Member postings for I.M. OUTAHERE

How many machinists have made or purchased a dedicated ball turner when there was already one on the damned lathe !

Food for thought right there !

😄

I have two rolls of abs that snaps every metre or so although the company i purchased it from did tell me about it and gave them to me for free with the rest of my order i can' t work out what did this to abs ? Maybe it is pla in the wrong box ??

I made a dry box up out of a plastic crate with a hinged lid , it has a foam seal and two of those rechargeable moisture control units you buy off eBay and some teflon tube to rout the filament to Hot end .

The last time i used the printer i left the pla in the teflon tube and it expanded then went brittle so i had to fiddle around fixing this before i could use the printer ( sat there for 2 months unused ) the pla in the dry box was fine and printed well once i got the printer back online .

Keeping your filament in a dry box does a couple of things :

It keeps it dry - filament will absorb moisture from the surrounding air

Keeps the UV rays off it .

Keeps it clean - dust is not a good thing and some run sponge wipers to ensure the filament is cleaan before it gets to the hot end .

Gives you somewhere to keep your filament neatly hidden away and my drybox holds half a dozen spools -all nice and dry ready for use - i used Neils roller stl file to print out some spool rollers that are mounted inside the drybox and this helps to control the filament very well indeed .

Boiling in water ? Never heard that one but maybe it possibly tempers the filament ? You would still have to bak it to dry it .

I have used ctc in china for lathe / mill tooling - they make good stuff at reasonable cost although shipping was a little expensive but it was insured and shipped by tolls and hit my doorstep inside 48hrs so the $50 delivery seemed reasonable - trick is to fill up with as much product you can fit into the weight window so you get the best bang for your buck . There seems to be a proliferation of Aussie youtubers doing reviews on the gear from bangood , i haven't used them yet but so far from what i have seen these youtubers have been pretty happy with the gear they bought .

Engineering supplies is a pretty broad subject and covers a lot of different catagories , i buy a fair bit of stuff from blackwoods but things like taps and dies , cutting tools and measuring tools came from ebay but you need to know what something is worth new so you can see if it is a bargain or a rip off .

Hare and forbes love me ! Although i am now at the point where i have already made my major purchases from them and usually only buy bits and pieces from them now .

And as usual the standard disclaimer applies for the companies i have mentioned !

Hi Les ,

No i hadn't considered them but they do look promising !

Rather than drill and tap holes on the machine maybe drill out the mounting holes on the resistor and epoxy in some small magnets ? That way it could be completely removed in summer and i could stick them directly to the bare metal surfaces which would put the heat right where it is needed .

What do you think of making up a couple of sets of parallel circuits with the following :

2 resistors on the chuck

4 resistors on the slideways of the bed so one resistor on each slideway @ say 1/3 of the bed length in from each end and another two on the carriage so 3 circuits of resistors in total and obviously i would have to adjust the values so the separate sets of resistors in parallel give the same resistance value as each other and run from a suitable switchmode supply and temperature controlled switch .

We are now heading into spring here in OZ so the condensation issue is not a problem but it gives me some time to build all this stuff and experiment with it , i may even factor some power consumption data logging into it to find what works the best at the cheapest price .

Ideally i would like something that works on 36 volts or less and uses the least power possible so others that follow this who may not be converse on mains wiring can build something similar safely and it uses easily available components like those resitors and the controller .

Ebay here i come !

Ian.

Industrial grade nut cracker ?

I would also check the wires in the connector and between the connector and read head

I have seen new drills ( R/H ) that looked like they were sharpened on a machine designed for sharpening L/H drills !

That reminds me i have to set up my t&c and sharpen a lot of drills - dred !

The v coill kit looks the biz ! I doubt the jaycar unit would be even remotely close to the same quality , i might have a look aroung for an Australian distributor of v coil !

I recently purchased a kit - 1/4 unc from bunnings , they also do metric sets but i don't know about bunnings in NZ . The sets are around $50 . You could also try a bearing supplier as well sometimes they have a little rack of these in the corner of the shop .

I just had a look at thr recoil kits that Blackwoods NZ  sell and you are looking at around the $100 mark for them , the sets bunnings here sell are sutton and you only get the tap, the tool to screw the insert in and a few inserts where as the recoil kit has the drill and a few other bit in it . Hare and forbes also do a kit but i think it starts at 6 mm and does up to 12mm .

Jaycar in NZ  do a kit  for 3mm and a few other sizes

Edited By XD 351 on 19/08/2018 18:41:45

Edited By XD 351 on 19/08/2018 18:46:23

The other benefit of an on line trader is there is no need for a showroom so it keeps overheads down and thus a cheaper purchase price .

Hopper , i get the opposite treatment - i can't stand it when i just set foot into a store and have someone badgering me !

Can I help you ? No i'm just looking thanks ! Walk into the next aisle - differnt sales person but same question an so on and so forth ! Usually by the time third sales person has irritated me i tend to start tearing them a new one !

I was just reading the latest edition of a local model engineering magazine and due to the distributors putting up their prices the magazine has had to stop selling through newsagencies so subscription only from now on . I wouldn't be surprised if more publications follow suit or eventually switch to digital only subscriptions .

When you first set the lathe up did you level the bed to ensure there is no twist ? You really need an accurate machinist level for this but even a standard spirit level is better than nothing. I have heard of some that have deliberately twisted the bed to get it to turn parralel not knowing the actual fault was a headstock cocked to one side.or nose up / down . Its a simple check , sit a level on yor cross slide and note the reading then wind the carriageto the other end of the bed and check again - there sould be no deviation on the level .

Once you have this set do a parralell turn test and if it is out of kilter you may need to shim the headstock to correst , this is a common thing with some brands of mini lathe . I also check with a ground mandrel to see if there is any nod on the spindle as this effects it turning parralel

If you can confirm that the bed is not twisted , the headstock is aligned correctly it only leaves one thing - the cross slide is not perpendicular to the spindle .

I believe so .

I think Sam was making a joke !

Just to add to what John mentioned with youtube , one of the best channels for the beginner is " that lazy machinists " - i have watched many hundreds of videos on machining and as far as i'm concerned the videos by Marc on his channel are the best for a beginner probably followed by mr pete 222 and guess what they were both metalwork / shop teachers !

Model engineering a foundation course by Peter Wright is a pretty good jumping off point before moving on to more dedicated literature for the lathe or mill .

What if find a lot is many want to read a book or watch a video about using a lathe or mill but forget the basics that should be learned first - things like

Workshop safety .

Basic marking out .

Measuring .

Cutting , filing and shaping by hand .

Drilling and tapping threads .

The lathe or mill should be an extension of your skills - not replace them !

Seriously nice watches but i wouldn't want to see the price tag !

Then there is also the distraction of modern technology like computers and smart phones that the younger generations seem to becoming more and more addicted to . They didn't have that back then so maybe hobbies were of more interest .

The working classes will be in so much debt they won't be able to afford a lathe , they will be spending most of thier income just paying rent and trying to save the deposit for a home that is alway just out of reach .

While you have the part out chuck up some round bar ( biggest dia you have ) and give the OD a skim over 3 or 4 inches of length just to confirm the lathe is turning parralell .

What are the saddle gib adjustments like - particularily the rear gib ?

You can also get plans for a home made version of the American made Eagle oiler .

ILooks like the nib on your dial indicator is loose .

Your OP states clearly that you only want to trickle charge your 6volt battery , please make up your mind and tell us what you really want !

Those lipo balance chargers are brilliant &when i gave my rc stuff to my nephew the only thing i kept was the charger! Why don't you just use a small solar panel to trickle charge your 6 volt battery ? You don't need or want a lot of current to do this so a solar panel that outputs 12volts and a simple regulator consisting of a 6.8 or 7.5 zener diode across the battery terminats ( may need a few in parralell to handle the current ) to regulate the voltage to around 7 volts .

The problem with using a device running off your solar charged 12 v system is it will need to be ultra efficient otherwise it could drain that system to death !