Bluetooth printer

Some time ago I got my hands on a couple bluetooth-enabled thermal printers. These also had RS-232 input, and were relatively cheap so I was a bit excited; I've been looking for this kind of printers for some time for my purposes.

Very quickly my excitement died, though. Although printer could be connected with RS232 and bluetooth at same time, these interfaces couldn't be used when both were connected. So effectively, this printer is useless to me.

I contacted the manufacturer for help, and their response was essentially that this is by design and there is nothing they can do. If RS232 connector is connected, bluetooth printing is disabled to prevent situation where printing were requested from both sources at same time.

While I understand the reasoning - after all, I wouldn't like the situation either where I had data from both sources mixed on same paper - I was mostly dismayed because they essentially refused to acknowledge that this is actually an very easily solvable problem.

You only need two print buffers. Data received from RS232 goes to one, and data from bluetooth to another. When printer is idle, printing from one buffer is committed, and other stays there, gathering data, until first receipt is done, and then buffers are switched - possibly after short idle timeout. Simple, effective and exactly what I'd need - there printers after all are used only occasionally to print single receipt and then it sits idle for a period.

But no, whatever the reason is, they just couldn't or wouldn't do it. So guess I'll need to keep looking for better units.

PHEV Outlander: Winter update

Well, I've had the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV for more than half a year now, and so far I've driven about 16700km with it. The overall fuel usage has been around 5 litres gasoline per 100km, which is obviously way more than rated consumption, but still not too bad for 2-ton 4WD SUV.

The main factors for this high reading of course are the battery size and average length of my (daily) trips. For example we go to our summer cottage (about 100km one way) on average once a month, more often on summer, so it doesn't really help that about 150km of this 200km is driven with gasoline. And then there are longer journeys...

As long as driving is local and less than 35km per day, it can be done on battery alone. Great!

Well, except now. Winter here is cold - right now it is around -15 degrees C, and I expect that it will get much much colder yet on January (despite climate change). Our Christmas trip out (about 200km one way) took whopping 8,5l/100km! Not good, not good at all. And even with warmer weather (say, -5 C) battery is good for just 20km, at best, as computer tells me. Let's just say that I'm not exactly pleased with these figures right now.

Now, after that shocking fuel consumption figure I did some reading, and it turns out that the car's computer has serious aversion of letting the gasoline engine getting cold. So, just to keep it warm it is run much much more in cold weather that strictly necessary for driving.

Hmm.

It's common to add a "mask" at the front of cooler around here during winter, even with normal cars (and especially with diesels, as they run cooler than gasoline engines already), just to keep engine warmer in cold weather. Even with this mask in place my old diesel just barely reached nominal running temperature during winters (on sub -15 C weather), and when stopping (e.g. at lights) the engine started getting colder immediately, even when idling.

So added a mask to PHEV too, just pieces of 2mm thick rubber matting I had handy that I carved into shape with knife and attached with few cable ties, and was pleasantly surprised as our return trip (exact same 200km) took only 6,5l per 100km! Two liters per 100km savings. Weather was of course a bit warmer now (-15..-21 going there; -5 ..-15 coming back), but nevertheless, DIY mask absolutely appears to help.

Now, before you block entire air intake of your car, I should warn you that this has drawbacks too. If weather gets warm, your car might overheat without sufficient cooling air, so don't overdo it. I left maybe 15-20% of air intake uncovered, but your proverbial mileage may vary. I'd suggest starting with half and watching how it affects things. If the cooler fan ever starts, you've covered to much already.

This of course doesn't help with that lousy 20km-with-full-battery figure, but guess that can't be helped. But at least now the car doesn't use - waste - that much gasoline for nothing...