Member postings for Brian G

My son used to crew on another Aveling and Porter 0-4-0 "Sydenham" whilst it was at Chatham. With no suspension you could feel it approaching before you saw it. As a model, a 5" gauge loco would be about the size of a 1" Minnie so it might not be the most popular loco on a club track due to its extremely low speed. Perhaps one of the narrow gauge versions (with the drive gears outside the wheels) might be a better choice for a model, as it would be faster and have a larger boiler.

The first locomotives were chain driven 0-4-0s as used on the Brill Tramway **LINK**, later gear drive to the rear wheels only was introduced as on "Blue Circle" **LINK** and finally gear drive to both axles as on "Sydenham" **LINK** (The side rods are not coupling rods but instead stabilise the ends of the axles).

Brian

The electrically heated locomotives used in Switzerland could operate for a limited time as fireless locomotives on non-electrified tracks leaving me to wonder whether it might be possible to use the boiler for energy storage instead of batteries. I wonder what the running time would be for a small-scale fireless locomotive where the water is heated electrically whilst stationary rather than fed in from a separate boiler?

Without the need for a blastpipe the boiler (or accumulator) could be extended to the front of the smokebox, increasing its storage capacity. Power and water would come from a trackside plant (at its simplest a power supply, a tank and a hand pump) which could be mains, battery or generator powered, so there would be no need for the locomotive to have a tender, injectors, gauge glass or even an on board feed pump. A suitable heating element would be required, either one that could withstand the pressure, or less efficiently a heating ribbon between the boiler and its insulating jacket, which would simplify the boiler construction and perhaps make it easier to achieve the higher pressure necessary to maximise energy storage.

Brian

I have one collet chuck (ER11) with a hex nut and two (ER25) with the slotted nuts, and much prefer the latter as long as they are used with the "industrial" type spanner that locates with the nut in four places. Changing to this from a C-spanner was a revelation.

Brian

In order for the Arduino to stop the table by counting leadscrew revolutions it would need to know its starting position. This would either require storing the position between runs, manual setting, driving the table up to a sensor in the same way as a 3D printer, or reliably storing the position.

Personally I would be unhappy with storing the position as this could fail in the event of an uncontrolled shutdown, or if the table was moved whilst the Arduino was powered down, whilst manually setting the position each time would be a chore, which could lead to damage if forgotten. That leaves use of a microswitch, optical or magnetic sensor any of which could much more simply send a stop signal directly to the Arduino.

Brian

I'm very much a beginner with 3D printing, but one immediate thought is that the edges of the object may not be completely joined, so that your stl isn't a closed solid. I assume that a slicer would not regard overlapping edges or two or more vertices representing one point on the model as defining a solid object in much the same was as a failed 3D render.

Brian

Not allowing for that was the cause of some of the Y2K problems as February 29 and December 31 were not recognised.

Incidentally, I still haven't worked out why it wasn't on anyone's horizon long before. As early as 1985 I had scheduled spares orders (for power station planned maintenance) shown as over 80 years overdue thanks to two-digit years. Don't even ask what they did to the MRP suggestions

Brian

The peanuts could have been exposed to a risk of cross contamination in the processing plant. Perhaps it is better to annoy a thousand people than kill one?

Brian

"Significant potential for a variety of uses" **LINK**

Brian

Hi Brian

If you need more than a couple of tons it might be worth getting a die (and backing) made, otherwise machining a stock profile or cut sheet would probably be cheaper.

This would probably need to be a two or three port die to reduce the pressure and avoid breakage. I don't think an extruder would use a die you supplied, if only because it would most likely require 2 or 3 caustic + rework operations before producing a clean and accurate profile. If the face of the profile is to be visible, a pattern of fine grooves and ridges would hide any lines from die pickup.

I am a bit out of date now, with most of the extruders I used to deal with being long gone or swallowed by Hydro but once you get to 5-10 tons or so, the price per tonne, even including the die cost, should be comfortably less than from a stockholder.

Brian

Auctioneers typically don't move things around, they auction them in place, grouping adjacent items into lots. When my employer's receivers gave me the task of assisting with an auction I was told not to try and sort like with like, any added value wasn't worth the time. If a machine had a nameplate that became its description, otherwise it was just "machine" or "press tooling". As far as tooling was concerned, if it was on the machine it was sold with it, if not it went in a separate lot, frequently with the cabinet on which it was standing.

Brian

Or you get to the store to find that none of the staff have the faintest idea what the "in stock" component is or where to find it ("it might be in those drawers" and you leave empty-handed.

Brian

Scale Link offer a variety of mostly small scale brass etches for anti slip surfaces **LINK** whilst Swift Sixteen can supply brass diamond plate in 1:19 scale. **LINK**

Brian

Hi John

The Maplin link is for a genuine Arduino, available from the Arduino Foundation for EUR20 whilst the other is a clone. (Incidentally a pack of 3 Elegoo branded Nano clones can be bought for £8.99 from Amazon with free shipping or next day with prime).

Brian

Edit:  EUR20 + VAT, which means Maplin were cheaper than the price direct from the Arduino Foundation or from CPC (or would have been if any of them actually had Arduino Nanos in stock.)

B

Edited By Brian G on 01/03/2018 15:53:13

Maplin in administration now **LINK*

Together with Toys R Us that is over 5,000 people's jobs on the line.

Brian

Edited By Brian G on 28/02/2018 10:46:44

The new branch at Sittingbourne has decent parking (and shorter traffic queues) but is no better in terms of stock or service.

Brian

The search term Martin gave works in Bing as well Brian. Second link in "site: www.model-engineer.co.uk "Brian Wood" brought up the same page as clicking under your name. Interestingly the same thing didn't happen with my name, although individual postings appeared. I expect this is because nobody had ever searched for my postings, so there hadn't been a page to crawl.

It is definitely a workable solution even if you only remember part of the name, as clicking on the link to any of a member's postings brings up a forum page with links to "x forum posts" and "y photos".

Brian

Two new branches in business parks near me have replaced a high street store with no parking, which is a positive move, but the parts counter is absent from both of them, together it seems with any staff who know what they are doing. When I asked for an IC socket (which showed as in store online) told "plugs and sockets are in those drawers", which it wasn't.

As a result I have given up on Maplin. CPC deliver orders over £5 free and even the free delivery has often been next day, so it is a no-brainer.

Hi Brian

I just clicked on your "1391 forum posts" and saw a list of all the subjects you have posted on.

Brian

EDIT:  Unfortunately this requires me to first find one of your posts, so not that good a solution.

Edited By Brian G on 20/02/2018 09:18:58

Perhaps because jet aircraft are jet propelled in the same way as a jet-ski or a squid, by reaction to a jet of their working gas or fluid. Describing aircraft as gas turbine would lead to confusion as there are turbojet (747), turboprop (Viscount) and turboshaft (helicopter) gas turbines.

Brian

We looked friction drilling about 25 years back when manufacturing aluminium conservatories. The holes were formed quickly and in a box section the ragged end to the formed boss wasn't important. The downside was time, firstly because our existing multi-spindle air setup couldn't be used so the holes would need to be drilled sequentially and still required tapping. Even before the tooling cost was considered, the additional time cost more than the rivnuts we were currently using.

Brian