Member postings for Stuart Smith 5

It is most likely a box belonging to the local council street lighting department.

It may be worth a call or email to them.

Regarding Dave (SOD)‘S suggestion to open the box. DON’T !! Apart from the fact it belongs to someone else, you don’t know what you may find inside. If it contains electrical equipment it may be in poor condition and also you might not be able get it to lock again.

Stuart

If you need a motor or control board, Amadeal sell these and most other parts for their CJ18A mini lathe. ( I think this will be the same as your 618 lathe. There are photos of the motor and control board on their website.

Stuart

Bricky

If you look on eBay you will see one for sale.

Stuart

Ian

The BT phones I mentioned do not block a genuine caller such as the hospital. They just ask the person ringing to say who they are.

That is the big advantage over our old Panasonic phones for instance which were not as sophisticated.

As you say, phones that block all unknown numbers cause problems for genuine callers.

Stuart

Buy a BT branded phone (or phones) with call screening and blocker built in.

See my earlier post.

Since we have had this we have had no nuisance calls.

Any number you have programmed into your contacts gets through straightaway. They don’t even know you have call screening.

Other callers get a recorded message asking them to say their name. The phone rings and plays their name and you decide to accept the call, block the number or let it go to the answerphone. So genuine callers, such as doctors, hospital etc will give their name and the phone will ring.

This gives the best of all worlds. No nuisance calls, friends and family get through as normal and other genuine callers get through by announcing their name. Can be used with any network and no ongoing cost once you have bought the phone.

Stuart

Edited By Stuart Smith 5 on 26/08/2020 17:12:10

It seems like the auction has been stopped by the threat of legal action. See this newspaper article:

**LINK**

I was also interested in some of the items, but if the training centre can be saved or taken over by another organisation, this is a good thing surely.

If you look at the terms and conditions of the auction, they are not obliged to sell, even to the highest bidder. No doubt the auction house will have spent money and will be eligible to be paid for their abortive costs.

Stuart

Edited By Stuart Smith 5 on 25/08/2020 20:15:02

Seem to be some very complicated scenarios being proposed here.

Surely the most likely is an intermittent open circuit on the lead from the PSU and a battery which is not holding it’s charge.

If the laptop is always used via the mains, a worn out battery may go undetected.

I suggest just buying a replacement PSU initially and see if this fixes the problem. Probably best to avoid the ultra cheap but a reasonably priced compatible one should be OK.

Stuart

I fitted one to my Warco WM16 in place of the standard one. I have made a small circuit to connect it to a cheap android tablet running the TouchDRO app. ( I have 3 axes ) .

I cut it to length with no problems.

I initially fitted 2 of these to the x and y axes but found the display as supplied a bit small, so that’s why I am using the TouchDRO app. Plus it has extra features.

Stuart

Mine just arrived too.

John

There is a lot of useful information on using a bare atmega328 on the Arduino website.

**LINK**

Another alternative would be a PIC micro, but you would need a programmer and different programming software. I have used PICs in the past and there is a massive choice depending on what you want to do, but there is no doubt the Arduino is easier to programme.

Stuart

You could use an LED and a circuit from this website to control the brightness :

**LINK**

Stuart

Just noticed that Martin Hamilton has recommended the same BT phones and he has had no unwanted calls either.

Stuart

We were always being pestered by nuisance calls, so I bought a BT branded cordless phone (actually have 3 phones but you can get just the one). This incorporates call screening and blocking facilities without any extra ongoing costs and can be used with any service provider.

Have had it for a couple of years now and it has completely stopped nuisance calls.

You can programme friends, family etc in and they get through straight away. Any number not in the list gets a recorded message asking who is calling. A legitimate caller responds, the phone then rings and plays the callers message. You can choose to accept or reject the call, or leave it to let the answerphone switch in. Scammers and nuisance callers don’t respond and also silent calls don’t even cause the phone to ring.

Cant recommend it highly enough.

It incorporates Truecall technology, but there are no ongoing costs.

Stuart

Bob

You might find these videos interesting. They show how Blackgates Engineering make the boiler plates for their Sweet Pea boiler kit.

**LINK**

**LINK**

Stuart

I have bought small drill bits from CPC, mostly for making PCBs. I have just done a search for drills up to 1 mm on their website and these are the results:

**LINK**

Stuart

Edited By Stuart Smith 5 on 05/07/2020 23:05:23

Roger

As I said in my previous post, I have a Warco WM16, but if you are considering the Axminster 2.7, I suggest you look at Arceurotrade. They sell Sieg made machines and are generally cheaper than Axminster and have a good reputation. See their Sieg SX2.7. **LINK**

Stuart

I have my Warco WM16 on a wooden bench 550mm deep. The chip tray is 50mm from the wall and is 480mm deep. This is about as close as you can put it to the wall so that you can turn the column handle without your knuckles hitting the wall. The y axis handle protrudes about 100mm in front of the chip tray. The mill x axis table is 700mm wide and 930mm wide across the x axis handles plus you need extra space each side for the x axis travel. (About 200mm each side).

Hope this info is useful.

I bought it secondhand and am pleased with it.

Stuart

I bought a cj18a mini lathe from Amadeal just over 2 years ago. I have been happy with it as an entry level machine to the hobby.

I had no experience of lathes , so looked at the prices and specifications of the similar lathes sold by the various uk sellers ( Warco, Chester, Axminster, Arceurotrade etc). I decided to buy the one from Amadeal as it was among the cheapest at the time and had a better spec than some of the others.

The lathe was delivered quickly . The second time I used it, the plastic hand wheel broke ( I think it was damage in transit). I rang Amadeal at about 4 pm to explain the problem. They sent me a replacement which arrived the next day, which I thought was excellent customer service.

I have bought a few small items from them since and have been happy with the service and prices. They seem to stock a large range of spares for their machines with the prices listed on their website.

I did have a problem with one item ( an ER collet chuck) which was not machined accurately. I contacted them and they sent a replacement the same day with a prepaid envelope to return the faulty one. Unfortunately, the replacement had the same problem, so I asked for a refund. They offered to get them picked up by courier, but I preferred to post them back myself, which I did. They refunded the cost of the item and my postage costs direct to my paypal account the day they received them back.

So overall, I am happy with my lathe and the service from Amadeal.

Stuart

Edited By Stuart Smith 5 on 01/07/2020 19:57:27

It may be that the motor starting current is higher than the converter or the single phase mains supply can supply without too high a voltage drop.

Bearing in mind that the starting current will be about 6 times the full load running current, so the 3 phase starting current could be in the region of 50 amps.

The attached document shows the size of motors that can be connected to the DNO network. The largest 3 phase motor that can be connected without any checks is 6 HP and the largest single phase is only 1 HP. This is to avoid voltage fluctuations affecting other nearby customers.

**LINK**

This is something that never seems to be mentioned when discussing the use of single phase to 3 phase converters.

Stuart

Too slow typing! Nick beat me to it.

Stuart