Member postings for Howi

You do not need anything as complicated, the shaft of the mandril just needs cutting at 45° or whatever angle you want. As you tighten the mandril the two cut faces will slide against each other and push the two halves of the shaft apart thereby jamming the shaft inside. Easy peasy

Now! That IS thinking out of The box.

Tut!Tut! At least you would have kept ME in work replacing warn out equipment ( construction man)

Note nonBT people will not understand the animosity between maintenance (men) and construction

Surely it must be cheaper to buy the ready made PCB, even buying the complete component package is quite cheap.

Hardly worth the effort, I like making electronics but cost effectiveness has to come into play.

 

BT will never give up it's network, it has too much money invested. It matters not who you are with unless on Virgin as all the infrastructure belongs to BT. Unless TalkTalk and others are willing to stump up billions to buy a proportion of the network ( highly unlikely) it will be status quo.

There is also the problem of security of the network and exchanges. Unless you have worked for BT in an engineering capacity you will have no idea of the scale of the underground network or the complexity of the modern digital exchange and it's data requirements. To let third parties have access when they are only interested in profit would put the whole of the network in jeopardy. The access (if any) they have at present is very low and well controlled.

BT are allways being harangued for not investing enough in the network, but what about the hangers on, TalkTalk, Sky etc?

Just to clarify MY position, I worked for BT for 34 years, my phone line and fibre broadband are NOT with BT.

And yes! I wish it was cheaper too

Edited By Howi on 21/07/2016 11:25:24

Having built Sophie I would not say it is a beginners project per say, it does not help that the instructions are in German. The column should be turned in one piece and is relatively easy to do.

With regard to the flywheel I do not think it would look right at 80 mm.

Although many parts are all ready cnc'd a mill/drill does make life easier. It is a nice looking model when completed.

If you are not sure of your capabilities make a start on some of the simpler parts, as you get to the more complex parts just put it on one side and make something else till you get the confidence.

I made a wobbler from a casting kit and found that harder to get ones head around than Sophie, fortunately having put it aside for a few months, when I came back to it, everything just dropped into place and the completed engine runs very well.

There are a lot of very fiddly parts in Sophie and small screws,nuts and bolts (2mm and 2.5 mm)

Suggest you keep all parts/materials in one box and the finished parts in another. I have spent hours looking for dropped nuts and bolts 

Go for it, it will give you the incentive to learn what you need.

 

 

Edited By Howi on 20/07/2016 17:12:10

Archery as with any sport is 95% archer 5% equipment, yet 95% of archers put more effort into the 5%.

I was asked by a fellow club member why her scores were poor and inconsistent ( she only shot a couple of times a month). She had purchased some good kit but was thinking of spending even more.

Simple answer was to quote the following :- 

Shoot 4 times a week and you get 4 times a week scores

Shoot once a month and you get once a month scores.

 

Archery is more about the archer rather than equipment until you get to the top 5%.

My spindle lock tool sits on top of the control box, just where your purple arrow is pointing ( the drill chuck key sits there also). A small Manet will keep them there if you tend to misplace them.

Nice idea if one has a 3D printer......

I think a lot of people will look forward to that Neil

Keep 'em comming.......

Oh! Dear........

I hear more men are taking up knitting these days  ( only joking )

 

There are two ttypes of airbrush compressor, the piston type which produces high pressure but low volume and the diaphragm type which produces larger volume but lower pressure.

This second type is better for small engines.

Yes! 2 speed gearbox and motor drive same, the manual you get refers to an earlier model.I have been very pleased with mine.it does what I need it to do.

I have the AMD210 from amadeal which I think is the same as yours, I had problems with fitting recommended gears as banjo slot was not long enough, so made the slot longer on the mill, Bobs your uncle , problem solved.

Slot only needed extending by a few mm.

Replaced the banjo locking screw with a shaft that extends through o hole in the cover and can engage or disengage the banjo at will, much quieter when running if you do not need auto feed, plus added a handwheel on the end of the feedscrew.

 

Ah! The memories......them were the good old days, then along came System X and System Y and the engineers faded into insignificance.

At one time the TO's (tech officers) were told they would be relinquishing their (extensive) toolkits in exchange for an Alsation guard dog and boxes of dog food..

Asking the question why? We were told our duty was to maintain(feed) the dog.

But why the dog we asked?

To guard the equipment and prevent the TO from touching it.

This was after a study found that if you prevented as much interference by the engineers as possible, the equipment was much more reliable.

I got out just at the right time!

Why am I even reading the posts  here?

No! I don't (singular?) Either.........

Sounds like it is close, but if the displacer cylinder is not stainless you will get too much heat at the cold end. The air needs to go from hot to cold to hot etc, it is the temperature differential that drives a Stirling.

I got a kit of parts from Steve Ward, got a good quality stepper driver from eBay for a fiver ( uses latest chips), plus other bits from eBay inc stepper motor.

Works really well, very powerful on 72 to 1 reduction ratio of my RT from Amadeal.

Much better than counting holes and turns, with my memory I would just end up with a pile of scrap metal.

Don't forget that if your driver board has open collector outputs one side needs grounding ( how do I know?)

D piston and cylinder are not too important, the D piston is only moving the air from the hot end to the cold end and back. The volume of the D piston might be too big, the Stirling works on the principle of expanding and contracting of air in a closed space, as such volume of air plays a big part. A big displacer means less air!!!!

I would suggest it is not the power piston or cylinder at fault as they worked OK before your mod.

I think you need to look at the displacer cylinder assembly for air leaks as that is the part you have changed.......

Edited By Howi on 08/05/2016 17:40:38

You need 3 things for a Stirling engine to work :-

Low friction - as it has already run that should be no problem

NO air leaks - nothing kills a Stirling like an air leak, it ran with the glass displacer so what has changed?

Temperature differential - try putting some ice on the cold end to increase the differential

 

My bet is item 2 an air leak

The SX2P was my choice to match my Amadeal AM209vg same as your SPJ lathe. I chose R8 for the spindle rather them M3 and do not regret at all, R8 rules ok.Very good machine for the price, yes! I would have liked the X3 but was too big/heavy/costly for me at the time. The SX2P is very quiet and powerful and has taken everything I could throw at it. I have put cheap I gaging scales on all three axis which transforms the machine, I have also replaced the torque arm with a gas strut which again transforms the machine.

Definitely my recommendation to match you SPG lathe

Edited By Howi on 03/05/2016 09:00:14