Member postings for John Doe 2

I have heard it said that the USA uses as much power just to run air-conditioning, as Africa uses for everything?

Building insulation standards and building techniques need to be vastly improved, as this will reduce the energy needed to both heat and keep them cool.

Steam powered locomotives were only about 6% efficient?

We really need to harvest the natural non-polluting sources of energy from the environment; I cannot believe that people object to solar farms in fields ???????

In the UK, tidal flow should be developed with maximum priority. A small horizontal wind turbine could be put on top of every electricity pylon - the pylons are already there and there must be thousands of them.

The North England and Scottish moors could be re-forested to help absorb carbon, and/or maybe provide a renewable supply for wood-chip burners.

Geothermal bores could be routinely dug next to every house where possible for heat pumps to tap into the "free" heat energy under the ground.

New houses should only be allowed within half a mile of a railway line, and new stations built to service them. Re-lay the branch railways that Beeching ripped up.

This will all require a national, integrated plan.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 03/08/2023 10:27:22

The OPs first question is one reason why the Government will be granting more oil exploration licences in the North sea; We will still need oil, even if we don't burn it.

Given the apparent difficulty of buying 'edible' gluten free bread; making your own bread could be a useful and valuable alternative for sufferers.

Until I got my bread maker, I had no idea how good they were, and how easy they are to use to give top quality results - much better than bread you can buy at a supermarket, and far more healthy.

So advice about home bread making is not all that far off topic really; and just trying to help.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 02/08/2023 23:36:43

It's the equivalent of the "Oh sh*t" moment when you press return on the computer keyboard without double checking what you are about to tell the computer to do.

Did that once when trying to add a back-up hard drive to my PC and lost all access to the original hard drive, which of course contained the Windows start-up and files and tools. So I had to recover it via MS-DOS and the BIOS.

A computer expert could not sort it out, but I managed to get it all back. The data had not gone, just that the computer had "forgotten" that it had a hard drive. I was eventually able to jog its memory and get it to look and find the drive. All was back to normal after that.

The people at NASA must be in a terrible state about Voyager - I would hate to be in their shoes right now. I hope the dish panning mechanism on the spacecraft doesn't jam when it tries to motor the dish back.

Machining a set of decent quality made-to-measure bespoke hinges and fixings might be a good project for an engineer with a workshop perhaps?

I am regularly finding things to make with my 3D printer - no toilet fixings yet ! (but actually, why not?).

Most recent jobs were a set of spacer fixings to mount curtain rails to the bedroom ceiling, and then a low profile lifting pad for my trusty trolley jack - the one it had being just too tall to get under my present car.

Hi Bill, (sorry, I have been away). No, not correct at all.

The Panasonic SD - 253 does of course have a paddle, but the bread expands and forms tightly against it, so when you tap the loaf out of the cooking container, it just leaves a small slot in the base of the loaf.

So a couple of the bread slices will have a small slot at the bottom, but given the fantastic natural bread you can make, and you know exactly what is in it, with no hidden sugar or chemicals; this is no problem at all.

I certainly would never bother taking the paddle out before cooking !!! - very messy and completely unnecessary. The whole point of this bread maker is that after putting all the ingredients in, it completely looks after itself - doing everything without any attention until the loaf has finished cooking. And it has a dispenser to scatter seeds on the top at the right point during the baking, if you want.

Mixing paddle with £1 coin for scale.

Bread mixer / cooking vessel, showing paddle in position. As you can see, it only makes a tiny void in the loaf.

Just as an aside - and I hesitate to post this on an engineer's forum - but the original damage to the tops of the screw heads looks as if a Phillips driver has been used on Pozidrive heads.

And I also noted a reference to cross-head screws, without specifying whether they were Phillips or Pozidrive.

We do all know the difference don't we? (My supervisor at one place didn't.........)

The Pozidrive has parallel driving flanks, the Phillips has curved driving flanks. So using the wrong driver for the screw will potentially cause damage to the screwhead or driver, and won't impart the full torque to the screw.

Puts tin hat on and runs away............

PS, did anyone mention left handed drill bits? Many videos showing broken screw extraction use these to good effect, as they don't expand the bolt as easy-outs can do.

PPS, It can be worth giving a stuck screw a couple of medium taps of the impact driver in a clockwise direction before trying to undo it in the anticlockwise direction. This action might break the rust or loctite bond, and by bearing on the doing-up flanks of the screw/bolt, will leave the undoing flanks fresh and undamaged to give maximum chance of undoing it. 

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 01/08/2023 10:56:44

Aircraft worldwide contribute only 4-8% of global CO2, whereas surface ICE transport produces around 30%. So it is far more pressing to reduce personal ICE use.

However, for this to happen, viable alternatives need to be introduced first. Forget HS2, we should be re-laying all the rail branch lines ripped up by that idiot Beeching. And only allowing new houses to be built within half a mile of a railway line, and new railway stations built to serve those developments, to reduce personal ICE use. Forget the extended London ULEZ until sensible transport alternatives are available, and I don't mean electric cars that cost far too much for just a motor and a battery. They should cost much less than an ICE car.

And why are cars with large engines still being produced and still legal to be sold? There should have been an immediate cap of, say, 2 litre size for new car engines, and a cap of 1 litre size in 5 years' time, then a total ICE ban after that. Streets could be wired for charging by lifting the kerb stones and replacing them with purpose cast curb stones to accommodate electrical cables and charging posts.

As far as cars having different fasteners; many components are bought-in, not designed and built by the actual car company, So the fasteners used throughout an engine and engine bay will very likely be a mix, depending where each component comes from.

I make my own bread, well I use a Panasonic SD - 253 bread maker, which is brilliant.

You put all the ingredients in, set the machine, and it mixes, rests, kneads, rests, kneads again, then cooks the loaf. It does all this completely automatically, with no attention required from you after you have switched the machine on. You can set a timer so that your bread is ready in the morning when you come down for breakfast - to the smell of delicious freshly cooked bread.

And you can use whatever flour and other ingredients you want. I add olives usually, and I find that using olive oil instead of margarine produces a loaf with a much better consistency and softer texture.

I also don't put any sugar in, which most shop bought bread has.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 22/07/2023 10:18:24

Yes, if you start a car engine, it is best to run it for a minimum of, say, 5 miles to get fully warmed through and evaporate off all the moisture.

Otherwise exhausts can rust as well as moisture remaining in the engine and the oil causing problems. And of course, the battery needs to have time to be sufficiently recharged after every start.

No, but I realise it would not take as long with an already fully primed oil system, or on restarting an engine a few minutes after stopping, but 20s is no time really, and I generally start the engine before putting the seat belt on, after which I am ready to go and I can be certain the oil is circulating. I like to treat engines with respect.

I was very amused when returning to my car at the airport to see some airport ramp workers get into their cars and move away the instant their engines fired - I guess they were the type who will not spend a second longer at work than they have to - or maybe they were having a race. But they obviously did this on every engine start because both their engines sounded like buckets of bolts being shaken up !

I had a tool made that I could use with an electric drill down the distributer hole to run the oil pump of a Rover V8 engine I was rebuilding; so I could prime all the oil passages and bearings before the first restart after reassembly. I kept the rocker covers off while I did this to monitor progress, and it took about 20 seconds of quite hard pumping before the oil started to appear up at the rocker shafts. So I always let my car idle for at least that time before moving away, and I drive gently until the oil is up to temperature.

Aircraft engines are run for a specified time, (3-5 mins), and until a specified minimum oil temperature, before take-off. They also have to be run at idle power for a specified minimum time before shutting down. And yes, oil is sampled and sent away to detect metal flecks, which might indicate impending bearing failure. From the composition of any such particles, they can sometimes determine which bearing it is.

Re sludge and turbo chargers; fully synthetic oil is the way to go, (and also engine cool-down time). Does anyone else remember the original Mobil 1 adverts showing oil in two frying pans being heated on a stove? After a while the mineral oil degraded into a thick treacle, whereas the fully synthetic oil was still as thin and flowing as it was before being cooked. That knowledge informed my oil purchases from then on !

Spending money on 'expensive' fully synthetic oil is actually cheaper in the long run. You get very good performance and get no sludge at all, and the engine internals remain bright, clean, and wear-free. A colleague where I used to work always bought the very cheapest, most basic mineral oil for his car, and his engine sounded like a bucket of bolts as well !

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 19/07/2023 11:38:50

It's interesting the reaction one gets when talking about flying on Christmas day. Many people seem to view doing so as a basic human right ! Whereas, for example, the building industry shuts down for about three weeks over the Christmas period.

Flying on Christmas day means that thousands of airport workers have to get up early and go to work - baggage handlers, security staff, fuelers, ramp workers, handling agents, check-in desk operators, terminal staff, firemen, cleaners, runway inspectors, bird scarers, air traffic controllers, aircrews, car park staff, maintenance staff........the list goes on.

One of our cabin managers told us of her 9 year old son bursting into tears when he saw her in her uniform in the early hours, because he realised that yet again, Mummy would not be at home on Christmas day........

The traditional English pub doesn't have to open on Christmas day, and had that pub been closed, we would have gone elsewhere, or indeed have stayed cosy at home by the fire.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 19/07/2023 10:40:41

No, just a very pleasant couple of hours before Christmas lunch/dinner at home.

The price of oil might seem expensive these days, but tell me what other thing you could buy for your car for the same money that would have the same benefit. The very best thing to give your engine is new, high quality oil, regularly changed.

I always use Mobil 1 fully synthetic, which is easily the best oil, and I change it according to the service schedule - although, I err on sooner rather than later.

Mobil 1 and a filter cost around £70, (plus an hour of my time). That is a very small price to pay for absolute security and top engine performance and longevity.

Also, using a high quality oil such as Mobil 1 fully synthetic massively reduces engine wear to pretty much zero. 

Edited By John Doe 2 on 18/07/2023 11:45:57

Christmas is what you make it.

I too, absolutely hate the commercialisation, and I just wish the shops would actually close for at least Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. In my second career, we had to work on Christmas day to fly people abroad, which depressed me - not only because I had to get up at 0500 to go to work on Christmas Day, of all days; but that the customers actually wanted to drive to the airport and travel on Christmas Day ! What a waste of the one special day of the year, when there is a perfectly valid reason to stay at home and relax. They could travel before or after.

I am not religious at all, but I have been around churches for many years through bell-ringing, and seeing people dressed smartly attending a church at Christmas is special and has a fantastic atmosphere.

In my first career, I was part of the team broadcasting carols live from Kings College Cambridge, and I defy anyone not to be moved by the atmosphere of a good choir singing traditional Christmas carols.

But nobody has to watch television ! We generally listen to Radio 3 or a CD of classic Christmas carols. Or you can watch films of your choice on DVD, with the dual advantage of seeing your favourite film(s), and no adverts.

You can eat whatever you want ! - doesn't have to be turkey - we have goose or guinea fowl. The point of it is; it is a day for a really special meal which is both formal and relaxed, with good food and good wine, port, champagne. Treat yourselves !

One of my most memorable Christmases, we went to a lovely local pub with a few friends, after which we walked home together through the absolutely silent and empty snow filled streets. Utterly magical.

Christmas is what you make it. Perhaps I have a good imagination and a romantic outlook, but sending cards, seeing your children believe in Father Christmas, and the whole thing should be special and memorable. You don't have to be religious - you can enjoy it on a spiritual or romantic level.

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Edited By John Doe 2 on 18/07/2023 11:28:21

Gosh, what a surprising question and direction this thread went,

And how very depressing. There is still something special, (to me at least), about sending or receiving a physical thing through the post, and the receiver opening and handling what you yourself handled, and wrote in by hand.

Doing it electronically requires about 1/100th of that effort, and to me that cheapens it considerably - because I know that someone can email a list to an E-Card supplier, and the same 'card' will be emailed - with the appropriate name added automatically on the header - to all on that list. That would take about 5 mins to do, but what is the point, if you can't be bothered to buy a set of Christmas cards from the local charity shop and send them yourself? Might as well not bother at all. Good grief.

So, apart from real cards and presents; What else don't people like about Christmas; Snow? Christmas day meal? Decorations? Christmas drinks? Church bells?

How depressing.

I do think the "round robin" letters about what the family have done in the year are questionable though; Very close to showing off, or oneupmanship, some of them.

Blimey ! That is extremely impressive if that is your first attempt at CADing for a 3D print !

I started with very simple things such as a replacement lid for the bird feeder ! And I have yet to do things that have axles etc. Great work !

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but for possibly slightly different purposes than this one, you can now get T squares with hundreds of tiny holes laser drilled along its length. These are spaced at millimetre distances from the T, but other holes around each whole millimetre hole are drilled at +1/4, +1/2, +3/4mm.

So now marking out something to the accuracy required in woodwork, i.e. to about 0.5mm, is very easy to do, and because you put your 0.7mm pencil lead in an actual hole, rather than eyeballing it against a scale, the accuracy and precision is much better. Also, you can slide the T square along to make a line Xmm in from the edge very easily and accurately.

Hi Dave, SoD.

It is certainly true that technology moves on and generally improves year on year. However, this thread started with an example of a 'modern' product that actually did not perform very well, and stopped working, but we all know of products from years back, which have lasted a much longer time. Washing machines and gas boilers for example used to last 20+ years easily, but now often seem to break down after a just a few years.

What needs to be borne in mind is that the profit motive also moves on, and manufacturers and producers are constantly trying to increase their profits and returns - witness the proposed closure of ticket offices on most railway stations.

Light bulbs too, used to last a very long time until light bulb manufacturers realised that their profits were drying up; so they reduced the raw material and manufacturing standards so that light bulbs did not last anything like as long - planned obsolescence was invented and the throw-away society was created. Smart phones and lap-tops are only supported for about 5 years, after which updates are not published for them and they become not secure to use - more planned obsolescence.