Member postings for Robin teslar

Hi Dave can you tell us why you think Paypal offers less protection?

I used Acad when it still ran under DOS (v14). It was simple and worked and never crashed. Then it converted to Windows and GUI and it was not a happy marriage at first for many reasons mostly based on its former DOS background. I now have ACAD 2009 which functions but Ive sweated blood over it, and theres quite a learning curve there. Frustrating when you just want to get on and make an engineering drg and do the job, Scanning is not an option for a dimensioned drg - period. If Draftsight works, then go for it. Ive also come across Progecad and used the free 30 day trial version. Its a clone. Found this

**LINK**

Seems too good to be true, but I notice that they do some DVD training vids. Ive used these to master Photoshop (its a pig to learn from Adobe) and found them a very effective training method

Its difficult to maintain fluency with Acad unless you use it regularly. After a months absence it hurts my brain to get started again.

Oh sorry pardon I missed some of the earlier erudite posts from professional cadmen.  I gave up trying ACAD for 3D but it was an early version.  Instead I discovered Sketchup and if you've never done 3D modelling this is a delight.  You'll get the gist of it in half an hour.  Its free and a lot of fun, bbut its not just trivial toy, you can really learn a lot from it.  Its no good for serious dimensioning but it produces shapes and solids to an accuracy of 13 digits.  For example I was able to construct a 3D perfect dodecahedron (made from 12 pentagons). Try it, then you will know you have arrived.  

http://sketchup.google.com/download/

Oh and btw, there are many plug ins now and one which fascinated me, was

http://code.google.com/p/sketchyphysics/

which puts newtonian physics to work on your model (eg a continuous bicycle chain, a compound pendulum and so on) - fascinating but still in enthusiastic development

Cheers

Robin

Edited By Robin teslar on 02/11/2012 11:41:43

Hi

I am a frustrated wannabe subscriber for the on line version of MEW but the only payment facility offered is an archaic form to enter all you precious personal and card details. Naturally I am reluctant to use this method. If you offered me Paypal which offers me a lot of protection and confidence then you would have a new faithful subscriber

Any advice pls

Robin

I think I am going to buy myself a Xmas present when I finish installing my Dore Westbury

Well thats a quick response

Hello, Thank you for your interest in our products.

The cable on each scale is 3 meters long. However, we have cable extension in stock in UK. It costs 8 sterling pounds per meter.

Hope I have understood and answered your question.

Regards,

JJ

Impressive, they are ahead of me

Robin

Hi Ian

Assume you mean this piece of 3 axis milling complete kit for £369 inc pnp sent from uk

**LINK**

Reading the spec it seems amazing what you get

I think I would put the readout unit on a back wall away from possible contamination (especially rear sockets and a bit of cling film over the front. I have asked the site how long the cables are supplied with the scales, will post

The older I get the more I know how litle I know

Robin

0.1um this is another planet and into the realm where a piece of rod changes its length depending on whether its horizontal or vertical. My brain just fried

Robin

Oh no. don't start me on H2S. Most of my working life was spent in the petrochem industries. We consider H2S one of the most hazardous and deadly gasses that can be encountered on site (only surpassed by HF which is an incredibly dangerous dangerous gas, and its said that if you can detect the slightest sweet whiff then you are dead meat).

On one site a colleague of mine was 10m in front of me walking alongside a 12ins gas line going to the flare. Lots of noise around, so he didn't hear that a flange in the line had a pin hole leak. So he walked into a cloud of H2S gas, took a normal breath as you do and collapsed immediately, stone dead. We were trained to know this type of fatality and not to ruch up to try and help as instinct would tell you to do. Instead the instruction is to run the opposite way to the nearest breathing app post, to raise the alarm and put on the set. Far too late to save my unfortunate colleague as one lung full is all it takes. I hasten to say this was many years ago before gas detectors became available. These sites are much safer today as detectors are spread all over the site and would have deteced such a leak early on.

Nobody jokes about a sour gas site.

Robin

Hi Bill

Much appreciated, I am guilty of 99p Shop bargain battery packs. Will have to check some of the gear I used them on

Just bought a Chinese vernier, 6.99 free pnp on Ebay, How real is that!!

I see there are cheaper varieties with plastic jaws, but less accurate 5.99

Blow the expense

Cheers Robin

Hi Ady

thanx very much for your sound advice, will follow it up and post my experience as it develops

Cheers

Robin

Sorry pardon, I forgot to add (cant edit post here?). As one member pointed out , the old clock dial DTI is far from dead for cross slide work. Im sure I dont need to labour the point but there are now digital versions of the clock dial with exactly the same finger mechanism and fitting onto the usual magnetic base. Does anyone have any experience of using one of these.

To cite an analog, I once bought a digital multimeter thinking it might be quicker to read than my trusty AVO. Wrong

a) you can tell a lot about a test by the way the needle moves and it will average a noisy signal

b) a digital display tends to flicker about till you press sample hold. It was rarely the same as my AVO, and I know which I prefered to trust.

So I wonder if a digital DTI will have the same raft of draw backs?

Robin

The more I read the golden nuggets on DRO on this board, the more convinced I become that I am going digital eventually with a proper 3 axis system for my mill. I am going to play with a digi caliper on my lathe first to get the feel of the technology. For £10 its a good way to dip your toe in the suds

Robin

Not many people realise that CO2 cylinder can be dangerous. I used to help our local village pub down in the cellar and a drayman warned me about CO2 leaks and how you can be silently asphixiated. An exhaust fan should always be fitted in a subterranean cellar.

Another point is that if a valve on a Co2 bottle doesnt seat properly then the gas leaks out and forms an ice lump around. The Co2 inside the valve can sublimate to a solid, making it impossible to close the valve. The only option is to take the cylinder outside and leave depressurise

Never carry a CO2 cylinder inside your car

Always make sure the cylinder is upright before use

Dont place the cylinder near any heat source

Here's some horror stories

**LINK**

Hi Ady

How is your vernier performing after a year's use?

Do you ever get any trouble with work piece vibration? Of course it shouldnt vibrate, speed or cut is wrong, but sometimes its unavoidable

Cheers

Robin

Hi all

I came across this site relating to speed controlled motors on Warco

**LINK**

I infer that a vfm shouldnt be regarded as a replacement for a back gear. Trying to do heavy slow work would likely overheat the motor. This site advocates the use of a computer fan to assist cooling. Sounds like a smart move for a few quid.

Ive got todo some homework on vfm and stepper motors and their controllers. I only ever did traditional motors at college many years ago. Anyone remeber the Ward Leonard system?

I think a trileva kit went on ebay recently for about £300

Cheers, keep turning

Robin

Hi Clive

I too am new to DRO. You can pay a lot of beer vouchers for an xy system w remote ro.

I am going to try out a cheap and cheerful scheme

hereto explained

**LINK**

Even expensive systems will have the same contamination problems, so a 10quid vernier seems like a throw away bargain

Cheers

Robin

Hi Ian

after googling a bit, I think I cant guess the mechanism. I think its an electronic copy of the way a mechanical vernier works, but the important bit of gen is that the system relies on capacitive proximity sensing which I can understand. It helps me understand what can interfere with the operation

I am going to get a cheap digital vernier to play with. I will stick it on an arm and maybe get a remote display with a digicam, cheap and nasty but simple - ha ha. Ive got a few of these little cams lying around and a spliutter to display them on a small lcd screen. Will post pix soonest

KISS

as they say

Cheers Robin

Hi All

This thread is a year old now, should I start a new thread?

Anyway IWT says their small Digimag scales are out of stock just now (£45 for a 12 in). Whats the verdict on these now? Resolution +/- 1 thou?

Can anyone tell me how these actually work, I can understand an optical glass slide with fine scribings, being opticall read and counted. So whats the measuring principle here. Is it on the scale, or a crude friction wheel? Sorry if its a dumb question.

It seems to me that the very environment these have to work in, is their downfall, wet, oil, swarf, dust etc. Its a wonder they work at all. Yet (just like an answerphone), if its unreliable, then its worse than nothing at all. So I was thinking to mount say the crosslide scale way back on some support angle and connect the head with a rod extension. Its crude and probably looks cack handed, but I can shroud it (in a kids balloon say) and keep it well clear of mess. Anyone else done this?Cheers

Robin

Hi SB

I missed that little tab at the top, it gets occluded by the document txt, so I missed it. But it works now, though I had to ensure that no "scle to fit" was done as the page already contains a 1/2 ins border. The tex is very small and just about legible, but I can live with it and a magnifying glass. Its a common mistake publishers still make, when they just port a printed page straight onto screen, not recognising different media involve. Its an on going argument I have with publishers. They seem to have a blind spot

I am new to this forum (but not to machine work), so trying to catch up. I am so encouraged by the tip Ive signed up for on line sub, Thanx

One thing I find with the reader on screen, its a nice page turner, but some times I want to print an article for closer study away from the dreaded PC. but cant do this readily. When printing, it only gives me a quarter of the screen view so truncating the other 3/4 of the article. Ive tried a screen capture app, but the resolution is poor so when prining the full page, its very fuzzy. Also cant save it as a pdf as i only get the same 1/4 page as the print. I dont know if its my PC and its native screen resolution or hwat. Its odd

My only workaround is to zoom in and screen grab chunks - clumsy eh?

Anyone else got this problem?

Cheers

Robin