Member postings for John Doe 2

I have installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom mainly to keep us cool at night in the summer, but you can simply select reverse rotation to push the heat down in the winter - you don't need to twist the blades.

I remember working in a helicopter hangar many moons ago and they had long 6 or 8" diameter plastic tubes hung at each corner with an electric fan in each tube blowing the warm air from just under the roof back down to floor level.

I hope to install a system working on similar principles to our next house - it needs an extensive make-over so I hope to be able to install suitable ducting as I go, along with a heat recovery system on the bathroom and kitchen extractors.

Warm air can hold more moisture than cool air, (which is why clouds form at a particular height - the air temperature reduces by 1-3°C for every 1,000' above the Earths surface). When warm air comes into contact with a cooler surface, the moisture in that air will condense out onto the cooler surface.

My garage/workshop only has the large front door, so every time I go in or out, I have to open that and loads of air can sweep in. I bought a good quality Meaco dehumidifier with an external drain from Argos, and set it to 50% - I store wood as well, so I didn't want the humidity to be much lower.

Initially it ran constantly but after a couple of weeks, it got the whole place down to just under 50% and there was quite a difference; Cardboard boxes felt definitely drier; some damp sand I had in a plastic bag became completely dry; any buckets with a bit of water left in the bottom completely dry out. The dehumidifier now sits on standby. It checks the humidity every 30 mins, and if it has increased above 47% it runs.

Depending on the day, when I open the door the humidity can go straight up to 60% or more, but I have the door open for as little time as possible, and the dehumidifier gets the humidity inside back down to below 50% pretty quickly.

As well as this, I am working through all my tools, (including a precision square - like the OP's but a different make): rubbing them with Rutlands premium machine and tool wax. Problem with protective paper is having to re-wrap things every time they are used, and there will still be gaps, so it might not provide a 100% barrier to moist air, whereas a surface coating of machine wax will.

PS, I have no connection with any of the products mentioned.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 11/04/2022 11:08:13

It's crazy really isn't it? we spend money heating our homes, but by the next morning, all that heat we paid for has gone, and we have to pay to heat the house again. And again. And again - every single day.

Just to take a hypothetical example; if houses were made out of 18" thick polystyrene walls, ceilings and floors, then just the heat from our own bodies would be ample to heat the home and only heating for hot water and cooking would be needed. Obviously, such a thing would not be practical for living in, but it does seem crazy that we have to use so much energy to heat our homes every day, only to lose it all overnight.

I try to keep the house as cool as possible to keep the bills down - we wear sweaters in the house and watch TV in the evenings, snuggled under faux fur blankets, which is actually quite cosy and feels a bit decadent ! (No kids at home, which helps).

Most heating systems heat water which heats radiators which heat the air in a room, which in turn eventually heats the person(s) in that room - (the "radiators" are actually convectors), and there must be losses and inefficiencies involved with that multiple heat transfer process.

I must revisit those infra-red radiant panels I looked into some years ago, which make the skin feel warm but don't heat the air in the room. They are not the type that glow but are large flat panels that emit infra-red. I thought they could be fitted on the ceiling above areas in the rooms where we might sit.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 10/04/2022 12:47:43

Just to add my 2p and echo what others have said. In a previous career I used hexagonally crimped connectors at work, (video leads at a television broadcaster), and these were very robust and reliable. However, the tooling and the connectors were not cheap. The crimpers used jaws specific to the connector and cable, with different parts of the jaws specifically machined for different parts of the connector. You selected the correct jaw set for the job you were doing and fitted those jaws into the crimp tool.

The professional crimpers and jaw sets cost hundreds of pounds, but they did a very good job, and doing dozens or scores of cables at a time, for live broadcasting situations, we couldn't have failures, and the tooling paid for itself.

Soldering can make good joints, but there is potentially more to go wrong : the wrong solder composition for the job, the wrong soldering technique, the wrong iron temperature, contaminants on the wiring, the wrong flux for the materials, heat damage etc. etc. As has been mentioned, glue-lined heat shrink sleeving applied over a crimped or soldered connection is good protection and insurance against the elements getting into the finished joint.

Like anything in life, if you go cheap and use "toy" equipment and products, you will not get good performance or reliability. Companies such as RS components are the real deal, and have been in business for years. It is very easy to select and order from RS. We all like a bargain, but with an online auction site from unknown, anonymous sellers, you have no idea what the quality or source of the items is, or even if they are genuine parts at all.

My bottom line is do I want to spend time building something that might fail prematurely because of cheap "toy" components and tools, and then have to take the whole thing apart and rebuild it again properly; or would I prefer to do the job properly in the first place so that it lasts. Depends on the job of course.

If you divide the cost of a good quality tool or component by the number of years it will last for, say 10+ years, it does not seem so expensive when looked at from a price per year point of view.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 09/04/2022 10:50:16

I once poured some bleach or drain cleaner into a washing machine and it permanently stained the stainless steel drum !

I think Ukrainians now spell their city Kyiv, not Kiev?

Therefore the sound of the word has changed from Ki - ev to K - yiv. The latter sounds like Kiv, if spoken quickly or indistinctly.

You might try Matthewsons Auctions, from the TV series Bangers and Cash:

Roxby Garage, 8 Pickering Rd, Thornton Dale, Pickering YO18 7LH

They are a long way from you but they might be interested in three Austin 7s

I have no connection with them, just a viewer.

Could some oil from your oiling have got into the centrifugal switch in the motor? Seems a big coincidence that this happened soon after you did that.

I hope the OP doesn't mind if I ask a question on a slight tangent, since we have some knowledgeable folk responding.

Does white spirit leave any residue after it has evaporated? i.e., can I use white spirit to completely clean a surface for painting or does it leave an oily residue - I have never been quite sure on this point.

And how is methylated spirit chemically different from white spirit; and does it leave any residue? Meths is recommended as a cleaner before applying silicon sealant, but not sure if it is suitable to clean before applying paint?

Thanks.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 24/03/2022 11:13:17

Thanks for replies so far.

Some are assuming a hot-water-on-demand boiler. Not my case. I have a normal boiler, and a normal hot water cylinder. Normal, except the domestic water and the CH are both pressurised to about 2 bar and have the filling loop and pressure gauges etc, instead of having open header tanks.

I had a combi boiler in the previous house, and it was absolutely useless. 

Recently in this house, the expansion vessel fell off the wall ! The herbert who fitted it, (years before we bought the house), did a terrible job. I was thinking why do I need an expansion vessel and the whole CH system under pressure, when I could replace the expansion vessel with a small header tank in the airing cupboard, leaving only the domestic water fed from high pressure mains.

In the airing cupboard, there is a mains water supply and a drain that I could use for the overflow, so easy to change over, and much easier to maintain.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 20/03/2022 19:09:16

Apart from not having a header tank in the loft which is prone to freezing, can anybody remind me what the advantages are of the modern pressurised central heating systems, versus the old non pressurised ones? Is it a requirement of new building regs, and if so, what are the reasons for it?

I ask because these days, I seem to spend much more time having to attend to pressurised systems than I ever did to loft header tank systems. Pressurised systems also run at higher pressures - putting more force on seals and joints, and have expensive pressure valves, a sealed expansion vessel, and a filling loop with twin double acting non-return valves. All extra expense and maintenance.

Adding cleaner or inhibitor to a pressurised system is much more difficult than being able to tip the stuff into the header tank.

I apologise for the poor original photos of this object; they were taken by someone else on another forum, and they are all there were to copy. The marks are from the owner's crude attempts at cleaning the object by scraping. 

If one was trying to make a plumb bob, you wouldn't cut a slot like that for the string, because the bob would very likely hang crooked, which would be of limited use.

Surely you would drill a hole for the string in the centre of the flat end?

Edited By John Doe 2 on 09/03/2022 08:10:00

Many thanks tor all the replies. As I say, it was not my object, nor my photos, so I cannot get better ones - I was asking for another poster on a another website. I will report back to them.

Having read all the replies, my guess is that as Derek Lane says; someone found an unfired round, and tried to hacksaw it open, but cut into the tail of the bullet as well as the shell case. Having got halfway through, they were able to wrench off the shell case - hence the part of the casing still attached to the bullet and the angled edge to the casing just below the cut where it was torn away?

Incidentally, the scratches on the copper/brass part are from the owner crudely cleaning the bullet up - it was very rusty in his first picture, (that I didn't post).

Thanks again.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 07/03/2022 12:57:06

On another forum someone has found this in his Dad's old tool box. These are the pictures they posted.

It looks like a bullet, except for the radial cut near the blunt end.

Any ideas what it could be - something from a workshop machine or device? A plumb bob? If anyone knows I will pass the information on.

Thanks in advance.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 05/03/2022 10:26:34

Get an AAA or AA battery and briefly touch the LED ring leads onto the battery, red one end, white on the other.

Whichever way round the LED lights, the lead on the top of the battery is the positive, the lead on the flat bottom of the battery the negative.

With a 1.5V AA/AAA battery, you will not do any harm connecting it the wrong way round for a few seconds.

Edit: oh, hang on, just noticed the bit about the black in-line regulators. You won't get 1.5V through those, so will need to desolder or piggyback directly onto the LED rings from your AA/AAA battery with some spare wire.

The in-line regulators are very odd, not seen that before. Unless you have test gear, and not knowing anything about the white brick's quality or provenance, you should probably keep the black regulators in circuit in the final build.

I notice that the white brick's 12V output has a black lead on the +ve and a red lead on the -ve, so you are wise to be cautious. 

Edited By John Doe 2 on 04/03/2022 11:27:40

I've had a Sandvik 225 hacksaw frame since 1984 or so. A very good saw frame made of square section tube and cast end brackets - it has a 45° blade position too, and a screw that tensions via a lever arrangement. No problems with tension so far, but I might start loosening it off after use now, having learned that might be a good thing to do.

Re old tools; aren't 'old' chisels and plane blades made from better quality and/or better heat treated metal, compared to some modern ones? So better to buy old woodworking tools and refurbish them than buy new ones made with inferior materials?

As an aside; ''Standard' eurocylinder locks are scarily easy to break. There are videos on youtube from the manufacturers of the secure three star versions showing how the cheap ones can be broken with just a pair of mole grips in about 10 seconds.

The ones with three stars have several security features to prevent an attacker opening the door. They cost a lot more than the standard non or one starred versions, but that is cheaper than being broken into !

Nice job ! Could you come and do mine ?

Can I ask about your vice arrangement. I will be fitting out a garage as a workshop this year and am currently designing it in my head. I was thinking of a similar co-located vice arrangement to allow metal and woodworking projects, but obviously don't want the vices or the workpieces to foul each other.

And any comments about the DeWalt bandsaw - any good?

That is simply immoral for just a shorted 'bulb'. Utterly ridiculous - if it was me I would write a strong (but polite) letter to Volvo, copied to your garage.

Next time, perhaps a scrap yard or an online second hand car parts company to buy a replacement cluster and swap it yourself?

The LED light cluster in our bedroom ceiling fan stopped working and looking at the board, a couple of the ICs that drove the LEDs had literally burned out. The company wanted £45 + postage for a new cluster. Err, "Negative, Ghost Rider" - I unsoldered the mains socket from the LED board and made up a lead to feed the mains output to a standard bulb holder and fitted a small LED bulb. This sits 'loose' but perfectly safely within the frosted glass lamp cover and works perfectly. Cost? zero, except a bit of heat shrink sleeving I had 'in stock', and about 30mins of my time, which is free anyway. (Not suggesting this cure for your car !!).

Edited By John Doe 2 on 08/02/2022 09:40:04

A DVD disc is digital, but the player the OP shows has separate analogue video and audio outputs, (yellow, red and black). So your DVD machine has a digital to analogue convertor which feeds these connectors.

Your television also has analogue video and audio connectors, (yellow, red and black), and most probably they are inputs.

So, as some have said; if you connect the yellow to yellow, red to red. and black to black with phono to phono leads between your DVD player and your television, and select the analogue input on your television source menu, (might be called 'ext' for external), you should be able to view and hear your DVD player. No need to buy an analogue to HDMI convertor, because your television has this built in.

Of course, you won't see or hear digital quality, because the signal will go from digital to analogue and back to digital again, which in consumer level equipment, will introduce signal degradation.

Something called component video, (Y, Pr, Pb), might be available from the SCART connector and if so, a component to HDMI convertor will give you better quality than going via the composite PAL signal that is present on the discrete analogue connectors. But component is still analogue, and rather than spend money on this, a brand new DVD player with HDMI output would be the most sensible option, avoiding any analogue step.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 07/02/2022 13:11:12