Member postings for Roger Whiteley

Spinning yarn is an artform - my other half is a knitter and dyer of yarn, the little machine is OK if you have nice clean yarn. But if you are dealing with hand carded, yarn that's maybe not quite so well behaved, a traditional wheel is tried and tested. In the world of wool, hand spun commands a premium..

I never knew the difference between worsted spun and tight spun and twists, until I listed to a podcast featuring John Arbon - most of these skills and knowledge live on in only a few places - if you have sheep and want your yarn spun by one of the few remaining UK spinners, it will take a YEAR. All wool is not equal, single flock Wensleydale is a big difference from mixed together fleeces bought by the the Wool Board. That's why it costs more to shear than the fleece is worth. Which is a pity, as wool is an amazing material and the processing of wool is highly skilled and complicated, taking years to master.

Edited By Roger Whiteley on 07/09/2020 09:08:08

Edited By Roger Whiteley on 07/09/2020 09:08:23

In the race to the bottom, everyone loses, customers, employees, 3/4 empty vans burning diesel trekking up an down motorways

, its all bad for customers and the planet. Doesn't matter whether its that bargain Android or cheap laptop, there's only one reason they are cheap, corners have been cut and margins to the bone. Unless you pay a premium, nothing is made to last. The Post Office posties round here are life savers, delivering prescriptions, daily papers and the post. So when you wonder why so many Post Offices have shut, here's why: Unfettered unregulated competition. Parcels are profitable, if you have enough volume. Take the volume away and any business becomes unsustainable. Simple economics. So services and costs have to be cut. Yes the Post Office was slow and lumbering like any UK organisation that needed a wake-up. It's changed.

Hermes up here deliver when they can probably find a van or a driver i.e. when they feel like it, so stuff arrives, eventually. All the other parcel delivery companies offload the problem to Menzies so on a busy week I might see Tom, the guy that does this patch, three or four times, local knowledge being essential, as number 48 is nowhere near number 43, or 46 and so it goes..

Edit: term with alternate slang meaning removed.

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 07/09/2020 11:03:37

The nice thing about an Arduino is that it doesn't have a high level O/S to get in the way. So it does what you ask it to and not much more...

That's a really nice looking machine, how the **** did anybody manage to break off the spindle nose threads. Clumsy muppet.

I bought some heavy duty shelving from Amazon (sorry), because we could get nothing else within a radius of 50 miles. But I'd want stuff fixed to the wall, *somehow*, if only to stop it tipping forwards.

I've had a sort-of-workshop in a cast concrete garage, about 60 odd years old, horrible stuff and yeah its got rebar in. I'd line it, for two reasons: 1. to provide space for insulation which is good for the condensation problem and 2. To provide something to fasten stuff to, which brings me to my present workspace..   I'd use 83x36 CLS at 600 centres, made just like a stud wall.

My current sort-of-workshop is a grounded refrigerated van body thick plastic lined, takes woodscrews a treat, even without a pilot hole.

But my reason for posting is that I've discovered the joys of French Cleats for hanging stuff from, a length of 2x1, OK 18x44 PSE, with a 20 degree corner sawn off, with screws every 150mm fastened horizontally to the wall will support practically anything - even those kitchen cupboards... It took me ten minutes to rip the corners off three 2m long strips with a Lidl cordless circular saw. And about the same time to attach to the wall and to the shelves I wanted to hang off them. When I move, I can leave the strips on the wall and just make some more, at heights that work for me in the next workspace. *sigh, nightmare*

Edited By Roger Whiteley on 17/06/2020 12:12:26

There has clearly been a massive backlog in the systems, and especially in the USA, parcels finally arrived having been tracked out of Heathrow to a pile in a warehouse in Chicago, my partner had to remake and reship two entire consignments owing to significant damage to well packed items which arrived smashed and unusable.

Shipments from China are running at around 3 weeks, some having taken 8-12 weeks not long back. I've been avoiding the UK dropshippers on eBay that are just fronts for AliExpress and going straight to the source having realised I was propping up their 600% markups. I just have to be a bit more patient..

Hermes stuff is delivered by a sub-contractor up here - like all of Hermes - it is VERY hit and miss, depending upon who the driver is. DPD UPS DHL etc is a different subcontractor - they lost a parcel in transit in less than 20 miles, which turned up months later returned to sender, but the guy delivering is excellent. I've also heard horror stories of Yodel which comes in the same blue van as UPS / DPD - it ALWAYS takes at least a day longer than they say.

But nothing beats the Post Office, none of this 'you live north of Watford Gap so its £20 extra' nonsense. Our posties are amazing, and are keeping the place going in difficult times delivering papers, prescriptions and groceries to people who cannot or are unable to get down to the local office / shop. They are unfailingly brilliant. One parcel left here on a Thursday and was in Canada by Tuesday.

From recollection the 20T idlers up to about 35 were hobbed steel, bigger ones definitely cast iron - I used to space my gears with the corner of a sheet of newspaper, and used a tube of graphite loaded grease on the gear surfaces. Thank you DC31k for making me aware that RDG = Myford. As I've not been tinkering with Myfords for the past 16 years or so I only knew that Beeston had gone and that new machines sold as Myfords were originating from West Yorkshir.

Slightly O/T I've fallen foul recently when using a sheet of paper for setting 3D printer nozzle spacings - 100g paper is a LOT thicker than 80g lesson learnt!

It looks great BTW, I've just not had a touch probe - all the braketry and an SKR miniE3 are set up and waiting for a parcel via Aliexpress which contains a BL-touch. It will be interesting to see what this Creality glass panel that arrived as an option with one of my printers measures up to flatness wise. All the flatness depends upon everything else being in perfect alignment, especially the X axis being as close to horizontal as possible. I spent a week in a Metrology lab, pity it was 40 odd years ago.

Someone is a master of Excel - I've never bothered trying to measure the flatness of any of my print surfaces - whilst I'm sure having a map in the mainboard and slicer might help, there are generally other more important things to worry about, like getting prints to stick. Which brings me onto...

I've been suffering occasionally but quite badly from print warping and/or refusing to stick to a PEI print surface.

The problem was in specific locations on the print bed, so I tried moving a big print off the cold corner of the bed seemed to help - back right. Then the opposite corner of the same model started doing the same thing... one successful print was followed by a not-quite-so-successful print. This model is printed diagonally as its 240 mm wide and just fits on an Ender-3 bed printed in that orientation. Although Octoprint whinges that it doesn't fit, it does, just.

Back to print warping... I have a pair of Ender-3's on a bench, eventually I realised it was the cold blast of air from the left hand printer's PSU that was prematurely cooling the print on the bed of the right hand printer. Strategically placing a box folder between the two as a temporary barrier has made the problem go away.

First world problems. So I can well believe printing ABS is a problem when you need a 100deg C bed temperature and absolutely no draughts, except beer, and that's off limits these days.

I have a 12V mainboard system an Anet A8, and Ender-3's, which all use 24V - the biggest benefit is reducing the current through the flexible cabling and thereby reducing the chances of fire!. If you have a 40x40 print area - then this is smaller than a Creality CR10-Max - might be worth having a look at their website, CR10 Max.

That has two PSU's, one specifically for the bed. My latest Ender3 came with a Creality glass bed, as well as a magnetic PEI sheet, covered in little round dots. Nothing needs to be applied to print to the surface. I've you've not found it before, have a look at OpenBuild Community Forum - you might find something interesting there. I've been getting shipments from China and sending parcels out to the USA / Canada and Japan, there was a hiccup in the delivery chain, but its now working as normal - one parcel left here, in the Far North on a Friday morning and was in Chicago by Saturday.

Howard, I worked at Canley just after it had been closed - in the bits that remained open, I spent a fascinating three months with the freedom of the machine shops that had been making Triumph engines and gearboxes - one of the glories was a Herbert B vertical drill, with a size 0 Jacobs chuck used to drill oil holes in camshafts. It cost me £25 through the asset disposal scheme. A Clarkson tool and cutter grinder cost me a tenner. Sadly both are no longer in my workshop - the Clarkson was a heavy bit of kit, and took a lot of moving. Even dismantled". The only problem with the Clarkson was that it came without any tooling, otherwise it would have been really useful..

Hi, I'm sorry to be posting on a thread that's five years old - did you manage to dismantle the grinder, and specifically remove the inner wheel flanges - I have a VERY similar Wickes grinder and I have had zero joy figuring out how to remove the inner flanges - they seem to be captive on the shaft - so the shaft is either screwed in and then loctited or force fitted in - but it makes no sense as the entire shaft from end to end seems to have been made in one piece between centres, unless it was finish machined between centres after fitting the loose ends to capture the flanges.

I managed to burn the motor out, not through brute overload, but through continuous use - it was running for about two hours and then simply stopped. DOH!.

I was wearing gloves and didn't realise just how warm the casing had become. I've replaced it with a 200mm Axminster one, but I have a pathological dislike of binning machinery if there's half a possibility it could be repaired.

Thank you - maybe someone else has figured out how to get the flanges/washers off.

Autolevelling using a sensor is normally configured into the firmware you program into the printer controller, if its not enabled in the firmware - I'm using Marlin 2.0.3; 2.0.5 and 2.0.5.3 on different printers that are all physically identical. I don't have any with bed levelling sensors - to bed level with a sensor the mainboard also needs to have the correct connectors for the sensor you are using - there are two main types, proximity, which uses a magnetic field, and a servo actuated touch sensor - the proximity versions are typically the ones used in industrial automation solutions - and since most 3D printer beds are not steel the magnetic response is a bit hit and miss.

I have several Creality Ender-3's, most using the standard mainboard, only one, which is an Ender Pro, has a none standard board - that has a BigTreeTech SKR miniE3 - that board has direct sockets to use a BL-Touch servo actuated touch sensor - I have the brackets and cables, what I didn't realise when I ordered the kit from Aliexpress was that it didn't have the sensor, so that is now on its way somewhere...

I bed level with a sheet of 60g/sqm thin laser printer paper, that's a good guide / starting point, but the Ender Pro wants at least 3/14's of a turn on each adjusting knob to put the bed closer to the nozzle - why 3/14's? well the 4mm threaded screw is of course 0.7mm, so dividing the circumference of the knob into 14's makes sense.. I paint alternate bumps with Tipp-Ex so they are easier to see.

Getting the firmware onto the mainboard is a whole new learning experience, mostly not fun. On a couple of occasions I've spent days trying to figure out why it wouldn't compile and upload.

Barrie, the only bit of that segment that bothered me was the statement 'a turbocharger is like a supercharger' or word to that effect. Because that just ain't true, but it was dumbed down for television, so we'll have to let it go.

I haven't seen a eutectic diagram like that for over 40 years, but I did study metallurgy at university when metals were metals and carbon fibre nanotubes were a thing of science fiction. Stress relieving works a bit like a massage - cycles of heating and cooling that are nowhere near the melting points, whatever the reason, quality castings, machined properly, always seemed to come from engineering companies who aged them.

You can't hurry quality! Love the story about the BMW car engines, that sounds entirely likely.

A chilled skin is a nightmare, because the impurities, which generally lower the melting point of the iron in the first place, gravitate and solidify at the skin whilst the centre is still molten, the carbon levels are also much higher so the result is a skin with all the rubbish in, and as I write this, I seem to recall that there's a degree of 'atomic migration' which results from the seasoning process that improves machinability - SG iron is best, because the graphite doesn't form flakes at inter crystal boundaries, but spheres, in an 'ocean' of more pure iron. Flakes cause stress raisers, which make cast iron brittle, spheres don't .

Ah yes, Balintore, bit further south, and yes the ML10 with roller bearings, aka the Speed 10, was very nice indeed, mine was a 1976 model, purchased from an Engineering Supplies emporium in Scarborough. At the time I was desirous of a Unimat as my interest was 'watchmaking', but I was persuaded to get a bigger, more capable machine. It was a good choice, as I was at University in Nottingham, I used to pass the site of Myford Mecca in Beeston every day. Tremendously sad that the land was worth more than the business.

Hi, I was an avid reader of ME and MEW from about 1975 to the mid nineties, I used to have an ML10 and want a replacement! I have several 3D printers and a new Axminster wood turning lathe, I’m a member of the Highlands Woodturning Club who normally meet in Munlochy just North of Inverness. Last time I was reading ME the internet was not quite here - so this is a new experience . My last workshop was misplaced in house moves - three decades worth of accumulated engineering paraphernalia - so I’m coming back to the hobbies and pastimes I really enjoyed, now I’m not a nomad!

Hi. I’ve been exploring openSCAD for about six months - I’ve just joined this site - I was a Model Engineer and MEW reader from the mid 70’s to the late 90’s before other things got in the way. So before ME readers joined the internet!. I had an ML10 for decades until I lost it about 15 years ago - I’ve been 3D printing for about 18 months and have several. There are some terrific openSCAD resources which I’ll post links to.