Member postings for I.M. OUTAHERE

I think the important thing to remember is that we are talking about a domestic installation and not an industrial one !

Brian,

For the simplest installation all you need is :

A latching stop switch for an emergency stop - IMHO all machines should have one of these, whether it is cutting off the mains power or telling an inverter to stop is irrelevent as long as the machine has one that works .

A momentary pushbutton switch for a start switch and the same for a stop switch , you can use a toggle switch for forward / reverse switching as it only changes which terminal the start switch is connected to ( you will have start fwd and start rev on the inverter ) the stop is connected to reset and you can usually configure e stop in the programme to use a terminal suit your needs .

My mini lathe is running a 3 ph motor and inverter ( see my photo library ) and the only other thing i have is a mains power switch mounted next to the lathe head to turn it all on and if i was pedantic enough i might even turn that off while i fiddle around mounting something on the faceplate ! . What is the make and model of your inverter Brian ? Maybe i can download a copy and try to make some sense of it for you .

Back to the discussion -

In all seriousness once the E-stop is active no input signal of any kind should turn the inverter output on - it is in the programming ! , even if the IGBT'S failed and went short they would only supply DC and fry the motor coils .

If you have an inverter that is activating randomly you have issues with shielding and / or transient voltages .

I watch a youtube channel called Mr Carlson's lab , he restores and uses a lot of vintage test gear that is designed for repairing vintage radios and i often wonder what a service person back in those days would make of a modern oscilloscope or what a modern service person would make of a Vedolyzer or the like !

One thing i do know is the old stuff still looks better !

Hi Martin ,

There are designs for things like wobbler engines that require nothing more than a couple of drill bits a drill (electric or hand ) a hacksaw a small file ,some superglue and a small vise .

I think for a newcomer the biggest thing to overcome is the hesitance to ask questions on this and other forums and once the ice is broken i generally find that 99% of the forum members literally bend over backwards to help that new member .

Currently Neil and Jason are respectively running their excellent Lathe work and Milling for beginners series in MEW which i feel will help a newcomer immensely , The Editors of ME & MEW are really at the mercy of the contributors as to what they get in the way of projects and can only publish what they get .

One thing i would suggest to a newcomer is if they are going to subscribe to either or hopefully both Magazines is to go digital as it give access to the back issues and they can gain an immense amount of knowledge from those back issues along with many projects to build .

Never seen anything like it before ! Amazing skills and models !

LMAO watching the the witch !

I like deep brunswick green on my engines with red on the flywheels or machine grey with red in the flywheels , both are epoxy enamel paints like killrust or metalgaurd etc .

I'm currently building the same engine and ended up increasing the bore diameter to 40mm so i can use the rings off a mini dirt monkey bike that are sold on ebay , they are dirt cheap to buy and you can get the pistons cheap as well .

I made my own cast iron piston as per the drawing but had to make a couple of adjustments as the 40mm rings are thicker .

I was originally going to use the 1 1/2 bore size and have the rings for that( costly little things they are !) but when machining the cylinder from cast bar it relieved itself and went oval so i had to rebore it and then i lapped it .

No and if you force yourself into it you will get frustrated and lose interest in the project .

Remember it is a Hobby not a job so you can take all the time you want and what i generally do is make little assemblies and store them together in a labelled container along with any notation i think i need to keep with it like what the parts are , part numbers on the drawing , any other parts that need to be made to complete that assembly and if any parts need painting or finishing . Once all the parts for that assembly are done they all go in that same box and get labelled as finished and what drawings they came from then put away until i need them .

I find this system makes keeping track of the work i have done and final assembly a breeze .

The manual for the Huanyang inverter i have clearly states “ Do not place any switching gear between the inverter and load or disconnect the load while the inverter is running or serious damage will occur “ .
Disconnecting a Mosfet or IGBT while it is operating is a good way of killing it , the sudden cessation of current flow will cause a voltage spike which can destroy the gate . That is why it is best to let the electronics do the job they were designed to do and install the unit as per manufacturers recommendations along with the electrical standards for your country ( yes they are all different )
Looking at the diagram in the photos I would say the 6 switched inputs on the left are the terminals that can be configured to handle the run/stop , E- stop , jog fwd , jog rev and possibly high and low speed operations and your manual should tell you how to configure these .
The relay terminal on the right side is used for a water cooled spindle or can be used to turn a coolant pump on if you run one .

One thing to remember is with an SSD you don’t need to run defrag or optimisation .

I know that my Norton offers this and i had to disable it in the Norton settings, I would also look in computer management just to make sure there is no defrag schedule set .

Try to keep the download and delete of files to your C/ drive to a minimum as SSD have a finite amount of cycles in them - Don’t. worry ! you are not likely to exceed this unless you are downloading a massive amount of very very large files like movies and deleting them shortly after , you are better off either leaving them on there until you start to run out of space ( unlikely with 500gb ) then delete all of them or download these files straight to an external drive or storage device and not to your C/ drive if possible .

I always try to support the small operators especially when the big chain/ box stores have bought into just about every market here in Australia which is driving the small independent retailers out of business as they simply can’t get the bulk buy discounts that the big retailers can barter for with their suppliers .

I know that my inverter will continue to run for a second or two after the power has been switched off , Presumably because of the large capacitors inside that are there to account for sudden load changes .

With my unit the difference between E - stop and stop is with the stop switch i can alter the ramp down setting / braking if i want it to stop faster and the E - stop applies full braking to stop the chuck instantly .

I have the mains power switch mounted right next to the lathe head and within easy reach if something does go wrong with the inverter i can cut the power just as quickly as using the E- stop .

I can see what NDIY is saying about the screw on chuck , my last lathe had one and it also had a keeper plate that screwed to the backplate with one 5mm screw and it had a tang or hook that fitted into an annular groove on the spindle to stop the chuck coming off completely should it come loose. I know one thing for sure is if i was being pulled into a rotating chuck the last thing i would be worrying about is the chuck unscrewing , i would want it to stop dead !

One thing to remember is some of those emergency shut off buttons are not rated to carry the amperage that your mains can supply or your machine may draw , not a problem if you are going to fit a contactor as an NVR as you simply fit the emergency cut off switch in series with the contactor coil .

The ultimate would be a mains isolation switch /emergency stop switch /NVR contactor combo mounted on the wall and the start/stop /speed and E - stop mounted conveniently on the machine and other than being able to predict the future I don’t think you could do anything more to protect yourself !

Nup - 63 last time i checked ! If it keeps growing at that rate he will have 100 by the end of the week and 1000 by the end of the month 🤩.

Phil i have 4 days out of every 7 that go like that !
It’s bad enough when you have to unblock your own sewer pipes - at least you know what is in there is your own doing ! Not a hope in hell of getting me to do anything like that even for a relative !

I build mine as i find the commercially available units always seem to be a compromise of one sort or another or have featured aimed specifically at gaming which I don’t need .

It really depends on what you need - things like a dvd player / burner , heaps of usb ports , 4k video etc .

You have more options than a tower , tablet or laptop these days starting with a pc stick through to the many small form factor units available then to getting a PC store assemble a unit tailored to your specific needs .

I never liked all in one units because you are stuck with a unit that is much more difficult to repair if something goes wrong and you are tied to a specific model of motherboard , drives and ram where as a with tower you can change these out easily and there are many more manufacturers that make boards that fit a common form factor like a tower .

Maybe have a talk to a local PC store and see what they can do for you as well .

The rubber seal or gasket from a 1 inch camlock fitting would be close to those dimensions . Try rubber supplies or retailers , here in OZ we have places like Clarke rubber that sell all sorts of o rings and seals .

You could also buy some rubber sheet of the appropriate thickness and type and cut out the size you want ,Making some gasket punches to suit is pretty easy .

A lot of lure anglers that fish the top end of Australia crimp the barbs down as it makes release easier but more importantly it makes getting a hook out of your hand easier ! Barramundi have a nasty habit of going bezerk just when you are trying to unhook them and an even more uncanny ability of connecting the angler to the same lure that is still hooked to them !

Hi Bandersnatch,

Not directly to you as Andrew has had similar issues .

I think (and i'm no computer expert ) that trying to run duel versions of the same programme will lead to registry issues as they will be trying to use the same address or files .

When i upgrade Cura it is running the uninstal wizard so it is completely uninstalling the programme but if you click yes to save settings when it pops up it should save your settings and re load them into the new version which is what i have found works for me .

What would be really nice is if these slicers could be loaded onto one of the various forms of SD storage devices and used like that then you can switch slicers at will , a bit like changing the OS on a Raspberry PI .

From what i have seen the Prusa slicer has come a long way and i was watching Angus from Makers Muse on Youtube use primitives to delete the top and bottom layers on a print so he ended up with a sieve - not that i have looked but does cura or any other slice do this ?

Can’t say i have ever had any of these problems with Cura ! Are you certain that you are not downloading new installation rather than updating the old version ? To update i click extensions and then update checker and if a new version is there I install it , it usually gives a pop up window asking do i want to delete setting files which is a NO !

once it is installed i usually have to drag the icon for the new version to my desktop and delete the old one , once i fire up the new version sometimes i have to click the little pencil icon at top left of screen to make the dropdown window for my settings appear and it has never changed any settings in that on me .

Rod ,

Have you measured the new filament ? It may be a little thicker and jamming up causing som under extrusion on the first layer . Is the new filament the same brand ? I recently changed brands from cheapie stuff to ultimaker brand and the difference was like chalk and cheese and i had to adjust my first layer flow considerably as it started over extruding . With the cheap stuff if i left it in the tube overnight it would snap inside the tube but the ultimaker stuff doesn’t and the finish is much better also .

Like Sol says in the Castrol ad Oils aint Oils and i guess filaments aint filaments !

If you look on some of the machinery sellers websites - places like machinemart in the UK, harbour freight in the US and hare and forbes here in OZ you should be able to find the degreaser they sell for those small workshop wash tubs . The stuff i get from Hare and forbes is water soluble , non flammable , non corrosive and works ok , it isn’t as good as kero but it doesn’t stink like kero and if you do happen to splash some on you it won’t irritate your skin like kero does ( to me anyway ) . I always keep a lookout for the Automotive spray can type of degreaser and when it is on special i buy a couple of boxes of it . I use it to remove the anti rust coating i put on my machinery ( lanotec ) , just a quick wipe over gets it off and a few drops of oil in the oilers and i’m machining !

I have used diesel as well but i hate the smell of that as well along with turps and i used to use a lot of shellite (lighter fluid ) but these days i only use that if something has to be scrupulously clean or i”m going to paint it .

It was the first thing i removed on my lathe and milling machine and the only thing they stop is you turning on the machine with the chuck key still in the chuck - that is if they are wired into the power supply ! No amount of guarding will replace safe work practices which you should be familiar with before you even plug your machine in . I’m a great believer in the saying “Your safety is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY not the machines !

May have to Tig braze it as a gas torch might not be able to get enough heat into the part if it is substantial casting .

Its been 30 yrs since i last welded cast iron ! I have used high nickle rods , stainless and buttering runs with GP rods and all work and have their uses .

I would tend to follow what Fizzy has told you .

I would also have a read of the back of the box of electrodes as this will yield some important information like amperage requirements - these are ball park figures but they will get you near to what you need .

Voltage requirements , current type and preferred polarity if AC is not to be used ( some rods can use ac or dc some only like dc .

pre heat , i used to use a big acetylene torch to take the chill out of a part but depending on its physical size you may be pushing the proverbial up hill with a point stick if the part is big and for cooling i used a fireproof blanket or buried the part in a tray of sand if they were small enough to do so .

I also got into the habit of after grinding the V out i would go over it with a carbide burr as it has a cutting action which removes any of the graphite smear you get when grinding cast iron - not really going to cause an issue with a fusion weld but it will with brazing and i just got into the habit of doing everything the same way with cast iron regardless of whether i was welding or brazing it .

Nice work !

Whats the fly you have there ?

I never progressed into fly fishing - too busy flicking lures around , i used to build my own rods on a home made rod lathe but these days it is not worth it .