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Member postings for RMA

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

Thread: MIDLANDS MODEL ENGINEERING EXHIBITION
19/10/2019 07:50:19

I went to the show on Friday, having been absent from the shows for many years due to distance from venues and seeing the same models each year.

I thought this show was very good. I wasn't interested in seeing large dealer stands, I was pleased to see some smaller newcomers, well to me anyway.

The layout of the catering could be improved, maybe a separate area just to get drinks. However what really annoyed me was the number of totally ignorant visitors with back packs! No thought given to people around them, just selfishly concerned with getting to the front of the dealer stands no matter what. As the day wore on these packs became heavier, no doubt filling up with metal, and can cause some distress when they swipe you round the face. Only had one apology!

Saw some great models on the club stands and managed to get everything on my shopping list, which was mainly for club members who couldn't attend. Obviously the internet has changed the way we shop, so a show with more models and technical content might be the way forward.

Thread: Anyone know about buying freehold to a house in the north
17/10/2019 07:20:13

In my opinion it's a 'no brainer'. In years to come you'll think it was a bargain, go for it.

Thread: Changing internet providers
11/10/2019 19:17:08

I change supplier on a regular basis as soon as they hike up the price. I have loads of redundant routers to prove it! Do your homework before you phone them, that way you have a benchmark to work to. I always go via Topcashback, always good deals to be had there. Loyalty with most companies these days is not respected, so play them at their own game.

Thread: Cast iron cabinet theft
11/10/2019 08:20:45
Posted by duncan webster on 11/10/2019 01:30:03:
Posted by peak4 on 10/10/2019 21:11:46:

It's hard to mooch around scrapyards these days, but it's good that, officially at least, they're not allowed to purchase for cash.

But I've been told of at least one scrappy who pays out by cheque then offers the use of his cheque cashing service,

I'm not sure about cash payout. Whenever I take scrap to my local yard they pay into my bank via my debit card. However our church has had the lead taken from the roof twice, the last quite recently and it's a substantial quantity of lead. That has to be disposed of somewhere, so I suspect cash payout is still alive and well.

Thread: MIDLANDS MODEL ENGINEERING EXHIBITION
09/10/2019 09:58:00
Posted by Meridienne Exhibitions on 07/10/2019 16:33:03:

Don't forget that all advance ticket sales CLOSE at midnight Tuesday 15th October.

To book tickets see www.midlandsmodelengineering.co.uk

On line prices are £9.50 Adults, £8.50 Senior Citizens and £3.00 Children.

After the deadline tickets are only available on the day from the cash box. Full price ticket prices are;

£10.50 Adults, £9.50 Senior Citizens, £4.00 Children.

Edited By Meridienne Exhibitions on 07/10/2019 16:33:44

Edited By Meridienne Exhibitions on 07/10/2019 16:34:29

Just booked my ticket online. Be aware that if you want to read the T's & C's do so before filling out the form, otherwise it will be lost and you have to fill it all in again! I found that annoying, having to do it all twice.

Thread: windoze 10
03/10/2019 11:21:28
Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 03/10/2019 10:51:09:

Windows 8 was a major disappointment for Microsoft in that it failed to get them into the Smart Phone / Tablet and embedded market. This is the big money future, not desktops and laptops. The Windows 8 user interface was designed to work on both small form-factor devices and full-size screens. Unfortunately, it suffered the fate of many other engineering compromises. It thoroughly annoyed conservative customers like those comfy with the look and feel of XP while simultaneously failing to impress the youth, or Smart Phone makers looking deeply at Windows 8 as a technical and commercial platform for innovative development.

Ubuntu hit much the same problem; their smart-phone style interface also upset the conservatives, many of whom jumped to Mint, which is Ubuntu with an XP-like interface.

Today Microsoft and Ubuntu have both backed off. The big winners were Apple and Android, now sharing about 50% each of a market selling 1.3 billion devices a year. Microsoft's offering is bundled with the 'others' totalling less than 0.1% of sales, ie like Nokia, they've been wiped out.

Technically, Apple's IOS and Android are both UNIX based. IOS has it's roots in Berkeley UNIX, and Android has a Linux core. Using Linux as the core of a smart-phone or embedded system makes a lot of sense, it's security is more solid and the code is open source. The user interface isn't anything like XP, there's no keyboard, mouse, drop down menus or command line. Instead users swipe a touch sensitive screen and bark orders at it : 'Alexa, play David Bowie'. Excellent stuff, but not what I need. Even if everything else worked, a big screen is needed for CAD.

Nigel remarked: 'They forget, fail to realise or wilfully ignore the simple fact that if the uses and requirements of the machine do not change, there is no need to change the machine'. Thing is, when you're making a living from selling software, customers like me and Nigel are a pain in the butt - we don't spend the money needed to keep them profitable. As we're a dead-loss, they have to look for opportunities elsewhere, which means constantly finding new things to do. It's a good thing in the sense that my pension depends on their success! Problem is, continual growth isn't sustainable. The ideas of Greta Thunberg and Nigel may be closer than they realise...

Dave

Interesting history, but I haven't a clue what UNIX is all about, I just want something that works and doesn't have a mind of it's own! Please don't bring that silly young girl into this!

03/10/2019 11:19:02
Posted by Grindstone Cowboy on 01/10/2019 22:14:24:

RMA - I use Doublekiller to get rid of duplicate files. There's a free version or a paid-for Pro version with a few more features. It can be a bit daunting if you are not computer-savvy, but approach it slowly and methodically and you should be OK. You can run it from a memory stick as it does not need to be installed on your PC.

You can find it here.

Another option is CCleaner, which has a duplicate detection tool, but it is nowhere near as powerful as Doublekiller.

Thank you, I'll check it out. Is there any commitments because it's free?

30/09/2019 06:41:59

I'm not a computer expert by any means, but I too have gone through the various versions of Microsoft from the early DOS, and now unfortunately to Win10. I had no choice in the matter as my laptop with Win7 died and the new one came with Win10.

I was perfectly happy with Win7, it would take all the software I had bought over the years including MS Office 97, Photoshop etc. I could use my scanner and A3 printer without any problems. Win10 will not let me load any of them, and the other equipment is now redundant! The Win10 word program works when it feels like it, and when I'm writing anything, including this, the curser moves around my script and inserts at random what I'm writing. It's a constant battle to keep everything where it should be. My photos suddenly duplicated for no reason when I transferred them onto my new computer, and with so many I have no way of deleting all the copies, some of which have 3 duplicates!

If anyone has had similar problems and has any solutions I would be most grateful to hear from them. I for one would be very happy to revert to Win7.

Thread: BioDiesel
29/09/2019 17:00:09

Yeah, interesting document but as always there's and equal and opposite view. Have a look at the BMW Malaysia report on B10 fuel. Pretty horrific, and that's a warm country. The environmentalists seem to be contradicting their motives. On the one hand they say we should be using alternative fuel such as Bio fuel, and then they say we should stop using Palm oil! Can't have it both ways in my opinion. I'm against the rapid growth in the use of Palm oil, especially when it's a main constituent of Bio Diesel, and so many forests are being destroyed to grow the stuff.

Several reports on the internet indicate using Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) in Diesel is bad if the percentage goes too high, and they reckon 10% is too high, with 15% suggested in many areas. Personally I would rather believe the manufacturer of my car than the Lord Mayor of London, who's only real objective is to financially penalize anyone driving into London in a Diesel car, below a certain CAT figure. Mine happens to be in excess of CAT 6, so I can drive into London without paying. I have no wish to do that anymore though!

It's all very well the EU insisting we achieve certain levels of pollution by 2020, but maybe the side effects of the methods chosen are too great, we'll have to see.

Anyway, it's important that owners of Diesel vehicles are made aware of the potential damage to their engine. It's then up to them whether or not they use it.

Thread: Worried
29/09/2019 09:46:09
Posted by Michael Gilligan on 27/09/2019 10:01:58:
Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 27/09/2019 09:17:52:

[ … ]

Even measuring MPG on the same car is dubious: Traffic Jam, cruising at 56mpg on flat empty motorway, and racing over the Alps produce different results.

[ … ]

.

Which are displayed convincingly [and reasonably accurately] on my dashboard display.

Analogue reading of “instantaneous” mpg

Digital reading of ‘cumulative’ mpg since last reset

Digital reading of “estimated distance available if you continue driving as you have been in the last few minutes”

MichaelG.

Yep, I find this most useful and you can change the units so easily when abroad. I've never bothered to find out to what accuracy the info displayed is, but my guess is pretty spot on. I do use this info over long journeys, and when in the middle of nowhere in France for instance, I drive using the distance to run info. Long gone are the days as a youth I could tell when my car was running short of fuel. It spluttered to a stop! Not much money in those days!!

Thread: Water in fuel
29/09/2019 09:21:11

Sorry, I missed out a crucial bit of the detective work....and age thing.

The diagnostics seemed to point to the fuel gauge/sensor not behaving as it should, and after a long time spent getting to and removing said sensor, this is what came out and focused attention on the tank and pump condition.

I have started a new thread on Bio Diesel just to inform users of Diesel engines really. The investigation into that is very interesting with some startling pictures on the 'net.image4.jpeg

Thread: BioDiesel
29/09/2019 08:46:00

Good morning.

I thought this deserved a new thread as it concerns the use of Bio Diesel and is for information. I hope Diesel users will find it useful.

I drive around Europe quite a bit and I'm always concerned when I go to fill up, what I'll actually be getting. Labelling has improved over the years thankfully, but in France it can be a bit daunting as most stations now are for self use and unattended, particularly at night. I'll be driving back to the UK from the south of Spain via France this week, and although I can go a very long way on a tank of Diesel, I have to fill up once on the way.

France does have some really nice new pumps and they're becoming more common. Touch your country flag on the screen and it all comes up in your language. It even talks to you and tells you what you have selected BEFORE you put it in your tank. It then thanks you for your custom and wishes you a good journey. Nice touch! I haven't seen any in the UK, but there might well be something similar somewhere.

With the ever increasing pressure to make fuel compliant with the latest regulations, it's even more critical that you know what your engine can cope with. B10 is the strongest at the moment, a step up from B7 (which could contain any percentage).

I've found the attached info which might help

**LINK**

I knowingly don't put any Bio Diesel in my car, but you have to trust the label and supplier.

Thread: Water in fuel
29/09/2019 07:07:04

image3.jpegimage2.jpeg

Thank you Michael for the link, I've now created an album and will include the photos. (unfortunately the photos seem to have a mind of their own on here and I can't get the text where I want it, sorry about that. First attempt to load photos).

These show the degree of corrosion in a car from 2001, so not that old. The tank is of that vintage but the pumps are only two years old and are genuine Jaguar parts.

Top pic shows the pumps

Middle pic shows the bottom of the tank

Bottom pic show the pump sump in more detail

My fellow club member had a lot of hassle trying to diagnose the loss of power with the car, and after exhausting all ideas (On board diagnostics didn't really help in this case) finally had the courage to remove the tank, not an easy operation. What he found amazed everyone, but he has now replaced the lot with new genuine parts and it's all OK again, but for how long?

It would be great if someone can come up with answer to my original question, as engineers we like to deal in specifics rather than supposition. As I said early on in this thread, using additives including IPA may well sort this out, but without doing a strip down, how do you know if it works? And what do the internals of your car look like?

image.jpeg

28/09/2019 22:14:12
Posted by CHARLES lipscombe on 28/09/2019 04:18:12:

At long last I have been tempted to weigh in to the ethanol in petrol debate. The "problems" with ethanol fuel seem to have been greatly exaggerated to me. Australia has been using up to 10% ethanol in fuel for many years (10-15?).

In this time I have used it in three Toyotas dating from circa 1980 to 2000 plus in a variety of vintage and veteran motorcycles. I have never had the slightest problem from its use but the oldest Toyota runs a bit more smoothly on ethanol fuel, probably because of a rather poor state of tune.

More to the point is that I have never seen any reports of people having problems with ethanol fuel. Given the normal human tendency to knock anything new -it's not as good as what we used to have- I think it is safe to say that anyone using ethanol fuels is most unlikely to suffer any problems, despite theoretical disadvantages from possible water content and solvent power on fuel lines etc.

I don't include people who are using tank liners or fibreglass tanks in this comment. However being a very cold-intolerant person, my vintage bikes often sit for months in the winter and I have not noticed any rust formation in the tanks.

Maybe the dampness of the climate has an influence but there again I have never heard of problems from the tropical, monsoon area of Australia either

Chas

Off subject again. Read my original question/post and you'll see what I've been trying to find out. I'm not interested in how efficiently ethanol burns in the engine or whether it'll do any harm to the engine, nor water injection, we are stuck with what's available at the pumps.

What is alarming is the hidden rust this mixture appears to cause. Several here have stated how well their cars run on ethanol petrol mix, well maybe they do, mine does, but do you know what's going on inside, I guess not.

I have a few pictures of the petrol tank, vintage 2001, and the two fuel pumps vintage 2017. These apparently replaced the originals when the problem was first noticed. I would attach them if I knew how to.

27/09/2019 09:35:41
Posted by Meunier on 26/09/2019 17:00:20:

Just about on-topic
Mid 70's was sitting in a 747 on the ramp at Lagos airport with a guy from the company dispatch giving me a carrier bag full of broken Motorola walkie-talkies to take back to London and watching a chap with a shopping trolley equipped with a jerry-can and funnel. He was using a glass cylinder on a pole to 'dip the sump' of the fuel tanks repeatedly, examining each sample carefully for water content, dumping it into the can and taking another sample. I asked the company guy whether the fuel in Lagos was contaminated ? No, he said, the dipper guy was just being super-efficient, mentioning that the guy was one of the better-off in the villages that surrounded the airport. Naively I enquired whether his job was so well-paid. No was the reply but all the villagers cooked on paraffin stoves.
DaveD

Nice one! I often wonder what happens to the samples taken from the main tank at my airfield when we have a delivery. I'll ask around, not sure what Avgas would do to the car.

27/09/2019 09:33:40
Posted by Danny M2Z on 27/09/2019 07:45:47:

To reply to the OP.

I am not a chemist but in my desire to remove water from methanol (model engine fuel ingredient) a bit of research led me to investigate zeolite molecular sieves as used by a local biofuel manufacturer to reclaim methanol.

A molecular sieve is basically a substance that has pores that admit molecules below a certain size. So in the case of zeolite the correct grade can admit the small H20 water molecules but the longer carbon chain alcohols are too large to enter the sieve.

A friend who is an industrial chemist confirmed this and also remarked that the zeolite may also be reclaimed for further use by drying in an oven to remove the water.

* Danny M *

Interesting info but this needs to be done before fueling the tank and you say the sieve admits water, that's something I'm trying to remove. The problem is actually dealing with the effect of the ethanol/petrol/water mix in the tank. For clarity, the water isn't deliberately put in the tank, it's there because of the ethanol in the fuel.

Obviously whatever method chosen (if there is a good one) will not correct any damage previously done, and that's impossible to see unless the tank is removed and inspected internally for pump damage etc. A major and expensive task as one of our members has just learned and alerted the rest of us!

Conclusion: This winter I'll start using some additive and always keep the tank full as usual, drive my car as normal in the winter as and when (dry sunny day), so it won't get many miles will it, and hope for the best, it's only done 31K in 22 year's anyway. I will in future keep an eye on the fuel composition at the pump, that's if we're allowed to know of course.

26/09/2019 10:27:21

Water injection is well known but it isn't the subject here folks.

Dave W, Robert and Dave have highlighted the fact that I didn't mention I'm talking about old cars, well 18 -22 years old. Components were made to work with the fuels available at the time, and to be fair I doubt anyone could foresee what we have forced on us today. We've had problems with lead free, sulphur and now ethanol.

Governments seem to have a knee jerk reaction when advised by the so-called experts, remember Brown and Diesel? 10% ethanol is not uncommon now, 15% in the USA and they want it increased. This will affect thousands of newish and new cars, let alone the older ones.

The parts I'm referring to are on high end cars and expensive to replace and difficult to diagnose until there's a failure. It seems no one on here can come up with the answer I'm seeking and that's fair enough, just have to keep searching the net.

25/09/2019 18:02:16
Posted by fizzy on 24/09/2019 21:16:57:

Studdied biochem at uni long ago...but....IPA will keep the water in (the fuel) solution and thus minimise corrosive effects. It has bveen used in vehicles up to 40% bv but this can be counter productive to longevity. It is reccommended not to exceed 10% bv in a petrol car. At 10% the RON will roughly increase by 2.5 which is good news for your engine, so its a win win realy. I dont have first hand experience of commercial addatives but its most likely just dressed up IPA...why reinvent the solution?

I've just come back to my original thread and saw this. From the internet research I've done so far, it looks as though the USA are using up to 15% and want to increase this, as do the British government. I know that water has been injected into engines for decades, that wasn't the subject of my question. What I'm trying to find out is the link between standard 5-10% ethanol/ petrol mix ( as bought direct from the filling station), left standing for say 6 months in the tank, and it's effect on metal due to water absorption, that being in the main the submerged fuel pump(s), filters and lines. Assuming tank left full to avoid any condensation and tight cap. I know the overflow will have access to air.

I'm aware of proprietary additives, and the IPA solution. I might be trying to find the impossible, but a scientific answer is what I'm after.

There have been one or two problems with petrol over the year's which have affected engines in the main rather than fuel systems, such as the change to lead free and Sulphur additive which has now been dropped. Is the increasing percentage of ethanol in petrol (not Diesel) going to be the next? ( that's a rhetorical question by the way).

Edited By RMA on 25/09/2019 18:04:45

24/09/2019 19:11:23

My original question was whether there's a professional chemist on the forum. It seems there isn't, not so far anyway. Thanks for your comments. Should a chemist, industrial or otherwise have the answer to my question, please pm me, as these threads can go on and on.

Thank you

Thread: What the he**
24/09/2019 13:57:21
Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 24/09/2019 13:13:34:

Depends what's meant by 'common'! I've never broken a spring nor do I know anyone who's ever broken a spring. But like Clive I've seen bits in the gutter and once heard one break as a car traversed a roundabout.

As there are about 31,000,000 cars on the road in the UK, that's 124,000,000 springs available for breaking. This American website gives the probability of a suspension spring breaking as 1 in 1000 per year. My maths is awful and ignores mileage and other factors, but I reckon that means the average individual has a 20% chance of suffering a spring break in 50 years of motoring. Not exactly 'common' but frequent enough to be noticeable.

While it's tempting to blame value engineering, recycled steel, speed bumps, bad roads, weak shock absorbers and curved compression etc, the chief cause is RUST. The pits caused by rusting act as stress concentrators. Being a spring the metal is hard which encourages fatigue cracking anywhere stress is concentrated. As springs are also brittle it doesn't take much for a crack to propagate catastrophically. More likely to break on a speed hump than a flat road, but as happened to Roger, damaged springs can fail whilst parked up. Cold weather increases the risk too. Sharp corners and steel going brittle in cold weather caused at least 7 Liberty ships to break in half during WW2. The Schenectady was in harbour when she broke with a bang.

Suspension springs are exposed to the weather and - in the UK - to salt on the roads. It seems suspension springs are more likely to break than valve springs even though the latter are thrashed hard and hot: I think that's because corrosion is far less likely inside a well-protected oily engine.

Dave

Sorry you're wrong. Rust isn't the problem, my own spring looked brand new, as did my son's which failed two weeks later. The one's I see in my local MOT garage are somewhat dirty but in the main totally rust free!

I think the problem is value engineering, and the worsening road surfaces accelerate breakages.

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