exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

So was the white only colour option just a reflection of the model you bought? I've seen other manufacturers do this too.

In terms of range what's the expectation when it's warmer?

I must confess that whilst I like the idea of an electric car, the range is a problem to me. My current car has a range of about 450 miles and then a reserve of 50 miles, so I'd want the same from an electric car.

Also the price of replacement battery packs seems excessive.

Perhaps when these things are better sorted I'll get one, but I'd really be interested in your experience. My old boss has a Tesla and seems to have had a good experience overall.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 22 Jan 2025 08:24 So was the white only colour option just a reflection of the model you bought? I've seen other manufacturers do this too.

Because this car was from the final stocks of last year's model I had to get what was available so there was no choice, but I did save £13000 on the list price (33%) and so it was cheaper than the second hand lower model. I can live with white. :-)

In terms of range what's the expectation when it's warmer?

I must confess that whilst I like the idea of an electric car, the range is a problem to me. My current car has a range of about 450 miles and then a reserve of 50 miles, so I'd want the same from an electric car.

The quoted range is 270 miles but I'm not banking upon more than 200. It's just the local run-around. If I need more range then I can use the SAAB.

Also the price of replacement battery packs seems excessive.

Perhaps when these things are better sorted I'll get one, but I'd really be interested in your experience. My old boss has a Tesla and seems to have had a good experience overall.

I'm not sure how much of a problem the battery pack will be given the number of almost 20 year old Toyota Prius still running around on their original battery pack, but then again they are less reliant upon their batteries.

So far my only problem has been working out the correct sequence to do things so the car actually charges! :-)

Now that the DVLA have updated the database so that my new car is available I've been able to sign up for the Octopus Energy dynamic electric car charging tariff.

Pretty simple really. Once you sign up you have 7 days to finish things off by installing an app on your phone, plugging the car into the charger and then adding the charger as a device in the app which connects the control of the charger with the energy supplier's systems. Once this is done you set the charge level and time you want this level to be attained into the application (the default being 80% charge at 8am) and Kate's your aunty.

The car will now be charged at 7p/unit when the national grid has excess supply and/or it's between 2am and 6am, which is when I can also set the house battery to recharge at that same tariff.

This should massively decrease my electricity costs and travel costs, even without the solar panels generating excess power and feeding back to the grid at 15p/unit (as I've signed up for the dynamic feed-in tariff as well).

stephen_usher wrote: 22 Jan 2025 09:19 Because this car was from the final stocks of last year's model I had to get what was available so there was no choice, but I did save £13000 on the list price (33%) and so it was cheaper than the second hand lower model. I can live with white. :-)

Ahh, got you. I asked as I remember when I first looked at Dacia Dusters (Quite a while back, the older body style) the base option I think was only available in white, but it makes sense if it was final stocks of last years model, you get what they've got :) Very nice discount though.

stephen_usher wrote: 22 Jan 2025 09:19 The quoted range is 270 miles but I'm not banking upon more than 200. It's just the local run-around. If I need more range then I can use the SAAB.

Good for a run around as you say, but for me not enough range as a main car... I can get to our place in France with a 3rd of of a tank left in my Qashqai, that's about 6 hours driving total, 300+ miles. I don't think any electric car could do that without some sort of range anxiety.

Maybe they'll either improve or there will be some other technology like fuel cells or ammonia fuel engines.

stephen_usher wrote: 22 Jan 2025 09:19 I'm not sure how much of a problem the battery pack will be given the number of almost 20 year old Toyota Prius still running around on their original battery pack, but then again they are less reliant upon their batteries.

I've seen a few things about batteries, and to be clear I mean full electrics and not hybrids, and there have been some horror stories with new batteries costing more than cars. And I'm talking tens of thousands. Maybe it's different now?

stephen_usher wrote: 22 Jan 2025 09:19 So far my only problem has been working out the correct sequence to do things so the car actually charges! :-)

Lol, that doersn't surprise me :)

I've got a Mac LCII on the bench today, recapping, or at least removing the caps ready for the replacements to arrive tomorrow.

Just for fun I thought I'd see if the machine would run without any electrolytic caps installed.

The answer is: Yes, as long as you don't want sound!

All of the 47uF caps are bulk capacitance with the rest of them in the audio circuitry.

The caps for the LCII arrived at 7:45 this morning!

Anyway, they're all fitted and the machine has a voice again.

I went on to see if I could resurrect a Mac floppy drive which had been battery bombed. Although only finding one broken trace the drive just doesn't work. It sometimes spins the motor (without a floppy in there), sometimes at hard drive type speeds, but it doesn't attempt to seek etc. I think the battery juice has killed one of the main chips unfortunately.

stephen_usher wrote: 24 Jan 2025 15:31 The caps for the LCII arrived at 7:45 this morning!

Anyway, they're all fitted and the machine has a voice again.

I went on to see if I could resurrect a Mac floppy drive which had been battery bombed. Although only finding one broken trace the drive just doesn't work. It sometimes spins the motor (without a floppy in there), sometimes at hard drive type speeds, but it doesn't attempt to seek etc. I think the battery juice has killed one of the main chips unfortunately.

I had some LCs, long story short I was working for Research Machines as a field service engineer and arrived a school to work on a server. As the person, who I knew well from other visits, took me to the location of said server, we walked through a room with a pile of LC's, monitors, keyboards and mice in the middle of the floor.

The guy said 'These are being binned, do you want any..."

I walked out with an LC475 and 3 LC's, complete with keyboards, mice, phone cord style network adapters and one 14" display (I still have the KBDs and rodents). They were actually OK machines, but I ended up e-wasting them. I wish I still had the LC475.

Yeah, the LC and LCII were terribly hobbled. It was only the LCIII which went to 32 bit wide bus. The LC475 was the best of the bunch I believe and quite speedy.

I realised that when I used bodge wires on the Mac Portable to bring the /RESET signal to the SCSI and SWIM that I didn't check the connectivity to the video chip.

So today I dismantled the machine again.

I took the opportunity to fix a bodge I'd done when I recapped the machine in 2020 as I'd bought the wrong sized 10uF caps seeing as I now have the correct ones from the LCII recap.

To better get to the bodged caps and not melt one of the keyboard/trackball connectors I deesoldered that first, which needed both the Hakko and hot air but eventually yelded. Good thing I did as I found more cap juice residue underneath. Removing the and replacing the two caps was then a doddle, as was refitting the connector. Finally I tested the reset line on the video chip. I shouldn't have worried, it was fine.

Better to be./safe than /sorry then :D