Member postings for Alan Wood 4

Here is a list of all the postings Alan Wood 4 has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.

Thread: Lathe change gears vs gearbox
21/01/2022 11:27:02

There are some notes on my implementation

Fitting the Clough42 ELS on a Myford S7

Edited By Alan Wood 4 on 21/01/2022 11:27:55

21/01/2022 11:19:02

Couldn't be faffed with all those gearbox levers, look up charts, change wheels.

Fitted a Clough42 Electronic Leadscrew to my Myford. Heaven.

Thread: Aluminium Composite Material
15/01/2022 14:49:06

Thanks for the input on this.

I will see what the sample material performs like and let you know.

Alan

14/01/2022 17:24:46

A contact has asked me to machine some front panels made from 3mm ACM. Has anyone had experience of this material ? (I haven't yet received the samples to play with). My first thought is that the thin top side aluminium skin is likely to tear unless I sandwich a spoil board on top of it.

Thread: Accurate hygrometer / humidity meter for the workshop
01/01/2022 15:11:42

Hi Adam

I will follow up on the PM.

The DHT22 is the more expensive version which has better specifications. Its temperature measuring range is from -40 to +125 degrees Celsius with +-0.5 degrees accuracy, while the DHT11 temperature range is from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius with +-2 degrees accuracy. Also the DHT22 sensor has better humidity measuring range, from 0 to 100% with 2-5% accuracy, while the DHT11 humidity range is from 20 to 80% with 5% accuracy.

The DHT22 is more tolerant of a long cable length for remote monitoring.

Alan

Edited By Alan Wood 4 on 01/01/2022 15:12:41

01/01/2022 08:53:38

For those feeling more adventurous I designed an Arduino based Dewpoint Monitor for the workshop that displays the various parameters and if the dewpoint comes within a defined limit, it enables a power outlet to turn on heaters. The trigger point is defined in the Arduino code. More efficient than just leaving a heater on.

I ran some 'proper' PCBs for our club members and have 5 or so left for first takers via PM or via my blog. If there is more demand than I might consider running some more boards. There is a download PDF write up on my blog via the link below

Dewpoint monitor

Thread: Quorn using E32 collets
21/12/2021 12:28:40

This is an old thread update comment.

If it is of any help I have just sourced (with help from John at NYC CNC) a 1" diameter shaft ER25 collet extension from Maritool in the US. They also make an ER32 version. It arrived this morning and fits like a glove into the Quorn mount. The only negative was that the delivery charge was similar to the cost of the collet extension. If you have friends and family in the US you might improve on this.

Next job in the upgrade is to ease the frustration of the multitude of interfering ball levers by replacing them with locking arm equivalents.

Thread: What do you use for heat treatment?
17/12/2021 20:57:41

I use a product called ATP-641 from Ground Flat Stock in the UK. I believe it may be of US origin. Link below.

ATP-641 Anti Scaling

ATP-641 is a water based grey sludge that you dunk the object in and allow to dry in air. It is essential that you thoroughly clean and degrease the parts first as being water based the sludge 'runs back' from grease and does not cover the object as a result. It is also important to make sure the coating is thoroughly dry before putting the objects into the oven. The dry coating does chip easily so care is needed. Once the object is quenched, the grey sludge protective shell just crumbles away leaving a dull grey but clean surface on the object that is easy to polish up. Easy to use and very effective.

Thread: Excel Spreadsheet Help Requested
01/12/2021 10:41:11

Hi Peter

Further to my earlier message I have created a simple pivot table sheet for you to use. This allows you to keep a running list of all your shopping from multiple stores and with duplicate items from these stores. Each item has its own price associated.

To go shopping simply put a 'Y' in the column against the items you want this week and a quantity you wish to buy. When the sheet sees a Y it calculates the line price of that item. The total at the top of the page gives you your spend. You can leave your normal buy quantity there all the time - the Y entry is what brings everything into play for this week's shop.

The magic of pivot tables is that each column header has a drop down arrow to allow you to sort by that column. So if you click on the Buy header you will see a small dialogue box and if you tick just the Y items the sheet will just show the Y items. To get the full list back you drop the arrow again and select All.

Once you have all the Y items only selected you can then further sort by the column headers to sort them into which shop you are buying from today and the order in the shop that you will come to the items,

Once you have the list as you want it to be then select the area concerned with your mouse and do a Print Selection to have your list to take shopping,

If you need more columns or lines then use the Insert command but only while you are within the working area of the pivot table.

It sounds complicated but is quite simple once you are familiar with the use of the drop down selector to give you what you want. You cannot lose your overall list unless you do something really silly like delete the tab or the sheet.

There is one critical formula in the Total column that only creates the Total for the Y items. If you add extra lines you might have to copy this formula down.

Here is the link to my blog download page where you will find the Exel file in a ZIP file.

If you need more help with it let me know and I can send you a video tutorial file.

As an aside, this sheet could be readily adapted to a workshop asset list. I have seen a number of widows and family left with a workshop full of tools to dispose of and have no idea of their value before the wide boy workshop clearance team arrives and rips them off. Get it documented now with this simple sheet. Whether you put the price you paid or the price you told your wife you paid doesn't matter. At least get it documented to save them a bit less grief on your passing.

Alan

01/12/2021 08:14:09

Single tab as a pivot table is the simple solution.

You can leave all the items on display and sort by any column on clicking the heading.

You could even add a column to sort this week's shop in the order you go round the shop.

Thread: Time code Updates with clock change
01/11/2021 09:38:11

Just been down the garden to check the clocks that I put down there on Sunday morning and one of them has finally sync'd suggesting it is a propagation issue so it could be the solar flare influence.

01/11/2021 09:22:39

Would be interesting to know if they are referenced to DCF in Germany or MSF here in the UK ?

01/11/2021 09:06:53

Being of a lazy disposition I have a number of clocks (>6) around the house and workshop that are time code transmission linked to DCF in Germany. These normally relieve me of the faff of going round changing them twice each year.

On Sunday morning the clocks had not changed back to GMT. (This caused some confusion with domestic management). Batteries were checked and the clocks were taken down the garden to remove all possible sources of household RFI that might be blocking the signal from Germany. The clocks either continued on BST or if fitted with a new battery sat at their hour waiting time waiting for an update.

Could this be Macron ? He is keen to cut the power feed to the Channel Islands in retaliation for fishing rights and maybe he had secretly constructed a modern equivalent of the Atlantic Wall - a huge Faraday Shield along the French coast to block the nasty BBC Propaganda broadcasts reaching his yellow vested population. He must be blocking my timecode updates ....

Then the more technical less jingoistic side of my brain kicked in. The said propaganda source had made mention of a major solar flair at the weekend with the possibility of the Northern Lights being seen very far south in the UK. Solar flairs affect D Layer propagation which impacts on VLF signals. Was this the source of my lack of updates and was Macron maybe not such a bad guy ?.. (Probably better not to set that hare running ...)

Clocks all still showing the wrong time this morning. Domestic confusion still reigns. Where did I put Macron's mobile number ?

Thread: Build a Pallet Beehive
26/08/2021 18:22:18

My thoughts based on investigation mostly via scientific papers suggest that it is a cause and effect loop.

The increased global transportation of bees for agricultural industrial level pollination has lead to an accumulated infestation of various pests. These pests inevitably find their way to the wild bees and these in return can infest the domestic strain as Andrew suggests or indeed the industrial bees could well cause this direct.

A wild bee nest unlike a domesticated nest is highly insulated and this causes less stress within the occupants. The bees are content because they see a relatively stable temperature. This contrasts with the much less well insulated domestic hives that often need their insulation levels topped up in winter with over blankets.

The nest needs to breath and this occurs naturally in a tree trunk cavity. There are probably high and low level access holes that allow the bees to regulate any changes of the nest conditions. High level entrances give better access to the brood areas and low level are more for removing waste etc. Again this contrasts with domestic hives which are physically different for the sole purpose of harvesting the honey.

Domestic bees are usually kept in clusters of hives, more for the beekeepers benefit than the bees. Bees living on top of each other in these clusters leads to stress. As we all know a lack of isolation leads to disease spreading easier from one to another. In contrast wild bee nests tend to be well isolated from each other. They don't want turf wars fighting over the same sources of pollen. The choice of where a nest will be is a very democratic process and the scout bees take many factors into consideration before a choice is made on their new home.

An isolated wild nest if infected will either die out or will grow stronger as the natural purification that the bees create fights the problem to improve the health of the nest. The rough insides of a tree nest will receive more remedial work to make it habitable and clean than a domestic nest. They do this with propolis and this in acts as a purification source. (The pallet wood in Jonathan's design is left rough for this very reason).

These are highly intelligent insects. Stress in any life form leads to illness and disease and bees are no different.

I saw putting up the pallet nests as a way of creating more 'homes' for the wild bees to help them flourish. A wild bee nest cavity needs to be around 40 litres in volume. Less than this and there is not enough volume to accommodate enough stored honey to see them through the winter and the nest starves to death. The loss of trees throughout the countryside that have the right dimensions and cavity sizes means there are less and less potential new home sites. New trees do not grow overnight.

Whether they are the disease bringers or they have had the disease imposed on them is debatable but either way we need them to survive. Mankind as ever has a lot to answer for.

I did not intend my post to cause an emotive response about what are incredible creatures. I would kindly ask that people form their own opinions and we close off further correspondence.

If you want a really interesting read then get Thomas Seeley's book 'Honeybee Democracy'.

26/08/2021 13:37:53

You miss the point. There is no intention to harvest the honey.

Here is an interesting YouTube video that addresses your issues with disease.

Log based hive

26/08/2021 12:47:57

I have an interest in bees, fascinating and essential creatures.

A recently published book by Jonathan Powell describes how he made a beehive from a couple of scrap wooden pallets. There is an associated YouTube video.

Lockdown Pallet Beehive

This is a non intrusive hive that provides the bees with an attractive cavity to populate and do their own thing. No honey stealing, no white suits needed. Just engineering skills to knock something together.

How many of you have a couple of pallets around the workshop which you keep meaning to chop up and which could be turned into something really useful ?

How many Model Engineering Societies have woodland running tracks with trees where you could hoist one of these before next spring before the swarming period starts.

A small project that could make a huge difference for our little pollinating friends.

(I have created a spreadsheet to calculate the dimensions on my blog).

Thread: 'Negative' PCBs - how?
11/08/2021 10:00:39

This has been nagging at me since posted. First as is tradition on the forum, some self indulgent waffle ..

In the early days in business we used to make our own PCBs. We used crepe tapes to create the positive track side artwork and for the ground plane side (these were RF boards) we created a negative artwork with the tape lands that represented the clearances we needed in the ground plane for the component through connections. Artwork was created at 2:1 scale and a local printer produced positive and negative photographic films for us to make the boards. We had to specify that the film had the image emulsion on the lower side so that it was directly in contact with the photo resist. If this wasn't done we found the UV 'crept' around the edge of the artwork and we had a poor resolution etch.

(Interestingly with such a double sided board we would tape the track side and ground plane side artwork together on the longest dimension plus a 1/2" or so at each end and then slide the resist coated board in between the sandwich and tape it to one artwork only. The second side artwork would naturally align itself when the board was turned over to expose that side).

The need to have the emulsion on the film directly in contact with the resist was the critical aspect in getting a good resolution etch. The 'creep' with the emulsion on the wrong side was not consistent. If we had a wrong side emulsion print we had to move the UV source quite a way from the board surface to stand a chance of getting anything useable from the etch. (The source was a modified sun lamp).

On the basis of these experiences I am making a wild guess that your film is acting as a waveguide to the UV source. The UV is coming 'around' the board and entering the cut edge of the film and being transmitted across the board surface 'inside' the film. The film is trapped against the black foam pressure pad and the combination of the actual artwork black areas and the foam related black areas are affecting the internal co-efficient of reflection of the film surfaces to allow the UV to selectively escape and expose your board photo resist. It is a trick worthy of a magic show.

Given the thickness of the film, I am sure someone far brighter than me will do the maths.

Otherwise this is total and utter speculation.

Thread: A new schneider trophy era
20/07/2021 18:49:22

Connected theme - I can recommend 'The Spitfire Kids' by Alasdair Cross

Thread: Radio controlled clocks
14/07/2021 14:46:08

I gave up on MSF based sync a long time ago and have now fitted in excess of 30 DCF based modules to clocks for friends and family around the UK and France without any operational problems. The modules have all been sourced from Cousins UK. They are delivered with the 'pin' lock at 12 o'clock. The hands are then set to either 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock before powering up depending on where their operational location.

I made a dual face clock built into a metal tube with Perspex dials and end faces which had two DCF units, one driving each face. I decided to use an angel ring light as a back light inside the tube. The small 12V to 5V SMPU that came fitted to the ring light totally swamped the radio modules leading to a swap out for a linear regulator. That apart the tube housing no matter what orientation seemed to have no impact on the DCF module reception so radio field strength must be good.

In business we used to have a product called Tick Tock used in TV studios that had a GPS based master receiver that distributed the time signal and 'pips' in analogue radio code format to each studio clock. Each studio clock had a standard radio module fitted with a coupling to detect the RF signal which was phantom carried over the power supply feed to the clock.

Thread: Adding thrust bearings to Myford Super 7 top and cross slides
05/07/2021 13:17:03

Like all things in this forum this has all been done before but for those interested here is a link to my write up of how I fitted thrust bearings to my Super 7.

**LINK**

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