Member postings for Bill Phinn

Many thanks for the further replies.

Gary, after getting a phone message back from Remap, I’ve now made a full written submission [with photos] via their website.

Mike, Mencap is one of the few potentially relevant organisations I‘ve not investigated, so thanks for that suggestion.

FF, some good ideas there. One thing I can’t quite make out from all the info at your second link is what is meant to be taking the weight of the hoist and patient. A floor joist? Something else?

Hopper, what you say is sound common sense. I’ve sent you a pm.

My 36 year-old Tatung fan has begun to rotate more slowly than usual. I've tried oiling the shaft, but it didn't change much, so I don't think that's where the problem is.

I'd like to test the capacitor with a multimeter, and if necessary buy a replacement. Can anyone tell me, from looking at it, whether the fan's capacitor actually has polarity or whether it is a kind that doesn't? There are no markings indicating polarity on it whatsoever.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

NDIY, I initially rigged up a kind of low profile swing seat that hung below a Clarke Strong Arm lifting leveller dangling from my engine hoist, but I dismantled it last week without having used it because two days after creating it the Community Response service was activated. I may press the swing seat back into use. Obviously my use of it will be restricted by where I can and can’t get an engine hoist in the house.

Sam, we have a pump for inflating air beds but no dinghy pump. I’ll try the first and if no luck investigate the second. Unfortunately, I won’t get the time to leave the house and view products in person to assess and discuss their suitability.

The intention is very definitely to get the patient on his feet, not to make him comfortable lying down. We can make him comfortable on the floor with yoga mats et al. but we can’t carry on with the business of living for long unless we can stand him up to change, feed, bathe him etc.

Could you provide me with an image of the 4 legged arrangement you envisage for the electric hoist? The problem with lifting under the arms [the method we relied on initially] is that as soon as you start to take my father’s weight under his armpits he throws his arms in the air like a seagull getting airborne. He has no idea what you’re doing to him; he only knows he must resist it at all costs.

Sam and Howard, getting the deflated bag under the patient isn’t easy but it’s by no means the hardest part of the task. You basically have to tilt the patient all the way to one side, slide under part way, tilt the patient over the other way, then follow the same procedure. The lift itself using the Mangar airbags isn't child's play; it requires two people either side to stabilize the patient and stop him from falling off the slowly expanding bags.

Gary, I’ve left a message with Remap. Hopefully they’ll return the call.

Ady, I’ve been considering a different kind of Aldi compressor for some time for general purposes. Since I don’t have any Aldi batteries for their cordless range, do you think this mains compressor would be equally suitable as the one in your link?

Many thanks for everyone's replies.

Apologies for the long post, but I think some explanation is necessary.

Yesterday my parents, who, in spite of extreme dementia, both still live in their own home, had three falls between them. They're now falling on average four or five times a week.

My father is 6ft tall, 15 1/2 stone with size 12 feet, shovels for hands and the build of Mick McManus. My mother is lighter, but both are even heavier than a dead weight when you're trying to lift them because their dementia means they often actively resist efforts to help them.

We've summoned an ambulance for them around eight times in the last six months. On only two of those occasions was there any physical injury requiring medical attention. I don't like to have to summon an ambulance for just a fall, partly because of the strain on the NHS and partly because of the interminable waits.

On four of these occasions I cancelled the ambulance after a four or five hour wait [the 999 call handler said it would be around nine hours] because I was able to get help from a third family member who lives 7 miles way. Clearly, I can't depend on that help from non-resident family 24 hours a day.

My wife and myself can usually get my mother to her feet if she falls, but my father is another matter. I've managed to get him off the floor entirely on my own three times, but each occasion was harder than the last, and I know my limits.

Acting on advice from a family friend, we recently subscribed [after enormous efforts, involving a City Councillor, at getting the very sluggish ball rolling] to a local authority-led Community Response service, which is a paying service and will send out teams with the Mangar gear to do the lifting instead of the NHS.

We've used this service twice already in the last week and we've only been enrolled for a week. The total number of falls we've had to deal with in the last week is actually five, though, so we're trying to use the service sparingly.

Even so we were told yesterday after my father had a second fall while the response team were still here packing away their gear that if we get more than one lift in a day from them we can't call them out again that day and will need to summon an ambulance for assistance. This means we would be back to square one, with nine-hour [plus?] waits ahead of us.

Hopefully this explains my need for lifting gear of my own.

I'll respond to some of the suggestions raised in a later post.

That does look interesting, Ady.

Yes, I've scoured the secondhand offerings on ebay. Where the price is affordable, my reservations are usually about how hard the equipment has been worked, and whether the battery is still reasonably capable of holding a charge. I know you said ebay is just a starting point, but that one does look heavily used and has no charger or controller.

As an alternative to secondhand Mangars I was wondering whether a portable tyre-inflater style compressor and some inflatable pillows or camp beds could be improvised.

Would anyone be able to tell me whether the lifting apparatus in the link [widely used by ambulance services], which basically consists of a battery-powered compressor connected by airlines to conjoined inflatable cushions, could feasibly be improvised more cheaply, and if so how we'd best go about it? We are sorely in need of such a device.

https://www.johnpreston.co.uk/mangar-elk-emergency-lifting-cushion-and-airflo-24

Edited By Bill Phinn on 15/12/2022 00:24:12

It may just be because Cutwel's site has a dreadful search facility [besides being appalling to navigate generally], but apparently there is no Cutwel R8 drill chuck for sale any longer.

A video supplement to Jason's valuable contributions to this thread can be found here.

Ah, right, so simple operator error then. I assumed, jaCK, from your general air of disappointment with the SX3.5 that you were attributing the pull-down of milling cutters to some fault with the machine, particularly when your opening words called its rigidity into question.

I'm still puzzled how you can logically criticize a machine for a lack of rigidity [or stiffness] when the problem as you've explained it is that you didn't do something up tightly enough. It's a bit like accusing a tap of leaking when you simply haven't turned the tap far enough down for the washer to properly seat.

Michael, your suggestions were perfectly sensible.

The use of geolocation technology by couriers to determine precise locations of properties is fine as long as the user has an appreciation of the limitations of his technology's precision, and sensible corroborative measures [like matching the house number on the parcel with the number on the house] are always taken alongside use of the technology.

My experience does seem to suggest that using what3words or something, at any rate, that is better than what Evri is currently using might prevent at least a proportion of the delivery problems customers are encountering.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 10/12/2022 14:37:12

I don't own an SX3.5, but a Warco WM18, which has a similar table size, I think.

I'm curious to know why you're experiencing pull down of the milling cutter. I've never had that whether I've been using direct collets, an end-mill holder, or an ER collet chuck.

Which of these are you using, and what installation procedure are you following when loading cutters? If you're using one of the first or third in my list when you get pull down, what size shank is the cutter and what size the collet?

Stupid, maybe, but I'd rule out innocently mistaken on the basis that relying on a geolocation system when there are house numbers clearly marked on the parcel and the recipient's house, as well as on the house of the distant neighbour it was delivered to, isn't an innocent mistake but a reckless and potentially nocent misuse of technology.

And if Evri and/or the courier don't realise they delivered to a neighbour rather than me they are still lying, even if unknowingly [in which case they wouldn't be doing so blatantly, I concede], in asserting that the parcel "was delivered to the correct address".

Ordered a small item off eBay. Evri tracking showed it was delivered yesterday at 10.33 am.

Except it wasn't.

I contacted Evri asking for proof of delivery (e.g. a photo of the parcel in my porch). They sent me a screenshot of a map of my road (proving what, exactly?).

I insisted this did not constitute proof of delivery and I'd never had the parcel. Zaahid from Evri Customer Services emailed me back promptly with a "Support Incident Update":

"Thank you for getting in touch with your enquiry regarding parcel H006... advising us that you haven't received it.

I have looked into this and can see that your courier delivered the parcel on 08/12 @ 10:33am. They posted your parcel through your letterbox for you to retrieve safely.

I’ve checked this against our system, (which tracks the location of the courier via GPS) and this shows they were outside your property at the time of the delivery. Your courier has also confirmed that your parcel was delivered to the correct address.

If you are still unable to locate your parcel, I would advise you to contact the sender of this parcel so they can discuss the appropriate next steps with you, which may include a refund or replacement item. If you need anything in the future, please contact your Evri Customer Service Team and we’ll be happy to help."

Evri are blatantly lying, as it turns out, because a neighbour three doors down approached me today to say he had an Evri parcel for me that was pushed through his door yesterday morning. It was the parcel in question.

The lying is doubly unappreciated because I have a big sign taped to my front door saying "Parcel deliveries - Do NOT leave with neighbours".

Nigel Graham 2, and Frances:

I managed to get hold of someone on the phone at my local branch. They promised to look into the matter and phone me back the next day. Amazingly, they did phone back.

I've still got to go into the branch [not easy when I can rarely leave the house] with a boatload of documentation, but the person at the branch did give me some confidence that the matter will be resolved satisfactorily.

Once all the branches are closed for good and only online "services" are available to customers, foul-ups like these will probably never get resolved at all.

Clickspring is using a GRS Graver Hone, known to stone setters and engravers everywhere, but only owned by those fortunate enough to have a spare four figure sum burning a hole in their pocket. And that excludes the diamond discs.

Stefan's honing machine is a shop-made device, owned by those fortunate enough to have the talent and workshop necessary to make one.

Yes, the Axminster grinder isn't really for honing or grinding small cutters, but for general grinding of HSS tools.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 07/12/2022 20:18:04

In my case with Nationwide, I applied online to convert my passbook account to an online one, and everything went smoothly until I found I couldn't log in to my account unless I first rang and gave them a mobile phone number.

Several times I rang...and rang... and rang....and nobody ever picked up. I tried several times to use the online chat during hours they said it was available, but it was never available.

So I felt the only way to proceed was to submit a complaint. I did so, only to be told, at the moment of submitting the complaint, that they couldn't do anything with my account even if I supplied my mobile number because the account was dormant and I would need to go into a branch with specific paperwork and ID in order to change its status from dormant to active again.

Except it wasn't dormant, or at least shouldn't have been, because in 2018 I received a letter saying my account would soon go dormant and if I wanted it to remain active I would have to either write or ring to say as much. A handwritten note on the 2018 letter in my file states that at 2.15 pm two days after the date on the letter I rang to confirm that I wanted the account to remain active.

So the complaint was now about two separate matters. I've received two written assurances that the complaint will be dealt with "on" [not "by"] a certain date, but Nationwide have already twice kicked the can down the road saying they can't deal with the complaint "on" the stated date because they "need to gather more information". I then get a new later date "on" which the complaint will be dealt with.

We're now six weeks down the line since the opening of the complaint and nothing has been done. I can see an unavoidable trip to a branch looming, and who knows what feckery with intransigent bank staff, who will probably claim they can't deal with the matter in the branch because it's an online account, and I need to contact Nationwide on the following number to discuss the matter further.

If that happens, fists are going to fly.

"Money creation" and a bank's actual income are different phenomena.

Thanks, Ega.

We'll see how it goes with the replacement bushes. Axminster are being quite proactive in trying to resolve things.

Please link to the text in question.