Going Automotive - 80's Style

~Unique cars are a fascination~

Since I could drive, unique or antique things always caught my eye. I would research cars from movies, and usually see how much they were, their styling, what country they originated from etc. 

The 1972 Citroën DS 21 from the movie European Vacation, caught my eye first. One sweet function is using hydraulics to help change your car, and it could even drive on two wheels with using hydraulics.

The main reason I wrote this post, was to provide the steps I took to restore this 1983 Mercedes 240D diesel. I've grown to respect this car quickly. While my Volvo had experiences transmission issues for a month, this Mercedes was my primary vehicle. Apart from oil leaks, and the issues listed below it ran great.

Sources state these cars are completely dependable and require low maintenance with odometers reached from 300,000 to 600,000 miles, and some over 1 million kilometers. For mine, the tachometer read 116,000 miles. However, many have stated the instrument cluster isn't' original.. The last historical milage was taken in 2010, at 102,000 miles. So I'm thinking I'm in between 118,00 (current) to 230,000 miles.

Reported problems

The vehicle runs however, it needs attention on several different areas, indicated below: (Surveyed by German Auto in Grand Rapids on Oct 22nd of 2018)

1. Reverse Lights are not working (Neutral Safety Switch needs to be replaced on transmission, I have the part)
2. Engine has oil leaks
3. Power steering fluid is leaking bad
4. Some antifreeze is leaking
5. Right Rear wheel bearing has slight play
6. Rear sway bar links have play
7. Rear differential rear mount is cracked
8. left rear outer axle boot is torn and other are cracked
9. Rear brake hoses are cracked and fronts are starting
10. Rear tires cracked - Replaced Fall 2018
11. Front inner and outtie rods have play
12. Front lower control arm bushings are cracked
13. Front lower ball joint boots are torn
14. Engine is low on power (Missing throttle linkage)

What I've done:

I didn't work through this list entirely, I need to ensure the engine is worth saving.. So I've done the following:

• Replaced rear tires in Fall of 2018
• Performed Diesel Purge in November of 2018
• Replaced Valve Cover Gasket
• Oil Change, needs to be done again
• Rerouted Vacuum lines according to diagram
  
• Replaced Air filter and housing, drilled new holds in manifold for air cleaner housing
• Purchased new Oil Cap

Plans for Summer of 2019:

I've had this vehicle since October of 2018, and honestly I'm tired of prolonged repairs. I've set a goal for myself for Summer of 2019

• Replace 2 Engine Mounts and Transmission mounts, I have the parts
• Replace Oil pan gasket, and perform oil change
• Perform Valve Adjustment, once custom wrenches come in from Etsy
• Find proper throttle linkage 

As I progress, I'll update this blog with videos, pictures of the process or caveats I encounter. 

Thank you and talk to you all soon. 

Adventure with VYOS 1.1.8

I'm a die hard PFSense fan however, I so enjoy CLI when configuring devices. It comes from the Cisco background. I just sought out Vyos, an open source community edition of Vyatta, which was purchased by Brocade, and then later sold to AT&T Communications.

The OS has a Juniper feel to it, which I've never used personally, but it's enjoyable. Boot time is fantastic compared to my current PFSense whitebox, I actually have a Sophos UTM 110 coming soon just for VYOS. Thus far, I've done most generic setup: NAT, DHCP with specific options, VLANing, and Port forwarding to my ASA (VPN concentrator).. I however encountered a problem with booting from my primary hard drive, SDA. Grub would not load, unless GRUB was installed on a flash drive, hopefully that doesn't follow over to the Sophos.

As with Cisco IOS, restoring from configurations a breeze: upload through SCP, FTP or TFTP. You can compare commited configuration changes in real time, and revert. each time a configuration is changed, you need to commit the command, it has error correct before configuration is commited as well.

Next I'll be messing with Proxy through Squid.

New Tablet on the way

Just a quick update. I've purchased a Chuwi Hi10 Plus tablet from AliExpress to assist in PDF annotation and note taking for my Cisco studies. CCNA Security is next, and set for early next year. Look here for more updates. Click here for details on the Tablet, and I'l be sure to update you all when it arrives.

http://en.chuwi.com/product/items/Chuwi-Hi10-Plus.html

UPDATE:

Literally 3 months later, and from a different reseller the tablet finally showed up. It's slow, expected from an Atom processor. It works great at client sites while testing wired or wireless connectivity. Or to console into a Cisco device so i don't have to drag my larger laptop around.

CCNA Success and more!

In November of 2017, I've passed the CCNA by passing both Cisco ICND1 and ICND2 exam requirements. This goal has been long over due, and I thank all whom assisted in me obtaining the certification.

I've also started back onto the NodeMCU unit, I see that I've been lacking since January. I havn't done much, since selling our house the garage door project has been axed. I've since gotten other electronics and gadgets like relays and distance sensors. I'm wanting to control all lighting in the house through my NodeMCU or Arduino. More to come, as well as Cisco :)

Re-purpose Barracuda WebFilter 310 with PFSense

Hello all,

while waiting for the correct power distribution for my NodeMCU project. I obtained two Barracuda WebFilter 310s, one from the 2010 and another from the 2013 area. At first, I simply put Ubuntu 16.10 on it, however I want to reduce power consumption on my current OPNSense server I'm running, as well as remove a PowerEdge server which is simply running a Python script for a client.

Ultimately, here's the steps I took to get this setup working. The CPU heatsink fan is literally a turbine, and way too loud. I've temporally placed a Zalman Heatsink/Fan, The Ubuntu installation went fine since I only required 1 NIC. however this wasn't the case for PFSense.

The front two NIC are activated by several relays on a breakout board. Which are actually fed from the Parallel port on the motherboard, which kinda makes it easy for us to mess with.

• While the Barracuda WebFilter boots, the relay kick on the NICs for Network boot, or whatever the Barracuda propitiatory does
• Once PFSense starts booting (which needed to be installed by a CD) the relays tick off causing the front NICs to stop operating
• I found that if you disconnect power to the relay breakout board and reconnect the Ethernet works for about 5 seconds. Meaning something in the software's not fully activating the relay
• In researching, I'm finding that you're able to edit the parallel port through C

I'll let this link explain the specifics: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=85012.0. Partially down the page, you're given a list of instructions to find out if you're able to read the Parallel pin definitions. 

The CPU installed in my particular unit was an Intel Celeron G540 so 64 bit. While attempting to issue the commands listed in the threat post. I ran into an issue with missing libraries in my PFSense install:

Download the required files:

fetch -o /tmp https://sites.google.com/site/pfsensefirebox/home/readio

/tmp/readio                                   

fetch -o /tmp https://sites.google.com/site/pfsensefirebox/home/writeio

/tmp/writeio      

Change permissions to execute files:

cd /tmp

chmod 0755 readio

chmod 0755 writeio

Execute Read file to see if Parallel port is able to be read:

./readio 0x378 

Received this error:

ELF interpreter /libexec/ld-elf.so.1 not found

Aborted

I've corrected this by issuing the following commands:

fetch ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/10.1-RELEASE/lib32.txz

tar -xvpJf lib32.txz -C /

Then, after issuing this final command I was able to utilize the Front NICs

./writeio 0x378 0x08

UPDATE:
While placing the Barracuda into production, i found that the Parallel settings didn't keep after shutting down the firewall. I needed to perform the following:

• Move the readio and writeio to a static folder, in my case I did /frontnics/
• In PFSense go to Diagnostics ->  Edit File
• The file we're editing is: /conf/config.xml
• Place this just above the </system> string: <shellcmd>/frontnic/writeio 0x378 0x08</shellcmd>

Now when you reboot or shudown the firewall, the front ports will be active.

Thank you 

NodeMCU has Arrived!

It's Here!

I'm currently on the business trip and while at the hotel, I decided to experiment.

First, this unit communicates over a serial connection over 9600 baud rate. I used PuTTY on KDE Neon (Linux) and used the COM location /dev/ttyUSB0. From there, you're able to place commands such as the examples here.

Below is the top schematic view of the NodeMCU, credit goes to this website for the image and python code used.



Essentially, I created a short video displaying a python script, which was taken from the link above(with some modifications). Once I have the remaining project items, I'll be continuing the Garage Door Project. Till then, I'll keep on experiencing. Enjoy:

Electronic Components 101

The basics of electronic components/theory is where I'll begin this post. Several websites explain in great detail. However, I learn at a visual and 'example' level, if there's no scenario of the device or example in production i really do no grasp it. So, this may seem overboard however it's the way I learn.

We have two standards of Electronic Signal:

• AC (Alternating Current):
• Current is constantly reversing, Telsa's answer to Edison's Direct Current limitation. The Rate of Reversal is measured in Hertz
• DC (Direct Current):
• Flows in one direction between Power and ground. There's always a positive source of voltage and ground.

Electricity is typically defined as having a voltage and current rating(AMP). Electricity can also be defined in resistant and watts. Never exceed the Wattage rating of a component, you can Calculate the wattage, by V * I(AMP). For Example:

A Laptop Power supply which supplies 20Vs at 3.25Amps. Equals power delivery of 65Watts.

20 * 3.25 = 65

Circuits:

Closed Circuit - Allow the flow of electricity between power and ground

Open Circuit - Would break the flow of electricity between power and ground

Resistance:

Electricity in a circuit must be used. Also, electronic devices need some type of resistance in their circuity. If not, those electronic devices will short circuit, or burn. It's very important to know that Positive is never directly connected to ground. Also remember that a switch will not add resistance to a circuit. If you were to connect a switch between + and -, the circuit will short.

Series VS. Parallel:

Series - circuits are wired one after another, such that electricity has to pass through one component to the next.

Parallel - Wired side-by-side, such that electricity passes through all components at the same time.