I consult/help out at a buddy's shop. It's a great stress relief from the computer job, and something I know well, having been a mechanic for 10 years before getting into the IT world. The money's not great, but the job's fun. We're known for making fun of customers to their faces, in a good-natured way. We're also among the cheapest shops, both of us having worked in dealerships for a few years and never wanting to soak the customer that way again. I also build my own wacky stuff, like this: www.rotomoto.com/jeep/lsidedetail.jpg
A '73 postal jeep with the top cut off and a '98 Camaro engine/trans/computer etc.
Try Tesla. Edison was stuck on the DC plan, which doesn't transmit over distance very well. And yes, Edison was a patent madman, any way you look at it.
Not a bad comparo however, since Edison was really more of an 'embrace and extend' guy (he took credit for the entire output of his shop) and our middle eastern inventor seems more about practical good service to humanity. (but wait until someone starts waving money at him for an invention!)
I transplanted a '98 Camaro V6 powertrain into my 1973 postal jeep and can attest to the utility of OBDII scantools. I got mine for the Palm platform from Auterra and it lets you record up to 5 channels of data from the engine control module (PCM) (like throttle position, measured airflow, coolant temp, fuel trims both short and long term, engine speed, vehicle speed, o2 sensor readings, and any check engine light codes).
You can record an hour of data on 5 channels and export it in spreadsheet-compatible style and then make cool graphs. "47mph, 5720rpm and the speed trace has quite a bump for a second." "Is that wheelspin on the 1-2 upshift?" "You didn't hear the tires?"
They come up all the time on ebay for $100-150. This, with a wiring diagram for the Camaro, let me reverse engineer the sensor values that the PCM was looking for so it thought "hey, I must be back in a Camaro, all systems are within (not always public) specs..." Most of this information is available in the vehicle's service manual from the manufacturer, but the kind of stuff that I did is a little outside normal maintenance. Fun though.
The aftermarket tools don't have quite the functionality of the ubercool $3000 TechII scantool from GM that I got to play with, but OBDII is a public spec that is REQUIRED on all post '95 vehicles. (and allows for the last x seconds of data before a crash to be recorded, so make sure you get your blackbox from the smoking remains after you run over that busload of nuns.)
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I consult/help out at a buddy's shop. It's a great stress relief from the computer job, and something I know well, having been a mechanic for 10 years before getting into the IT world. The money's not great, but the job's fun. We're known for making fun of customers to their faces, in a good-natured way. We're also among the cheapest shops, both of us having worked in dealerships for a few years and never wanting to soak the customer that way again. I also build my own wacky stuff, like this: www.rotomoto.com/jeep/lsidedetail.jpg A '73 postal jeep with the top cut off and a '98 Camaro engine/trans/computer etc.
Try Tesla. Edison was stuck on the DC plan, which doesn't transmit over distance very well. And yes, Edison was a patent madman, any way you look at it. Not a bad comparo however, since Edison was really more of an 'embrace and extend' guy (he took credit for the entire output of his shop) and our middle eastern inventor seems more about practical good service to humanity. (but wait until someone starts waving money at him for an invention!)
I transplanted a '98 Camaro V6 powertrain into my 1973 postal jeep and can attest to the utility of OBDII scantools. I got mine for the Palm platform from Auterra and it lets you record up to 5 channels of data from the engine control module (PCM) (like throttle position, measured airflow, coolant temp, fuel trims both short and long term, engine speed, vehicle speed, o2 sensor readings, and any check engine light codes). You can record an hour of data on 5 channels and export it in spreadsheet-compatible style and then make cool graphs. "47mph, 5720rpm and the speed trace has quite a bump for a second." "Is that wheelspin on the 1-2 upshift?" "You didn't hear the tires?" They come up all the time on ebay for $100-150. This, with a wiring diagram for the Camaro, let me reverse engineer the sensor values that the PCM was looking for so it thought "hey, I must be back in a Camaro, all systems are within (not always public) specs..." Most of this information is available in the vehicle's service manual from the manufacturer, but the kind of stuff that I did is a little outside normal maintenance. Fun though. The aftermarket tools don't have quite the functionality of the ubercool $3000 TechII scantool from GM that I got to play with, but OBDII is a public spec that is REQUIRED on all post '95 vehicles. (and allows for the last x seconds of data before a crash to be recorded, so make sure you get your blackbox from the smoking remains after you run over that busload of nuns.)
And a Marine captain buddy of mine put out a fire with a machine gun, so I guess you can fight fire with lead too...