Algemeen's Electronics and Bicycle Tinker Blog

For many years I've liked these Retro-Futuristic lamps that are floating around in the family house. They were collecting dust because each used a 40 Watt E14 incandescent light bulb, plus the cables didn't seem to make correct contact. However, the bulbs could not be replaced easily with LED bulbs because they have a mirror surface, really adding to the looks and design. But luckily I found these nice looking LED bulbs (tad pricey) in a Saturn electronics warehouse in Vienna some time ago. Only the cords with a switch were in a really poor state. It seemed a certain tinkerer (very well known to me) had a habit to put some solder on the wire ends. However, with age this tin will start to oxidise heavily on the surface, make contacts really bad! (always use press/crimp ferrules instead!) Also the plug style wasn't up to current standards so replaced it with a new transparent style Klopp Euro style cord. https://www.conrad.nl/p/kopp-140310090-snoerschakelaar-tr-140...

Just learned again that finding correct parts for an older bicycle can be challenge. Even parts for the here ubiquitous Dutch city bike can get hard so source when the bike is over 10 years old. Sadly the manufacturers either go for planned obsolescence, make it hard to repair or simply just not sell parts to consumers directly. Next time I will not buy this brand again. Note that the Batavus, Gazelle and Sparta brands are all in the same holding company I think, the Accell Group and suffer from very similar problems. In this case I needed to replace a worn chain, the rear chainwheel and the drive chain wheel. The right cranks are fused to one piece with the front chainwheel, and are usually sold in a set. Finding a replacement crankset was a bit of a headache. The square taper of the bottom bracket axle can be in two sizes, ISO and JIS. It has a minimal difference of maybe a tenth of a millimeter, but the 2 degree taper could result in a few millimeter difference when it is mounted...