Golf MK4 Pollen Filter Cover Design Fault - 1J1 819 537 C B41

This part was all broken in my vehicle due to years of bending when inserting and removing. I thought maybe it was inserted/removed wrong way and that was the reason. However after trying how to insert it literally 20+ different ways I have given up.

It appears VW made a mistake in the design of this item. It is simply impossible to fit into the car without bending some plastic parts which become fragile over the years.

Problem:

In the pictures below, you can see that the bottom of the filter is touching to the frame and the extension on the left won't go under the plastic part which guides the wire.

As you can see below, the part of the filter does not go under the plastic piece on the body. You need to bend the filter cover considerably to be able to fit it in.

This a doublefold problem. First the plastic gets broken due to bending and the body paint is scratched where the lower part touches because you need to slide the pollen filter with force.

How To Fix:

There are 2 ways to solve this, you can cut the plastic piece which gets stuck there or you can lower it by cutting the parts slightly to lower the filter cover. I opted to lower the plastic by cutting from under.

Below is a picture from the side of the pollen filter. I draw an outline of the part which is removed. (may not be exact)

Below is the cut from the front. It almost looks like VW tried to make the same cut but on the wrong place and it became useless. You can see this just right of where I removed the bottom of the plastic. There is a ready groove which is almost the same as the one I needed.

I started removing parts slowly from the side of the filter cover first. Then I removed from the front of it a little bit and went on. After taking of a piece, I put the filter back in position and checked which part is the most tight part and took a piece from there.

I used a normal household scissors for this purpose. Therefore it became quite jagged. So, when I was ready, I took the die/rotary grinder and sanded it smooth. Then went once more by hand to make it really smooth.

After making these changes, the filter cover is now able to enter to housing perfectly without any problems. It should now be able to last forever since no need to bend it ever anymore.

Installation:

After the fix, installation is a breeze...

As you can see, the flap goes readily under the plastic part without any bending.

and you also do not have to bend the filter upwards to get it past the body.

VW MK4 Pollen Filter - 1J0 819 644A

I decided to keep a log of the filters I try and their weights to determine which one is perhaps best value.

WIX Filters - WP 6895 Version With Active Carbon

I had 2 of these. They weighted 122g and 126g. Built in Poland. It looks like active carbon was sandwiched between layers.With a cost of ~9euro, they are pretty cheap.

It fits tightly to my VW Golf MK4 filter box. My only complaint is that the filter has uneven thickness. At some points, you can see the light going through like transparent. This tells me that larger particles can fly through these parts. If you are buying this filter, you should check it by looking through it to see that it has no manufacturing faults.

The box has a list of OEM part numbers which it is compatible with.:

MANN: CUK 2862, FP 2862
KNECHT: LAK63
PURFLUX: AHC178
FRAM: CFA8869
FILTRON: K 1047A

I made a small test with the old filter. I washed it under sink and it seem to keep its shape and do not get destroyed. Perhaps we can call it washable :)

Below are some photos of the item:

 

Chinese Noname Filter 1 (2018)

For a cost of ~6euro it is possible to obtain a filter from AliExpress. I am guessing that they can be made in different factories. So your experience may vary. The filter I received weighted 132g and it had much better construction than the WIX filter. When I looked through it, there was no light going through and it had a uniform thickness.

While it is impossible to tell the effectiveness of the carbon filter part. As it was so tightly woven that the light did not go through, the filter itself probably functions at least better than the WIX filter.

The filter construction seem to have a thick black piece in the middle and thin white microfilter on both sides.

Chinese "Noname" Filter 2 (2019) - OEMMASSIVE

For a cost of ~8euro (well it was cheapest I could find in 2019) it is possible to obtain a filter from AliExpress which is brand OEMASSIVE. It is similar to previous chinese filter in constructions. The difference is that it weights a whopping 257g. More active carbon? Yes please! The manufacturer says "double layer active carbon". It seem to be true!

I am not putting many pictures as it came in a white box and the construction is similar to the previous chinese filter. The difference was that it had a thick microfilter in middle and on both sides of it was harder fiber filters with active carbon attached. This one seems to be much better than the first chinese filter. Unfortunately the box was smashed during delivery. They should have used a better box! I really hope it will stay in form once installed.

However there was some text on side of this filter and here it is.

I do not understand why this filter is difficult to find on AliExpress. Actually it does not appear if I search for "1J0819644A". Only appears when I search for "OEMassive 1J0819644A". More importantly, the sellers does not seem to advertise the weight of it. This filter clearly is very good for the price.

VW Golf MK4 Wiper Base/Mechanism Replacement

I had one of the wiper shafts shear off when tightening a wiper arm. (I used torque wrench to tighten to correct torque value but still..)

I had to go to a local parts shop to get a replacement 3rd party part quickly. Otherwise, it would be impossible to drive the vehicle if it rained. Since it was the drivers side arm's shaft.

In the end, I had to do the same procedure again to install original VW part because the 3rd party part was not a good fit after all. More about that later.

You may want to do this in a warm environment. At least 15+C temperature to not break the plastic parts.

Required Parts

Dow Corning / Molykote 111 Silicone compound for lubricating rubber/plastic parts.

WARNING: These are parts for LHD vehicles and some part numbers are different for RHD vehicles

1x 1J1 955 603 B - Wiper base for LHD vehicles
1x 701955754 - 14X9,5 grommet (attaches to wiper base)
1x 701955756 - Bush (attaches to wiper base)
1x 535 955 121 A - Crank arm (attaches to wiper motor)
2x 1J0 955 325 A - Operating linkage for LHD vehicles (attaches to wiper base and motor crank).
3x N 0143441 - M6X18 hex bolt with shoulder, self-locking (attaches wiper base to body)

If you want to change wiper motor bolts also:

3x N 90305302 - M6X10 hex collared bolt (attaches wiper base to motor). Apparently this item was superseded by N 90305304 but I had some problems with it. More about that later.

Required Tools

Wiper/bearing puller
10mm wrench
13mm wrench
Torx/Philips screwdriver (for pollen filter screws)
Patience

If you are replacing with original VW part, you need to buy wiper base and linkages separately. I recommend getting a wiper crank arm also.

In addition, probably a vacuum cleaner to clean up the space where the wiper mechanism sits. Mine was filled with leaves and soil! Now I know from where all the mud and leaves in my wheel arc was coming from! Yes a perfect compost!  Note to self: Install a net to the water deflector air holes to reduce leaf intake!

1- Remove Wiper Arms

First you need to remove wiper arms. I used a knife to pop up the protective plastic covers on top of the nuts. The nuts are 13mm.

Apparently VW suggests yanking the arms off by moving them left/right/up/down while pulling. You should not remove them this way!

I have loosened the nuts but did not remove them, then set a wiper arm puller in place to pull wipers out. It was not easy even with the wiper arm puller. The area is small so you will need a small enough arm puller. I used 2 different parts for this task.

The one on the left fits fine to remove wiper arms. However I used the one on the right to manipulate wiper base linkages. Some sites say you can use screwdriver etc. but it is a cumbersome process with screwdriver and you may damage connecting pieces with screwdriver.

2- Remove Pollen Filter Cover (1J1 819 537 C for LHD)

Remove the 4 screws which hold the pollen filter cover and remove the cover. This is very useful when removing the trim part which the pollen filter cover was connected to.

3- Remove The Water Deflector (1J1 819 415 B for LHD)

Unfortunately I did not take picture of this. However it is easy. I used a plastic trim removal tool to remove it. You will start removing it from the pollen filter side. I have put the trim removal tool between the deflector and windshield and also pushed it up using my hand from the hole of the pollen filter.

If you are applying pressures at the right place, you will feel that it pops out quite easily. So, try a few different locations. I found out the best place was near the corner of the windshield. Do not force it, you may break it if you force removal. Just take your time!

After removing it, clean both the windshield groove and also the water deflector extension which enters to the groove. Otherwise it won't fit well when you install it back. I used paper towels and just slided them several times to push all the dirt out. As you can see in the picture below.

4- Remove Wiper Base Mechanism

Once the water deflector is away, it is easy to see the wiper mechanism. I took the picture below after installing the new wiper, that is why it is so shiny.

The red arrows point to the 10mm bolts holding the mechanism and the green arrow points to the wiper motor connector.

You will first need to remove the 10mm bolts. Then wiggle the passenger side arm out and then use a flat head screwdriver to carefully remove the wiper motor electric connector before completely removing the base. It is tight, so you need to carefully wiggle it around. Make sure to not make big scratches on your paintwork.

5- Clean The Surrounding Area

I realized the surroundings were filled with soil (surely converted from leaves!) and leaves. You can see below the broken shaft also. This photo was taken when I removed the water deflector first time.

After cleaning what I could by hand, I had to resort to using a vacuum cleaner. The soil was wet so I would not recommend a normal household vacuum unless you change the bag right away after vacuuming.

Vacuuming clean the area pretty good. But I went one step further and washed the area and pushed remaining mud to the draining holes on the sides. While on it, I also removed the mud flaps and empty the collected mud from the wheel arc. Make no mistake, it gets filled with mud and cause rust if not cleaned regularly!

6a- Install Replacement Wiper Base/Mechanism

OK, you think the installation is reverse of removal so why do we need this section? You are correct that installation is pretty much reverse of removal. However I had some experience with a 3rd party part and I would like to relay it as a warning.

Because I was in hurry to fit something there before getting caught on rain. I went to local parts shop and bought a replacement.

Yes, the part is a topran 110 694 which says clearly that it replaces 1J1 955 603B (yes this is exact same part number that we needed). The good thing was that this part came with all the rubber bushings etc. But I think topran made a mistake because this item seem to replace 1U1 955 023 E which has drivers side linkage with part number 1U1 955 215 B and ength 66.5mm. But this is incorrect for Golf MK4. It seems to be for some Skoda models... hmm?

Aftermarket Part Problems

 

a) First of all, I could not properly adjust the driver's side arm to go until the correct position. It kept stopping ~6cm before the original went. I could not lift the resting position 6cm up because then the wiper was too high when resting. First I thought that I made a mistake but it seemed unlikely because wipers were resting exactly where they used to be originally.

I have then compared the linkage arms with the original part to see why this was happening. The arms on the base frame are different length for driver's side and passenger side. you can see this when you operate the wipers. The driver's side goes about 90degrees and passenger side goes ~110 (because it ends in front of the driver as you can see when it is working)

When I checked the original VW wiper part. I realized VW was smart enough to write the linkage lengths.

The passenger side 1J1 955 216 A and 62.3mm. Driver's side 1J1 955 215 A and 64.8mm. Wiper arm travels less when linkage is longer. So if you ever open your wiper frame and oil it, you need to make sure to put them to correct sides.

Now, the 3rd party part got the correct passenger side measurement but the driver's side showed 66.5mm.

So, if you think that driver's side does about 90degree turn with 64.8mm and 110degree turn with 62.3mm It means you get 20degree diffeence using 2.5mm meaning each mm is about 8degree for our purposes. So going from 64.8 to 66.5 is 1.7mm difference. It should reduce range about 13.6 degrees. This is unacceptable that I had ~6cm less wiped from the drivers side.

b) The material was too soft. Somehow the VW material is much harder. Even though I used torque wrench to tighten the motor bolts. I realized one bolt was just compressing the metal holder!

The issue is perhaps also because the 3rd party manufacturer wanted to make a somewhat square slot for this specific bolt. I guess they wanted to leave a higher error tolerance because you can adjust the motor using this space a little bit.

c) The original gromments between wiper base and car body are tough EPDM rubber pieces. With 3rd part wiper the gromments were very soft like jello and I could compress them to few mm using my fingers! I imagine it won't give much stability to the wipers and probably useless when they are so soft.

d) The original metal bushes which go inside grommets are shorter. The shorter length bush and harder grommet make the original VW part more stable and less wobbly. In the picture below, the original part is on the left. Topran part is on the right.

Although the topran grommet is also slightly taller, it is much softer so it does not achieve same characteristics as the VW grommet.

6b- Install Geniune VW Replacement Wiper Base/Mechanism

The genuine VW wiper base mechanism (1J1 955 603 B) comes with only 2 gromments and no bushes. So you will need to order 1 more grommet (701955754) and 3 bushes (701955756). While doing that, I also ordered 3 new bolts with collar (N 0143441) to attach wipers to body. The original bolts had washers and new version apparently has a collar. I ordered a crank arm (535 955 121 A) just to make sure that I have everything in case if I need and assumed the crank arm ball could be worn slightly over the years.

I also ordered 3 bolts to replace motor mount bolts N 90305302. This was apparently superseded and replaced with N 90305304 which is a hex collared bolt. However I hit a wall there because apparently VW also changed the design slightly. The crank arm was slightly lower and the bolts with collars were slightly taller and in combination it would not fit properly.

As you can see, original arm (on the left) has a larger gap for screws and also the ball joints are higher.  The arm itself is also thinner.

Here I press the end base flat on the table so you can see how they sit in their final position. The original arm (on the left) sits slightly higher.

Here you can see that the combination of new arm and new screw does not work well. Here it actually fits barely but scratches the screw and arm.

I had two choices, use old arm or old bolts. I liked the crank arm being little lower, because the ball joints were connected in a slightly awkward angle in the original arm and this makes it better. So I decided to use the older motor mount bolt/washer combination which gave a good clearance to the arm. This combination is not as high as the collared bolt.

Assembling Linkages to Crank Arm

Used a generous amount of molykote 111 silicone compound on rubber bushings. I installed the linkages to the arm first. Because once the arm is on the motor, it is difficult to fit the bearing puller to pull the linkages in. I have carefully pulled in both of the arms to the ball joints of the crank arm.

Assembling The Crank Arm

Important: Before removing the original crank arm, you must mark the position exactly. or you will have troubles setting it up later. I did it double to be sure 100%. First I have rotated the arm to a position which could be replicated easily with new arm. Second, I have painted an arrow parallel to the crank arm on the drive shaft.

You will need the bearing puller to remove the arm without rotating the shaft. I was very careful to not to change the position I set. After that, it is a matter of putting the new crank arm on the shaft and carefully tightening the nut to 20Nm.

Assembling The Motor To Wiper Base

Since the linkages are already attached, you need to move them first through the hole on the wiper frame and then tighten bolts of the motor. Luckily the hole is more than large enough to easily fit everything. The tightening torque is 8Nm

Assembling The Rest

Now you can inser the other sides of the linkages. Again, I used the molykote 111 silicone compound  on rubber/plastic parts and also used the ball joint tool again for inserting them.

The driver's side linkage goes below the passenger side linkage (at least on LHD vehicle that I have)

As can be seen in the picture above. The driver's side goes over the drive shaft backwards in resting position. This is important, because it gives a more straight connection to drivers side linkage which should provide better connection. As the driver's side wiper is larger, this would improve the linkage life.

Also, after installing the motor/frame in position run wipers once from inside the car and let it come to rest position. Make sure that all the arms are lined up as seen on the picture above. Otherwise it would mean that you made a mistake somewhere.

Now you can go backwards and do reverse of the removal for the wiper frame/base. I cleaned the wiper motor connectors with contact cleaner and then used contact grease on them before installation just to make sure that it lasts forever.

The tightening torque for wiper frame/base to car body is only 5Nm!

Assembling Wiper Arms

If you forgot to install the water deflector. Do it now! The wiper arms should be installed with 25mm +/-10mm from the water deflector. The distance is measured from the wiper ends as seen in the picture below with mark A

The wiper arms should be torque tightened to 20Nm.

I have first tightened the arms just enough to adjust the position and made sure that they are at correct position before tightening to torque. Because once it is totally tightened, it is difficult to remove and re-adjust.

LiitoKala INR18650-25R M 18650 Cells

I have recently bought 6x LiitoKala INR18650-25R M cells and tested them using EBD-M05 tester. These cells are great for replacing old cells fron appliances.Below are the results of all 6 cells. They seem to be reasonably homogenius.

It is interesting to note that I had a LiitoKala LG HG2 cell and even though it is rated for higher current, it had larger voltage sag. Below is the data of HG2 overlayed with green line. It seems like the LiitoKala INR18650-25R. performs slightly better than LiitoKala LG HG2 variant.

Unfortunately I do not have precise equipment to measure the internal resistances. But for most purposes the voltage curve should be sufficient. The batteries got slightly warm at 5A discharge test and no battery got too hot to touch.

Fix Ergorapido Turns Itself Off

Does your cordless vacuum turn itself off after only few minutes of vacuuming?
Does it continue few more mintues by restarting it?
Perhaps it works much longer in low power mode?

I recently obtained an Electrolux Ergorapido ZB2904X cordless vacuum from a friend of mine. He got a new vacuum since ergorapido did not function properlyanymore.

I am actually not a fan of vacuum cleaners which have the motor on the handle. They do not fit under tight spaces, they have lower power and the need to push/pull weight of motor is tiresome. Not to mention, they are often more expensive than similar traditional vacuums.

Above is a photo of the ergorapido which was not functioning properly. With full charge, it worked 1m20s on high power mode and 9m50s on low power mode. By the way, the low power mode is generally useless. After about one and half minutes of use in high power mode, the handle of the motor piece gets warm and it turns itself off.

I reckon the batteries develop a fault, either getting too hot or they lost too much of their original capacity. Therefore I proceeded by change of batteries directly. The original batteries are rated 1200mAH and the vacuum is rated to run roughly 12m at high power and 35m at low power. This tells that the vacuum is using roughly 6A at high power mode.

After the battery change, vacuum operated continuously about 28m20s on high power mode.. Meaning the vacuum now operates over twice longer than when it was new! From empty to full charge takes about 6 hours with standard 25V 0.5A electrolux adapter.

I did not test the vacuum in low power mode since I have no patience to listen to it for several hours. I reckon, in low power mode it should function longer than 1 hour. Actually, this means that this old vacuum now has longer runtime than most similar cordless vacuums in the market today since best ones seem to work up to ~45 minutes ("up to" meaning in low power mode).


Requirements:

This task require a soldering iron, solder, desoldering braid, heatshrink tubes, replacement batteries, philips head screwdriver and patience,

Getting Inside The Vacuum

It is luckily rather easy to get inside the vacuuum. It has 5 screws and 4 plastic tabs around it.

First remove the 5 screws which are shown below. Yes, the handle should be charcoal colored but it was very sticky and I used IPA (isopropyl alcohol or rubbing alcohol) to wipe the color off totally from it.

Then you can carefully pry open the 4 tabs on both sides of the handle.It does not require force if done correctly.
Once you open up the vacuul, you need to carefully unplug the cable going to the battery level indicator on top You can see the connector in the picture below. Also 3 of the batteries are visible. The circuit board is also attached to handle using two clips.

Removing The Batteries

It is quite tight inside the vacuum and it must be completely disassembled  for easy access to rest of the components. I recommend you to take a lot of pictures showing positions of the wires even if you will not desolder them. This helps putting them to same positions when assembling back.

First, there are 4 wires going down to the outside connections from the sides of the vacuum. These must be desoldered. They are shown in the pictues below. I have immediately covered the open ends with tape even though the other ends are not connected to anything. They can still touch something and close circuit and cause damage.

After desoldering the 4 wires, it would be possible to completely remove the motor, circuit board and batteries from the outer shell.

You can decouple the white battery holder from the circuit board by releasing the 4 little clips around it. After that, first remove the red wire as shown below. Immediately tape them after removal to avoid accidental shorts. The thin wire is balancing wire and red one is the main power wire.

After the removal of the red wire, it is possible to remove all the batteries from the holder. There are still several balancing wires, a power wire and a heat sensor attached to batteries.

The pack can be completely freed from the rest after removing black, blue and brown wires, as shown below. Remember to tape them right away after removal to avoid potential short circuits.

Then you can clearly see that these are 3 batteries aligned in series.

Now you have the main board and 3 battery pack seperated completely.

You have to make note of the positions of the tabs going in and out of the batteries. Because you will need to assemble the new batteries exactly same or they won't fit into the plastic. Negative and positive tabs are aligned 90 degrees to each other. Below is a picture of how the original battery looks like.

The other 2 batteries are simply connected to wires so they do not require further dissassembly. You will simply need to disconnect the wires and connect them back on new batteries. I recommend keeping the tabs long for those last 2 new batteries, because they are quite tight in their place.

The remaining 2 batteries are shown below.

Replacing The Batteries

The original batteries were marked SE US18650VT, T 2B12XTF01C. Unfortunately there was no datasheet on Sony site but I believe the information below should be accurate:

 18650 1340mAh - li-ion battery cell 3.6V US18650VT 2B Sony

Nominal Capacity: 1340mAh(0.2C discharge)
Rated Capacity: 1300mAh(0.2C discharge)
Capacity at 1C: 1280mAh(average capacity)
Capacity at 10A: 1200mAh(average capacity)
Nominal Voltage: 3.6V
Internal Impedance:25mΩ  Typ.(measured by AC1kHz)
Cycle Performance: 60% Min. of Initial capacity at 500 cycles(10A discharge)
Charge Method: constant current constant voltage
Charge Up Voltage: 4.1±0.05V
Charge Current: 1.2A
Charge Time: 100mACut
Ambiance Temperature: 23°C
Dimensions: 18.35mm(D)*65.10mm(H)
Weight: Max.44g

I got new LG HG2 (with tabs) batteries from an online seller the specs are as follows:

18650 3000mAh - li-ion battery cell LG 18650 HG2

Nominal Capacity: 3000mah
Nominal Voltage: 3.6V
Initial Internal Impedance: <20mΩ (measured at 1kHz)
Cycle Performance: >=70% after 300 cycles(10A) and 200 cycles(20A)
Charging Voltage: 4.2v
Standard Charge: 1.5A
Fast Charge: 4A
Discharge Cut-Off Voltage: 2.5V
Max. Charging Voltage: 4.20V +-0.05V
Max. Continuous Discharge Current: 20A
Operating Temperature Charge: 0 - 45C
Operating Temperature Discharge: -20 - 60C
Dimensions: 18.2mm(D)*65.0 mm(H)
Weight: Max 48g

As can be seen from the specifications, the HG2 batteries are superior, should work cooler and run longer. They can be charged to higher voltage. I checked the vacuum battery voltage at full charge and they were charged up to 4.10V. Not charging the HG2 up to maximum 4.2V will further increase their lifespan on the long run!

In addition, HG2 are safer due to INR chemistry. Meanwhile the original Sony batteries use ICR chemistry with Lithium Cobalt Oxide which is more unstable and require protection circuits.

While I needed only 5 cells, I ordered 6 cells for roughly 10€ total cost. I ordered 6, for in case one of the cells have any problems and/or also to be able to keep one extra for a reference point.

Yes, I could get 2500mAh batteries cheaper, but with a total price difference of about 2€, I figure it is best to go with highest capacity.

Important Note:
I highly recommend obtaining equipment to test the new cells before installation. Unfortunately there are many fake cells going around and it would be useful to test every battery to ensure quality.

Even cheap chargers such as Opus BT - C3100 v2.2+ provide really nice battery test programs. It is a great investment if you have any re-chargeable batteries. As you can test the remaining capacity of your cells and determine the wear amount. This charger supports multiple chemistries.

The 1A maximum discharge current of Opus BT-C3100 is only enough for testing capacity of the cells. If you want to make sure that your cell's do not overheat or does not have voltage sag, you should use a tester which supports 5A+ discharge currents. For example ZKE Tech EBD-M05 can manage up to 5A and also can create a discharge graph in PC. Only costs about 15€

Building The Pack:

First of all, you have to be 100% sure that you are not attaching the batteries upside down. Mixing up the polarities can have catastrophic results. So, check it several times while building the pack. 

I ordered batteries with tabs attached, because it is often difficult to solder battery terminals fast enough. With pre-attached tabs, it is easier to protect the battery from heat damage. However the tabs normally do not have holes, so I had to make holes to few of them using a nail.

The hole was big enough for attaching all the cables. I highly recommend this because it makes soldering much easier.

First start with attaching 3 batteries which form the pack going into the white plastic holder. I used the soft rubber pieces from original batteries while building the pack. Then attached the tabs to each other to form pack as tightly as possible.

Remember to use heatshrink to isolate the endpoints as it was on the original batteries. Then attach the heat sensor between the last 2 batteries and tape it. Also attach the blue and brown cables and the black cable

Do NOT attach the thin/thick red cable yet!! You will first need to insert the batteries inside the white plastic holder. Remember, red cable was routed from the other side of the plastic holder. See the removal picture above at removing batteries section.

Now, put the white plastic back by sliding batteries in and then you can solder the red wires. After this, you can attach the white plastic holder to the main board. All the wires go under the white plastic and there should not be any left outside.

You can now change the remaining 2 batteries which is a much easier task. Simply desolder the connections and solder to new batteries.

Putting It Back Together

Putting everything back is reverse of removal. Use the photos you have taken to figure out exactly how the cables were originally and put them back the same as before. It require some attention to fit everything back correctly. If you put parts in wrong order or at wrong orientation, they simply won't fit back.

Testing Of The Batteries

I have tested the original batteries using my LiitoKala Lii-500 charger and they all resulted in a perfectly reasonable 1000-1100mAh result with 500mA discharge current. However they perform rather badly when tested with 5A discharge current. Perhaps the batteries had too much voltage sag which triggered the vacuum to stop prematurely.

Below is the test result of all 5 batteries using the EBD-M05 tester. The results show the battery power range between 120mA to 350mA only.

Below is test result of one of the LiitoKala LG HG2 battery. As you can see, it does a nice 2500mA with 5A discharge current. This cell is suppose to be 3000mA however LG tests them with 600mA till 2.5V threshold. I believe I could get 3000mA if I followed the same protocol.

qmail-spp plugin for getting more information in logs

This was a little script which I used with now defunct H-Sphere mail server. But it should work on other servers where qmail-spp plugin is used. Copy the simple C program below and save it as moreinfo.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  char *user = getenv("SMTPAUTHUSER");
  char *ip = getenv("TCPREMOTEIP");
  char *mailfrom = getenv("SMTPMAILFROM");
  char *rcptto = getenv("SMTPRCPTTO");
  char *tempcount = getenv("SMTPRCPTCOUNTALL");
  int rcptcount = atoi(tempcount);
  int ppid = getppid();

  if (user != NULL && strlen(user) > 0 && rcptcount < 2) {
    fprintf(stderr, "auth: pid: %d ip: %s user: %s\n", ppid, ip, user);
  }
  fprintf(stderr, "info: pid: %d ip: %s from: %s to: %s count: %d\n", ppid, ip, mailfrom, rcptto, rcptcount);

  return 0;
}

Then compile it using the following command gcc moreinfo.c -o /var/qmail/control/plugins/moreinfo

To activate it, add the following line to /var/qmail/control/smtpplugins file under the [rcpt] section /var/qmail/control/plugins/moreinfo

Restart qmail and you will see similar output to below in /var/log/maillog

#tail -F /var/log/maillog | grep -e smtpd | grep -e info -e auth
Jun 29 02:13:13 mail smtpd: 1183072393.562254 auth: pid: 29986 ip: X.Y.U.Z user: sender@domain1.net
Jun 29 02:13:13 mail smtpd: 1183072393.562344 info: pid: 29986 ip: X.Y.U.Z from: sender@domain1.net to: receiver1@domain2.net count: 1
Jun 29 02:13:13 mail smtpd: 1183072393.902115 info: pid: 29986 ip: X.Y.U.Z from: sender@domain1.net to: receiver2@domain2.net count: 2

Here the auth section gives the smtp auth information if this section is missing then probably there is data going from server to server or your users might be using pop before smtp. The count number shows the recipient numbers, if message was sent to 3 people then count will be from 1 to 3.