StevieD71

I've found the major advantage to owning an EV in Northern Ireland (for the time being) is free charging at all of the ESB run e-car chargers in the country. Most of them are twin type 2 units, but there are some with DC fast charging too (although they only seem to be able to handle one fast charger running at a time). There is a charging unit in a car park about 5 minutes walk from my house. It's quite busy, but i've worked out by keeping an eye on the app that it's usually available round tea time, so i can drive down, plug in, dander back home, then walk down later and pick the car up when it's charged.

I have charged at home a few times and with a cheap overnight rate, even if I had to do that all the time, it would cost a lot less than putting petrol into the Ioniq hybrid.

Also, the Nissan e-pedal is one of the greatest inventions ever.

The wait is over. Eight months and one week after the order was placed, the Leaf is here and my EV adventure can begin.

Google Maps on Android Auto is what I use for navigation. It's more accurate than the Hyundai Sat Nav and has voice control too.

In EV news, after almost 8 months wait, my Leaf should be here witin the next week. I'm gettig rather excited now.

12 hours ago, Classsix T said:

Which one Steve? I'll boot them off and de-friend them for that. PM me if you'd prefer.

 

C6T.

Cheers for the offer, but it was ages ago, and other than the fact he was American, I cant remember the name. Probably just someone doing a bit of trolling and I bit back.

I might rejoin the group though, I enjoyed it.

10 hours ago, Classsix T said:

Btw Steve, idk if you're still popping in to the GTS Friends, but we sorta found out that switching language and disabling HDCP did resolve the sharing replay issue GT7 has, where any replay approaching 100Mb would just hang between 0-5% upload and then bail.

 

C6T.

I dipped out of the GTS Friends group after a bit of a bust up with someone who was posting abusive nonsense in comments, and reported me to the admin when I called him on it.

I can't be bothered dealing with crap like that.

15 minutes ago, Classsix T said:

Both games running ok for now. Deletion, cleaning the disc and reinstalling seems to do the trick, they are the two discs I'm regularly swapping. I'm rebuilding database and altering the language too but doing that on its own didn't resolve the issue.

If it starts to do the error on a digital game then I guess I'm looking at the console or SSD at fault?

 

C6T.

I would say so, but, fingers crossed that  isn't the case.

All my PS5 games are digital only. I have the disc drive version of the console, but only because most of my PS4 games were physical disc versions.

Do you have an internal memory expansion fitted? I went for the 1TB WD Black and haven't had any issues. My PS4 games are on an external WD drive and they all work fine too.

12 hours ago, Classsix T said:

The white tower of power not performing at optimum level right now frankly. I'm having game breaking issues so far with GT7 and GoT. Graphics glitches followed by crashes.

 

Google brought up this page:

https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmanager/ce-108255-1.html
 

... which seemed to fix issues with GT7 initially. But GoT has started playing up something chronic. Both games are physical disc versions so I guess all I'll get off tech support is that the disc is manky.

Hoping it isn't actually a hardware issue.

 

C6T.

Would a reboot and reinstall help possibly?

GT7 is running fine for me.

9 hours ago, Kelly said:

Sadly, component shortages are not limited by far to cars (try getting hold of something like a raspberry pi for instance) and shows no signs of ending, if anything it might yet get worse.

 

When the pandemic hit, the car makers, already on process nodes (measured in nm, the measure of how compact a process of making a chip is) that are obsolete for all else but military and nasa these days (28nm or above iirc, Intel for their CPUs are on 10nm and Apple for their iPhones on 5nm/3nm, AMD for their chips are on 7nm/6nm/5nm), found that they didn't need to make as many cars, so they cancelled their production slots.

 

They thought they'd just pick up where they left off. Those slots got sold off when the tech shortage hit. So now the car companies are scrambling to catch up, unable to source not only the chips, but capaciters and other electronic components (see the capaciter in the APT from Hornby as an example of this happening) and the chip fabs are effectively telling them a) they don't want to support those nodes anymore, so will be winding them down b) the prices are much higher and the number of slots available less due to demand. Que the car companies then having to effectively redesign a lot of their electronic equipment to account for this and put their prices up whilst not having enough chips and components to put into the cars at the levels they'd promised customers.

 

Of course, second hand cars sales have boomed as a result too.

My wife works for Kyrocera AVX, who are a major manufacturer of surface mount capacitors. When they returned to work post lockdown, they were told to be prepared for a major increase in their workload, but so far that has not happened. Probably as a result of car manufacturers holding off on bulk orders due to other supply chain issues.

Re the raspberry Pi, I was playing Warzone with my nephew last night and we were both in agreement that we were very lucky to get hold of our PS5's, as Sony are still inviting customers to go onto a waiting list for one.

I was fully prepared for some slippage in my car order, but December was a bit further than expected. It means I have to get the Ioniq serviced again and MOT'd. Thankfully the dealer told me that Motability would sort that through the Hyundai dealer.

Went round to the local Nissan dealer today for an update on my Leaf order.

The order was placed on the 5th of April, with a provisional delivery date of the 15th of August.

The new date I was given today.............2nd of December.

Not a happy bunny.

Ohme have sent a local installer round to fit the charger for my new car. It's a Home Pro which seems like a nifty piece of kit supplied by Motability through them. I was worried that the installation would be a bit messy due to our house having the fusebox in the middle of the kitchen well away from the meter box and being an older fuse based rather than a circuit breaker based unit, but, as you can see from the photo, it's neat and tidy job, all done externally. A feed was taken from the tails in the meter box to an external crcuit beaker and then in to the unit.

I just need the chaps at Nissan in Sunderland to pull their fingers out and build my Leaf now. So far my delivery date from the dealer is a pretty vague, "hopefully mid August".

On another note, I reset the mpg trip on my Ioniq hybrid before a recent trip to Oulton Park for the BTCC round and on the way from Coleraine to our hotel in Chester it registered  70.4mpg. By the time I got home the couple of trips to the circuit and back to the hotel, having it running at times during both days and a detour to Liverpool on the way back to the ferry at cairnryan had recuced it to 65mpg overall. Pretty impressive figures as it usually hovers round the 46mpg mark in normal use.

I was given a provisional delivery date for my Leaf today. It's the 15th of August, but might be before or after that. Salesman at the dealer says Nissan deliveries are all over the place and pointed out two freshly delivered Jukes in their yard that arrived this morning but weren't due until June. Fingers crossed my car will fall into the sooner category.

Regarding the discussion about Motability advance payments, I did pay £199 when I got my Ioniq, which I was happy enough with. I initially baulked at paying more than that for the Leaf, but was reminded that I will get a £600 good condition bonus when I change. The Leaf is £499, so effectively it was costing me nothing and my wife has decided that I can treat her with the leftover £100.

After almost nine months waiting for the Dept Of Communities (Northern Ireland version of DWP) and Capita to pull their collective fingers out of their arses, I finally got my new PIP award and was able to order a new car on Tuesday, which just happened to be six months to the day after my Ioniq was due to be handed back.

I had originally wanted a VW ID3, but they have been removed from Motability, so I've ordered a Nissan Leaf N-Connecta in black. Now the wait for delivery begins (fingers crossed there is a cancelled order in the dealer network somewhere).

I have to say though, Ohme have been on the ball with regards to the home charger. They were in contact yesterday, the online survey has been completed and my details have been passed onto a local installer.

Dea Matrona are playing near me next weekend. Sounds like an excuse to head out for a pint or two and some live music.

This week I have been mostly playing:-

Hell Let Loose. Very hardcore,  quite slow then frantic, then slow again if you manage to survive. Looks and sounds great on the PS5 and working with other squads to take an objective is incredibly satisfying.

Free too on PS+, which is always a bonus.

Battlefield 2042 beta (early access).

The daddy is back. Warzone will be getting kicked to the curb soon.

Wow, just.... Wow. Cannot wait to get my hands on the full game.

Motability have informed me that it's time to order my new car.

Two tests drives in the local Volkswagen dealers ID.3 have convinced me that it is the car for me. It's an absolute game changer.

The time has come to move on from the hybrid (Ioniq) to a full BEV.

I took my nephew with me today and he thought it was a fantastic car (he currently has a 3 month old BMW 330i).

The only fly in ointment is the PIP review forms which landed on the same day as the letter from Motability.

Fingers crossed that they are only a box ticking exercise and my order will be going in very shortly.

We are getting a bit of a double whammy with shortages here in Northern Ireland, between Covid related shortages and the whole Brexit debacle.

At work (Pets At Home) our raw feed freezers are empty because the supplier is in England and has to recertify all their items to come here, as we are technically bound by EU food standard rules. I had a few upset customers yesterday and all I could do was tell them to head to the local butcher or Google for a supplier who uses locally sourced meat.

It's frustrating that all this frozen food met EU regulations before the 31st December, and now, suddenly it doesn't.

Alpine taking on Davide Brivio is a fantastic move. He is a proven winner in both World Superbikes and Moto GP. Some will say that Marc Marquez being absent from Honda last season helped /handed Suzuki the title, but I think they would have been there or thereabouts regardless.

1 hour ago, BoD said:

Here’s a question for all you mind readers out there.

Possibly, but only if you promise not to laugh.

I've bought tickets for the BTCC round at Outlon Park in May. I'm hoping that it goes ahead and that, if there are ticket restrictions the fact that I bought mine early will mean I am guaranteed entry.

To make matters more confusing, it's not even called the NHS here in Northern Ireland. It's the HSC (Health and Social Care).

We have a tradition of a silly game played after dinner. Before the big day I usually take my mum out for a day's shopping and while out we buy a pile of knicknacks and daft things which are then wrapped and numbered and placed in a santa sack. The same numbers are placed on chocolate coins which are chosen at random from a basket. As each present is pulled from the sack and called, the person with the relevant coin claims it. This year I got a Hot wheels Ford Mustang and a pack of mini air fresheners.

With regards to tellys, I too fall into the fidelity over framerate category. I also think it isn't necessary to sell a kidney to buy one.

The one I have chosen for the PS5 is a 43" Hisense Roku smart 4K, which costs £279. If it's as good as the quite superb for the price Polaroid 50" 4K Led which I picked up in Asda for £269 during the week, then I will be a happy bunny.

The Polaroid has replaced a 9 year old Teknika 40" 1080p from Tesco which was a brilliant TV and was only changed because we had some money available from our cancelled holiday this year and decided to treat ourselves.

It's here...albeit a day later than expected. First impressions are very good. Major downloading session of GT Sport, Battlefield 1 and FIFA 21 underway.

Also, a 4k TV is coming on Tuesday to complete the new setup. The PS5 looks great on my 10 year old 1080p TV, so I'm looking forward to being blown away by it in 4K.

1 hour ago, Classsix T said:

Black Friday is nearly upon us Steve, coupled to which my local bricks and mortar tells me that they're gearing up for new lines so are keen to avail themselves of current stock at this time of year. I suspect that those shops might also be eager to increase sales once Lockdown2 ends too. All of which means now could be the best time to nab a great telly at a reasonable price.

 

C6T. 

I'm keeping my eyes peeled for deals coming up.