Tonight I ordered the Systainer SYS 3 T-Loc (P/N 497565) to complete the first Systainer stack for automotive detailing. A crude diagram of this stack:
CPU gauge and plot added to dwmqlaunch
| Having grown tired of the amount of CPU used by gkrellm and how difficult it is to create styles for it (as bad as xmms), I decided to start adding some optional widgets to dwmqlaunch to show the things I was using gkrellm to display. I started with CPU utilization. I used my old gauge code to create a small CPU utilization gauge, and created a new widget to display a CPU utilization plot. They’re at the bottom of the dwmqlaunch screenshot shown to the right of this text. In the plot, the blue bars are live unfiltered data and the orange line is the median of the 10 most recent samples. |
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Pictures of Festool Systainer T-Loc 4 and 5 on mobile bases
As promised, here are some pictures of my new Festool Systainer T-Loc containers on rolling bases.
The shorter stack is my day-to-day detailing stack. The Systainer 5 on the bottom holds sprays, the Systainer 5 on the top holds microfiber towels.
The taller stack is my oil change stack. One Systainer 4 holds 10W60 for the BMW. Another Systainer 4 holds 0W40 and 5W30 for the MINI. Both Systainer 4 containers have a bottle or two of Techron fuel injector cleaner. The one with the 10W60 also has Blackstone Labs oil sample kits. The top Systainer 5 holds new air and oil filters and my oil sampling pump.
Thumbs down for GritGuard bucket dollies
Not long ago, I posted about buying a GritGuard dual bucket wash system.
I like the buckets and the gamma seal lids. But the dolly system is sub-par. The caster wheels are too small to roll over cracks, the casters don’t seat very snugly, the connecting plate setup is very flimsy because it uses the casters to hold it, and there’s no place to store mitts, brushes or sponges.
Given the price, you’re MUCH better off buying buckets from bayteccontainers.com and Pail Pal dollies. The Pail Pail bucket dollies have 3″ casters, cubbies to hold wash mitts/brushes/sponges, and are stronger than the GritGuard dollies. My next dollies will be the Pail Pal dollies.
I will probably remove the casters from the Grit Guard dollies and bolt them to my own rolling platform.
Festool Systainer T-Loc storage review
I now have five Festool Systainer T-Loc containers, and plans to buy more.
A friend said, “It’s like a tool cabinet you can take apart and reconfigure!”. Personally, I beg to differ. To me, a tool cabinet has drawers for very easy in/out of a lot of tools. You can’t do that with Systainers; they’re boxes with hinged lids. You MUST take them apart to use them if they’ve got heavy items in them. Yes, you can spin the T-Loc to the position that allows hinging the lid open with other Systainers stacked on top, but if you’ve got 100 pounds of tools in Systainers above the one you want to open, good luck.
This is not to say I don’t love Systainers; I do. My point is that they’re best used differently than the manner in which a mechanic uses a tool cabinet. In fact a professional mechanic would find little use for a Systainer day-to-day, other than using them to store tools whose cases have been lost but which are best kept in cases (OBD tools, calipers, dial gauges, DMM, handheld oscilloscope, etc.).
Where Systainers excel… portability and efficiency of storage (if you choose sizes wisely). They’re great for replacing a variety of mistmatched and hard-to-manage blowmolded tool cases such as those that are included with the typical circular saws, drills, impact drivers, etc. from your local big-box store. There are some tools which will not fit into a Systainer, but when you can get 5 tools into Systainers that latch together, it’s a big win in my book.
When I buy Systainers, I try to buy the minimum size I need. It can easily be argued that for the price, it’s smarter to buy the larger units. However, doing so ignores the cost of wasted storage space. If I’m using a Systainer 5 to hold what would fit in a Systainer 1, I’m wasting a lot of storage space and presumably now have contents bouncing around inside the Systainer.
There are exceptions, of course. For me, the main exception is storage of consumables. It is often cheaper to buy consumables in bulk, and for some consumables, “too many” is a big number, more than what you’ll fit in a Systainer. My latest example would be using a Systainer 5 to hold my day-to-day microfiber detailing towels. Could I have used a Systainer 4? Yes, but there’s almost no such thing as “too many quality microfiber towels” if you like to keep your cars spiffy.
My latest Systainers comprise two stacks on mobile bases.
The first is comprised of a pair of Systainer 5 T-Locs on a mobile base for day-to-day detailing supplies. The lower Systainer 5 T-Loc holds all of my day-to-day chemicals (and then some), most of which are in 32 ounce spray bottles. The top container holds 4 stacks of microfiber towels: one stack for spray-on car wash, once stack for detailing spray, one stack for glass cleaning, and one stack for spritz sealant buffing. Since I only have towels in the upper container, I can easily move the T-Loc to the upward position and hinge the lower chemical container open without removing the upper towel container. Combined with my Luxor STC211 cart, this is great for day-to-day car cleaning.
The second mobile stack is for oil and filter changes on my cars. One Systainer 4 T-Loc holds 10W60 for the BMW, another Systainer 4 T-Loc holds 0W40 and 5W30 for the MINI, and a Systainer 5 holds oil and air filters for both cars. It’s probably worth noting that I probably wouldn’t have this stack if the 10W60 for the BMW was available at my local auto parts store. Unfortunately, the Castrol TWS 10W60 that it wants is only available at the BMW dealer, so I tend to keep at least one change (5.5 liters) on hand, plus some. I can fit 12 bottles of it in the Systainer 4 T-Loc, with a bottle or two of Techron fuel injector cleaner thrown in. The same is true of the Systainer 4 T-Loc for the MINI, the only difference is that it’s holding Mobil 1 instead of Castrol TWS, which is available locally. But even with local availability, it still turns out to be cheaper to buy oil by the case, and I change the oil in the MINI much more than the BMW since the MINI is my daily commuter (fuel efficient).
I really like the Systainer containers for these kinds of uses. They’re strong, they’re easy to label, and with the mobile base, they’re easy to move around many at a time even if they’ve got somewhat heavy contents. And of course I can separate them to load them into a vehicle or place them on shelves. For uses like storage of motor oil and filters which are used once every few months at most, I don’t really need a mobile base all of the time. I can keep the Systainers on shelves and a spare mobile base that can be used as needed.
Systainers are expensive. However, I have found them worth the price in several situations. I have plans for another stack for detailing tools and supplies, as well as some other items. I’ve had some of the original Systainers (before T-Loc) for many years, as well as some Sortainers. They all get a thumbs up from me. I’ll post some pictures of the new ones in the not-too-distant future.
Added calendar and xmms control to dwmqlaunch
| I decided to add the ability to embed a small time/date button and my xmms control widget in dwmqlaunch. It reduces the amount of memory I’m using, since I now have all of these widgets in a single application. | 
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xmms controller for desktop: dwmqmmsctl
I’ve been using a pair of 24″ monitors for what seems like eternity. Each is running at 1920×1200 resolution. I’ve also been using xmms for a long time, mostly for listening to live National Public Radio streams, software-related podcasts, industry podcasts, etc.
A problem I’ve had with xmms in my setup… the default size is too small, and at double size the skins tend to look terrible. It’s also way too much work to make my own skin that matches my desktop.
The good news is that xmms has a remote control facility that’s nearly full-featured and accessible using an API. On FreeBSD this API is part of the xmms port (/usr/ports/multimedia/xmms). The API function prototypes wind up in /usr/local/include/xmms/xmmsctrl.h on FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE. You can find example usage in the port for the command-line tool xmmsctrl, which is in /usr/ports/audio/xmmsctrl.
Hence I wrote my own simple xmms control application that is cosmetically similar to my dwmqlaunch program. The background of the main window is transparent.
Here’s a picture of it with dwmqlaunch below it.
Building my own detailing storage cart
I need to build a custom-sized cart to hold my detailing supplies. I’ve tried to find a plastic utility cart of the right size, but every one I’ve found compromises space utilization for the Sterilite Stacker 4-gallon and 7-gallon bins I used to store towels, fluids, brushes, etc.
I need 3 shelves, each with a shelf clearance of about 14″. I want a width of at least 40″. I need a lip on each shelf to retain the bins when rolling the cart around, which means my shelf-to-shelf dimension needs to be about 15″. I’d like to use casters I already have on hand if possible.
A 48″x24″ cart probably makes the most sense material-wise. I need 4 sheets of plywood, which works out to about $75 if I buy 3/4″ thick birch pre-cut from Lowe’s.
The total cost, as usual, really boils down to finish. This cart might get wet, so sealing it isn’t really optional. That means I need spar urethane or a penetrating varnish. I’ll put rubber tiles on the top since I expect to be setting wet items on top.
5-gallon buckets with gamma seal lids
I need a few more 5-gallon buckets for automotive detailing and around-the-house tasks. I’ve always been a fan of the gamma seal bucket lids, because it lets me use the buckets for dust-free storage. They also prevent critter occupancy.
In general, the detailing stores online want too much money or add non-optional accessories I don’t need (such as Grit Guards). To be clear, I have nothing against Grit Guards, in fact I like them and have 4 of them. But I don’t need more of them for the additional buckets and see no sense in paying for things I don’t need.
ULINE of course has buckets in several colors and gamma seal lids in a few colors. But their minimum bucket order per color is five buckets and I don’t need five more buckets of the same color; I need two or three. At the moment I want some blue ones to hold rinse water, and I’d like some orange or yellow ones for soaking dirty microfiber towels and foam pads.
This year I’m going to try recycling some of my dehumidifier water, which I’ll only use for washing the cars. It’s fairly easy for me to collect a few gallons of water a day from it, but right now I have nowhere to store it.
Hmm… I might wind up with six new buckets; three blue buckets and three yellow buckets, with the corresponding blue gamma seal lids and yellow gamma seal lids. The cost comes to $62.88 plus $26.94 shipping for a total of $89.82.
For some, the immediate response would be “Ouch!”. However, if you’ve ever had a quality bucket with a gamma seal lid, you know they’re very handy and not throw-em-away-when-done. If FDA approved, they’re great for dry pet food or grain, for example. Or sidewalk salt (if you’re in a snow zone), potting soil, fertilizer, noxious rags, etc. A polyethylene bucket is fairly resistant to chemicals, which also makes it handy for re-use of chemicals, whether it’s rust remover, iron phosphate bath, parts cleaner or just microfiber towel cleaner and water.
March 31, 2012
I ordered three yellow buckets, three yellow gamma seal lids, three blue buckets and three blue gamma seal lids from BayTec Containers.
April 9, 2012
The buckets finally arrived from BayTec Containers. I mixed the colors on the buckets that I put GritGuards inside: the blue bucket with a yellow gamma seal rim and the yellow bucket with a blue gamma seal rim have GritGuards in them. The other two yellow buckets have full yellow gamma seal lids and the other two blue buckets have full blue gamma seal lids.
It’s worth noting that Autogeek wants $35 plus shipping for a single bucket with gamma seal lid and GritGuard. I paid less than $15 per bucket with gamma seal lid, and already had the GritGuards which were $9 each. I saved more than $11 per bucket (plus shipping costs) versus buying directly from Autogeek. The gamma seal lids are exactly the same, made by the same company here in the U.S.A.
Luxor STC211 utility cart
Yesterday I received a Luxor STC211 cart from Wayfair. It was $100.99 with free shipping.
It’s a good cart for detailing. It’s all plastic except the casters, so it should be essentially impervious to water and obviously will not rust. The top is not truly flat; there’s a slight ridge around the edge, maybe 1/8″ tall. I consider this a good thing for a detailing cart. I wanted a near-flat (not tub) top to make it easier to lay some items on the top and not have a top that could hold much water. The ridge has little effect on either of those functions.
I wanted a tub shelf for the middle shelf because it makes it easy to hang spray bottles on the tub edge while working. This helps prevent dirt from clinging to the bottom of detailing product bottles. I also wanted a tub shelf here to retain bottles when rolling the cart around. For the same reason, I wanted a tub bottom shelf.
It went together in about 5 minutes, the only tool needed was a rubber mallet.
I previously said I could probably use another one, and I’ve every reason to believe it’s worth buying a second one. I’ve put it on my wish list. This one will quickly be loaded with the intended day-to-day detailing products: spray-on car wash, wheel cleaners, detailing sprays, spritz sealant, microfiber towels, etc.