A Leslie Wong Blog

I have a peripheral interest in design and aesthetics. Who doesn’t like functional devices that look nice? My sister gave me a membership to the Museum of Modern Art when I first moved to New York in the 70’s. Later, when I worked at ABC, I had the benefit of their corporate membership for admission. I used to walk to MOMA on 54th Street just to wonder at the things in the Architecture and Design Collection on the third floor. The collection has a cast aluminum ice cream scoop that was designed... Read the rest of this entry »

When I installed relays and Cibie headlamps in my cars, I used 10 gauge wire. That’s probably larger than I need since I’m using only 60/55 watt H4 bulbs and 55 watt H1 bulbs, but it can’t hurt. I couldn’t find any good sockets locally that use 10 gauge wire. Most of the connectors were phenolic resin that used 16 gauge wire. I’d read about ceramic sockets for headlamps on the Internets but never looked for them in earnest. When I broke a soldered wired off of one my headlamp... Read the rest of this entry »

After I put in a 3 mode 1.4 A driver in my Malkoff Devices M61 drop-in, I wasn’t too happy with the yellow/green tint of the Cree XP-G LED. I found a cooler tint XP-G and applied some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound to the back of the LED board and used some Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive to hold the assembly in place. Before I reassembled the drop-in, I wiped some hazing off the reflector with some chrome polish and inadvertently removed some of the reflective finish. I needed a new reflector. I... Read the rest of this entry »

I re-coated the two-piece cast iron exhaust headers on my Alfa Romeo with Eastwood Silver High Temp Manifold Coating. When I first painted them two years ago, the surface preparation consisted of running a wire wheel on the rusty cast iron. The Eastwood coating lasted well, though small rust spots eventually appeared through the coating. Last week, I cleaned the headers with lacquer thinner and applied another coat. To keep the headers attached to the head, I used brass M8x1.0 hex nuts, new lock... Read the rest of this entry »

I saw him at Bradley’s many times. NY Times Obituary  Read More →

Someone stuck a Sony DSC-WX1 10.2 MP digital camera inside a Russian Zorki rangefinder (a Leica II copy) – a melding of a 1950′s classic film camera with a modern digital camera. The original site is in Japanese. (English Google translation) There are detailed build photos; the body was re-covered and even the rangefinder’s shutter release works the digital camera’s shutter. It is a beautiful hack. I wish I had the patience to do something like this. via Hack a Day  Read More →

I received my Malkoff Devices M61 drop-in last week. The drop-in uses a Cree XP-G LED and it’s designed to replace the lamp assembly in Surefire 6P style flashlights. Malkoff Devices says, “the output is approximately 260 measured out the front lumens.” It is a single mode drop-in. I bought the M61 with the intention of modding it with the Shiningbeam three-mode regulated circuit board (SKU 1218). The Cree XP-G datasheet (PDF) had recently noted an “increase of maximum forward... Read the rest of this entry »

The NSR 24 Hour World Endurance (Slot Car) Race was held in Soragna, Italy, April 17, 2010 on Ninco tracks. I used to like racing on a King track under USRA (United Slot Racers Association) wing car rules, but these slot cars are great looking scale cars. The drivers couldn’t be more dedicated to their sport to race for 24 hours.  Read More →

I was having trouble seeing the turn signal indicator in my 1979 Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce. Though I am relatively old if you’re young, I didn’t want to look that way driving down 101 with my turn signals on. When the original thermal turn signal flasher gave up, I replaced it with an electronic flasher. With the engine off I can hear it clicking very clearly – I can’t hear it while the engine is running unless the fuse box is open and I stick my head next to it – not... Read the rest of this entry »