Kris's Powerkite Blog

So a while back i bought a Garmin GPS unit for my kite bugging hobby, i did however run into some issues, in order to map the data or do anything useful with the information stored in the unit you have to have a data lead.

These come in two options, a USB option or an old school serial lead, now i was quite happy to get either one of these until i found out the prices for both are a little bit crazy considering the lead is very basic.

so as normal i consulted the largest how-to on the internet, Google. After about two minutes of looking i found that whilst Garmin offer the leads, they also provide you with information on how to make a basic serial lead for free.

The connector on the  Garmin is something of there own creation, you can get them but most component shops do no supply them there normally provided via the PFrancs site

the way the system works is a little odd and goes on trust, basically you contact a person in your country who can provide plugs, normally requesting the amount of plugs and (this is where it gets odd, how much you want to Pledge for them). when you get the plugs you then send a payment, if your not happy you either send the plugs back or you can opt to make a lesser pledge amount for them with the reason why.

i cannot take credit for the wiring or any information as i found all the information to make one from google, here is a link to the site i got the wiring information from.

http://www.jens-seiler.de/etrex/datacable.html

this site gave me the wiring i needed to create my cable, i originally did what the sites owner did and cut up an old store card to make an interface cable, eventually and thanks to Pfranc’s site i located a pledge in the UK that offered the plugs to make a cable, £5 for a plug later i had a fully working serial lead for my garmin, unlike the pre-made cables that garmin offer for £15 – 30.

well after a few days of waiting, the postman knocked the door and i took delivery of my latest Kite related toy.  from the outsite it looked nothing more than a plain white box with some postal stickers on it, but i knew exactly what was hiding inside this little box.

hidden inside all the cardboard and bubble wrap i finally uncovered my latest ebay purchase, a shiny new (well new to me) Garmin Etrex GPS unit, this unit seems to be the choice of kite buggiers and was recomended to me. the person i bought it from was even nice enough to leave two new batteries in it for me.

This was the question on my mind and the minds of others when i returned from a run along the beach with my new Speedo equiped buggy. if i had known how much of a can of worms i was about to open i would have saved up and bought the GPS unit to begin with.

It appears as though Cycle Speedos are not the most accurate of devices at the best of times even when fitted to a bike, after a day at the beach and multiple runs up and down the beach my speedo was making the very bold claim that i had managed to attain the speed of 59.6Mph

To put this in perspective the current speed record for buggying is around the 80Mph mark, and this was achieved with equipment costing many thousands of pounds and with pilots who had years of experience buggy riding and kite flying, along i came with three months of experience, an inexpensive kite and a second hand buggy and had came within 20Mph of the current world speed record…

Oddly when i posted about this on a kite forum i was met with some curious looks and some questions on what i was using to power my buggy.

After a lot of discussions and thoughts about this speed i needed to get some bases covered to try and help prove this may well be correct, so between me and my brother in law we devised a plan to tow my buggy behind my car on an empty industrial estate and monitor the buggys speedo using acutal GPS units.

After two seperate runs @ 20Mph using two different Iphones both using different GPS applications it became fairly clear that the speedo on the buggy was acutally correct i had acutally managed to-do 59.6mph.

Desipte all our good efforts and tests to prove that the speedo was acurate on my buggy, it appears as though the only true way people will accept that i did this speed is to capture it using a GPS unit, so a quick stop back at my favorite auction website and i was now awaiting my GPS units arrival.

Well that is what i was hoping things would look like from my Buggy the following weekend when i arrived at the beach with a brand new 5m kite and a pile of scaffolding tube with wheels attached.

after the usual head scrating i had managed to turn my pile of metal tubing into the usual buggy shape, i was getting quicker at doing this it no longer looked like somene trying to re-plumb there boiler with a DIY kit, but i now looked like i knew what i was going with it.

Got the kite flying and as i expected,  the new kite produced a lot more traction than my previous kite, it pointed this out to me by trying to pull me across the beach and into the sea. Jumped in the buggy and off i went.

After about 10 minutes i also realised the new kite produced so much pull that my buggy was now able to travel sideways when the kite decided it should, this may sound very cool and perfect for a quick adrenaline rush, however when your not expecting it,  have no idea how it should be corrected, it tends to scare the life out of you.

88Mph (back to the future reference)

so i was now able to speed down the beach and have great fun doing it, the next bit that hit me was the question, so now im zipping down the beach, how fast am i actually going?

so after a good day spent going back and forth the beach, soaking up the sun and enjoying the thrill of being 2 inches off the ground and shifting at what felt like a million miles an hour i decided i should get a little more technical with my speed measurements and get the buggy kitted out with a speedo.

So like most things i do, i referred to my old friend Google, after some reading up on the matter and question asking, i came away with two options.

• Satalite Navigation
  This option seemed to be the preferred option by everyone, however it could also cost a lot for the GPS unit itself, so i decided this would  be my final solution when i had money to pay for a GPS unit.
• Bicycle Speedo
  I settled on this option as it was fairly cost effective (potentially under £15)  easy to get setup and seemed to be accurate as well.

So off to my local Bicycle shop i went with a buggy wheel and some cash, after a few discussions with the owner i left with a bike speedo that suited the size of wheel i was using and would fit on my buggy with little modification, an afternoon spent with a sharp knife and some wire ties it was fitted and ready for its first test run.

Ok after a little bit of field testing i have come to the conclusion that a 3m kite is not really upto the job of getting me from one end of the beach to the other as nothing more than a blur, so i decided it was time to go bigger.

my thought process was simple and effective.

the bigger the kite the quicker i go.

whilst this was pretty much spot on, i did run into some flaws that i needed to iron out before going any further, these were :

• Insurance
• Head Protection
• Bigger Kite

Proberbly the last thing on anyones mind when there just getting into a new hobby is the fact anything bad can happen, ive always been a tad pesimistic when trying something new, as it always looks shiny and new but you can gaurantee there is something lurking around the corner waiting to upset you.

This was the propect of injuries and other painful problems an extreme sport can inflict on a person, so i started shopping around, and shortly after i reliased i needed insurance i was insurered and a quick trip to my local Motorbike dealer secured me a nice helmet to protect my head.

later that evening and some more abuse of my bank account i managed to confirm an order for a larger kite, this was a step up from the 3 meter kite i already had it was 5 meters wide and going to be the equivilant of a Spitfires Merlin engine compared to my 3m kite.

Time to sit and wait for the couriers to turn up.

Sorry for the inconvenience to those looking for my original tutorial on flip keys for the vauxhall (opel) Vectra. i have recently changed web hosts and finally got around to re-doing my website.

I am planning on re-doing the original article when i have the time to-do it. until then here is a link to the original one, sorry about the color scheme.

http://yellowdawg.co.uk/flipkey/Untitled-1.html

Kris (at) yellowdawg (dot) co (dot) uk

Well i decided that i wanted more from my new hobby. as Luck would have it my brother in law had recently bought a mountain board (read giant skateboard) to go with his kite.

so we did what we have been doing for the last couple weeks packed up and headed for the beach, it was after about an hour i realized that i was not able to balance on moving objects. this was something i also found out when i was a lot younger and my grand parents had bought me a skate board.

so i made the decision that Kiteboarding was not the route for me, so it was kite surfing or buggying. well as it happens i am a really poor swimmer so i settled on buggying.

One quick Ebay auction later and i was ready to go.. hmm doesn’t look very safe does it.

The weekend couldn’t have come quick enough, but it did eventually turn up so i headed back to the beach for some fun in my new buggy. after a bit of head scratching and contemplation i managed to get a mass of metal tubing connected together and i was away.

After trying a lot of different things it finally hit me that my newly acquired three meter Kite was not up-to the job of pulling me along the beach..

in fact i’m pretty sure a category 5 hurricane would have struggled to move me and the buggy down the beach using my current kite. i was a little bit gutted by this thought as i was a little bit attached to my little kite, it was the first one i owned and what i had been using till now.

Time to get back on the internet for some research..

I returned home and decided i wanted to get into Power Kites, so i started reading up on them and having a look around.I made the decision that i should go get somthing cheap to begin with so that if it turned out it wasnt for me i hadnt made too much of a dent in my wallet and could hopefully sell it on for little or no loss.

I found myself telling Ebay to notify me when nearly every kite for sale in the UK came close to ending, after a bit of a bidding war and two near misses it happened.

Ebay : Congratulation you have won.

i was now the proud owner of a 3m Powerkite, all i had to-do now was wait for it to arrive….

The two days it took for this kite to go from the previous owner to me seemed to drag on forever.

Eventually i came home from work to find a package with my name on it. so i sat down unpacked it and found an uncontrollable grin working its way across my face at the thought of my new Kite.

Not long after this i phoned a friend and made arrangements to get out into the local fields to have ago with my new purchase. after unpacking and getting everything setup, i was slightly disappointed to find my new Kite refused to fly and when it did fly it was near enough uncontrollable.

After some tinkering with lines / knots and other kite related bits i was in business, after that my time was spent  getting to grips with the basics of Power Kite flying, control and also trying to ensure i did’nt end up being dragged of my feet.