Member postings for gerry madden

Thanks, Phil, for the reminder. I have this part. Its intact and will be re-installed.

G.

Well, since I had a trip to Screwfix already lined up I thought I would pick up some of the heavy-duty degreaser as mentioned by a couple of you. It worked shockingly well, and the years of gunge just seemed to fall away from the cookerhood meshes. Interested to see what this wonderous product contained I thought I'd check the label. It was then that I discovered that one is supposed to dilute this product with water in the ratio of about 1:5. No wonder it was good!

Subsequent to this, I thought I would try the washing powder and hot water on some gunged up grinder parts. This proved to be shockingly effective too! In addition to being water soluble (like the above) this makes nice and familiar smells, enabling one to do horrendous tasks in the domestic environment and get away with it

After years of messing around with Gunk, paraffin, acetones and various other noxious solvents in the corner of my garage, the above two products are a godsend. Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.

G.

Thanks all for your useful comments and guidance.

It seems then that I can go ahead and take put my power-in via this box once its fully refurbished. I will of course have a 5pin 415V on the end of the lead for a wall socket. I would of course always pull this out to ensure guaranteed isolation before doing any work on the machine.

Gerry

Oh and re the neutral, thats an interesting point you make. I'm not sure there is much room for anything else in this box but I will rebuild it shortly and see if there is evidence of a missing part.

Hi Mike, dont worry, I have all the internal parts including tufnol rod etc, just didnt show them in this picture. I agree on the door, the handle has to be just in the right position or it all goes to pot ! But I'm used to that quirk now

Chaps, when I purchased my J&S grinder it was being fed by a supply line coming out of a random hole in the right-hand sidewall of the machine. This line terminated externally in a standard five-pin 3phase 415V red capped plug. The socket that it went into on the wall presumably had a built-in isolator.

The original MEM 10A isolator box (see pic below) on the left side of the machine had been totally bypassed, from the supply point of view. I've just stripped it, cleaned it and don't see anything wrong with it from a functional point of view. I am therefore wondering if there is any good reason why I shouldn't rewire my 'new' supply via this original box?

I'm thinking perhaps standards or regulation updates might have changed making the MEM box unsuitable. The only thing that occurs to me is that the original box only has terminals for 3 lives and an earth. Perhaps a neutral connection needs to be included these days? (....though quite where it would go to in the machine, Im not sure as both motors are just 3xL+E.) All comments appreciated.

Hopper you are correct, I should have spelt it with a single L. And no, I dont understand how they could dream up a term like that, but they do seem to be happy its well and truly put to bed.

G,

Gentlemen I'm not sure America is still the strong bastion of 'imperialism' we tend to think it is. I have just finished a 5-year stint with GE in the Carolinas involved in heavy mechanical engineering. During tens of thousands of internal technical discussions, plus meetings with their local suppliers, not once did I hear or see an imperial unit.

There was one occasion where I enquired as to the origins of a quantity mentioned in a spec and was told by one of the 'old boys' that it was a conversion from the 'mill'. Most of the younger Americans weren't even aware of this old unit, never mind its value.

Gerry

I need to do some work on my cooker hood. The internals are now coated with that horrible sticky waxy coating which I would like to remove with minimum of physical effort. I have tried soaking parts for days in white spirit but this has no significant effect that I can see.

Is anyone aware of a solvent that is proven effective on this semi oxidised/carbonised deposit? If not, I may need to revert to trial and error.

Hopefully if there is such a thing, I won't need to keep buying those 'disposable' aluminium mesh filters.

Some of the parts are plastic, so I will apply the necessary caution, of course.

Gerry

I think the well-known sound dampening properties of cast iron are really only applicable to high frequencies where acoustic waves travel through the material. Legs on a machine is more about low frequencies, youngs modulus and rigidity, and there will be little difference between steel and cast iron in this case.

The amount of metal is the most important thing here and the more the better, if you ignore the cost of course.

Gerry

??? Why is Darakhshan Muquaddas post of 12:56 identical to Roy Entwhistles's at the start of this discussion ? Strange.

Thanks chaps for all your input. Your comments have helped me navigate the web more efficiently and now I know hugely more about the subject than I did 4 hours ago. I've also just placed an order for a cheap chunk of H07RN-F, and with no delivery charges which is always nice!

The SY cable is attractive but seemed to have a thicker OD than the H07 for the same wire size. I guess that's to do with the internal braiding. I thought that might compromise its flexibility a little, but I may be wrong. Sometime I'll get a small piece and see - nothing like hands on. Perhaps because SY is not officially for 'power' applications, it didn't have the correct BROWN BLACK GREY core colours as mentioned by Andrew J. Not that this is hugely important, just nice to have some order in life

Gerry

ps, Just noticed from Roberts latest link that the SY can have the 'correct' colour codes (described as 'also available' ) Nothing is ever certain in life is it

Edited By gerry madden on 18/09/2022 18:39:16

Edited By gerry madden on 18/09/2022 18:40:05

I intend to replace the cable on my J&S grinder motors. The existing ones (or certainly the sheathing) is hard enough to crack when bent, probably from oil and ageing.

The colour coding on the existing cables is three browns and a yellow/green earth. (This last one is a true earth, fixed to the casing, not a neutral.) I can't seem to find this spec anywhere and I suspect that's because the regulations have changed. Can anyone advise me what combination I should be installing now please?

Also, my preference is for rubber sheathing for oil resistance and flexibility. Am I being a bit old fashioned ?!

Thanks chaps for your thoughts an guidance.

Due to having a pile of 'projects' at the moment, I'll probably start by bonding the terminal back in its socket. I've already dremelled-out the burnt socket and roughed up the terminal with a burr. If I subsequently tighten-up using the stud holding technique, (ie. 2 nuts locked against each other, whilst tightening the third on the terminal), I should avoid putting too much torque on the glued joint.

Regarding the wire extension, the Wagos look nice indeed, but a little bulky. I've subsequently wondered about a small one of these single connectors. I can trim off the excess material and it would fit in quite comfortably. Have I missed anything ?

Peak4 - good idea on the boot lace eyelets. Those Ross Courtney prices are dreadful !

Gerry

I have discovered an overheating terminal on the 3ph motor in my grinders hydraulic system. I suspect the cause was an insufficiently tightened connection as all the others were almost only 'finger tight'. Despite this defect, the motor appeared to run perfectly but the evidence shows failure was just a matter of time. (It broke apart as I dismantled it due to embrittlement of the wires.) As as luck would have it, the eventual failure may have resulted in a short to earth, rather than just stoppage, and that might have made things a little more interesting

Here are the details for your delectation...

(ABOVE PIC) The heat soak from the terminal (live, bottom right) has degraded and destroyed the insulation for about 1 inch on the live feed and the same on the wire going in to the motor windings. The earth wire was actually touching the hot feed wire and its insulation has become locally 'cooked' too!

The heat had loosened the terminal in the plastic block and it was easily removed. Only the 'cooked' wires held it in place.

So my questions are regarding the repair.

1) I assume an araldite / JBWeld would be appropriate to rebonding the terminal back into its black holder ? (After a clean up of course.)

2) The 'cooked wire' going into the windings (ABOVE PIC) probably needs to be cut back by an inch or two and an extension piece fitted to restore its length. Can I solder a piece on to it, or would this not be recommended for heat or other reasons ?

3) If a crimped joint would be the recommended solution, can you give an idea of the component I should look for to use here please ?

4) Is it necessary to use the crimped/castellated termination type on the repaired wire or can I just form a ring and solder it ?

Gerry

I'm not convinced there is a strong intention on behalf of the manufacturers of this particular machine to stop legitimate repairs and force one to buy a new one. If there was, Panasonic wouldn't have printed a user-friendly service manual.

I note also that in this document they call the screw a 'safety screw', presumable because its primary purpose is to reduce the risk of the careless and inquisitive from doing something silly to the machine that might result in a fire or electrocution.

If they really wanted to prevent dismantling, they could so easily have ultrasonically weld plastic parts together, or made a special fastener, not fit a internationally standardised one for which the tools to remove them are available to the world after 10 minutes on the internet. (....once Mr G has identified the system of course )

Gerry

Since many of you took the time to send your thoughts and suggestions I just want to let you know how the story ended. Since it was a Saturday and I wanted to get the job wrapped up, I made a quick check of the local stores online to see if anyone had a 'system zero' screw driver in stock. They didn't, so set about profiling an old flat-bladed screwdriver as several of you suggested. This went well and was able to reinstall and the remove the previously extracted screw with reasonable success. It seemed then that it was all downhill from there, but when I attacked the remaining security screws I just couldn't make my new tool engage at all. Clearly something wasnt right.

I did mention previously that these 'screws' were located at the bottom of deep narrow holes. As such they were not at all easy to see. To cut a long story short I began to doubt that they were screws. Infact with more careful inspection, they resembled rough rivet heads. But this just didn't make sense. Why would anyone do such a thing ? I did some googling and found a service and maintenance instructions on the internet for a very similar model. This document basically said "remove the "safety" screw and pull the casings apart" ! So I did, and it worked ! It subsequently turned out that what I though were 'screw heads' were just injection pips!

Dismantling the machine thereafter was a dream. Every component was snapped together and was very easy to separate, wash and re-assemble.... and not a single one of these moulded clips broke in the process! Panasonic clearly put a lot of thought into this design, robust parts and nicely productionised.

....and there wasn't anything wrong with the motor bearings after all. The squeaking was the brushes, and even this has now disappeared after a long run. The "safety" screw by the way has been re-homed in the bin.

Gerry

I

Michael, fantastic, hit the nail on the head !....again.....

Gerry

I'm just trying to dismantle and clean up a 25 year old Panasonic vacuum cleaner and find that the main casings are held together with anti-tamper screws. I managed to get the only exposed one out with some pliers but the remaining three are down some long holes so I'll need a tool to get them out.

They look like male versions of a multi-spline (actually 6 splines) socket headed screw.

I've never seen anything like this before, or a driver for them so I'm just wondering if anyone is familiar with what they might be officially called, what's needed, or where I might look for a tool ? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks chaps for the excellent food for thought. This device in fed by rectified power (sorry I should have included this) so it must then be for smoothing and volts dips as you have suggested.

Gerry

(ps. the capacitor is 10,000 uF)