Member postings for Simon0362

This is intended as an aid to others who may have similar problems and are looking for inspiration...I have an electronics background and a reasonable experience in house electrics, but no expert by a long way. To anyone who thought the solution was obvious, I admire your intellectual abilities, to those others, I hope it may help finding an obscure fault.

Background

When we moved to our current house in France some 3 years ago, I had the garage packed to the brim with workshop stuff, piled in with no chance to sort on delivery. Once the moving dust had settled, I started attempting to sort things out in the garage and fairly early on, needed power and light from the sockets placed on both sides of the building. The pair that were situated directly under the garage distribution box worked perfectly. Not so those on the other side of the garage floor that instantly pulled the house RCB’s as soon as something was plugged in and turned on. Due to the requirements of time spent elsewhere it was only last weekend that I had a serious delve into the problems, having managed with a series of extension cables up until this point.

Architecture

The source power for the garage is single phase and comes via a ‘power’ RCB and a ‘lighting’ RCB both placed in the main consumer box in the house. All of our circuits are either lighting or power and are entirely separate.

The garage lighting and power supplies come through a separate consumer box and have separate trips. There is a further lighting complication since the 3 way switching uses a relay in the box to turn the lights on and off, adding to the wiring.

The cabling is single core, Red, Black, Blue (N) and Green (E) inserted into plastic conduit which is concealed behind tongue and groove covering the roof insulation, so completely invisible…

All Earths and all Neutrals are ganged together in the garage consumer box except those on the 2 functioning sockets.

Symptoms

Plug any device into the socket and power up results in RCB trips going off. This is the case for both earthed and two pin equipment.

Tests

• Removed socket earth – no change
• Socket L-N = 230V
• Socket L-E = 228V
• E-N =2V at socket and all the way back to the main consumer unit
• Disconnect power trip, socket L-N = 140V

No obvious other shorting faults.

Hi Michael,

I have lived over here since 2007, the last 8 years near Aix en Provence. There is a small club (VAP) run by one of the contributers to ME/MEW, Jacques Maurel based around the Aix/Marseille area. **LINK**

Regards,

Simon

Mark, I think you may be unlucky trying to separate magnetically - I am pretty sure that all of the Torx screws that I have removed are both stainless and non-magnetic.

Dismantling them is both therapeutic and builds your collection of teeny tiny screws - reserve the ripping for the disks themselves and the drive motors - and be wary of the head assembly which I strongly suspect to be Mag alloy from their super-lightness.

Most of my drives came from friendly sys-admins happy to offload a load of dead drives.

Simon

Strip the HDD down - this produces a decent set of tiny Torx screws and some lovely aluminium for casting. Currently in the process of recycling about a dozen of them - the disks themselves are mostly glass based (they go bendy in the furnace rather than melting in with the rest of the Al) or more Al in which case I defy anyone to recover the data after 10 minutes at 700°C!

Simon

I asked about the spray on version on another thread - I used to use it (until I smashed the can nozzle) to spray onto items already in the chuck to help see where cuts were being made - for instance, down a hole to determine where and when the tool had hit a certain visible point. Similarly on the mill, a quick spray over a surface to see that a cleaning skim covered the entire area. Have to say I don't really miss it and with the cans running in at around €25 each, no intention of getting another one.

A marker pen is a good substitute but the spray had a higher chance of getting into hidden corners.

As for general marking out, I am with you - a sketch for a sanity check followed by careful use of the DROs.
Simon

Michael, most 3D printing people use .stl files to generate the output G-code for printing.

PM to you as well.

Simon

+1

Simon

Bob, I hope they don't float away either but given the local geology and our annual rainfall of less than 18", I don't expect a problem - and the builder has installed several others elsewhere too that are still firmly underground.

Watch this space though!

Timely topic....

The builders are hard at work on my garage/workshop extension (4m x 6.5m) with a feature that might be of interest to others:

I am having two large (5000l) concrete septic tanks installed under the floor which will become part of the structure. They are roughly 1.9m high, 1.6m wide and 2.2m long with a manhole access. We intend to cut a proper trap door size hole in them and install a step ladder style access. Ventilation to be installed as well.

I think we can assume that they will be waterproof......

Just large enough for a set of shelving for all of those things that like to be maintained at a near constant temperature - like paints, glues, etc, etc.

Number 1 will be for workshop use, number 2 will be the wine cave.....

The guys have just finished digging the hole - they got down to around 30cm above the desired depth and hit bed rock - this morning has seen the slow pneumatic hammering away, layer by layer.

Gravel to be laid under the tanks, then side filled and then the real workshop foundations dug around them. When the floor is laid the tanks will become part of the reinforcement.

Intending to get one of those super-smooth finishes on the concrete and then seal with 'something'!

(not sure how to twist this around......sorry!)

Simon

Edited By Simon0362 on 17/07/2018 11:50:38

ABS doesn't distort in a dishwasher, PLA definitely does.

I have a small PLA panel stuck onto our pool robot that has been theer for nearly 3 years with no signs of degrading, bio or otherwise and several other items permenantly outdoors that are not showing any signs of change either. Not sure what PLA's degrade period is but it looks to be quite long!

Simon

Funny, I thought that the use was obvious - but I own one like Journeyman with the pointed centre and I have never managed to work out how to use the pointed part for centre finding......

Is this equally obvious to all bar me?

Edited By Simon0362 on 09/03/2018 16:03:25

I had exactly the same experience at the first le Mans 24 hours I visited in the mid 80's - I arrived about 1/2 hour before the start and saw the cars trickle around on the parade lap. The first lap when they were all going full tilt was just so uncomfortable thanks to the volume and frequency of sound from the engines and exhausts that I ended up moving a distance away - from the <10 feet on the inside edge of a corner.

Sorry to OT a bit though!

Edited By Simon0362 on 16/02/2018 13:42:07

Has anybody tried using the PVA filement that they sell for support structures (e.g. **LINK**

My logic is that it could be washed out of a mould (assuming it wasn't too intricate) rather than going through a burn out exercise.

I have no experience of using it so not sure if it is capable of being used in this fashion.

"How to make a Desk Telephone"......

Admittedly it was April 1899 and an article within refers to Signor Marconi's successful experiments and his claim that he should be able to transmit across the Channel to France!

I passed on the majority of my old MEs a few months back but wanted to retrain the two I had from 1899 - just for this sort of topic!

Andrew, sent you a PM

Simon

Neil,

I don't think its that - it has been working well up until now, and nominally nothing has changed.

Humidity was a good call, we have had a couple of much more humid days here than normal - but when I changed to a virtually sealed different filament, the result was the same.

Cooling - again, if it was just layer #1 then I would think it likely but this was 2 hours into a print and its some 20mm above the base. And it only seems to happen when travelling in one direction (more difficult to confirm though).

No obvious reasons why the nozzle would be suddenly worn - but I tried a cleaning cycle that may be of use to others:

Nozzle removed and dropped into my old ultrasonic tank along which was loaded with a solution of caustic soda (all taking place out in the open air I hasten to add). A 5 minute run removed all traces of PLA from the externals and the thread. I then cleaned and dried the nozzle in clean water and turned the blowlamp on it for a few seconds which resulted in a blob of molten filament popping out the large end. Back into the ultrasonic then resulted in a visably very clean nozzle.

Had no effect on the problem however.

@Robin - it seems to happen at all levels - the photos I didn't upload show the same effects on layer #1.

I am starting to think its some alignment issue that has just happened, but nothing is obviously wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts though.

Simon

Edited By Simon0362 on 26/09/2017 13:32:28

Hi All,

I guess I should address this to a dedicated 3D print forum but everyone is so knowledgable and helpful her, I thought I would try it first...

My 3D kossel has worked perfectly for ages, no issues at all until the last couple of days. Today I put out a print that had a flat bottom directly onto the print plate and a series of blisters appeared as per the photos. It appeared that the print was going down but not firmly attaching on the unsupported side and then lifting up and away as the head moved past. The end result was a series of ploughed furrows that instantly killed the print when the next layer started because the ripples interfered with the print head.

I tried several changes including bed temperature settings, nozzle temperature, print density, etc. Finally, needing the job done, I printed on a bed and the result was successful.

I put it down to a probable height control issue.

The next print has a flat surface some 12mm above the bed and exactly the same problem appeared...

Any thoughts?

The filament has not been changed, in fact nothing has changed over the last few weeks so I am rather bemused.

Hoping someone will take a look and recognise the problem.

BR
Simon

Pronterface?

I use it to control my printer directly and to estimate print times.

Simon

I might be wrong here (frequently the case!), but I would expect this task to be better suited to an air-con style high volume, low pressure extractor fan rather than something built around a shop vac geared up to pulling a significant vacuum.

Also, not sure about 'shop vacs' but I think most ordinary vacuums use the sucked air to help cool the motor, after the mechanical extraction of the dirt of course. However heavy vapours from acrylics etc. would presumably pass through the mechanical filters to be presented at the (often sparky-sparky brushed) motor - might reduce the need for breathing air but...

My 2c..

Simon

A

A couple of words of warning - depending on your source of bar, test the test bar first. I purchased one from an Indian source and discovered some curious readings.

Once I set the bar between the end centres it became obvious that:

• the taper and the bar were not aligned
• the bar was not circular but a sort of oval shape

further checking revealed that it is a MT2.25 taper - or something like that - it is too fat at the large end so doesn't even fit tightly into the headstock...

Mr eBay was kind enough to refund my money with no quibbling once it was established that the seller was no longer a member of eBay.

I have purchased a replacement (also from India) and it has tested out successfully.

If anyone can suggest a use for a ground bar, roughly circular and to that well known size of (roughly 18.35mm), attached to a (roughly) MT2 taper, I would be pleased to hear them...

BTW, please don't assault me with "should have bought from X and not India, China, etc", I bought it with my eyes fully open and am not complaining

Simon