can recommend www.pun.net, partly because a friend of mine is lead dev.

True most static engines are not designed with lightness in mind, I was kinda ignoring that aspect and focusing more on the state of tune of the engine. Whatever you chose, you may gain a fair bit by getting a custom profile of camshat made and looking at the other stuff you can do like inlet/exhaust port tuning. When you know you want the engine to only run at one speed, you can tune stuff for big gains without having to worry that it would be undriveable in a normal car.

Another point about static engines is they are designed with far longer running hours than most motorbike engines - chances are someone will have thrown it at a tree before it's done 50k whereas a genset may have to run for some hours a day, every day for decades.

There are crossovers - the International HS 2.8 4cyl turbodiesel is a re-jig of the Land Rover 300TDi engine, which was a re-jig of the 200TDi, all excellent engines and well proven, although not light (well, not by european standards... cough). Crops up in some Ford trucks around the world, as well as updated army Land Rovers, also available in "generator" spec - could be worth looking at what the differences are.

Seems a few people know just enough to tell you it won't work... but from a friend in the industry I've heard that this form (serial hybrid) is actually viewed as a pretty good idea. A few points:

- Batteries are rubbish at storing energy compared to fossils, so replacing loadsa batteries with a fossil-powered generator is actually not a bad idea for giving range & quick "recharge" (refuel).

- The power needed to accelerate a vehicle is many times that needed to keep moving, if the battery can pick up the slack during these brief peaks then you can use a much smaller engine/generator than the original motor to run the thing.

- Making "flexible" engines is a compromise. Car engines have to work across a broad operating range, which is not so easy as making an engine that is good at one constant speed, hence why static/generator engines have a very different power curve (everything arrives at or around their operating point, say 1500rpm, and nothing much outside of that). The suggestion of using a 3cyl Lupo engine is good, but you may get even better economy from a dedicated generator lump.

Someone said that direct mechanical coupling (engine-gearbox-wheels) is much more efficient than engine->generator->elec.motor->wheels, however if you take the average yank SUV into account (big auto box & 4WD transfer case in the way) you may not be that far away. If you can go to wheel motors and cut out the propshafts & axle diffs then all the better.

That's about the extent of what I know on the subject, but don't let the naysayers in comments tell you it's dumb. Also check out SimonR's electric freelander (small SUV) on LR4x4.com as an example of a DIY electric car build.

Most environmentalists != scientists, it's about time journalists & politicians realised this before bending over to support whatever they dream up this week. How many times have Greenpeace bullied the world into things only to change their minds? Biofuel was the last one that springs to mind - "It's the future, we should all do it!" then just as the world starts to do it "It's destroying the rainforests, don't do it!" Unfortunately they will just shrug and play their "get out of jail free" card that lying about stuff is justified by "drawing attention to the issue". The sad thing is all this just gets in the way of people understanding/caring about/acting on the real issues which might actually benefit the planet.

Those insenstive Japanese bastards are too busy playing with their nuclear meltdown and fishing corpses out of the rubble to think about the impact this has on decent hard-working Americans. I mean, hundreds of tons of scrap steel will probably only just cover the cost of towing it away. You're welcome, world!

Um... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080219133226.htm "ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2008) — Purdue University engineers have developed a new aluminum-rich alloy that produces hydrogen by splitting water and is economically competitive with conventional fuels for transportation and power generation. "We now have an economically viable process for producing hydrogen on-demand for vehicles, electrical generating stations and other applications," said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process. The new alloy contains 95 percent aluminum and 5 percent of an alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin. Because the new alloy contains significantly less of the more expensive gallium than previous forms of the alloy, hydrogen can be produced less expensively, he said."

A good digital camera and a copy of OziExplorer will get you GPS'ing your way round Ye Olde Mappes on your computing device of choice. http://terraperfecta.com/frontmap.php makes calibrating the maps a point & click jobby.

My god, a man talking sense rather than rushing off into wacky techno solutions...

For my 2p's worth I'd ask what's wrong with a £50 laptop off eBay with wireless, and then plug the line out into either some small & cheap PC speakers, or a reasonable amp & speaker combo depending on the required volume / quality.

If they can laser etch messages then the next step is using it to remove blemishes, enhance the appearance, and effectively "photoshop" food to make it appear more photogenic.

Then again, am I the only one who thinks this could be the next step in tattoo art - never mind some hairy goth with a needle, give me a CNC laser that can print my choice of design onto my arm at 1200dpi and I might consider it.

But we go to places where there is no signal. Not just no cell signal, but no TV or FM radio, nothing. In the woods, in RF-unfriendly geographies, even SiRF-III GPS can struggle to get a lock. Also - what about planes & boats? No GSM base stations at sea, well, not without a dedicated satellite uplink. What about military apps where a mobile phone could easily be detected & targetted by the enemy?

If you live in the US, then yes you probably want to be looking it up about now.

I'm in the UK so have enough police state bollocks to worry about locally.