Member postings for Neil Wyatt

Here is a list of all the postings Neil Wyatt has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.

Thread: The MEW Archive is Fully Up and Running
14/09/2022 13:23:23

I'd like to make sure that all digital and print and digital subscribers know that the digital archive has been restored, right back to issue one.

Restored? It's completely revamped! The new archive is much faster and easier to use, to my eye the quality of issues is better. There is no longer any need to use Adobe flash or an alternative to view older issues.

You can also download pdfs of the online issues, there is a simple selector that allows you to tick a box to select all pages to download a whole issue. I know this has been a much requested feature, but even better, or you can also highlight a selection, such as a single article if this is your need. Ideal for putting an article onto a tablet to take it into your workshop.

There is also a clipping function so you can select plans, for example, and save them to your computer or print them out.

In my view Mortons have come up with an excellent solution, personally I find it as good as the Pocketmags viewer for recent issues, at least on a desktop computer.

Print only subscribers can contact customer services about adding digital to their subscription if they wish.

Neil

I haven't checked every issue, myself, if anyone spots a missing issue or corrupted one, please let me know.

 

Edit: typo

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 14/09/2022 13:23:48

Thread: OpenAstroTracker
12/09/2022 19:38:21
Posted by IRT on 12/09/2022 17:42:43:

I did print it myself. Although the instructions recommend PLA, I used ABS-X. I had some minor warping on some of the longer parts, so had to print with a brim to hold them down.

My print bed is 250x250 and some of the parts were getting close with the brim.

There is a test part to print to confirm printer accuracy.

I made the mistake of using heated threaded inserts where inserts were not meant to go, so ended up having to reprint a couple of parts.

Apart from that, it is a well documented project with a few build options. An online configurator determines for you the parts needed. All went together well. There are links to Discord and Reddit if help is needed.

The (optional) remote display is a bit of a pain as it just hangs on a bracket and can easily fall off. I have found the display useful for setting up the home position and polar alignment as the PC I am using for control is located indoors.

If you try to lift the OAT by the moving parts they come away from the base. Easy to put back but it is a bit of a pain, especially in the dark.

Using the enclosure that sits under the frame, there is not enough room to fit heatsinks to the driver boards. They did feel a little warm so I reduced the settings a bit.

I went with the larger bubble level option, and found this interfered with the electronics enclosure. Easily remedied by printing some spacers.

The firmware has an online configurator, and all programmed up and worked first time by following the instructions. I did have to change the configuration file because one of the motors was turning in the wrong direction. Videos on YouTube show how to check this.

I did briefly try to get it running from a Rasberry Pi with Astroberry, but hit problems. I am not that good with Linux so quickly gave up with this option.

I managed to get the OATControl, ASCOM, PHD2 and Stellarium installed under Windows 10 with nothing to report.

I did have some strange movements initially, with the thing moving to point in totally the wrong direction, or hitting the end of travel. This was due to me not setting the local sidereal time. After that all went well.

I did have a bit of a window in the clouds on Saturday evening. It was roughly aligned to the pole star then pointed at a bright one. The star could be seen moving across the guide scope at a fair rate. Turning tracking on, the star stayed in the same position on the screen.

I do not know what the errors were, as this was just a quick try. To be honest, I wasn't really expecting it to work first time. I didn't even try a calibration.

I am still waiting for the correct 0.9deg stepper motors to arrive.

I know nothing about astronomy, photography, RA & DEC coordinates, plate solving, siderial time, processing the images, etc. I suspect building it and getting it running will be the easy part and the difficult bit for me starts now.

It looks like the skies may be clear on Friday. If I have any luck, I will post the results.

Edited By IRT on 12/09/2022 17:46:53

Enjoy the adventure!

Neil

Thread: carbon or HSS
12/09/2022 10:50:09

HSS where easily available and affordable.

For 'obsolete' threads like ME and BA I have carbon sets, although i woudl buy HSS if replacing any broken BA taps as they are available.

Also I have carbon taps and die plates for really tiny treads as they are ridiculously cheap and can be treated as disposable, being only used for very rare jobs.

Neil

Thread: How on earth do you make a Fire Hose
12/09/2022 10:45:25

Pop into a local music shop and look for retro style guitar cables.

This 'festival' one is pure hemp which should simulate canvas quite well.

 

fender-deluxe-instrument-cable-angled-straight-3m-10ft-tweed

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 12/09/2022 10:46:23

Thread: OpenAstroTracker
12/09/2022 10:39:49

I like it!

Neil

Thread: Brand new to model engineering
09/09/2022 16:16:26

Hi Chris, welcome to the forum.

Hopefully you will find plenty of help and advice here.

Neil

Thread: Four facet drill grinding.
08/09/2022 16:50:52
Posted by Howard Lewis on 28/04/2021 10:40:09:

The advice with an old kit for the Worden advised making a collet for each size of drill.

I followed, without realising, Giles Parke's method, of making an ER20 collet holder in a piece of 1" square steel, (The size used in the fixtures for the Worden. )

his allows drills of up to 13 mm to be held.

The drill is clamped in the ER20 collet, so that one cutting edge is vertical.

My holder is marked to identify the faces, so that rotating the holder through 180 degrees is obvious, if a an already ground face has to be revisited.

The Table is set square to the grinding wheel.

Fitted into one of the "standard" drill grinding fixtures (Inclining the drill at 31 degrees ) the complete assembly is swung through 30 degrees to produce the secondary clearance.

Once this is done, the fixture is reset to 10 degrees to produce the primary clearance.

The end result should be the primary reliefs being of equal width where they meet at the chisel edge in the centre.

Howard

Coincidentally, Howard's detailed article on this subject will be in MEW 320!

I passed the proof half an hour ago!

Neil

Thread: MEW Index updated to Issue 319 (September 2022)
08/09/2022 16:11:41

Well done, David, keeping up the good work!

Neil

Thread: Readers Tips
06/09/2022 15:18:14

I'm running low on readers' tips for MEW. I usually try to have a good handful in reserve.

If you have a handy workshop tip that you can describe in about 100 words and accompany with a few photos, email it to me with your address and you could win £30 in Chester Machine Tool vouchers.

Neil

meweditor@mortons.co.uk

T&Cs

We have £30 in gift vouchers courtesy of engineering suppliers Chester Machine Tools for each month's 'Top Tip'. Email your workshop tips to neil.wyatt@mytimemedia.com marking them 'Readers Tips', and you could be a winner. Try to keep your tip to no more than 600 words and a picture or drawing. Don’t forget to include your address! Every month I'll choose a selection for publication and the one chosen as Tip of the Month will win £30 in gift vouchers from Chester Machine Tools. Visit www.chesterhobbystore.com to plan how to spend yours!

Please note that the first prize of Chester Vouchers is only available to UK readers. You can make multiple entries, but we reserve the right not to award repeat prizes to the same person in order to encourage new entrants. All prizes are at the discretion of the Editor.

Thread: 2022 Stevenson Trophy Competition
06/09/2022 13:40:21

I have had enough entries to make the competition viable, but only just.

As a result, the deadline for entries is being extended to 30 September.

More details in my editorial in MEW 320, the entries will be featured in MEW 321.

Neil

Thread: MEW 320
05/09/2022 12:33:16
In response to reader feedback, MEW 320 will be focused on readers' core interests - practical projects and ideas.
We have: a simple radiusing tool design, grinding drills, co-axial indicators, a welding bench, adding a counterweight to a vintage floor standing drill, making an indexing chuck, altering a bandsaw for vertical use and some cross slide modifications for mini lathes. Naturally, there will be plenty of other content.
I hope that's whetted your appetite for the next issue!
Neil
Thread: NEW CONTACT EMAIL FOR MEW EDITOR
30/08/2022 10:11:33

Hello folks,

Just reactivated my PC after a short holiday (mostly Colne Blues Festival), to see that my old email address at MyTimewMedia has now been disconnected.

I have done my best to make sure everyone's email was moved to my address book and that all submissions sent to the old address were saved and logged.

No doubt with hundreds of contacts, something will have gone astray.

If you have a query, please use the email below:

meweditor@mortons.co.uk

Thanks,

Neil

Thread: MEW 319 - Roofing A Shed??????
24/08/2022 23:11:12

Last year when I mentioned I needed to re-roof my workshop, I had a HUGE amount of feed back from readers offering advice and suggestions, most of which did not make the pages of the magazine or forum.

A strong theme of those messages was to go with a rubber roof, and I very nearly did this, but cost and time constraints sent me another way.

There was so much enthusiasm and interest in this as an option for roofing a workshop, it seemed a no-brainer to carry an article on the subject. Exactly WHAT got a roof is largely irrelevant, as long as the approach was applicable to a workshop. I would argue that the physical aspects of making and maintaining workshops do belong in the magazine.

As for the Science Museum... it was pretty tightly focused on the origins of our workshop tooling. The clock was focused on solving engineering problems rather than being a detailed build.

But yes, this issue did have a slightly different flavour to recent issues - my aim is to try and keep up a level of variety. I do hear your feedback and will look at the balance of upcoming issues.

We plan a reader survey in the near future, in the hopes of getting feedback on what you do and don't like to see in the magazine.

That said, the main factor influencing content is what I get sent by potential contributors, so if you feel a subject should have more attention… Why not write an article about it? Or if you just want to know more about something, write a letter to Scribe a Line asking for more information on it.

Neil

Thread: Dismantling and Servicing a Grip-Tru Chuck
24/08/2022 22:46:39

This article by Andy Johnston appeared in MEW Issue 315 and is an example of our useful 'how to' content.

Thread: Writing articles for MEW
16/08/2022 15:43:21
Posted by Graham Meek on 14/08/2022 10:35:01:

Dear Neil,

You are probably the best person to ask this question concerning copyright.

I have always assumed that the drawings supplied in an article are covered by the copyright on the article. My reasoning being that without the drawings there is no article. Is this assumption correct?

Secondly anyone making their own drawings from the article drawings to further their business, ie market the item as a product, is breaking the copyright laws. Am I also right on this one?

Regards

Gray,

 

Hi Graham,

Copyright stays with the person who produced the drawings.

Intellectual property in a design is more complicated. Rather than copyright you generally have the choice of a patent (for a novel principle of operation) or a registered design if you want to protect your particular implementation.

My understanding is that to protect a published design you would need to register it:

www.gov.uk/topic/intellectual-property/designs

Without such a step or similar action as described on that page I don't think you can protect your design from being made by someone else. Also, I think there's a 'distinctiveness' test.

Neil

 

 

Edit - made a correction!

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 16/08/2022 15:43:51

Thread: MEW Subscription lapsed with no warning
16/08/2022 15:36:55

This looks like issues with subscriptions being transferred over to the new publisher, especially people who use 'continuous credit card' to pay - these subs have to be manually renewed as the data wasn't able to be transferred over due to data laws, apparently.

DD subscribers shouldn't have problems, but in any case please contact customer service, this is now in-house at Mortons and much more responsive.

Click THIS LINK for full contact details.

For subscription issues please see THIS LINK.

Neil

Thread: Donations to keep forum free
16/08/2022 15:33:06

I wouldn't get over-excited about this! It's purely voluntary. But there are significant costs, especially as lot of time is being put into upgrading the forum and quietly sorting some of the problems it's had over the years.

In the future, we may look at putting magazine content online behind a paywall as a different method of access for readers - no different to, say, newspapers that use a paywalled website as well as having a paper copy. It's an alternative to using an online reader or an app. But that won't affect people who choose to read the mags in other ways.

The forum part will remain free, it will only be new additions behind a paywall - as the archive is at the moment.

Neil

Thread: How Much is this Costing Me?
09/08/2022 11:03:45

If I never open the box to check the castings are unmachined, have I made a Quorn?

Neil

Thread: Writing articles for MEW
08/08/2022 16:15:46

There is a £1,000 de-minimus on TURNOVER that allows anyone up to get that amount without having to declare it for tax purposes. Could be writing for magazines, doing car boot sales, a bit of helping out friends with odd jobs...

Payment to charity is now easy enough for MEW as long as authors keep it simple.

Copyright in thread postings stays with the author as well. You are licensing the site owners to use it when you post it (otherwise it couldn't appear on the forum!) but it doesn't stop you re-using it elsewhere.

Neil

08/08/2022 16:10:06
Posted by Howard Lewis on 05/08/2022 22:46:10:

Neil has assured me that for MEW articles, the copyright remains the author's.

The only problem may arise if the publisher has had to modify / redraw any drawings, and the author wanted to use them elsewhere.

Mortons, currently is not quite as straightforward as it was with My Time Media, but probably teething troubles which will be sorted out before too long.

Howard.

The Morton's agreement is far simpler, it only has three sections about copyright:

1. You hereby give Mortons Media Group Limited ("Mortons" a licence to reproduce the Material once
only in the issue of the UK edition of the publication for which the Material is supplied on sale worldwide in
print and/or digital format.
2. You warrant that you own or have the right to licence the Material to Mortons and that Mortons' use of it in
accordance with this Agreement does not infringe any intellectual property or proprietary rights of any third
party. You waive the benefit of any moral rights to which you might otherwise be entitled to in relation to the
Material in respect only of Mortons' permitted use hereunder.
3. You agree to allow Mortons the right (i) to store, edit and adapt the Material for publication purposes and
(ii) to licence photocopying, scanning, downloading of the Material (in the context of the publication only) in
electronic or other forms and other normal use for the purpose of information or study or as otherwise
permitted by copyright law.

Basically it's a licence for Mortons to use writers' material in their publications.website etc. but has no impact on the writers' copyright in the original material. Much simpler.

Neil

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