Member postings for Gone Away

I think only you can answer the question ultimately, Pailo.

It depends a bit on what size mill you have. If it's a full-size machine it might pretty much replace a pillar drill. Mine is not the smallest you can get but would still be in the mini-mill class and there are things that I can get under the drill that I couldn't fit under the mill, particularly when using a large (and long) drill bit. When those circumstances arise, however occasionally, the pillar drill is a necessity for me.

Also, I can get more raw torque from the drill than the mill which is useful if I want to make, say, a big hole with a holesaw to remove metal prior to boring. Or other "rough" jobs that are beyond the capacity of the mill or would risk stripping the its gears.

On top of that, the pillar drill doesn't really take up that much floor space anyway - or at least, if I got rid of it I can't think of much that would fit in that space. In fact, I have mine next to the bandsaw and wind the drill table down to support long lengths when sawing them.

If you do lose the pilllar drill, what will you do about the 2%?

Jack/Bill, tin the four pads before you start and tin the stripped ends of the leads. Hold the lead resting on and aligned with the pad with one hand and use the other to apply the soldering iron.

No need to apply more solder, just "sweat" them together

Neil, thanks for the material spec. I hadn't appreciated that ferric chloride would work on brass as well as PCB copper. Big light bulb! (and lots of possibilities).

John/Graham, All I've done is to print the pcb artwork (magazine scan or supplied pdf usually) onto overhead projector (transparent) film with a laser printer. (My primary printer has been laser for years - inkjet is just too expensive for regular use). I don't doubt you could use the same technique with inkjet and the appropriate film though.

I sandwich the sensitised board and artwork between a piece of hardboard and a sheet of glass and hang it a few inches below one of the fluorescent fixtures in the shop (I have a wireform shelf permanently hanging there). It's very exposure tolerant - as long as you have the minimum. Developing is straight forward until the excess copper is removed.

For the occasional board rhat I make, I just purchase pre-sensitised boards.

Like all the other guys, I soldered direct to the pads. It's straightforward enough if you take your time and easier if you dismantle the device.

I differ slightly with Coalburner in that I ground the shield at the DRO only and isolate it from the machine, which works well for me. (In any event, you certainly wouldn't want to connect it to both). In which case, you shouldn't need to isolate the caliper/scale which may be problematic.

Edited By Sid Herbage on 04/05/2012 22:44:20

What material are you etching, Neil. Brass?

BTW, I've tried both the toner transfer and photosensitive methods on PCB's. I've read where some swear by the toner method and describe the photo-method as "difficult to do"

I, on the other hand, have never made the toner-method (in any of its forms) work worth a pinch of coon do-do. Yet to me the photo method is trivially easy ... and pretty tolerant of conditions.

Edited By Sid Herbage on 04/05/2012 01:48:10

Another handy use for citric acid in the workshop is for passivating stainless steel parts .... bit safer than nitric.

Have I got this right? Because some bureacrat in Europe has a tizzie-fit about cookies, everyone visiting these sites is going to be forced to respond to a pop-up each and every time the site wants to set a cookie?

Doing this at the site level is nuts. It should properly be done in the browser and configured according to the user's choice (choice: an endangered species). As it is browsers typically give you the options of:

- accepting all cookies

- refusing all cookies

- accepting/refusing third-party cookies

- accepting cookies only from specified sites

I'm not aware of any that curently give the further choice of "ask me" but it doesn't seem it would be that difficult to implement. And if it has to come with "ask me" switched on by default so that the " .... for Dummies" brigade don't actually have to learn about the tools they use, that's OK by me. I'll soon fix that.

Actually, American engineers don't, generally.

I assume mils comes from the prefix "milli-". Another example of mixing systems?

(Unfortunately, stupid editor won't let me interleave comments - or I can't figure it out - so ...)

1st para - that just about sums it up.

2nd para - Sprinbok only mentioned pinging (not scanning). From that, he could get your approximate location as well as the state of connections between you and him. Not much more. I strongly recommend that you don't "report him to his ISP" for pinging you (again, we're not talking port-scanning) unless you want to give them a good laugh. (Always assuming you can detect his ip from the ping).

Yes, I see the problem, Michael. You can do it (sort of) on the iPad by holding your finger on the link until you get the pop-up, selecting <Copy> and then pasting into something (such as the "Notes" app). Not very convenient though admittedly.

Might be worth Googling around to see if there's a better way. There's all kinds of tricks that I stumble across for the iPad - especially if you have twelve fingers

Then again, a malicious link is unlikely to be targeted at an iPad or its apps/OS.

Just hover your mouse pointer over the link and your browser should show you the actual link.

Tinyurls don't do this (or at least don't show you the final destination) and are the least secure since you have no idea where you are being ultimately redirected. It's not uncommon for them to be used maliciously. Personally I never click on them unless I'm very sure of the source

If the backlash is entirely caused by the radial separation adjustment of the worm/wheel then advancing in one direction only will deal with it (although you may as well adjust it to minimise it consistent with free turning). Same situation/technique as backlash in a milling table feed.

If (as has happened to me in the past) you have axial play in the worm, you will find that minimising backlash effects as above will not effectively deal with the problem and you should track down and fix the cause.

Brushes in general: don't forget those round bottle brushes. You can shove them down holes that are a fraction of the brush diameter and they wil scour the hole clean (especially dipped in solven first). Great for cleaning out a long bore on the lathe. I have a 2" dia one that I use to clean chuck bores with. I must have several dozen in various sized hanging on hooks around the shop.

Dollar stores (Pound stores?) are a good source or hardware stores, surplus stores etc. I think one or two of mine came from Wal-Mart. I never turn down the chance to buy one.

As well as bristle or nylon you can get them in brass in some places. As with all "brass" brushes though, make sure you know what you're getting. Many are brass plated steel (which will affect where you want to use them). Check them with a magnet.

Phil, I'm curious - can you quantify that "took a long time". Just order-of-magnitude of course .... an hour? ..... a day? ..... a week?

Respectfully, Terry, and just curious, but was there a particular reason that you did - rather then creating a separate thread?

Fine on mine (digital edition)

I've noticed the same thing and I agree that it seems an omission.

Similar sentiments were discussed in another thread (sorry for the pun) here I'm not sure that it resolved much but it might be worth a read.

I particularly liked the sentence:

" External screw threads are really no different from normal turning marks, except that they are properly spaced out to fit in the nuts. "

Dick, when you rebuilt yours, how did you make the inter-cell connections? All the battery packs I've seen have spot-welded strips to make the connections between the individual cells. I tried soft soldering some but it wasn't greatly successful.

Bob, another idea along the same lines is to check around (internet, yellow-pages, CraigsList ?) and see if any local tool dealer offers a power-pack rebuilding service. For example I have a (fairly) local tool store that sells mostly cheap imported tools plus some top brands and the gent there will rebuild your pack with new nicad cells - or sell you the cells if you want to do it yourself. I believe he spot welds them. He charges for the cells plus a labour charge which is actually quite reasonable.

Bob, You're welcome

Check your PMs