Member postings for mgnbuk

Oil is the first to run short - we've got about 20 years before shortages bite hard.

A bit of a pessimsitic estimate Dave ? This :

**LINK**

suggests 56 years at 2016 production levels. And the need for oil won't end with a reduction in burning it - all the plastic insulation used in EVs & the needle coke derived graphite used in lithium batteries comes from oil, for example.

The limitation with core life is if cracks in the graphite blocks that comprise the core spread too much

More than just cracks in the graphite blocks - the block density decreases as well. But monitoring the deterioration has been going on for a while & the results are used to grant the life extensions. At work we manufacture graphite components with defined "features" and from various different grades / types of graphite & carbon used to calibrate the test equipment that is used to survey the reactor cores - some of the graphite we are supplied with has a very open texture & is also quite friable - difficult to measure after machining without changing the part with the measuring equipment.

Nigel B.

How sucessful this will be will depend upon how powerful your grinder is & how much polishing you wish to do.

Most budget grinders are not very powerful - typically 250-375W. This isn't an issue with a tool grinder as, generally, you don't apply much pressure when grinding. But it is easy to stop one when attempting other operations - I have a 6" wire wheel on one end of my bench grinder for general derusting & deburring & it is very easy to stop the machine while using it. I have not managed to stop it while grinding.

For polishing I have a 0.75KW single phase motor with a suitably parallel bored "pigtail" attached. It is clamped in a Workmate by the feet when used. I can't recall the size of the mops I have without a measure-up, but think they may be 8" & I can stop this machine as well if I get too enthusiastic.

Be aware that polishing is a hot & dirty business !

Nigel B.

My limited number of contacts are saved on the phone, not the SIM card. This is a bit of a pain when I change phones, as I have to manually re-enter the contacts on the new phone as they don't transfer with the SIM card - but changing phones is not a regular occurence for me so it is not a major issue. Your post has reminded me that I need to do this for the phone I changed to just before Christmas !

Google has not asked me about transfering any contact list operated in this way for the previous 2 phones & I do have a Google Account, GMail, purchased & "free" apps etc.

Nigel B.

So which is more important, try to let them run cool and extend their lives, or keep them clean in a sealed box?

Modern VFDs don't seem to generate that much heat in industrial environments & I doubt that many MEs will push their equipment hard enough for this to be an issue if a sensibly sized cabinet is chosen that meets the maker's stated operating clearances.

The manuals usually give an indication of the heat generated by the device to be considered & surface dissipation through a steel enclosure surface area can be calculated - only if the area is inadequate is ventilation required & fan inlets / air outlets are usually fitted with replaceable filter elements. I prefer heat exchangers for the environment I have to operate in (graphite machining) - heat exchange without air exchange & subsequent risk of conductive dust ingress. Korean & Japanese machine usually have heat exchangers fitted anyway as a matter of course due to being sold into hot / humid regions where air exchange is not desirable.

For the most part, when a machine arrives at work that has through flow fans fitted the first thing I do is remove them & seal off all the openings in the enclosure. The cabinet temperature is then monitored & only in one or two instances have I had to fit heat exchangers due to excessive temperature rise - in all these cases this has been on cabinets that I considered to be undersize for the amount of equipment contained by them for (usually) "aesthetic" reasons. In a couple of cases I have set the fans to circulate the air within the cabinet to forec contact with the walls & this has reduced the temperature enough such that heat exchangers were not required.

Nigel B.

I don't particularly enjoy my 100 miles a day commute 4 days a week (mainly on motorways) in the car, but do still enjoy "going places" on more minor roads by car, motorhome & (particularly) motorcycle.

With very few exceptions I have travelled independantly for holidays, going abroad for the first time in 1982 & I still look forward to doing so (when allowed, that is ! ). I have missed taking the bike around the Alps / Dolomites passes for the past two years - hopefully next year will see me return there. Advancing age & infirmity mean the long distance motorcycle tours have been replaced by towing the bikes behind a motorhome to the "interesting" bits - still fun, but in a different way.

When doing so ceases to be fun, I'll stop - but I don't expect that to happen any time soon. Conditions have changed considerably since I started on the roads in 1976 & rarely for the better, but I still have the feeling of freedom I first had on a single speed Honda 50 at 16 - no more being tied to other people's timetables.

Nigel B.

but these are 'old bangers' now

And subject to extensive testing to determine the condition of the cores to determine if they are safe to continue operating. It is the testing that has determine that the cores have not deteriorated in the manner that they were originally expected to (and on which the original operating life was given) and the basis on which the life extensions have been granted.

Nigel B

Why is a VFD screwed to the wall in the correct environment unsafe. ?

Beacuse a). the housings of most VFDs are not designed to an adequate IP rating to be used without a suitable enclosure.

b). the manufacturers of the VFDs (for all makes I have installed so far) state in the manuals that the equipment is to be mounted in a suitable protective enclosure. In the same way they also state whether the motor cable screen is to be grounded at one or both ends - when all else fails, RTFM

As the Start and Stop buttons are not used to Set Up parameters why are they fitted. ?

For set-up and testing - set-up of an installation being more than just entering parameters & it can be advantageous to be able to operate the VFD locally during setup rather than using remote control gear.

IIRC you have expressed these (erroneous IMO) opinions in previous discussions on this topic ? While I accept that you are quite at liberty to do as you wish in the privacy of your own environment, surely following the equipment manufacturers guidelines in the first instance should be the default position when giving advice to others ?

Nigel B.

It isn't just the terrestrial channels that have endless repeats - despite my best efforts, I gott signed up for an Amazon Prime "trail" while buying a book. The auto-renew bit was cancelled immediately, but the 1 month "!trial" once activated seemingly cannot be terminated, so we are trying out the Prime TV offerings at the moment while they are available.

So far I have not seen much to tempt me to pay Amazon £8 a month on the basis of what is available to stream when the "trial" expires - a couple of films that will doubtless be coming to terrestrial TV at some point, a "box" set sci-fi series that was OK & passed a couple of evenings and the big budget post-BBC Top Gear remake (The Grand Tour ) - not to everyone's taste but I found it amusing. At least the Prime streaming service is not infested with adverts - programs / films stream without interuptions

We rarely watch anything on commercial terrestrial TV live due to the intrusive adverts - either put the channel on the Virgin box, wait 20 minutes or so after the program has started then rewind the live program back to the start to be able to fast-forward the ads, or record the program & do likewise later. Half hour programs padded out to an hour with adverts & "recaps" seem to be the norm on Channels 4 & 5 & make thir stuff largely unwatchable live.

Nigel B.

IIRC these use a tapered gib with a screw bearing on each end.

To adjust this type of gib, slacken the screw at the thin end of the gib (most likely at the bottom), screw in the screw at the thick end of the gib to remove any free play (don't go beyond taking up the slack ! ) then tighten the thin end screw to lock the gib in place. The taper on the gib is a slow one, so it is easy to adjust it to be too tight if you are heavy-handed with the thick end adjuster screw.

Nigel B.

The two part cameras (seperated camera & flash units - usually covered in yellow reflective panels) mounted singley on the side of gantries on the "Smart" sections of the M62 & M1 around Leeds / Wakefield only appear to flash once when triggered.

I have not triggered one, but fairly often see the cameras on the opposite carriageway flash once - down right dangerous to opposing traffic at night, as the flash is exteremely bright and unexpected. I also experienced one going off in heavy rain at night when another vehicle came past me while a lower speed limit was active on a "Smart" motorway - I assume he got the ticket, as I didn't, but that also stuffed my night vision with the bright flash reflected off the heavy falling rain & wet roads.

Hopefully you will get offered the opportunity to pay for a "Speed Awareness" course rather than an automatic fine & points. Completeing the course should not affect your insurance premiums, but points almost certainly will cause them to increase for 5 years & the increases affect every vehicle you own or are mentioned on the policy of - you can guess how I know this !

Nigel B.

WDS

supply Tee nut blanks, though being an industrial supplier they are not "bargain basement" prices.

Nigel B.

Howard beat me to it !

Edited By mgnbuk on 24/12/2021 11:46:19

but do you have no concerns about that?

If I thought that Google wanted to track me for reasons other than making money from advertisers maybe, but there is "no such thing as a free lunch" and for me the trade-off between the "free" functionality of Google's offerings versus the advertising is currently acceptable - though the current swamping of YouTube with unwanted and intrusive ads is getting to be rather annoying.

Google do seem to use (at least some) the data they collect to improve their services - Google Translate, for example, is pretty amazing & apparently has some form of AI that compares it's output translations with other translations to contiunually refine its capabilities. We were on holiday in Germany in September and, obviously, Covid issues were widespread. I can understand a bit of German in situations I am familiar with, but Covid related notices introduced a whole raft of unfamiliar terms. Using the camera on Mrs B's phone & Google Translate, signs just changed from German into English. The grammer could be a bit "odd", but it was easy to understand what the signs were about - in one case a requirement to e-mail copies of vaccination certs to the local council department that operated the motorhome stopover we were staying at, which was easily done with the phone GMail account. A potentially stressful situation made suprisingly easy with an Android phone & Google apps - if the cost is (usually) non-intrusive tracking & data collection of some of my activities, at the moment I am happy with that.

I have installed Ubuntu onto an old HP laptop running Vista that I was given. The laptor was dead when I got it, as the original owner had managed to pull the connnector off the power lead, then ran it until the battery went flat. A new connector on the lead got it going, but there was so much junk on it that Vista would barely run. Doing a "restore to as supplied" got rid of the junk & after it had loaded up all the service packs & updates it ran Vista quite well, but I fancied trying Linux so installed Ubuntu as dual boot. Quite starightforward & all the laptop funtions worked under Linux + it was much faster.

I also put Mint on an XP OS Medion netbook dual boot & that worked fine as well initially. The same problems came to both machines after an update - the screen went to showing only around 20% of the normal display on the LHS, the remainder being black. If I started in the Linux equivalent of "Safe Mode" then a lower resolution full screen came back. I tried multiple times getting updates in "Safe Mode", mistakenly thinking that one of them would undo whatever had caused the problem (something to do with video drivers or settings by the look of it), but the problem remained & I was unable to find answers online as to how to solve the problem.

As I didn't need either of the machines (I have working alternatives) , that is how it ended up being left - I have less frustrating things to spend my free time on ! Most of the Linux "support" seems to assume a level of understand that I just don't have & a lot of the jargon is pretty impeneterable for an outright beginner, so my Linux experience ended up being something of a let down after a promising intial start.

I have subsequently got a first generation Raspberry Pi up and running from scratch - though, as yet, have not done anything useful with it !

Nigel B.

Nigel, I can see you like Xiaomi ...... I am guessing you have not had your Xiaomi too long - I would be interested to hear your opinions in 6 months time

I currently purchase Xiaomi because, at the moment, they appear (to me) to offer the best combination of specification vs. price & I bought mine because my wife has had a positive experience with hers over the past year. Historically I have started with a Motorola, changed that for another Motorola, had a different Chinese Android phone (Hisense), a Symbian Nokia & currently (until the Xiaomi aftermarket case arrives) a Windows Nokia, so I have no particular long-term affiliation with a particular manufacturer. Same with cars - buy what suits at that moment in time, but what suits changes with time. We had 4 Skodas back-to-back from the late '80s, but I wouldn't buy a current Skoda - times change.

Xiaomi must be doing something right - for a company that only started in 2010 & shipped its first phone in 2013 to have become the second largest phone manufacturer (behind Samsung, ahead of Apple) suggests that they are making what people want to buy at a price they are happy to pay. My only gripe (so far ! ) is the sheer number of competing versions of phones that they make & the rate at which the products change makes it difficult to decide which is the "best" for me. Reviews are only limited help & often rather contradictory.

I can't say I have found Android any more difficult or frustating to use than any of the others. I have most Android experience with a first generation Tesco Hudl tablet, which gets used most days for reading newspapers and magazines via Readly. But it also got used as a rolling map (Osmand app) in my motorhome & occasional web surfing - only recently have there been performance issues, which seem to be due to the age of the device & updates to apps making it run more slowly. Not sure what you mean about "foisted on the paying public" - AFAIK Google don't charge manufacturers for Android - or they didn't use to - that was how it became so widespread. Getting access to data (loss of privacy) with widepread adoption was Google's aim all along ! Android doesn't seem to cause me any more frustrations than the various versions of WIndows I have fought over the years & far fewer than my limited forays into Linux, which have currently got me beaten into submission.

Nigel B.

Sometime soon’ has arrived

If you are not in a desparate hurry for delivery, look for the "Deal of the day" offers in the Mi Store on top of the headline deals. That was how I got the 8Gb+256Gb Poco X3 Pro for less than the current offer (which is a better offer than the normal one last week) on a "today only" basis - pure luck that the phone I was interested in came up on such an offer the day I was looking. Plus the extra tenner off if your choice is over £200 with the offer code headlined on the home page - postage is not charged for over about £70 order value IIRC.

The ordering process from Xiaomi UK was straightforward, though you have to set up an account with a password. The address entry is a bit "odd" (possibly designed for somewhere with a different address format to ours) but if it doesn't look to be formated correctly when you move pages you can go back to re-arrange things until it looks right. I ordered at 9.30pm Tuesday & it was delivered RM 1st Class Signed For mid-morning Thursday.

Xiaomi Poco M3's running Android 12 and Xiaomi's MUI 12...... So the Xiaomi went in the drawer ....

There has just been an update to MIUI 12.5 - might be worth digging the Poco out of the drawer & updating it ? I didn't use mine with 12 as it was supplied, as it updated to 12.5 almost immediately. From what I have read, each iteration of MIUI has got less "different" & more like normal Android in operation, so it may make yours operate more to your liking ?

Nigel B.

Hi Ian,

Apple fined for slowing down old iPhones

Mrs B's works phone will not operate for more than a day without requiring recharging. I'm not sure which model it is, but doubt that DWP will be specifying the latest or greatest versions. My reference to it being "plugged in all the time" is more that I notice it when I come to recharge my phone (every 3 days) it is always on the kitchen table in the evening getting charged up for the following working day, rather than it having to be plugged in to operate.

Apple do appear to work hard to ensure that repairing their devices is difficult or near impossible & have resorted (fairly recently) to disabling features such as face recognition if the display is replaced by anyone other than Apple - even if genuine Apple parts are used. They do seem to have had to change their tune on that in the face of user backlash & are, apparently, going to make replacement display kits available "officially" for the first time. They also have some king of serial numbering arrangement for compment parts that prevents used parts from broken phones being used to repair others - the parts may be working and correct, but because the serial number is different to that which the phone was built with it won't function. This attitude appears to be in place to sell more phones & contributes to the increasing amount of electronic waste.

Nigel B.

Just wondering why some are biased against iPhones

Apart from the high purchase price, the "closed" environment in which they operate, their history of dubious tactics to effectively shorten the life of the phones by "hobbling" them & their efforts to make repairs difficult and expensive ?

Mrs B is provided an iPhone by the DWP for business use - when her own phone came up for replacement, she didn't ask me to find the best price for an Apple phone to replace it. Maybe because the work phone seems to be semi-permenantly plugged in to the wall recharging ? But, to be fair, that could equally be the model of phone that was supplied & the effect of the bespoke version of the operating system it runs, but battery life does not seem to be that good.

I have not yet been tempted by an Apple product, as there have always (so far) been alternative solutions that offer a better price / performance balance for me. There do seem to be a large number of satisfied Apple users, so they obviously provide a range of products that safisfy a lot of people.

Nigel B.

… Can you confirm/refute this please ?

My understanding of the bloatware/advertising bit is that it mainly affects Far Eastern market phones & that EU market phones get a different version of the Xiaomi "MIUI" interface that is not so affected. Xiaomi have the largest share of the Indian market (Samsung are quite a long way behind them in second place) & quite a few reviews in English are on Indian sites - they do see to get the advertising as standard. Some Uk reveiws mention an ad banner while loading certain Xiaomi apps, but these apps are not necessary to operate the phone, the ads (if the appear) only appear while the app is loading and they can be disabled in settings. While setting up my new phone over the last coupIe of days have not seen an advert at all, but there have been a couple of notifications about features I am not interested in ( "wallpapers" & Xiaomi Cloud backup for example) that, while they can be cancelled easily, I have not found a way to stop yet.

There are bundled-in apps that I consider "bloat" - anything Social Media related and any direct connections to popular online sales and streaming services is "bloat" as far as I am concerned - but all phones, laptops, pcs etc. come with these & I consider it part of my setup process to uninstall them. The Nokia Windows phone was no different to the Xiaomi in that regard.

Likewise it is worthwhile going through the "permissions" of all the apps that are kept or subsequently installed to cut down how they communicate with the vendor or originator of the app - some of these have a toggle for pushing adverts that can be turned off & I restrict access to things like the cameras, location access, the microphone etc. to those apps that actually need them to function.

Mrs B has had her Redmi Note 9S for around a year now & I asked last night if she had noticed any unwanted or intrusive adverts - she could not think of any.

HTH

Nigel B.

I have no experience of Android Go, Michael, but while scanning through the latest copy of PCPro magazine on Readly today I noticed a recommendation in an "Xmas gift ideas" feature mention of the Nokia G10 running the Android One version. The comments included "despite its low price (quoted at £110 from Argos) it has a large pleasant screen, a solid array of cameras and enough speed to keep Android 11 happy : it comes with the streamlined Android One version of the OS, and will include regular monthly security updates for 3 years" . They also mention 48 hour battery life.

I have been using a Windows Phone version Nokia (530 IIRC) for the last couple of years & it has been OK. Certainly OK for the price, as I was given it by a friend who didn't like the Windows Phone experience. I didn't have it on a data service contract (PAYG) so just used it as a phone and camera (probably more camera than phone ! ). I could easily get 3 days between charges on this, with it Bluetoothed to the car while travelling to & from work (about 2 1/2 hours a day).

But Virgin have just dropped the PAYG service I have used for years and, having moved to a Lebara "rolling monthly plan", I wanted to be able to use the 3 Gb monthly data allowance. The Windows phone was clunky & slow for the "on line" functions & my previous Android phone was too old to run the current versions of "Apps", so I have been largely forced to upgrade. Mrs B has been happy with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S I bought for her last year after a lot of reserach into getting the most Bang for Buck - big clear screen, fast, decent camera, big battery & decent reviews - so I have ended up with a Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro. Bought direct from Xiaomi UK online for £199 delivered next day, it is a marked upgrade from anything else I have had previously. The "list" price of the X3 Pro was £249, but I happened to be looking on the day they had a Flash Sale with £40 off + there is a £10 discount with a code for items over £100 + free shipping. This phone is "only" 4G, but there doesn't appaer to be much 5G about at present & Mrs B has been getting pretty snappy results from her 4G phone so happy not to pay more for a 5G phone at the moment.

HTH & good luck in your search - you can drive yourself crazy trying to make the "right" decison !

Nigel B.

Boxford underdrive machines are, in effect, integral with their cabinets - the cabinet was "levelled" at the factory, then the bed was sat on pads of Isopon-type putty & the holding down bolts tweaked while checking the bed for twist with a precision level. The squeezed-out putty was trimmed off before it fully cured. Bolting down & shimming the cabinet with a level on the bed should get back to how it was set at the factory and, unlike a Myford, the tops of the bed shears are not a wearing face so should not be affected by localised bed wear. Boxford cabinets are a lot heavier built than Myfords.

Somewhere in my photo collection I have a picture of the Fitting shop foreman doing this - the first film I put through my 21st Birthday present Praktica MTL3 SLR camera included some shots around Boxfords (where I was working at the time) circa. April/May 1981.

Nigel B.

WW2 was also followed in many countries by the "Austerity Years", again reducing fuel use.

But also a time of extensive rebuilding of damaged infrastructure & increased manufacturing effort (Export or Die ? ) plus the US & USSR expanding military production & excercising, so would the immediate post war period have seen much of a reduction ?

One graph that I did come across that seems to follow the trend of SoD's example suprisingly closely is this one :

So one may conclude that the increase in emissions appears to follow the increase in population quite directly ?

Other organisms in the natural world that expand at a rate that their environment cannot sustain tend to see rather dramatic reductions in their numbers - I doubt very much that science can do much to prevent a similar correction taking place for the human organsm at some point, even if the various "powers that be" could actually agree on a sustained course of action to try to alleviate any climatic effects.

And I equally doubt that my stopping my workshop activities would have much effect either (to try to get back to the original question ).

Nigel B.