Member postings for IanT

When I purchased my 3D printer, a friend suggested that I designed my printed parts with Open SCAD Tony.

Open SCAD

At first glance it might seem complicated but it is very easy to actually produce useful results and the learning curve is very gentle. I was producing useable parts in my first evening (something I never managed with any other CAD system). I did all of my early 'workshop' part designs in SCAD (pipe adaptors, small jigs, tool holders, PCB cases etc). It is very easy to make your designs 'customisable' by using named variables for key dimensions and features. Designs can also be shared (and adapted) by other users as they are just simple text files. A good number of designs on Thingverse are written in Open SCAD and these can be 'adapted' to your own needs...

Thingiverse - SCAD

So SCAD is well worth a quick look. Depends what you need a 3D CAD system for (?) of course but some of my Gauge '3' colleagues are producing some very interesting 3D prints using it... Have a look at these STL files, all produced with SCAD...

GWR 'Siphons' - STL files

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 04/10/2023 17:10:28

I didn't mean to imply that Nigel, the finish I can get with the shaper is very good and will be even better if I take the time to get it. There are also operatons that I prefer to use the shaper for (dovetails for instance) and some where I have little choice (internal slotting). But it's a balance of what needs doing.

If I get to the stage where I need to 'mill' a feature, then once it's set-up on the mill, I'll probably leave it there, although normally the major surfaces will be already finished.

Regards,

IanT

All of my lathes, mills and shapers are "old" - although most not as old as I am.

They were mostly acquired at a time when they were the best I could afford. I've spent a considerable amount of time fixing some of the problems or making tools and accessories for them. These days (with children long left home and the mortgage paid off) I can probably afford better. But in many ways, I've already made my "investment" (e.g. in the time and effort spent) and there is not so much to be gained by replacing anything now.

Plus, I will admit that working on my machinery has probably become something of a hobby for me in it's own right. I also know my machines pretty well by now and can work with any limitations. So a very battered Super 7 purchased from Myford (after some haggling with Mr Moore) at Guildford many years ago for a few hundred pounds, is now perfectly useable but it has quite a few parts on it now that weren't there back then. But that was time and money spread out over 20 plus years...

But for others new to this hobby, your tools will normally just be that, the means to make what you actually want. So if you can, buy new or quality used machinery. Don't waste your money (and more importantly your precious time) on cheap tools that will distract you from your ultimate goals.

Regards,

IanT

I agree Clive - I've an extensive 'scrap' bin of fairly large lumps of metal collected over the years that mostly sits outside quietly rusting. My old power hacksaw does a better job on cutting it up than my (smaller) bandsaw can manage and then the Atlas finishes prepping the part. I will admit to often standing there watching it work away (shapers can mesmerize you) although you don't need to wait around but it will clean up surfaces that would ruin my milling tools.

Obviously the 'quality' of my scrap is completely unknown but for many applications I don't care - buying new metal all the time can get very expensive these days and if something really is unworkable the shaper will quickly reveal it and it can finally go to the Tip. Most 'lumps' are quite usable though. I do buy specific metals for parts that need them but it's amazing what nice shiney objects are sitting inside that ugly lump after the shaper has munched over it.

So yes, whilst I completely agree with advice to get a good lathe and then a mill after that rather than a shaper - but if you have the space a shaper has it's uses where speed isn't a big concern - especially as it can work away whilst you are tidying up or doing other small jobs. My little 7" earns it's place in my workshop and is certainly staying there.

Regards,

IanT

PS Duncan

I have no idea what a "Runge Kutta" routine might be but the Picomite has a comprehensive range of built-in math functions covering Simple Arrays, Matrix, Vector and Quaternion arithmatic. You can use double precision floating point, 64-bit integers and string variables, arrays of floats, integers or strings with multiple dimensions as well as user defined subroutines and functions.

I'd like to be able to tell you that I know what half these things are for (Quaternion seems to be something to do with Fast Fourier Transforms) but frankly I've no real idea. All I can say is that these functions are there and ready to use (as described in the manual) should you wish to deploy them. I don't think most folk would find the Picomite lacking in it's ability to generate numbers.

Regards,

IanT

Robert A2. It may well be that the Pico is a bit of an overkill compared to simpler (and cheaper) 'PIC' chips but for £3 each (which is what I paid recently) it's not an issue in practice if I don't use all of the Pico's capabilities. I'm not building commercial systems to ship in volume. You can also install the Picomite just by dragging the UF2 file to it over USB (so no PIC programmer required). It is a fully functional system (so no need to buy extra PCBs, connectors or components) and there are a large range of Pico 'Accessories' available (that work equally well with a Picomite as with any other software). The Pico can also be purchased in smaller footprints (I have some "Zero's" from Waveshare that work well as Picomites).

So Picomite - quick and easy to use, powerful enough for most control applications, available (which has been very useful these past several years) and of course very affordable.

So I'll qualify my original recommendation - "the Picomite is the best thing since sliced bread for programming numpties like myself" - who do not intend to programme for a living, who don't work as part of a software team, who don't have any experience of programming 'PIC' chips and who have other (better) things they want to do with their spare time in addition to the odd bit of embedded controller work...

How's that, anyone else here fit that description?

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 22/08/2023 15:01:47

I watched this video with some interest Micheal and would agree that if you are already an Arduino IDE convert, then the Pico is a great platform. However, (as I may have mentioned previously) I gave up the Arduino IDE in preference to Micromite Basic (MMB) some time ago and I have never regretted it.

I've never been a 'professional' programmer (and now never will be). I'm self-taught and still learning, so I'm afraid I spend some time just trying to find my own mistakes. It's a great benefit to be able to quickly 'edit, run, edit, run again' and the ability to keep versions of code 'on-chip' (in flash-files) really speeds up this de-bugging process too. Add the fact that MMB is ported to the specific chip and directly supports it's avaialble hardware features 'in-language' (so usually no need for 'opaque' libraries - IR, IC2, PWM etc). MMB is also very well documented. The 'chip' specific manuals are typically 170+ pages, clearly written and actively updated by version release.

There are three versions of MMB for the Pico. A standard Picomite for embedded control (with LCD screeen support), a PicomiteVGA for applications that need VGA output and the Webmite which is a version of MMB for the Pico W. Details of all three can be found in the link below and I would suggest downloading the manual(s) to fully understand what a great solution the Picomite is for many embedded control applications.

Picomite Description and Downloads

So, if I seem somewhat evangelical about the Picomite, it's because I am. There are better known (e.g. publicised) 'micro' solutions but the Picomite is the best thing since sliced bread for programming numpties like myself.

Piocomite - a self-contained micro-system on a chip for £3-4. I urge folk to give it a look.

Regards,

IanT

Dick Ganterton's thoughts on this modification (for Myford S7s) are available for download as a PDF here:

Correcting wear in lathe saddles

Regards,

IanT

The problem JA is that thoughtful debate is simply not allowed in these areas. Anyone with doubts or questions are immediately dubbed climate deniers and effectively silenced. Dominc Lawson being banned from the BBC comes to mind. So before we go any further let's agree that there is a problem with climate change and that emmissions are a likely cause.

Now lets look at the logic of "Net Zero".

If we make something in this country it has a carbon footprint. If we ship that item (to be made) elsewhere and then import it, it has no/zero carbon footprint apparently. If we drill for gas and oil here, then that's really bad but fracking gas in the US, freezing it, shipping it across the Atlantic and then re-gassing here is a much preferable strategy. This is what in finance would be described as 'Creative Accounting'.

People also have to have some hope that they can survive these challenges. EVs are touted as being much cheaper to run but if they cost on average £10k more to purchase, then (at £1.40/litre and 35mpg) I can drive 55,000 miles for free (that's about 14 years for me). Heat pumps may be great but if I live in an old, draughty house (as I do) and can't afford to upgrade (rebuild?) it, then heat pumps are not a practical solution to my heating needs.

So let's accept that the problem is real but that we also need real solutions that folk can actually afford. At the moment I believe that shortages (& the high cost) of energy are far more of a threat to my well being than anything else. Many more people currently die from the cold than from the heat and that's not likely to change going forward.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 04/08/2023 12:59:49

Cannot agree that common sense has little to do with economic principles Dave - after all the opposite of that is stupidity does (which on reflection may actually be true given our current fiscal leadership). What I am sure of is that if something makes good economic sense to people, then folk will adopt it without needing government 'encouragement'

I'm also afraid that Climate Change and Rising Energy costs are not "manageable". It's too late. Neither the public nor the government has the money to make the current alternatives to fossil fuels viable. Frankly, we (and most western economies) are broke. The real costs of moving off fossil fuels are enormous and the short timescales simply unrealistic. I certainly agree with you that rising consumption of oil and decreasing avaialbility will lead to shortages of supply and higher costs but that will just increase global financial pressures, essentially lessening everyones ability to fund workable low carbon replacements. The real "Wishful Thinking" is believing that we are not going to need oil and gas for several decades to come, probably much longer.

Unfortunately, the same people who block roads and climb on roofs today are pretty much the same type who objected to Nuclear power 30-40 years ago when we could have made a sensible transition to a reliable base-load alternative to coal. We didn't and here we are...

Regards,

IanT

With regards to population growth, you need a birth rate of 2.1 just to stand still.

Most Western countries are now below that, as are China, Japan and other parts of Asia. India will have a larger population than China before too long and in fact it may be that China will be unable to recover from their disasterous 'one-child' policy that had an unexpected side effect in also greatly reducing the proportion of females born because they were the 'unwanted' sex.

It seems that as countries move from pre-industrial/rural to industrial economies (and most especially when woman become educated/literate) - then birth rates first stall and then fall sharply. Obviously large urban populations also need affordable energy to sustain them.

With regards a shortage of (affordable) 'dense' energy (e.g. diesel and other distalates), it would impact very quickly and once the global infrastructure started to collapse it would very hard if not impossible to recover it. All this talk of 'renewable' technologies would be somewhat academic if the raw materials (or finished goods) to build them just weren't available here. Look at the chaos caused by supply line disruption after Covid (just the shortage of chips for car manufacture for instance) to get some idea of how quickly this could happen.

Climate change may (or may not) be an immediate threat but falling off a energy cliff before we have usable alternatives most certainly will be. We need to be as self-sufficient in energy and food as we can be - and real soon.

Regards,

IanT

I'm sure we do need to find alternatives to oil and gas but not for the reasons normally stated. Simply put we have been in a deficit situation for 3-4 decades now with respect to 'new' sources of oil versus growth in it's use. We are now at the point where that ratio is about 5 to 1. In other words we are consuming (globally) five times more oil than we are discovering new deposits and this gap is increasing annually as (so called) third world countries move up the 'Wealth' index - with more industry and larger middle classes (who drive cars and 'consume' things). This growth cannot be supported forever.

The modern world is dependent on diesel. It powers heavy machinery, aircraft, ships and road frieght. Without diesel everything stops. There may be alternatives but they are far in the future. That's not just air freight/travel but also farming, mining, international trade and food distribution. There may be a problem with CO2 emmisions but a far greater threat is going to be energy - or a lack of it. The Global economy would collapse without diesel.

We are facing a crisis but it's not the "climate emergency" everyone fears. We should be building nuclear as fast as we can (as a National prioity) and doing everything we can to become self-sufficient most especially in food. We are not going to boil to death but many could freeze without affordable power.

I find my self humming "Always look on the bright side of life"

Regards,

IanT

Been away arriving back very late/early this morning. Recovering with Coffee...

Well. I'm not a great fan of things like Alexa either. Why anyone would deliberately 'wire' their homes so that anyone could evesdrop on them is beyond me. However I do have some things where getting alerted to a 'change' or being able to check a 'status' remotely would be useful.

As stated, I like this application because I can run it on the Webmite with very little effort and then experiment with the programme to figure out how it works. Everything is visible, with no opaque libraries to worry about.

In the past 'adapting' other peoples work has also saved me a good deal of time. I can write small programmes for many of my projects but the learning curve (and time required) increases when many different 'pieces' are required. If I can modify/experiment/play with this programme and get it to work on logically similar operations that have completely different practical applications, then I will be very happy.

Regards,

IanT

PS - Thank you Dave for leaving me undisturbed (and happy) in my Basic world. I'm very comfortable with MMB, it seems to match my needs and abilities well. Different horses for different courses and all that....

Edited By IanT on 31/07/2023 13:41:51

Sorry for delay, been off-line for a few days busy with trips away etc.

I did manage to fugure this out. The original NVR switch had four connections, two inputs and two outputs. The coil was simply across the output connections (live & neutral) so that when the green button was pressed, the coil latched. In my set-up there is also an emergency botton, which was originally wired in series with the live input.

The new NVR switch has five connections, apparently the same as the original four connector version but with the addittion of an 'A1' pin. I was somewhat misled by an older thread (on another forum) suggesting this pin was an "optional" connection for some types of motors. That is certainly not true of my switch.

I metered (tested resistance) across all connections on both switches. I could still 'see' the coil across the ouput connections on the old switch (so it had not gone open circuit) but it was clearly no longer functional.

When I looked at the new switch, it became obvious that the coil was just wired across the 'A1' and one O/P connector. I connected the mains (live & neutral) to the two I/P connectors and the motor to the matching O/P connectors. A connection was then made from 'A1' ( via the emergency switch) to the coil side of the O/P. This is probably an improvement on the original set-up, as the emergency switch is now in series with the coil, rather than the full motor current. I haven't named the connectors, as my switch numbering appears to be different to others mentioned elsewhere. The key is to establish where the coil is connected and wire up accordingly.

The new set-up now works exactly as before and the old NVR switch has been consigned to the bin.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 31/07/2023 13:02:15

MMBasic was ported to the Pico W a while ago and enables WiFI support for remote embedded applications. This verson of MMB is called the Webmite and as usual with 'Mites' everything that you need is there within MMB - each port is specific to the available hardware.

Geoff (MMBs original creater) has just published a 'Garden Watering System' application for the Webmite that runs a custom PCB build with a Webmite at its heart.

Webmite Watering System

I've no current plans to build this myself but what did interest me was the fact that you can load this app into a Pico W (without building anything else) and still run the app. It therefore provides a useful way to look at what is required to build this kind of remote application and experiment a little. I have a Waveshare backplane that will be the host to the PicoW and that should let me connect up various devices and see if I can display/control them via a browser (Home/Workshop security, Heating Controls, Rainwater Monitoring etc)

I know there are plenty of alternatives out there (Arduino etc) but for my money, the Pico varients coupled with MMB are a really effective way to build small control projects.

Regards,

IanT

Doubt it's a wiring problem as the NVR has been fine for some years and was working OK just before the problem occured. It's a Mk1 Super 7, so no limit switches etc are fitted connection is direct to the motor.

I'll connect the NVR to a different load and see if it shows the same fault. Just off to see our newest Granddaughter today and it's a long round trip, so this will have to wait until tomorrow now. I'll report back then...

Thanks for help everyone.

Regards,

IanT

Recently, I was using the Myford and everything was fine. I'd turned the lathe off to change something and when I went to turn it back on, the lathe spun up but died as soon as I removed my finger from the green 'On' button. So I removed the NVR switch and wired the lathe direcly to a 13A plug and switched it on. The lathe started normally as far as I could tell and ran OK.

Assuming the 'on' coil might be damaged (in the NVR switch) I found another switch on Ebay and ordered a replacement. It arrived yesterday and I fitted it this morning. No change, the fault remains the same. Had a think about this and decided that the emergency stop button hadn't been eliminated, so went down later and removed that from the circuit by shorting it's wires together. Nothing changed.

So I'm back to wondering about the motor. It's a centrifugal switch (not capacitor start) kind and I can hear it click out as the power is removed but the 'on' coil must be unhappy about something.

Any thoughts or suggestions for further tests? I've had this NVR switch fitted for some years now, so something has clearly changed. Think I probably got it from Axminster but it was a while ago now but the NVR (KJD17) switch itself is pretty generic...

Regards,

IanT

Well I'm sorry to hear that Graham. I used various versions of TC for 20+ years, so I was fairly well versed in it.

I've now been using Solid Edge CE for about three years and definitely struggled at first. I'm certainly not an expert user but I can now do most of what I need with SE, although it did take time and effort. Until recently, I might have believed that (for 2D drafting) TC would be easier for me to use. That illusion has now been completely dispelled. The 2D sketching in SE is pretty much the same as when sketching in 3D and I am now very comfortable with that (SE) environment.

What has really suprised me is how quickly I've lost my TC skills. I'm now pretty sure that part of my early problems with SE were in 'unlearning' TC and that is exactly what I seem to have done. It was a still a shock when I tried to go back though.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 23/07/2023 13:14:31

I've been through something similar in recent weeks Nigel. I've a lot of work in TurboCAD that I don't want to lose and decided to re-load TC onto my new laptop. It seemed like a completely different product to the one I remembered. I had real problems with accidently hitting 3D features I didn't want that I simply don't remember being there before. I've managed to get back to the point where I can do simple operations without getting in too much of a mess - but it's not been enjoyable. I'm now working through some of my projects and exporting DXF's so I can being them into Solid Edge - either as Parts or Drafts, often both.

As an aside, because of this, I've also spent more time exploring 2D drafting in SE-CE and there were some things I didn't really understand. 2D drafting is an area that isn't often covered well by most Solid Edge YouTubes/Tutorials, because they naturally tend to focus on the 3D side of SE.

I finally found some 9 year old YT videos about the 'old' free 2D SE CAD system and fortunately much of it is still relevant and useful to 2D drafting within the SE-CE version. It's made use of layers, model space, paper size, scaling and custom backgrounds much easier to understand - at least for me!

SE 2D Drafting - NCU Engineering

So I very much agree with SoD that it's not fun trying to ride two horses at the same time. My muscle memory is now firmly attuned to Solid Edge and it's very hard not to use the wrong button when trying to do some simple operation. Hopefully, once I've got most of what I want over to SE, I won't need to revisit TC too often in the future.

Regards,

IanT

Oiled my Myford yesterday using a 'Myford' gun (the black kind) purchased some years ago. I keep it in an upright length of plastic pipe with a drain plug at the bottom. I always look for my towel and oily rag before using it, as the rag is used to mop up the mess afterwards and the towel to clean my hands. It's a complete pain to use.

Making a new oil gun has lingered on my TUIT list for a long time but never got to the top of it. Has anyone found a way to improve these Myford oil guns? Mine spurts oil even when pulling the plunger out..

Regards,

IanT