Member postings for Michael Horner

Hi John

Do you know the Ebay supplier of your plasma cutter? It would be nice to save £150 .

Cheers Michael

Spec
230v (16amp) supply

• 10-40 amps of cutting power – capable of cutting up to 10mm (mild steel), severs 12mm
• 40amps @ 60% duty cycle
• Digital display showing current setting
• Adjustable cool down time
• Powerful and reliable providing fast, clean and precise cuts on mild and stainless steels, aluminium, brass and copper
• Complete with regulator and 4 meter air cooled torch

Hi

This plasma cutter is for sale at £400 from TW Wholesale Swadlincote and I am thinking of buying one!

Has any body got any information about the company or product - good or bad?

Have done a search on the Internet and nothing bad has shown up.

Much appriciated.

Cheers Michael.

working now.

took a while to load but that could be my computer.

Cheers Michael.

"Chinese TOOLING now thats another ball game,worse than useless, NEVER skrimp on tooling/workholding thats my motto.

Regards,

Raymond."

Hi Raymond

Just wanted to point out you are slagging of a whole nation again. I bought some ER25 collets and chuck from Hong Kong, I can't tell you what the accurcy is because I never felt the need to check it,

If you buy quality tooling does it matter its country of origin!

Cheers Michael

"How many new model engineers have started who otherwise would not have because a Chinese lathe was affordable?"

Not a model engineer but a repairer of things. I have a Conquest lathe from Chester. I have had it over 10 years, no failures, abused it to hell. I now have have a 5" chuck on it to save changing jaws. For the price the spec was fantastic. Accurcey? It does the job. I did a lot of the suggested improvements gleened from the Internet.

One satisfied Chinese lathe owner!

In short I would have kept putting it off buying a lathe.

Cheers Michael.

I tried this with a 9 inch angle grinder, took out the neighbours fence!

I think the small angle grinders don't have a deadmans switch so if you let go for any reason it will shoot off under power.

Not sure what the insurance company would make of it!

Cheers Michael.

Hi Gray

I came across this whilst looking for something else! Couldn't find the price of this particular unit but units in the range were in the region of £38.

DA08 Digital Position Indicator by SIKO

Food for thought.

Cheers Michael.

Hi Les

Thanks for the copy of the code, it is well annotated. Just got to find the old rev counter I made so I can recode it for it's new purpose and hope I didn't use all of portb to drive the 7-segment displays!

Cheers Michael

"Plastic gears are crap"

I have a conquest mini-lathe from new, it must be over 10 year old, it came with plastic gears. I did the taper roller bearing upgrade I also have a 5" 3 jaw chuck fitted because I got fed up of changing jaws, this will indicate the size of material I am cutting. I purchased the internal metal gear upgrade from ARC just in case, those gears are still in their box!

Plastic gears are crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are they fit for purpose???????????????????????????????????????????????????

Cheers Michael

Hi Gray

I note from a different post that you have retired now, did you get your counter built?

This looks like a good idea for the cross slide of a minilathe. On big jobs I lose count of where I am upto then go oversize/undersize.

For the Z axis I have fitted a digital caliper and it works great because it's out of the way, to fit the same thing on the cross would get all the debris on it and it would get in the way. I envisage one of the cheap rotary encoders fitting on the end of the lead screw at the back of the cross slide. The one I am thinking of using has 24 pulse output which would give me a resolution of 0.0833333 mm which is close enough for me, I would then use the dial on the handle to finish off.

I am at the moment writing the algorythem because I will be using a PicChip to pull the thing together. My head is hurting working out the how to work out the direction of travel but I suppose that's what keeps they grey matter alive!

Cheers Michael

Pen and paper or their derivities.

Cheers Michael.

Spell checker on! See post on Self Adulation.

Hi Michael

I have seen the thread you mentioned but couldn't find it on a revisit. I was put off by the bulk of the design. But your mention of it has triggered the thought of use the body of the bearing housing as a pulley which will run at spindle speed, take an elastic band out to an outrigger shaft with small and large pulley then another elastic band back to to the new spindle so long as I can get a ratio 4:1 I will get my target speed of 20,000 rpm. Probably want a gaurd for the elastic bands cause i'll bet they'll sting if they snap and hit you!

Hi Rod

if the above will work I think it will be the way to go, the gears for my other design were going to cost £76 I've probably got the materials in my scrap box

Cheers Michael.

Hi Rod

How's your build of the speed increaser coming along?

I am trying to draw up plans to build one along the lines John S suggested. HPC do a 72 tooth ring gear with a 60mm OD and Dick Stephens suggested a 16 tooth sun gear should be ok giving a ratio of 5.5:1.

The intention is to drive it with a KX3 so the top speed could be excess of 20,000 RPM. This gives me concerns about the oilite bush getting enough oil to stop it burning up! I am thinking of using 3 planets to take the strain off the sun gear. Just working out the machining sequence.

Cheers Michael

David

Is it feasable to have the "digital articles" on the electronic magazine only so if it gets thrown away it's not wasting them poor trees?

Cheers Michael

Some of the machines I service the frames are put together this way. Probably for at least 10 years.

Cheers Michael

Hi Guys, thanks for all your input. I bought some alternator brushes from JCR in London because they specified two dimentions that ment their brushes would go down the whole, I suspected they would be too long but it was easy to cut them down with a junior hacksaw. I tried to get the curve in the end but failed miserbly.

The motor kicks like a mule now, even pulled a wheely but not with Mrs Sims onboard

This has highlighted another fault in that I think the power should come in gradually but it is all or nothing. The pot control looks special. Going to leave it as it is for now, try and teach SWMBO to get the chair moving before applying the power else I can see the gearbox going next.

Once again thanks for all your input.

Michael.

Hi Keith I have sent you a PM.

Sid this motor is for a carer assist device, Mrs Sims is beyond taking responcibilty for herself! If you can find her a dog / cat to stroke or some books she is happy. The brush repair is pretty benign but the UK is going down the route you describe.

Cheers Michael.

Hi Guys thanks for the replies so far it looks like it may be worth trying to source the right type of brush because I would say the motor works barring full power. The resistance across the brushes was about 2 ohms a 12 volt fan motor for a car I have measured about 0.5 ohm that kind of ohms on the STROLLER motor would be heading in the the right direction for 100Watts which is the power rating of the motor.

Keith I did ring the company you mentiontioned but the don't deal with the public, they found me agent in Sheffield but he didn't answer his phone. What I am trying to do is get this working as quick as possible so trying different avenues even got a bid on a unit on ebay.

Cheers Michael

Hi Guys hope you can help me?

My mother in law has to be taken for walks in a wheel chair, getting old now and after struggling pushing her around the hills of Sheffield we came across a POWERSTROLL at the right price and it transformed the walks. One day SHMBO said it's not working. Checking it over found one of the brushes had a burnt out spring!!! I replaced the brush with one from my spares for the minilathe and although the motor spins it doesn't have the same torque it used to have. I stripped down the motor to check it over and noted that if I hold the DMM probe on one segment and the put the other probe on all the others in turn the resistance value is about the same about 0.4 ohm. This doesn't seem right to me. The commutator was slightly discoloured so I cleaned it with emery paper (sorry Kwill) pulled a knife blade through the slots but no debris came out. The brush that had burnt out was a different type to the one that looked ok so I think someone has been there before.

So three questions:

Is the armature pooped?

Is there a differance between mains voltage and 12 volt brushes?

How does the brush pick up the DC?

Hope you can help, Mrs Sims would be very pleased!

Cheers Michael.

If you only want small amount of lubricant at a time I have used hand soap bottle that I have fitted a metal tube into the exit orrifice so that I can attache a plastic tube too. They have a built in one way valve.

Michael