Member postings for Gary Wooding

No, both motors were originally 415v wired as STAR. I opened them up, and for each one, located the the star point, split it, and extended the wires to the connection block where they could be connected in DELTA. This made each motor 220v and could be driven, at no loss in power, from 220v VFDs. Because I've split the star points, the motors are now dual voltage.

I've had my 2B for about 12 years. It has the original 415v 3ph motors and came with a rotary converter that I found clumsy and noisy. I removed both motors, split the star points so the windings could be connected as delta, and fitted two Mitsubishi 220v VFDs. The VFDs are mounted just below the suds tray. See my ALBUM

The VFDs are controlled by the little control box mounted on the power drive motor, as shown in the photos. It gives instant direction and speed control and I didn't have to buy new motors.

As Garth has mentioned, many modern windscreen wiper motors are designed to run in one direction only. Instead of positioning the brushes radially they are set more tangentially so as, I suppose, to provide a contact area larger than the brush profile area as well as reducing the overall dimension. When run in reverse, the brushes move slightly and start to wear a new arc, thus reducing the designed contact area in forward and reverse. And thus reducing the power very noticeably.

The boss's gas cooker literally exploded on Boxing Day some 15 or so years ago. Luckily nobody was injured. She replaced it with a (very expensive) electric one that, over the years, has needed two oven elements and four simmerstats. Total cost was about £40; far less than a new cooker.

As an aside, I ordered a "workshop manual" for when I replaced the first element. £25 + postage for a 10 page photocopy of a manual for the wrong cooker was a ripoff, so I returned it for a full refund and muddled through without it. If I can do it I'm sure you can too.

I too thought I had no need for a second monitor, until somebody upgraded and chucked their old one in my direction. Rather than dump it I connected it up, put my CAD system on the original, and set the "spare" as the desktop. I can do all the normal housekeeping on the desktop and have an uncluttered screen on the original.

Try it and you'll be hooked.

(PS. My video card is a humble NVIDIA GeForce GT 705, but it can drive 2 monitors by itself)

When I decided to fit DRO to my mill I originally chose 2-axis, but friends at the club were unanimous in the view that I'd regret not getting 3-axis. I succumbed and spent the extra for the 3rd axis - they were right. The 3rd axis is appreciated long after the cost is forgotten. Go for it, you will NOT regret it.

Simon, I have a mill and live in Leamington Spa. Is that too far away?

Neil,

If your requirement is to create solid models for 3D printing, then download and install MeshMixer which is totally free. Get it from HERE

It will accept STLs and there is a command to convert to solid.

An alternative that I, and lots of others, have adopted is Fusion 360. Its certainly a paradigm shift from TurboCad, but I'd be surprised if, after spending the time getting used to it, you didn't consider it a vast improvement over TurboCad. I've switched to using it for all my 3D modelling, but still use TurboCad for 2D drawing because, at the moment, its far better than Fusion.

TC Deluxe cannot create solids. All 3D models are hollow surfaces.

The Pro versions create solids by default.

Edited By Gary Wooding on 26/12/2016 19:00:11

Binswood is me - it's the name I used to use until my email address changed.

Hi Hugh,

My DRO is a Newall Microsyn system with a C80 display. I think not done it yet's suggestion of the Centec Yahoo forum is a good place for spanner sizes.

The problem is that TC Deluxe can only produce 3D surfaces - not 3D solids. A reasonably simply "fix" is to use a free program called MeshLab (it's made by Autodesk) to convert the 3D surface into a solid. Use the "heal" facility.

The slicer program will convert the interior of a solid model into a framework with a specified density percentage, but there's nothing to convert inside a surface.

Hi Hugh,

Everything on my 2B is Imperial - BSW and BSF.

"Came across this today, might help you with the differences between brushed and brushless DC motors"

Seems to me that it shows that a 500W motor is more powerful than a 250W motor, or did I miss something?

Hopefully, this might make exponents a little clearer...

I think *THIS* is what you were looking for.

I've fitted VFDs to the spindle and power-feed of my Centec 2B and now wouldn't be without it. I've changed the gears only a couple of times over the years, most notably to get the highest possible speed for a tiny cutter, but normally I keep it in the middle gear. With finger tip control of both speed and direction, I even use it for power tapping.

I've also fitted VFDs to my lathe and pillar drill - well worth the effort, in my opinion.

Here's possibly the world's worst acronym: REMAP.

Rehabilitation Engineering Movement Advisory Panel.

No wonder that almost nobody has heard or knows about it.

Here's another "serious" use of 3D printing.

I do a lot of work for REMAP and we recently had a request to help a man to hold his walking stick - the trouble was that as a result of injury, the hand to hold the stick had just a thumb and forefinger: the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers were just stumps. No big deal you might think, but it turns out that the thumb and forefinger do very little to control the stick - without the other fingers the stick cannot be prevented from turning sideways.

We first took an alginate mould of his hand holding the walking stick handle, then did a 3D scan of the mould which was subsequently edited to create a 3D model of the cavities created by his hand actually holding the stick - a sort-of specialised glove. We gave the model a suitable thickness and then printed it with NinjaFlex, which is a rubbery type of plastic suitable for 3D printing. When the "glove" was fastened to the stick, his damaged hand fitted it exactly, and gave him total control of the stick, resulting in one satisfied client.