Member postings for clivel

Once you have a board designed, then give PCBShopper a try, it is a really useful website for getting quotes on PCB manufacturing. Simply enter the board parameters and a few seconds later you are presented with a list of quotations (including shipping) from manufacturers around the world.

That of course still leaves you with having to have the board designed. Unfortunately this is likely to be far more expensive than the actual cost of manufacturing the board. If you don't have the time to to learn a PCB package yourself then the cheapest route may be to find an electrical engineering student at a local university or college.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 20/03/2017 06:51:41

Actually I did read the instructions, I enjoy reading instructions when I get a new tool or electronic device.

The section that Steve found on page 13 is under the "Maintenance Information" heading, which doesn't really suggest that this procedure is necessary for a new tool. Nor does the statement that running it in will "properly seat your brushes, which extends the life of both your brushes and your tool" give any indication that this is necessary for the tool to function properly on the lower speed ranges.
Besides which the information I received from Dremel was pretty specific about running it in for 15 to 20 minutes rather than the 5 minutes as suggested in the manual.

After receiving the information from Dremel I went back to the first store to pick up my original unit. I ran it on full speed for about 10 minutes (and yes it gets very very loud after a few minutes).
Result: Speed settings 2 and 3 which were essentially non-functional before now operate as expected.
Setting 1 which previously just vibrated rather than rotate is now completely dead. I can live with that, so I am keeping the unit. If feeling strong I may just try running it in for a further 10 minutes to see if I can get setting 1 working as well.

Clive

Thanks Michael,
That does seems similar to the problem I was having, except in my case there was zero torque, just the lightest touch with a finger would stall it.

Anyway I did get a reply from Dremel, this is what they wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Dremel. with a new tool there is a break in period. It is recommended to run the tool under no load at full speed for approximately 15-20 minutes to "seat" the motor (carbon) brushes. As the tool runs the brushes settle, the resistance in the brushes goes down which will activate the speeds in the low setting in the course of time. Without doing this procedure you can experience the tool not starting at the first detent in the speed control.

One would think that if this is a known problem they would at the very least publish this information prominently. It would allow the customer the choice as to whether they wish to undergo the running-in procedure before purchasing the tool, and it could have prevented the time wasting and frustration I experienced, and I am sure that I am not alone.

As to the practicality of baby-sitting a screaming Dremel tool at full speed for 15 to 20 minutes, I imagine that is a not too pleasant task reserved for when one is alone at home.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 17/03/2017 21:30:33

Unfortunately contacting Dremel did not go so well.

In my last post when I mentioned that I had contacted Dremel I was being a little premature, I had their web site with the contact form open in another window but had not yet pressed send.

After spending 15 minutes documenting everything that had happened (it serves me right for being pedantic), I pressed the submit button and was greeted with the following message: "Dremel Contact Us is temporarily unavailable".

Needless to say I was not thrilled especially when I found that the form was blank after pressing the back button so I had to retype everything from scratch again. This time, after copy and pasting it to a temporary document, I tried again, but gave up after three unsuccessful attempts. Right now Dremel is not my favourite company, I may or may not call their phone support in the morning.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 16/03/2017 00:04:18

Thanks Neil,
I should have thought of that myself. I have now contacted Dremel, I will update this thread when I get a reply.

Clive

I recently had the need for a rotary tool. Wanting what I hoped was a better quality tool than the no-name Far Eastern imports I opted for a Dremel 3000 kit with a small number of accessories.

Turning the tool on and setting the speed selector to position 1 was rather disappointing. All it did was buzz and vibrate as if it was trying to rotate. Moving the switch to positions 2 and 3 was a little more successful, there was some rotation but with zero torque. The lightest finger pressure on the chuck would stall it. Only once the selector was turned to position 4 did the tool actually become functional and rotate as intended.

Assuming that I had purchased a dud, I returned to the store the next day for a replacement. Rather than risk a return visit I asked the assistant if we could test it before leaving. To our surprise the first two we unpacked had the same problem. After the manager came over if was decided to test their entire stock. By the time I left with a refund they had unpacked and tested 7 all of which were faulty.

Still needing a rotary tool I could only assume that the store had somehow received a faulty batch, so the next day I went somewhere completely different, this time to a local branch of a national chain of hardware stores. Unfortunately they only carried a larger kit, which at nearly twice the price included the same 3000 tool but with a few extra sanding discs as well as a hard plastic case, none of which I needed, but I purchased it any way. Imagine my shock when turning it on home to discover that it suffers from the exact same problem that the others did. It has now been returned for a refund and I have ordered a Proxxon FBS. Unfortunately the Proxxon had to be ordered online as they are not stocked locally so I will have to wait a few days to see if it is the better quality tool I am hoping for.

Given the number of faulty Dremel 3000 tools I tried from two different suppliers (so unlikely the same batch), this would seem to be an inherent design flaw, if so I would expect to find dozens of complaints all over the net, but a Google search only turned up one complaint from September 2014 which described the exact same symptoms that my tool(s) suffered from.

I am disappointed, I had expected more from a US company now owned by Bosch and manufactured in Mexico. This will be the last Dremel product I buy.
Clive

As an occasional eBay seller I find that setting the shipping price can be one of the more difficult and confusing aspects when placing a listing. It is often difficult if not impossible to have eBay automatically calculate the correct amount at checkout for all combinations offered e.g local, international, signed for, express post etc.

To get around this I place a prominent notice in the text of the listing giving the actual amounts I charge along with a request to the purchasers to please wait for an invoice from me before paying so that I can ensure that they are not charged an excessive amount for postage.

In your case, instead of paying immediately I would have contacted the seller who very likely didn't realise that eBay was calculating a p&p that was not intended.

Have your tried contacting the seller to ask for a refund for the postage?

Clive

Just because Namibia isn't on the list of countries that one can choose from on their web site, doesn't mean that they wont ship there. Have you tried contacting them directly and asking them to quote for shipping on the books that interest you?
I am located in Canada only a few km from the US border, yet I generally find that postage is far cheaper from the UK than from the US to here. In the past I have ordered books from TEE, Camden Miniature Steam and My-HobbyStore (which no longer seems to list books) and have found the customer service from all three to be excellent and queries answered promptly.
Clive

For those keen enough to spend a few hundred pounds/dollars to maintain their record collection, it would seem that ultrasonic cleaning is an extremely effective solution.

For further details, diyAudio has a long thread devoted to this topic: diyAudio - My version of an Ultrasonic Record Cleaner

Clive

For the ultimate in geekdom it is hard to beat the early Unix proponents with the likes of AWK a programming language designed by Aho, Weinberger and Kernighan, or YACC Yet Another Compiler Compiler.
Eventually reaching a zenith with recursive acronyms such as GNU - which stands for GNU is Not Unix.

As an aside the GNU project is responsible for the development of GCC - the GNU Compiler Collection which despite its unwieldy name is probably the most widely used programming tool worldwide.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 11/11/2016 21:49:18

Rather than pollute Neil's "Glossary" thread with irreverent gumpf I thought that it may be worthwhile starting a new thread..

The following was related to me by a co-worker who swore blind that he was actually present when the following exchange took place. However I have long suspected that he was pulling my leg. Either way I think that it makes a nice story.

An IBM sales person had been flown in from the USA to give a presentation at the unveiling of a brand new IBM minicomputer (a genre that has long since vanished into obscurity). At one point the salesman had a block diagram of the machine up on the overhead projector. Each block labelled with the appropriate acronym - CPU, RAM etc.

After discussing each block in turn, but making no mention of a little block off to the side labelled AMD someone eventually put up their hand and asked what it was, the salesman, in a broad Southern drawl, replied "oh that's simple, it is an Air Movement Device", he continued "we used to have it labelled FAN but no one could figure out what it stood for".

What a bunch of old sourpusses so many of the commentators on this thread are. This thread is about the photos that Jason so kindly shared for those of us who are unable to attend MEX.

So thanks Jason, the photos are great, and I for one very much enjoyed viewing them, and despite the negative comments from a few malcontents, would have loved to have visited MEX if not for the few thousand Km commute.
Clive

John,

I don't completely disagree with you, nevertheless there is some very good open source software some of which is actually far superior to the commercial equivalents. And without open source the software the world as we know it would not exist, there would be no internet,no email, no web, no cloud computing and no Android phones. 3D graphics would be in its infancy and 3D printing a pipe-dream. Linux a poster child for open source may not have made the significant impact on the desktop (although I haven't run anything else for years) that its proponents had hoped for, but it has a commanding share of the server market as well as being the operating system used by the countless embedded computers that industry relies on; no doubt it is even to be found in much of the CNC equipment you use on a regular basis.

The problem however is that far too many developers, whether they be professionals or hobbyists, will with best of intentions throw out some software that they wrote as "gift" for others to make use of, blissfully unaware that the buggy or ill-documented gift that they have given is not actually free if the recipient has to waste hours trying to make it work before giving up in frustration.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 10/09/2016 20:11:23

Neil,

Actually, with a little bit of foresight, and with zero expense by using open source and free software, it really isn't that difficult for a developer to create an installation package that will install a utility that will run reliably on all versions of Windows - XP and newer.

Most development environments have tools that will generate a list of dependencies so by using a free installer package - I use and can recommend Inno Setup, it is easy to ensure that the necessary dependencies are installed at runtime. I distribute an open source cross platform (Windows & Linux) application that I first released in 2005 and despite a few hundred downloads a month, as far as I am aware no one has ever had any trouble getting the software to run.

So it probably isn't really necessary to turn down all utilities, as long the person making the offer understands that it needs to include a dependable installation package and isn't based on 20 year old technology that may or may not be supported in the latest incantation of Windows. If a developer is going to take the trouble to release something, then they should at least make the effort to ensure that it is usable.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 09/09/2016 21:45:50

When the series was first published in ME I was very much a beginner with limited experience.
Looking for a next project, Webster's portable described as "written for the complete newcomer to model engineering with a detailed description of the construction of each part" seemed ideal. Unfortunately given the large number of errors that Webster apparently had no inclination to correct, the then Editor David Clark was forced to drop the series albeit incomplete.

I was really keen on a portable, especially one supposedly described as suitable for a beginner, so when the book came out I immediately rushed out and bought it, mistakenly thinking that it was an updated and corrected version of the series of articles in ME.

Unfortunately It turned out that not only was it for a different engine, but the quality of the book was no better, and if anything actually worse than of that described in ME. It contains a number of poor drawing, many bits are missing, and there are no assembly drawings, not of the complete engine nor of any of the sub-assemblies, only isolated bits and pieces with no apparent relationship to each other. I spent some time trying to visualise how some of the pieces go together, but with little success Except for a few nice photographs, the book is a complete waste of money.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 05/09/2016 20:06:48

As much as one would like to do the right thing, I think that given that Ron Chernich passed away in early 2014, and as it seems that during the intervening 18 months no one has made any serious attempt to try and take responsibility for the Plan Book, it would be a pity for it if it to disappear into oblivion. So instead it would be nice if it found a permanent home on some web site, perhaps 'Stub Mandrel' would be willing to restore his now deleted page.

It would of course be polite to get permission from the surviving Motor Boys where possible, but unless one of the Motor Boys actively objects, I don't see that there any ethical reasons against hosting the book on a not-for-profit site.

Clive

Hi Kevin,

There are a number of 5" gauge locomotives that are ideal for a first build. After spending a few months agonising over which locomotive to choose I eventually opted for the the Don Young designed Rail Motor No 1, the build was serialised in ME during 1968 & 1969, drawings and castings are available from Reeves.

You might find the following threads which discuss a number of beginners locos useful:

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

Clive

Probably one of the simplest filing rests that one can make, is something like the one I made for my Unimat a few years ago, based on an idea in another forum.

Here are two views. Partly disassembled and assembled.

To use it, simply mount it in the lathe toolpost rotated about 30 to 45 degrees from the vertical. The crosslide is then used to adjust the filing depth. This photo of it being used to file a flat on the end of a rod should make it clearer.

Although it doesn't get much use, it is handy on occasion, and far faster to set up than setting up the milling attachment.

I have subsequently made two changes to it since the photos were taken: I replaced the socket head screws with countersunk screws allowing it to get closer to the chuck, and I also reduced the diameter of the thick washers which hold the rollers on and also act as a stop for the file as they limited the maximum diameter of the work piece.

Clive

You likely were meaning to enter (0.0004" ) however instead of the straight double quote you must have inadvertently used the closing double quote.

HTML uses special sequences of characters starting with an ampersand and ending with a semicolon to represent non-keyboard characters, for example a non-breaking-space would be represented by &nbsp ; similarly a closing or right-hand double quote is represented by &rdqo ; however the forum software most probably doesn't handles these character sequences correctly.

Smileys were originally represented by two or more characters e.g. ; ) which is supposedly a wink. Now days most software will insert a little graphical smiley in its place. Which is exactly what has happened in this case, the forum software has interpreted the semicolon from &rdqo ; and your closing parenthesis as a wink

Clive

----------------

I had to edit the posting to put spaces in the character sequences above e.g &rdqo ; because without a space before the closing semicolon it correctly displays a closing double quote. So apparently the forum software instead of parsing text from start to end, incorrectly first substitutes smiley sequences with the smiley graphic and then proceeds to parse the text.

Edited By clivel on 02/08/2016 00:12:06

An interesting video, thanks Harold, and if I didn't already own one of the Chinese wedge type QCTP clones it would be high on my list of things to make.

Which in itself is probably another reason as to why your Tool Holder is not as popular as for example your grinding rest. The Chinese QCTP clones are serviceable, reasonably cheap and easily obtainable, whereas your Grinding Rest fills a niche not (yet) serviced by the Chinese manufacturers. So given the choice of putting in the effort to make something easily obtainable or something useful and relatively unique, it is easy to see why the latter wins out.

Regards,
Clive