Member postings for Steve Garry

Been using thunderbird for a good few years, and it manages 17 addresses across 5 different domains with no issues,

The other nice thing is being able to split mails out into local folders, using rules for each address, so I can find (for example) all the information relevant to flights with a specific airline, or all the messages that have come in from the bank, in their own folder,

Another nice trick with local folders is being able to automatically delete messages that have been read after a retention period that can be set by folder, which is perfect for managing things like flight promotions that are time limited. If I put a star on a message, even if it's been read, it won't get deleted.

Another possible issue is that the computer is using an older style "real" hard disc, and Windows 11 hammers hell out of traditional discs, probably because all the developers at Microsoft are using hardware that's based on Solid state discs, and they've not had to actually try to work with a machine that's got older disc on it.

That's very much the case with updates of the operating system, an old style disc can take many hours to do a full update, and in a lot of cases, one update is only the start of a chain of updates of other systems like .NET, with the result that the machine will be slow and sluggish for many more hours, even more so if it doesn't get to finish the update before it's powered down.

Even a Windows 10 updafe can take many hours on an older machine for the same reason, in order to restore some productivity to the use of these machines, they've been upgraded to SSD discs to reduce the time lost waiting for them to update.

The simplest solution if that's the case will be to seriously consider an upgrade of the disc drive to put a sensible size SSD into the machine, they're not massively pricey any more, and the difference in performance is chalk and cheese,

In Task Manager, as well as looking at the CPU utilisation, also check the disc usage, as that may well be a factor in the performance.

Are you using a third party anti virus product, as depending on the package, that can very much get in the way if an operating system upgrade is running, and on completion of the upgrade, it may well schedule a full scan of the system, which with some products can take a very long time to complete.

Another system killer can be if Microsoft search is set to index large parts of the disc, it may well be trying to regenerate the search indexes, which will also kill performance.

If it was easy to do, having endured over 30 years of nausea with Microsoft WIndows from the outset, when it was only a 13 floppy disc package, I'd be ditching Microsoft and moving onto an alternative, but there are problems moving some software onto non Microsoft platforms, and trying to deal with some organisations at state level is not easy if you don't use Microsoft products.

Windows now has become so bloated as time has gone on, it's reached the point where there are very few people that really know and understand what's going on internally with Windows, and the result is a package that's trying to be all things to all men, and it does none of it well any more.

It was a long time ago now, but when lead free first came into use, I understood one of the main reasons was to protect the workers that were being affected by the fumes coming off flow solder baths or other assembly lines that were used to assemble all the PCB's that were being used in just about everything electronic at that time.

I also am quite willing to admit to still having a significant quantity of leaded solder that I was using for repairs to computer PCB's at that time, then I moved into other areas of computing, and as a result, we moved to Ireland over 30 years ago, so work that one out in terms of the age of those 2 drums of solder. I also have some lead free, but in comparison for some work, it's muck. and I don't get to use it very often for that reason, I need things to work, and stay that way when they are repaired, not fail not long after reassembly.

As a UK citizen resident in Ireland, the situation now for goods coming from the UK is an unmitigated disaster, as many UK sellers on places like E-Bay don't know the new rules, or are simply refusing to sell to Ireland at all.

Brexit is the reason, the system now is that a UK business seller should sell without adding UK VAT, and complete complex customs declaration paperwork with the relevant codes provided so that the EU authorities (not just Ireland, all of the EU) can then apply the relevant charges to import into the EU.

At one time, private individuals could ship GIFT items without additional charges, but even gift from family members can attract charges, depending on the value.

The first charge is VAT, which is for goods to Ireland usually 23%, but a few items may be at a lower rate, or even fewer are zero rated. There is no exempt value now, until recently, items under (I think) €23 were not charged, but that exemption has now gone.

The next issue is that some items above €150 can also attract customs duty, at varying rates depending on the product, and that's why the tariff code is all about, and if that's not there, or wrong, the items could well be returned to sender.

The charges will also be worked out on the inclusive value including shipping charges, which adds to the final bill, and then to add insult to injury, the couriers are adding a (sometimes substantial) processing charge to the final bill for their handling, and possibly payments made to get the item into the country. Don't even then start on the delays that this process is causing, that's another issue that's causing huge problems for many companies.

The result is that an item that initially appeared to be cheap can end up costing a lot more (close to double in some cases) than was expected by the time it is delivered to the end customer, and yes, that's what the UK voted for.

I can tell you that in a while, it will become clear just how big a distaster it will turn out to be, it will take a while, but there will be massive changes from some companies who will decide that the complexities of dealing with what has become a third country for tax and VAT are not worth the hassles, and they will move to alternative suppliers within the EU. It's happening already, the number of companies that no longer ship via the UK, and are using more expensive and longer freight routes to France to avoid the paperwork minefield and attendant delays is only massive, and that's only the start of it.

I'm no longer buying on E-Bay, it's a pain to have to use EU web sites, but the costs are so much cheaper, and the same is true for Amazon, for the same reasons, there are so many suppliers on both platforms that just plain refuse to ship to Ireland, it's not worth wasting the time looking for people that will ship "abroad".

Maybe UK suppliers will cop on, and get organised to send goods to the EU, there are some in the hobby that are organised, but there's way too many who need to get their act together if they want to survive, unless they're happy to only supply UK customers.

Yes, I still like driving, 53 years after passing my test, though I prefer now being able to decide when and where I go, having spent years having to drive for work. Getting a Citroen Grand Picasso in 2018, my first automatic, has made longer distances a lot more relaxing, things like Sat Nav and cruise control are a big help in taking the stress out.

I try to avoid having to use motorways at peak periods, especially around Dublin and Birmingham, they're no fun any more, between HGV's fighting to pass each other with no real speed difference, and too many people who should have left home 20 minutes earlier to get where they need to be on time, peak periods are stress I can and do avoid.

That said, I'd much prefer to be driving something steam powered on a road or railway, much more fun, and there's not a committee of computers that have to be persuaded to do what I want to do before they'll agree to let me drive.

Latest total pain is the proliferation of 2 factor authentication, which has spread beyond banking, and is now seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread for preventing fraud on insecure bank card technology and the like. Google are rolling it out on their systems, it won't be long before there's outrage on many sites as users find all manner of strife making it work.

It's total and utter pain to use something like a desktop on line banking application, as if you don't have your phone pretty much in your hand, with no other applications open or running, the chances are that your transaction on the desktop won't get through, as the mobile phone will have timed out before you get to the one microscopic spot on the screen that you have to hit in order to swipe to approve, or similar.

It's wonderful if you live in the middle of a massive conurbation with 5G mobile, and have a brand new state of the art smart phone, and perfect eyesight, and no hassles with anything like dementia, or arthritis, or any of the other myriad issues that can affect older generations, and you can rest assured that the older generations are not part of the team that supposedly perform quality assurance on the product, the modern standard for these things seems to be very much along the lines of "is it working? Yes, ship it", and I speak as someone that spent 50 years working with computer technology.

As for where it's going over the next while, I really have to wonder, and doubt how well some of the older generations will cope with it. I know my wife will struggle with some of it if I am not here to help, and there are plenty more like her, much younger, who will be struggling to cope with this brave new world of modern systems, and don't even get me started on things like Microsoft WIndows 11 and similar technology, I have a computer here that's less than 2 years old, and it can't run WIn 11, and a 3 year old Laptop that has been killed for future graphics and driver updates for Win 10, because AMD don't want to deal with sorting out their mess from the last few years.

Brave new world? Not in my book, and the sooner that some of the monopolies that are in control get taken down, the better for all of us, I was interested to see that Amazon have just been fined over a billion Euro by Italy for breaching some of the monopoly regulations there, but don't hold your breath, as much of the second factor authentication nonsense was driven by EU regulations, and yes, I know that in theory Brexit means that the UK can stick 2 fingers in the air to the EU, but just be careful where those 2 fingers end up going, Boris has managed at last to make it very clear that he respects no one and nothing where rules are concerned.

Time to put up the last of the decs before I get really wound up

Pretty much most of the Southern region trains stopped at both St Davids and Central by the early 60's, the bankers were added from a small holding siding at the northern end of Platform 3, or if one was needed on the front, they were held in a small spur siding just up the slope from the old signal box. Quite a few of the up trains were merged into one longer train at Central, they've all been ripped out now, but there used to be through roads in the middle, with cross over points that allowed a train to come up from St Davids and then get into the front end of the platform at Central, past a train that was at the back of the platform, and there was another pair of points that allowed the engine from the front of the second (back) train to get out of the middle so that the front train could set back and couple up to the rear coaches.

Back in those days, it was cheaper to get a single ticket from St Davids to St Thomas than getting a platform ticket, and for me, that worked well, as I could come out of St Thomas and get a bus home with no hassles. and because of the way the bus routes were structured, it was quicker to get home from St Thomas that it was to go by bus from St Davids.

It used to work well, the Golden Hind (the evening fast train from Paddington) used to come in on Platform 2 at 8 pm, ( 2 and a half hours from Paddington), and then there would be a down stopper from Platform 6 just after the Hind had gone, so that was ideal for me. In the latter days, the Hind had a Western Diesel on it, and they were noted for very rapid exits, especially if they were running late, accompanied by a big cloud of smoke as the driver wound it up to a very high setting before they were even across the platform exit pointwork.

It's all changed now, the through road between platforms 2 and 3 has gone, 2 and 3 are now used primarily for Southern region services to and from Central, and then 4 and 5 are the main platforms for Taunton and Plymouth direction services, 6 is then used for services that either start or finish at Exeter, with occasional services to the Taunton and North Devon direction starting from the short Bay platform 1 that used to be used for the Exe Valley services.

In the 60's platform 2 was the main Down platform for Plymouth direction, 3 was the Up southern, and 4 was the down Southern, but that meant a lot more conflicts between the Down GWR and the southern services, which is no longer the case with the new layout, and for now, most London Southern services terminate at St Davids, there are local services from Exmouth to Barnstaple and Paignton, but there's not the significant numbers of Southern heading out to Crediton and beyond as was the case before all the branch lines closed, some of the Waterloo services came into Central as 12 coaches, and then went on beyond Exeter as 4 3 coach trains to Barnstaple/Bideford, as well as other branches in North Cornwall, and Plymouth. .

The hill up to Central is now signalled for 2 way working on both tracks, partly to ease the transition of services that come from the Plymouth direction and then go up to Central, which is a more recent development that didn;'t happen in the 60's, but happens a lot more as a result of track maintenance work or flooding problems at Cowley Bridge

They were very different days.

Living in Ireland now, but used to live in Exeter, and have fond memories of happy hours watching GWR and Southern steam at Exeter St Davids. Hightlights of the day were things like the down Cornish Riviera Express, with a King on the front, coming through the centre road at speed non stop, and the regular bankers that were essential to get the Southern trains up to Central. Even a relatively light passenger train got help, and the other highlight was the daily ballast train from Meldon, there was a specific banker engine fleet, the Z class, and for the ballast, they'd send 3 down, put 2 on the back, and a third Z on the front to help the engine that had brought the train in from Meldon, usually a Lord Nelson class. Once they were all set up, it was then a case of a time delay to let everyone get their safety's lifting, then a cacophony of whistles as the front got the all clear, and sounded off to let the rest know it was time to go, followed by the responses from the 2 on back, and then the fun started, especially on a wet day, they needed the power of all 4 engines to get up that slope.

Another bit of "fun" was getting to know some of the drivers of the 14xx class that were used on the Exe Valley line, and then being able to grab a ride from the southern end of Platform 5 out to beyond the cross overs, and back onto the bay platform 1 to couple up to the trailer coaches that were still in use on that line.

I was still young enough to get child rate rover tickets, and in those days, it was possible to go as far as Lyme Regis in the east, and down to Plymouth on both the GWR and Southern, and up the Exe valley to Dulverton, and all of them were still steam, though it wasn't long before the GWR became diesel multiples, and most of the Southern branch lines were killed off, There were other places on that rover, but the "nice" runs were the branch lines. I can't remember every going up to Hemyock from Tiverton Junction, I think the passenger service had finished when I was roving.

The return of the Okehampton section will be very much welcomed by the people of North Devon, and maybe, with luck, the hoped for plan to reopen through to Plymouth will become a reality, and make it possible to have an alternative to the South Devon coast section, which is still very vulnerable to sea erosion, despite massive expenditure in recent years.

Did Beeching get it right? In some respects maybe, but the solution would have been less painful if the move to diesel and electric services had happened sooner, we all know that the running costs of steam were massive, and the parcel systems of the day meant long lay over times in each station, which is now very much not the case.

As to what may get put back again in some form as a result of the changes to reduce carbon footprint, who knows? It may well be the case that some routes could be rebuilt, at least partially, and if a way to mix rail and road to handle some types of freight were to happen, the reduction in carbon footprint could be massive, I for one would be very happy to see a massive reduction in the number of HGV's on the roads, and with some sensible choices, that should be possible.

As for what will happen to steam, I suspect that's going to be a very interesing fight, the heritage railway routes will fight long and hard to retain their locomotives, and even the old diesels are going to be looked at very seriously, given their ability to spew massive clouds of exhaust smoke, some of them could be mistaken for steam given the clouds they emit,especially when cold.

I doubt I'll see the end of those fights, it will probably rumble on for 20 or 30 years, and even then there will be plenty of people who will not want the history of the country to be destroyed to the degree that the greens will be happy with, and at over 70 now, I suspect it will become an issue of considerable indifference for me over the next decade, as long as I can still get some sort of suitable fuel to run the O gauge steamers that I have.

Some of us are old enough to remember when Maggie Thatcher decided to cross swords with Arthur Scargill, and the result was rota power cuts of up to 16 hours a day, and even then, if the house was all electric, that was a problem.

Now, with the way that technology is changing things, imagine the implications of no power for long periods of time across an entire area, No light, no heat, no cooking, no communications or internet, the potential for freezer contents to spoil, and in a few years time, the possibility that it won't be possible to get to work the next day because the car battery hasn't been charged overnight. In some areas, it won't even be possible to call emergency services, depending on how the phone in the house is connected to the local exchange and then onwards to the network.

These sorts of issues could happen as a result of just a lack of wind, or as a result of severe weather damaging the infrastructure, and the race to the bottom has meant that there is not the investment in resilience or spare capacity to try and ensure that there is capacity to deal with unexpected events. I won't go on to discuss the potential for more disruption as a result of someone turning off the gas taps on the supply from Russia.

A long time ago, I had to put in a substantial generator to ensure that the computer I had here could be operated even if the power was off. The computer was sold off a long time ago, but given the uncertainty of the future, I decided that I would not sell the generator off, and given the way things are looking for the future, I may well end up being very happy that I can keep most of the house going even if the supply has gone out.

Favourite phrase of sales men across the world is "It'll be grand", and they're never anywhere to be seen when for whatever reason, it's NOT grand. Properly evaluating the real risks is a skill that too many people seem to be willing to ignore, and the result is too often a nightmare as a result.

So, I read a lot of threads across a wide range of sites, it's how I get background knowledge of issues I may face, or how to do things, and this thread caught my eye because I recently bought a little used SX2P mill from a UK seller on E-bay, as it ticked a lot of boxes for me, and will make a very useful addition to the ML7 that I've had for a long time, and not really used as much as I should have.

So, why the post you may ask, and the simple reason is that I want to recognise and compliment the support that Ketan Swali is providing for the users of Sieg machines in the UK, and then in this thread to a user in New Zealand.

I've not dealt with ARC yet, as I'm still sorting out the workshop after it was disorgansed by work being carried out to solve a flooding issue, (at one stage, they were going to completely demolish it) and being in the garage while they were using a 250 Tonne capacity crane to lift 9 tonne concrete pipes over and around the garage was an activity that was "discouraged", while they couldn't actually ban me from using the garage, it was a bad idea from a safety aspect.

I've been impressed for a few weeks now by the level of support that Ketan has been providing, and I am fairly sure that it won't be long before I am talking to them about consumables and similar for the mill, it came with a good range of extras, but that will change before long. I already have some plans for upgrades, I came across an excellent gas strut support design in a thread here that mounts inside the column, and I have some ideas for a DRO system that will hopefully also be usable on the Myford, so there's some work to be done there, before I make a start on the project that's one of the main reasons for upgrading the workshop, I'm hoping to start working on a SM32 scale NGG16, with the intention of running it on a new track to be laid in the garden once the flood scheme is eventually finished, it will go alongside a very early Roundhouse Fowler and several much modified Mamod locomotives that haven't seen a run in anger for a long time.

Life would have been much easier if Brexit hadn't happened, getting anything shipped from the UK to Ireland has become a regal pain, between the paperwork and finding a courier that will actually take the shipment, what used to be easy is very much no longer so, and there's a very distinct lack of suppliers for the hobby trade in Ireland, it was fortune that the mill came up on E-Bay while we were in the UK dealing with some family issues, it saved a lot of hassles.

Hopefully, the next 12 months will be a lot more interesting, the flood scheme was meant to be finished several years ago, but they ran into a whole range of issues, made worse by Covid, at least I can start work on some hobby stuff now, having at last managed to retire from the part time job I'd been doing.

So, thanks to Ketan for providing a level of support that's making this user of Sieg hardware feel a lot more comfortable about having bought one, and hopefully there will be other things over time to add to the list.

OK, thanks folks, that was more than I expected, and some serious food for thought, I'm going to have to do some serious research into some of the packages mentioned, and also look into exactly what sort of PDF file structures are embedded in the files I have.

Looks like I have some serious work to do, hopefully, the end result will be worth the effort.

Again, many thanks for some very detailed and thoughtful responses

Steve

Hi Folks,

I'm looking to see if anyone here has some experience with CAD programs that can import PDF files to then be scaled for making a model.

Ideally, the CAD program won't be horrifically expensive, being retired and only wanting to use it for hobby purposes means that spending silly sums on an all singing and dancing CAD program is not really a sensible option. Ideally, I need to run it on a WIndows 10 based system that's reasonably recent but not a screamer of a games machine, I've 8 Gb of memory and a couple of terabytes of disc, so plenty of space to play with

Some may regard me as slightly mad, I manged to get some original imperial measurement based full size manufacturing drawings in PDF format for a South African NGG16 Beyer Garrett, and my hope is to scale the drawings and extract the shapes of significant components so that I can build one for SM32 scale to run on O gauge track. Even then, it will be a big beast of a locomotive, over 800mm long, but it should make a seriously impressive model, if I can make it.

So, the question I need to ask is if anyone knows what CAD packages can import PDF to enable me to hopefully save myself some time in producing drawings that will make it easier for me to produce scalable drawings, which may also lead me to output files that might get used for getting some parts laser or water jet cut.

Thanks for any help

Steve

Dont be in too much of a hurry to uograde the machine at the moment, as there may be issues with the upcoming Win 11, which is really only Win10 rebadged, but the issue will be that a significant number of CPU's and AMD graphics cards and chips will NOT be supported by the new version. AMD have just chopped support on WIn 10 for a significant niumber of graphics cards and chips, and those that have been recently chopped will for sure not be supported under Win 11.

The utility that's supposed to check for Win 11 upgrade has been withdrawn by Microsoft, so it's not possible to check for sure at the moment,

Well, that was another nice surprise, we were out all day yesterday, visitng my son and his family, who we're not seen for close on 8 months as a result of the Covid lockdowns, he's 3 hours away, so it made for a long day. While we were out, I'd put a E-Bay delayed bid on to a Sieg SX2P mill, without too much hope of winning it, as an old Ajax earlier in the week nearly doubled in price in the last few hours before it sold for close on £1300, and there's been full size Bridgeport mills for not much more, if you discount the fraudulent item that keeps coming back on a regular basis.

So, we got home at just before midnight, and to my surprise, I am now the happy owner of a reasonably well equipped SIeg mill, though I will have to contain my impatience for a few weeks as getting it from the UK to Ireland is no longer the easy exercise that is used to be before the Brexit nonsense happened, so it's going to have to sit in my brother's garage until we can get over to bring it home. I wasn't expecting to find a suitable mill this soon, but I am well happy to have done so, even if the learning curve is going to be a little steep for a while.

An earlier model Sieg is being offered for a starting price of more than I've paid for a more recent and improved design, so I'm well pleased, and there's a reasonable selection of extras with it, so hopefully, not too much extra expense to make it usable for some of the things I have in mind..

Now I need to get things set up again, and start working on the drawings I will need for the NGG16, it's going to be a challenge, but hopefully worth doing.

Well, that's a nice surprise. Thanks for the welcomes and the specific comments, that's the sort of thing I wasn't expecting so soon.

To answer the questions above. I can accomodate a large machine if one comes up at the right price, and with some of the things I'd like to do, it might be easier on an older and larger machine, the really small mill/drill type machines are likely to struggle on some of the things I'd like to do over the next while. Having said that, a small mill might work for me, in that I know that trying to do some of the things I wnat to make is going to be almost impossible to mill on a myford, so I have to get something, the full size NGG 16 is nearly 50 Ft long, so in SM32, that will mean a locomotive that's 800 mm, or 32" in old money, which is NOT a small model!

Steamdave, if the machine in Carlow is reasonable, then yes, I could be interested, the garage should be big enough to get it in, so let's see what's out there. I don't mind doing a bit of cleaning and adjusting if it needs it, and I should be able to borrow a trailer etc to move it if necessary.

OldIron, the background with things mechanical started with a company that specialised in adding and accounting machines, Burroughs, and they did a whole range of mechanical (electric motor operated) machines, and even some pure mechanical crank handle operated machines, as well as all sorts of fancy machines that were used in the banks for putting numbers on cheques, using magnetic ink. That was nearly 50 years ago, series P, and J, and then I moved on to the L series of computers, 20 Character per second golf ball printers, used a nightmare mechanical clutch system to tilt and rotate the golf ball, and then over time, they progressed to multi pin dot matrix printers, before then introducing line printers. I could probably still rebuild a decoder if I had to, 8 clutches running in an Oil bath, and the tolerances were pretty tight to get them to work right, using metallic tapes wrapped round pulleys to do the moving. Burroughs also did other mechanical accounting machines that could do all sorts of fancy calculations using a variable tappet panel that moved with the carriage, but I never trained on them, and they were complex, but a dying breed when I started workijg with Burroughs in the early 70's just before decimalisation, which killed the older machines off, as the electronic machines were ideally suited to the new decimal currency working.

Post 2, as I want to look at an advert that's of interest

Hi All, Steve, living just nortth of Dublin in Ireland, a long time lurker, but it's time to start getting sensibly involved with using some of the kit I have here.

Interests are mainly garden railway (SM32), but I've done a few other things over the years. I started with engineering a long time ago, repairing things like adding machines, calculators and accounting machines, then computerisation came along, and I had to expand into electronic systems, which in the early days were still very much mechanical keyboards and printers, and that progressed into things like matrix printers and the like. Eventually, I moved into more of the software side of things, but never really got away from repair and maintenance work. Part time, I also spent a lot of time doing vehicle maintenance,

So, the (double garage ) workshop at present has a wide range of hand and power tools, and then a Myford ML7, a passable pillar drill, a decent Mig welder, Oxy Propane welding and cutting, and a plasma cutter.

I've come to the conclusion that to do what I want to do going forward, I will need some sort of mill, and deciding which way to go is going to be challenging, in that there's not much surplus machinery here in Ireland, and bringing things over from the UK has now become much more complex and expensive as a result of Brexit,

I'm almost retired, age wise I should have retired a few years ago, and there were things to do, but Covid has made me stop and think what I want to achieve with the time I have left. In some respects crazy. I've a hankering to build an SM32 (16mm) model of a Beyer Garrett NGG16, which will be a big model, even on O gauge, and to do a sensible job of that will need the accuracy of a mill to get the holes in the right places on multiple plates, and I don't fancy trying to do some of the things I will need on the Myford, I think I will be better to get a mill than spend a lot of money on extras for the lathe.

I don't have a garden railway track right now, I have the track, a Roundhouse Fowler and some much modified Mamod locomotives, and a selection of rolling stock, but there's a massive flood relief scheme going through (literally) our garden at the moment, so where I want to put the railway is a construction site at the moment, the frustration being that the flood relief scheme was meant to be started and finished in 2016, and if we are lucky, and there's no more delays, it will be the end of the year before the civll works are complete, and we've then to get the garden back into some sort of state of order..

So, that's me and my background,we'll see where this goes