Member postings for Samsaranda

John Doe it depends who manufactures your UK 13A plugs there are numerous cheap versions knocking about that have a totally plastic earth pin, these are definitely illegal, you need to make sure that your 13A plugs are compliant. Dave W

When enough of the population have smart meters fitted the energy companies will roll out different charge rates at different times of the day so when you most need to use energy it will be at its most expensive, it wouldn’t surprise me if the high usage periods will be at a considerable premium over other times, this will only work in favour of the suppliers not the customers. I currently have an economy seven rate and also have 4kwh of solar panel generation coupled to 12Kwh of battery storage, at this time of year when the sun doesn’t shine very often I set my batteries to charge of the cheap rate during the night and currently a cheap rate unit costs 18pence compared to 42 pence for a day rate, currently 12 kWh lasts us almost 24 hours usage so a considerable saving. Prior to the recent energy crisis my supplier Shell Energy was restricting most fixed price deals to those with smart meters, there were however a small number of deals that were available to those not on smart metering, needless to say they weren’t the best available deals, they were trying to squeeze customers to go for smart meters. I am still opposed to Smart Metering, I do not like the energy suppliers being able to selectively disconnect me for power sharing and the latest idea that they can arbitrarily change your contract without notice and put you on prepayment rates, the energy companies have a track record of being less than efficient when dealing with customers, you hear horror stories of how customers have been charged thousands of pounds for energy that they didn’t use, progressing to bailiffs and court action which was only sorted by the energy regulator, I know it can happen only too easily it happened to my daughter and went on for months, this was an energy company who she never dealt with, they were grossly incompetent. I prefer to retain as much control over my energy supply as I can and that currently means refusing a Smart Meter. Dave W

The Moebius clock oil recommended by Fowlers Fury works out at £1,200 per litre when purchased in 20 ml bottle from Amazon, certainly a tad more expensive than 3in1 oil, expensive hobby clocks. Dave W

I gave up on machine lights, they never seemed to point where I needed them so I purchased an LED head torch and I find the output is more than adequate and is always focussed where I am looking, particularly good for lathework you focus light right down to the tool tip which is where you need it. Dave W

Many years ago I witnessed Production deliberately putting the wrong mill cert numbers on production batch cards to get the product made and out of the door. The material used was the correct material for the item but because the mill cert numbers were wrong it meant that customer did not have the traceability of product that he required in his contract. Fortunately there was no threat to life and limb so no nasty consequences should the items fail, Company did not stay in business for much longer mainly due to other appalling practices. Dave W

Further to my posting at the start of this thread I have just installed a new device for streaming Bluetooth sound from our tv, it is made by Phonak and is called “Roger” . I installed it yesterday and the setup procedure is the same as the Compilot that I previously used, it came as a free piece of equipment when my wife was fitted with an enhanced Cochlear Implant Processor, she has had the implant for twelve years now and the latest processor gives a better clearer sound. With both the Compilot and the Roger device there is no delay in the signal receipt. You can have the sound on for normal listening and use the Roger or Compilot and both sound sources are in sync, the reason that the equipment performs better may well be down to price, the Roger device retails at over £600, I am not sure that I would have paid that much for a device but it came free with my wife’s implant upgrade so no problem. Dave W

I don’t eat McDonalds, I had it years ago as the grand children wanted to eat there, I was distinctly unimpressed, however on Thursday was in London for wife had an appointment at St Thomas’s hospital. On the way home we were in Victoria Station and wanted a coffee, my daughter who was with us said I’ll get you one from McDonalds, I wasn’t impressed but she said their coffee was good so I accepted, have to say that the coffee was very good, so I wouldn’t eat there but I would have their coffee any day. Dave W

Swarf

Forgot to mention my hearing aids are NHS supplied. Dave W

Swarf

I think the device to which you are referring is called a Compilot and is made by Phonak. I have one, and with mine there is a small transmitter which is connected to a sound outlet on my tv, the unit is also connected to the mains as it doubles as the charging unit for the body worn unit. The body worn unit is quite small and is worn around the neck, suspended on a very thin cable which doubles as a loop system. The neck unit connects via Bluetooth to Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. When you listen via the Compilot all you hear is the sound from the tv, radio or whatever is connected, you do not hear all the extraneous sounds around you which make listening difficult if you have a serious hearing loss, I can only speak for how I find the system and it is marvellous and makes listening so much more relaxed as I don’t have to strain to hear, which in turn means that I don’t get anywhere near so tired. Setting up the system is relatively easy but you need to check before you buy that the device will support your brand and model of hearing aids, your audiologist can advise you, my hearing aids are Phonak same as the Compilot and my aids also connect via Bluetooth to my IPhone. Dave W

Michael

Unfortunately the assessments of how effective mutual deterrence would be, fails to include that one party may be of unsound mind which is the scenario that we find ourselves in now. As a Serviceman for 22 years I was made well aware of how devastating any nuclear incident could be, we were shown numerous films illustrating the power of the weapons and drilled on how to decontaminate and “survive” , I put survive in inverted commas because that is a doubtful outcome depending on many factors. In these times we now have to keep our fingers crossed that some sanity may prevail, although I am perhaps pessimistic in that respect. Dave W

My wife favours the household clothes washing powder for difficult cleaning, I have noticed after she has used it on various utensils that anything aluminium starts to corrode, makes you wonder what they are putting in washing powders nowadays, especially as they now say you can achieve miraculous results with virtually cold water. Having contact dermatitis I make sure that I wear gloves when getting anywhere near said washing powders if I don’t, I suffer. Dave W

I experience a loud noise/vibration when running my Warco BV20 lathe, it has a geared headstock, checking the gears I have found that there is excessive backlash on the gears, they are just ordinary straight cut gears nothing so sophisticated as ground. It is not possible to alter the clearances on the gears as they run on fixed shafts so I just put up with the noise, I am very deaf so it’s not as annoying as it would be to someone with better hearing, not all that helpful with your problem but don’t rule out gear noise it only takes a small increase in backlash to make significant noise. Dave W

A colleague of mine, who I shoot with on Sundays, has just returned from a cruise which was around the Northern Canadian coast and was meant to call in at a number of small harbours, unfortunately the cruise coincided with the two recent hurricanes reaching Canadian waters, he said the ship was subjected to prolonged periods of 5 metre swells which meant that navigating into the small harbours was not possible. The icing on the cake was that he and his wife both contracted Covid whilst onboard, this meant that they were virtually locked in their cabin for 10 days with meals brought to them, he said that the Covid was pretty vicious and affected them both very badly. He has thoughts about how stringent the company were about Covid screening both passengers and crew before they embarked. I question, because Covid cases are rising rapidly, how safe from infection can you be if you and 2,000 others are confined in a steel box and all breathing the same air, not my idea of a holiday but perhaps Covid will at some point be eradicated and circumstances change. Dave W

Martin, best not to mention gunsmithing on a public forum it might trigger unwanted attention from official sources. Dave W ( fellow shooter )

Dave

Your comments above are very relevant to the situation that I found myself in, the problem with drawings that I referred to came to a head when it was decided to outsource the shafts that the pumps were built around, the design dept. issued a set of drawings to the sub contractor but unfortunately when their product came in house it wouldn’t fit the pumps because production had modified some of the critical dimensions on the shafts and the components that fitted on the shafts and they were working to their own altered drawings which the design dept knew nothing about. Their was arrogance in production and design and matters got very unpleasant between them and quality was caught in the crossfire, this debacle was only part of long-standing issues in the company, it was plain to see that the internal problems within the company meant a quality certification was just pie in the sky. Dave W

A while ago I was Quality Manager in a small engineering works which manufactured and supplied pumps to other companies within our group which was part of a large international supplier of bespoke food processing plants, we also supplied external customers in the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. It was decided that we should gain ISO 9000 certification and an external advisor was appointed, this was to satisfy those in charge of the international side of our business, they could put the ISO logo on their company notepaper that was all they were interested in. Within our plant there was a problem that the shop floor did not trust the management and vice versa, to the extent that the shop floor had manufacturing drawings from years ago which they had altered to their own ideas of how the product should be made, there was no way that they would relinquish these drawings so effectively the design department really had no idea what dimensions the parts were being made to. I was caught in the crossfire and there were many other quality issues that needed to be addressed, the quest for ISO certification brought everything to a head and I came under tremendous stress and also being expected to mislead the customers as to the state of quality within the company. Unfortunately the stress that I was under triggered PTSD delayed from unpleasant things that had happened when I was in the Air Force, I had a major breakdown and some 13 months later the parent company of our group decided to retire me on I’ll health grounds, suffice to say that our works never achieved any certifications and a few years later was closed for good. Some companies don’t stand a cat in hells chance of gaining certifications because of the attitudes and practices that prevail. Dave W

My Granddaughter is a sister in our local hospital and she is of the opinion that the results of lateral flow Covid tests are at best variable and at worst pretty useless. The accuracy of the tests has been stated as 47% so not surprised Jason’s client tested positive with a proper test after 4 negatives with home testing.

In respect of cruises I had my fill as a youngster, my father was a civil servant and he was posted to Malaya in the last dying days of the British Empire, we spent Six years there and travelled out and back from UK twice during that time, because of his position we travelled first class on what were P&O ships doing the Far East route, it took 28 days each way for the journey. I experienced various situations whilst aboard, a Typhoon in the Bay of Bengal, that was frightening especially as I was only 12 years old at the time. Another incident was a seized prop shaft in the Red Sea, and I happened to be on the first convoy of ships to be allowed through the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis, there were damaged ships littering the canal and the Bitter Lakes, needless to say the Egyptians were not very friendly to British ships as we had not long finished bombing them, no desire to go cruising now. Dave W

Clive to fit the relays that automatically disconnect from the mains was an extra on top of the battery installation and the price quoted then was not cheap, according to the “managing director” I had spent more than enough on the system and I couldn’t justify any further costs at the time. Circumstances are changing so now may be the time for that modification. Wife was very sceptical about any expenditure on solar system but has since become a convert, on sunny days she checks how much stored power there is in the batteries and then she will plan the usage of the dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer and oven so that she uses if possible stored energy from the batteries instead of drawing power from the grid. Many days this summer we have existed using only solar energy and not drawn power from the grid, this has meant very cheap energy bills, but all will change as the sun diminishes throughout autumn and winter. Dave W

Insurance companies tend to draw the line at 30 days for a property to be unoccupied after that they withdraw the insurance cover, not to say that you couldn’t come to an arrangement with them but would inevitably cost money. In respect of powering the central heating system during a power outage you are forbidden to feed power into your domestic circuits unless the house system is physically disconnected from the grid, this is to prevent any power worker who happens to be repairing a fault receiving a lethal shock from power fed back into the system. This is taken care of with home solar power systems being designed so that in the event of a mains power failure they will not supply any power to the domestic system, I have a solar generating system with 12 kWh of battery storage but if the mains power goes off then I cannot use any power. The way around it is to have a special relay fitted into the domestic supply that disconnects the house from the mains in the event of a power outage, it’s similar to the system used by buildings that have an emergency generator that cuts in if the mains fails. Because to date power outages have been a rare occurrence where we live I have not felt that fitting the equipment to isolate from the mains is cost effective, any power outages to date have never lasted more than an hour , that may need to be re-evaluated in the light of present circumstances. Dave W

John

I also came from a time when there was ice on the inside of the bedroom windows when you woke up, very few houses had central heating in those days. Since we have had a woodburner fitted in the lounge, when the woodburner is in use it generates so much heat that we leave the lounge door open and heat percolates through the house, on really cold days the gas central heating thermostat kicks in and warms all the rooms. I think my wife would like to go back in time to the old days because she won’t have the rad in the bedroom switched on and always we have to sleep with a bedroom window open regardless of what temperature it is outside, I just go along with it I gave up trying to resist many years ago. Dave W