Member postings for Martin 100

660kg and 680kg are now the minimums for the two main original Mini classes in the UK (with a maximum of 25kg of ballast)

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1000kg and 1125kg for the modern classes, the former based on the R50 2001-2005 model and the latter on the most recent version the F56 from 2014 onwards.

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Well the Countryman is now larger iirc than an Austin Maxi, but a Countryman is also way bigger than a 2 door modern Mini. An original just looks ridiculously small but then so do most 'old' cars.

Issigonis held the same view on the bulk of the modern reincarnation, what he forgot is people are larger than they were in 1959, they now demand safety systems, they demand crumple zones and designing something that in a minor crash will rearrange your customers face on the steering wheel and legs with the gearbox and engine coming through the bulkhead is deemed really bad practice. Any high speed off-road excursion would nearly always require a body bag. In competition on circuits even with the benefit of full FIA approved rollcages, 6 point harnesses and high back seats there have sadly been fatalities.

You can now use a full tank of fuel, 400 miles or so at near 50mpg at 70mph on petrol with nothing more than a toilet break in the modern version, the original was never anything but a city car, 50 miles on a dual carriageway at 70mph in an 850 flat out even with a load of soundproofing in midsummer would leave you deaf, sweaty and exhausted, 10 miles on a twisty road would put a smile on your face, 300 miles in a day would often require back surgery, been there done that got the t-shirt.

The door pockets on the original with sliding windows and the rope door catch release could accommodate iirc four bottles of gin each side, the modern one really struggles with a bag of loose change and a few throat lozenges, but then again it's now significantly more than a sheet of cardboard covered in vinyl, and a door skin 60 thou thick between you and the outside world.

The only Weller irons I'm aware of with with just a transformer in the base are the magnastat ones using the curie point to operate a contact in the body of the handset.

I've never seen a tip burnt through, loss of plating after many months and thousands of joints but never burnt through. Never seen the transformers nor anything fail on them but the swich in the handset. (we didn't have a production line but our 'office' had about 50 in use for field work) I think I might have one kicking about in the shed. It's not been used for 25+ years. A 50W Weller with digital temperature control (7 segment display) gets used now and again on kit dating up the mid / late 80's, anything newer and I use a Metcal MX500, 13.56MHz RF tips, spot on temperature control and near instant heating from cold.

I'd drop the PCB holder and add a headset magnifier with really good lighting as essential for any surface mount work. Even better would be eyes with half a century less use.

Edited By Martin 100 on 16/01/2018 19:13:07

Fake on the right, battery cover is 'wrong'

Having said that the IP67 rated silver coloured Mitutoyo calipers have in the past year or so changed the battery cover design from a posidriv screwdriver job on the rear to using a 2p piece on the front

Concerning Mitutoyo stuff, Is anything other than this particular caliper being faked? (and sold on ebay)

I've got a copy of Machinerys Handbook 'indoors' maybe 20 years old and rarely used.

These get far more use

**LINK**

**LINK**

Both are available from elsewhere, the latter is a lot cheaper on ebay (£20 ish) and in an 'international edition'

There is also a link near the back of the black book and a code on a hologram to get a free drill/tapping wallchart.

Using a very big book from Sandvik with lots of formulae in it , spinning the spindle up and tweaking the pot to somewhere towards the bottom of the recommended range.

I can get the CNC mill working fine with quite acceptable rates of metal removal, surface finish, dimensional accuracy and cutter life. But then it's not me it's the machine.

A lot of my difficulty manual milling stems I think from my height and the lack of it on the X3 with the factory supplied stand, giving a very restricted view of the cutting action compared to turning on a lathe (my brace of Boxfords despite being early 1950's and early 1960's have the chunky 80's era yellow chuck guard affording very good visibility) I can, from sight of the swarf and feel through the handwheels know if the feed and speed is right or not on the lathe I very rarely get that when milling. At least with the tacho on X3 I know I'm somewhere in the right area and can eliminate one variable.

Guess it comes down to experience, I've maybe a couple of magnitudes more turning than milling experience. Decades ago as a engineering trainee I was twirling handles on huge very tired mills with worn leadscrews, sloppy gibs and less than perfect HSS tooling, and despite cutting speed calculations ahead of time the results didn't always match the expectations. Since then I spent many hours being frustrated using a Boxford vertical slide and setups that were not even remotely rigid. The visibility of the cutting action is about as bad as you could ever get. The X3 was a huge improvement, but I'd prefer something at least half as big again with significantly more rigidity. A hefty multiple horsepower motor with a VFD would be useful too. I might have even bought something 'big' from Warco last year if they'd have done the Doncaster show.

The problem with a lot of modern kit is they have a speed adjusting knob that goes from say zero to max rpm with no real attempt made at the factory for calibration and a distinct lack of marking of intermediate values.

Couple of cases in my own workship with a Boxford lathe, with a 4 pole direct from mains motor running at 1400 ish rpm, the plate showing the pulley and backgear arrrangements closely follows the reality at the spindle.

For the Sieg X3 it's a knob a long reach away, only visible if you stand to the right side and towards the rear of the machine that does nothing for the first 20% of its travel and just a low and a high gear selection on the head. One gear apparently gives a top speed of 1000rpm the other 2000rpm, but confusingly with a minimum on both ranges is '100rpm' Work out the logic of that, a gear train that does nothing at one speed input but can also provide a 50% reduction at the top end.

Much of the work on the Boxford other than heavy drilling is performed either at the top 1300rpm or the slow backgeared equivalent that escapes me right now. Insert tooling lets you get away with that

The mill is much more sensitive to rotational speeds and while you can wing it, without a tacho you are just guessing. I'd class it as essential.

Many thanks all.

I've had an X3 mill for quite a few years now but in an idle moment wondered how the fine feed on the SX3 is coupled /decoupled from the quill handle such that the worm is not jammed solid when the quill handle is used.

Can't see anything obvious on the exploded view nor the dismantling guide on the arceuro website

Sieg SX3 Exploded Parts Diagram

Sieg SX3 Dismantling Guide

Supply exactly matches demand + system losses. Any deviation and the frequency rises or falls, fall towards the proscribed limits and there will be an increase in generation (almost all generation is operated with some headroom) fall further and additional fast acting generation (hydro/open cycle gas turbines/interconnectors) will increase output, fall further and there will be a reduction of voltage (UK end user supply is technically 230v +10% -6% with a nominal 240v) the wide area voltage reductions being in one or two stages, then at a point at which generator/grid stability approaches there will be load shedding, in the first instance to large industrial customers with a prearranged disconnection agreement, then in an extreme situations wider areas.

Whole area disconnections happen so rarely it involves thousands of man hours on investigations

BBC - Power returns following blackouts

OFGEM - System Events of 27th May 2008

There is a formal report on this incident, I'm not sure if it was ever placed in the public domain.

Negative pricing has already happened here several times, all it needs is a sunny day with a few gusts of wind.

It's quite common in Germany too

https://www.ft.com/content/5164675e-1e7e-11e6-b286-cddde55ca122

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/germany-grids-paying-electricity-customers-renewable-energy-power-surplus-wind-solar-generation-a8022576.html

Hinkley Point C is priced at £92.50/MWh for delivery in 2025 (2012 cost basis) (currently £97.14)

Current year delivery offshore wind like Dudgeon Phase 3 is as high as £161.71/MWh

Future nuclear (Wylfa/Oldbury/Moorside) will be much nearer £60/MWh which is significantly closer to what is being delivered with new builds worldwide (EdF excepted)

There are also lots of ways HPC would have been delivered at significantly lower cost.

See Page 68 of the National Audit Office Report

Other than hydro for which the UK has very limited potential there is no other way to secure low carbon dispatchable generation.

Why people put up with fixed and escalating direct debits that exist only to improve the cash flow of energy companies escapes me.

Each month we get an email requesting we submit a meter reading, it takes five minutes max to read and input the readings, then a few days later a pdf arrives with the bill, the money is taken two weeks later. Even better the supplier is one of the cheapest suppliers in the market (within 3% of the cheapest, with lower risk of collapse than the very cheapest)

As for remote switching to manage demand, there is far more scope for this in a commercial and industrial environment, a process that has been happening for half a century for major consumers like steelworks, and has existed for all those in the >100KVA market for 25 years. Delaying operation aircon or heating in a commercial environment to save thousands or tens of thousands in peak demand charges for a handful of days a year makes sense for an office block or a department store.

Disconnects of selected appliances 'over the internet' or with 'smart meter switching' to manage peak demand will not happen for UK domestic consumers. Unlike the Americans or Australians or Canadians we don't rely on aircon or resistive heating. Just do the maths and see what deferring the load of something like a fridge freezer that uses less than 1kWh per day has on the demand curve. Deferral of larger appliances such as an  oven would not be acceptable to many.

Peak pricing to try and encourage load deferral may happen in the UK but there is IMHO far more probability of zero or negative pricing with solar peaks.

Edited By Martin 100 on 23/12/2017 12:01:30

Can't you just build a proper shed instead rather than put it in the house?

Cleaning it off? Use just about any 'industrial degreaser' or car 'tar remover' or a non caustic cleaner like G101

Spray on, wipe off . No rust, no paint falling off. It's not a problem.

As good as ACF50 is (and it is very good) for such a large object I would steer towards something like this

Dintrol 4941 black underbody wax (coverage is obvious)

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or Dinitrol underbody wax clear (less easy to see where you have sprayed)

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or Rocol Moisture Guard

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Warm cans (10 mins in bucket of hot water) and a thin film are all that is required.

Edited By Martin 100 on 19/12/2017 15:17:01

Web hosting services (for example) from companies based outside the EU have been charging VAT (the rate charged being based on the country of the registrant) when providing services to customers within the EU, even if the domain is a .com or .org and not 'country related' for quite some time now In our case it's an American company, where, other than their VAT registration they have absolutely no UK or EU presence.

**LINK**

Can we make a counter claim for extortion when we are charged £8 by Royal Mail for collecting less than £10 of VAT? I say extortion because given the time to read the declaration, enter the value into a computer, print the tax demand sticker and affix it to the item is less then 20 seconds, equating to £1440 per hour of revenue, or £3m per annum for one operative.

If a vendor correctly declares the value on the parcel and no one charges for it at the time is there a time limit beyond which an invoice for VAT and duty cannot be raised?

I beg to differ. Good (aka sane) practice would have the contactor coil energised from live by just a push button switch (start) , the latching action by a dedicated normally open contact on the contactor (either a dedicated main contact or an auxilliary contact) connected across it and the release (stop) by another push button switch that is normally closed with an emergency stop (also normally closed) in series from the other side of the contactor coil back to the other supply leg.

The load current for the motor goes from the supply, through the main contactor contacts to the final load and nowhere else.

Sharing the contacts on the contactor between the final load and the control is questionable and 'cheap' but wiring the control circuitry such that ANY final load current passes through the start button, even for a short period until the contactor latches, is beyond ridiculous to suggest as being "a standard industrial setup"

If you are switching a single phase load then three normally open contacts on the contactor are sufficient, (live, neutral and 'control'  ) for a three phase load then you'll need four nomally open contacts (three for the phases and one for the 'control'  )

Also just using a contactor without any motor overload relay is just plain cheap, many connect direct to off the shelf contactors, cost next to nothing and should, if set correctly protect your motor from overheating.

But single pole switches, even when wired correctly are single points of failure and for emergency stop functionality may, by themselves, not fully satisfy the requirements in an industrial installation.

(spelling!)

Edited By Martin 100 on 04/12/2017 18:37:17

Just checked MG and you are correct about the hex across flats size changing between cap and countersunk sizes 5mm and 4mm respectively for M6 and I quite clearly recalled incorrectly.

That change in across flats size clearly has an impact on the recess depth.

I know at the time the recess on an undamaged screw was measured and checked against a British Standard (BS 4168-9:1983 would cover the period in question) and it was compliant.

Possibly, but I wouldn't be so sure the hex recess is by design actually smaller across the flats, It certainly isn't to my knowledge on metric fasteners. The recess depth is however slightly smaller at least at smaller thread sizes.

The first time I encountered this was on iirc M6 countersink screws in some high voltage air blast switchgear in the mid 1980's The 'usable' depth of the recess in the countersunk screws was something like 10% less than a comparable cap screw with the same thread but with only around 3mm recess on the screw anything other than a perfectly fitting hex key either with the formed end ground perpendicular by the end user or a perfectly formed relief at the bottom of the hex recess to match the off the shelf hex key would compromise removal from the start.

Despite the application of considerable end load damage to the hex recess often occurred with cam out and it made removal even with perfectly sized hex keys extremely difficult. Even more so when the orignal factory installation methods were 'dry' into the aluminium and with either uncontrolled torque application or overtorquing with slightly damaged / worn hex bits.

By using the welding method together with a tiny amount of specialist anti-seize* on the threads on refitment it ultimately saved a few million quid over the following years in significantly speeding up overhaul times and contact replacement.

* I think it contained glass beads as everything else such as oil, grease, nickel or copper was off limits.