Member postings for Stuart Bridger

On my 2009 VMC, the knee crank handle will clout the edge of the table, when fully wound out, even without a scale fitted. My DRO has on optical scale fitted the rear of the table which was a Warco fit.

Edited By Stuart Bridger on 17/06/2019 09:28:28

Ref Ground Source heat pumps. I have been running one for coming up 13 years.
They do work best with very well insulated homes with underfloor heating and I have neither! Though the former has been much improved, which has helped with running costs. We run it with radiators. It works well, but we do supplement it with a wood burner in the winter. The ground loop is about 5 feet underground and does reach temperatures of 20C in the summer. For the first year I did used to regularly check the temperatures regularly, but now I just let it run. In the winter the ground loop can get well below freezing and the system efficiency does drop as the pump has to work harder with the greater differential.

Our village has no gas, so it is either Electric, oil or bulk LPG. Our unit draws about 2.2Kw which is not bad for the hot water and heating the whole house.

As for costs it was very expensive to install, we did get a small grant which helped a bit. We were laughing when heating oil rocketed a few years back, but oil is cheaper now.
Big advantage is no annual service cost. Just had the unit serviced for the first time as a sanity check. Nothing to report. All working well within expected parameters. Air Source are much more popular now, they weren't an option 13 years ago. Much lower install cost and efficiency has improved.

Many years ago, I had a new Peugeot 405. I was doing a lot of traveling with work at the time. If I had been sitting in traffic before stopping, on returning to the car I would find a significant amount of the contents of the cooling system on the floor. It took 3 months of back and forth to the dealer with many tests and components being changed before a specialist from Peugeot was called in.

It was soon identified that the wrong specification radiator cap had been installed in the factory...
The dealer had already changed the rad, but put the original cap back on.

This talk of "smart chargers" reminds me of the 13 x 9 Wind Tunnel at Brooklands. The operator had to phone the electricity co. for permission to start. The speed meter on the console was overlayed with masking tape segments showing how fast it could be wound up depending on the time of the year. Same issue different scale. That was a 2200HP motor with a 11kV feed into a Ward Leonard speed control system.

No direct experience, but based on previous advice, you should take a look at Femi. Much better build quality than those listed.

Interesting thread. I did start with the Aiibre trial, but have to admit I gave up in frustration when it came to constraints and assemblies. I probably didn't spend enough time on it though. It just didn't seem naturally intuitive to me. I am still working full time in the IT industry and stare at a screen all day, so technology is not alien to me. I do have an engineering background and did 2D drawing at both school and during my apprenticeship. I did dabble with 2D CAD (albeit electrical rather than mechanical) over 30 years ago as well.

I'm no motor control expert, but electronic basics would indicate that the two circuits would need to be kept isolated. This is easy though, you just need a Double Pole Double Throw (DPDT) switch and a dual gang potentiometer. The latter being two pots on a common shaft. Both cheap and easy to source.

A couple of years back I got a call from my local bank branch.
As a security validation I asked if I could call back. The answer was no, we have no facilities to call a branch direct. Also if I called their call centre there was no way to redirect the call to the branch.....

Alas my Chipmaster is not as shiny as Alan's. It is still much better than my capabilities though. 1963 model bought from a local engineering shop. Originally supplied to the REME training workshop at Aborfield. Imperial model fitted with dual dials, which I understand is quite rare. Original splash guard went AWOL, so the guys I bought it from fabricated  a new one for me FOC. Converted to single phase with a VFD, although retaining the variator. Recent addition is a taper turning attachment.

Edited By Stuart Bridger on 31/05/2019 11:42:31

Date on of the film?
The Chipmaster was launched in '57. Thames Service van shown has a pre-63 number plate format and was also launched in the same year, but we clearly don't know how old it was when the film was shot.

Any more clues?

I thought the same, must work my Chippie harder

Great watch, were all lathes polished up to that level out of the factory or just those for the film, very shiny!

I would say slow helix stub drill, rather than spot drill.

1 - Type "Printer" in the search bar
This should bring up "Printers and Scanners" at the top of the list, click on this

2. - Find your printer in the list presented, click on it

3 - Click on "Open Queue"

4. - Here you will see the items in the queue, you should able to click and cancel the job here

Edited By Stuart Bridger on 21/03/2019 15:36:39

UNS = Unified Special, 1/2 x 22 still isn't a standard size though...

Beautiful work and great skills on show here. Seriously impressed

Another vote for the the VMC, would recommend a DRO as it makes things so much easier

Matrix were (and still are) clutch manufacturers. Only a guess, but some form of alignnment tool?

I agree that all the predicted "savings" for the consumer are complete bullsh*t for the majority of customers. I finally relented because I was getting so fed up of being bombarded with information. I have had a new meter for about a month now. My supplier has not yet caught up with the billing. It is a bit of a novelty to see what does and doesn't consume energy, but as others have said, the vast majority of usage is essential. The house is heated by a ground source heat pump, which is 2.3kW. I pay my bill on monthly standing order, whch means I spread the cost of the winter over the year, but on the slipside my account is also in credit for most of the year. It will be interesting to see how more accurate usage impacts this. Time will tell

Paul, I certainly remember SOLAR/CLASS, the production control system. Certainly the least interesting of all the departments in the porduction phase of the apprenticeship. I have a copy of the manual in my log book. As for green screen VDU's. Single applications were definitely their enemy. When i moved into Electronic maintenance and on inot the hardware side of the IT industry, many CRTs were replaced for screen burn in. But only when they were their last legs.