Member postings for Doubletop

A nice start there Phil

Pete

Nice one Phil good to see you've taken the plunge. Are you going to share your build with us at all?

Pete

Phil

That sounds to be a challenge good luck with the dual build. At least once you've done the Northumbrian boiler you'll know if you are ready to do the Rob Roy boiler.

On the frames get in touch with Pete H over on the MECH site he had his fames cut. His build thread is here

**LINK**

Pete

John

As you explained the remote display powers itself, and the scales, but could it be the case that the local display needs the local battery to be good? We've all had the displays on our calipers and micrometers blinking for months then suddenly going berserk just before the battery finally gives up.

Have you confirmed the local battery is good, swapping the remote commetions arounnd amongst the other displays, and disconnecting the remote completely?

I also see from your avatar photo and refence to packages being lost at CDG you may be somewhere exotic. What is the humidity like? These displays tend to have press contact connectors, one pin could be dodgy. As Colin suggest you aren't going to loose much by striping the unit and taking a look

Otherwise just wait for the post.

Pete

Thanks John, That's just the information I needed

Pete

Phil

I wish you hadn't asked that. We had a nice Sunday afternoon and the new track was just about a complete loop so I packed everything up and went over to the club. Before long I had a crowd of kids around who wanted to know everything and the little buggers wouldn’t stop grabbing things asking, "what's this mister". I soldiered on got everything ready and was going to use the hand pump to fill the boiler. Nothing happened. The pump is buried in the tender so any chance to give it a good whack was limited. So I packed up and left for home. A strip down of the tender got the pump out and as expected one of the balls was stuck on its seat. It’s back on the shelf while I get on with getting my Simplex ready for the coming summer (in NZ).

Pete

Stop getting lost in the outback, we are all waiting to see yours running on air

Pete

John

Yes I had forgotten about that for you guys. But I'm in New Zealand.

Question still stands though. Has anybody used one?

Pete

Chris posted this question which got me looking at these pieces of equipment. I see RGD to them for about 612 quid + VAT and I've asked out local Vertex supplier for a price. However there are many ways of skining a cat and ended up on the Alibaba site http://www.alibaba.com/ Just put in "U2 cutter grinder" and there you'll find countless suppliers of the same tool ready to ship direct fron China, including Vertex. Many will do a single order for around US$450 and about $350 shipping (it varies) I got one quote and the unit weighs 60kg and they charge US$5.60/Kg. So thats a total of 495 quid landed + VAT (my quote was with the attachments)

So this looks promising so as its going be impossible to do what Baz suggests, and I asume he's thinking of a used item anyway.

So the next question has anybody got one of these, from any source, and what do they think of them?

(if you are skeptical about Alibaba I've only heard good reports)

Pete

Edited By Doubletop on 13/09/2012 06:45:56

For the very reason this topic covers, you aren't authorised to be there as you are a health and safety risk. to yourself

Pete

After being enlighten by this thread, I remembered to ask my dad, when I called him the other day, about the large ball bearing with the equipment of he'd given me. He corrected me and told me it wasn't a ball bearing but an accurate reference ball for measuring, its exactly 1.75" Without prompting he then described using it to set up the round table, just about as posted in the thread.

Now I've got to work out what else I could use it for and I'll be a bit more careful with it rather than leave it skulking around in the workshop.

Pete

Edited By Doubletop on 10/09/2012 10:36:09

I thought I'd check in and see if there were any new posts under this topic. It appears not. So how are things going with everybody's Northumbrian builds?

Pete.

I checked Johns link to ebay and thats the guy I got my DRO's from. Helpful and prompt

Pete

Rex

Sorry to hear so few of the many hundreds that must have been built could make it. Unfortunatley mine emigrated to be with me in NZ about ten years ago and is unlikely to make the return trip. Pity as it started life only a few miles from Andover.

Pete

I purchased Sino units off Ebay shipped from Hong Kong and would recomend them, apart from the manual. I found the SINPO manual, is written in English and surprise surprise its virtually the same as the SINO manual, has the same diagrams, display wording and control sequences, Only the keyboard/front panel layout is different. They must be the same electronics in the control unit. So if you are struggling with the SINO manual serch for a copy of the SINPO manual, it's marginally better.

Pete

I see what Michael is getting at. The adjustable "ball on a stick" doesn't make any assumptions that the centre hole in the round table is actually on centre. In an extreme example the "stick' could be mounted on the periphery of the table and the ball adjusted to be over the centre. as long as all the errors are taken out using the DTI as the table is rotated the ball has to be directly over the CL.

Tonight I tried the ball I had lying around. It's about 40mm dia. It was really easy to set up the table and quill on centre and the vice on the table. Clocking the ball with it just laying in the centre hole of the chuck, not clamped in the jaws, and rotating the table gave me less tabout 1 thou variation in 360degrees. That will do me.

Pete

I've never been happy that my chuck is truly centered on the table so plan to give it a go and see what happens

1) Use the ball to centre the rotary table and quill

2) Hold the ball in the chuck and center the chuck to the quill, and hence the chuck to the rotary table.

3) Zero DRO' s for reference point

4) Rotate the table and clock the ball in the chuck to see if it really is centred on the table

5) Clock the quill to the ball to see how well that was aligned

Pete

Edited By Doubletop on 12/08/2012 10:58:35

Because they're not Stuarts?

Plenty more here

**LINK**

Now I know why I've got a big ball bearing in the stuff my dad gave me. Always wondered what he had used it for, I'll give it a go.

Pete

I was peripherally involved, regularly traveling between Scampton and Mareham at the time. They did it more than once. Story here

**LINK**

Thats the real thing. They get that close when tanking, it just seems unatural. Just imagine what it's like with a VC10 that close tanking from a Tristar. These aren't connected but you can see from the probes the VC10's are equipped to tank off their mates.

The Tristars don't need probes they can carry enough fuel to enable them to stay airbourne for some considerable time.

Pete