Cynic-al
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Posts posted by Cynic-al
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23 hours ago, mickeyw said:
I was in China recently visiting tool making companies with a colleague. This mould produces plastic pallets. The gantry that lifts it was marked 40 tonne.
That's a big old girl, wouldn't want to drop that on your finger!
Might even be a stack mould, unless there are two next to each other
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Any gap on a mould more than 0.0125mm wide will flash, ie the plastic will escape down the gap. For plastics like nylon its half that thickness. The biggest mould I have is 500kg and that makes a plastic part weighing a couple of hundred grams. Imagine how big the mould has to be to make wheelie bins, car bumpers and so on and you can see why such level of accuracy is required.
The mould I have will typically churn out 4 parts every 25 seconds and run continuously for decades so you can also see why good quality hardened tool steel is required and why things like sparkling and wiring have their place.
Bottle tops might be made 128off per tool and might run on a 5 second cycle, or less. Now that's going for it!
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All injection and aluminium mould makers will have this kit and they're in little units all over the place. If anyone needs to find one search for a toolmaker.
The cooling fluid is a dielectric and used to control the distance that the spark jumps and as you say, is usually submerged, however they still have to use a jet of fluid to try to blow the 'burn't away' metal out of the way otherwise it just conducts and uses all your current to go nowhere. If you watch them work they will go up and down like peck drilling to try to clear this. They have to make an electrode out of copper or graphite the shape you want less spark gap tolerance and may make more than one, a rougher and a finisher. It sparks away in little craters so you can get a rougher or smoother surface depending on the current. If I want a rough surface on a mould tool I spec a rough spark (there are gauges you can look it up on) which is a cheap way to get a rough surface finish on the plastic part. CNC sparkers can also jiggle around in a circle so you can go down a hole then jiggle about to increase the diameter or put a thread in a hardened material. As its very slow they also usually mill as much away as possible before they go to the sparker. A none CNC machine can be had for as little as a grand if you have the work for one.
You can buy a little machine for sparking bolts out, never seen one though so don't know what they are like.
If you like gizmos look up laser welders and laser hardeners. They are mounted on tracks so if you are in a fix they bring them out in the back of a van and will do the welding in your machine to save you taking everything apart.
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11 minutes ago, Jamie_grieve said:
Could we try turning the topic of conversation back to the new defender please? Interesting as people's urban commutes are, they surely have zero relevance to the new defender as nobody in their right mind would buy one for that. Would they?
There is nothing to talk about, we've seen the pictures, you can't buy one or drive one, we're just filling in the gaps until something happens
The mpg is down to the aerodynamics of the car and the efficiency of the drive train. They are going for loads of gears and automatic to try keep the engine at it's most economical point. I find it doesn't make a huge difference in the real world if you go for the tiny engine or big engine as it takes the same energy to push a given lump down the road so it's really down to how efficiently each engine can convert petrol to kilowatts output.
That said my wife was mightily disappointed when her new car claimed 55mpg and she's getting 37. Perhaps the driver is the most important thing, going from 125bhp to 230bhp perhaps wasn't the best move for mpg, although she gets home from work faster
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I had an astra as a courtesy car for a few days recently. It drove well, I was impressed with it. One thing that was annoying was the engine vibration at idle, it would get on my nerves in traffic. I looked up what engine it had and it was a 1 litre, 3 cylinder turbo petrol. I was really surprised, it drove so well for such a small engine. Not pin you in the seat fast obviously but easily fast enough for every day driving, it didn't feel lacking. I really thought it was a nice small car, then I looked up the price, I figured a basic astra would be around £14,000. £22,000
I think I'm really out of touch with what things cost! That said you can get them delivery mileage for around £15,000 so maybe I'm not that far off!
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13 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:
What Bowie said - flux cored wire for very cheap MIG machines (Machine Mart's worst) or maaaaybe if you absolutely must MIG outdoors on a windy day. You can run flux cored wire in a "gassed" MIG, just turn the gas off and change the wire.
On my mig I have to swap the polarity of the torch and clamp to work with flux cored wire instead of solid wire with an argon co2 mix shield gas. Negative to the torch for flux cored from memory. Something to do with the splatter and flow of electrons and where the heat is. Yeah I don't really understand why
Anyway if you look at migs which are sold as gas and gasless they will have the ability to swap the polarities.
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21 hours ago, sgo70 said:
Have you watched any of these videos on line:
Thanks for the links, I will watch those!
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I drove my car to Gloucestershire and back one Thursday, about 2.5 hours each way, work and back Friday, 5 miles each way, then London and back Saturday, 3 hours each way, didn't use it Sunday, Monday work and back, then I was called back to work Monday night and it was mid regen when I got to work. So it's done a regen within 15 miles of a 3 hour motorway run.
Another time I left it at an airport for 3 weeks, came back and drove 2 hours home from the airport, the next week I only went to work and back, 5 miles each way, and it went into limp home and forced me to do a long journey to clear it on the Saturday.
Another time it didn't force me to clear it, just went into limp home and brought the engine management light on, I got VW assist out who said the DPF was full but it couldn't do a regen as I had less than 1/4 tank of fuel. I had to drive it to the fuel station to fill it, then he came back the next morning and forced a regen. Apparently it causes them no end of problems with hire cars and vans.
I would definitely agree that diesels are becoming quite niche due to their environmental gubbins but dealers seem to be unable to guide people on what to buy, they only seem to know about the finance options, not the vehicle. I think giving people the option of when to do it would be too much for most people as they wouldn't understand what or why. I have thought about changing the way I use cars so instead of having my car and my wifes car, we have a big diesel car and a small car and you take whichever suits your journey. Small petrol for the school run, big diesel for caravan towing or whatever. However there are two problems, firstly my wifes car is like an extension to her handbag, permanently full of useless junk, I can't be doing with that, and she doesn't like driving huge cars. The other option was a plug in hybrid, battery for the commute and fuel engine for the longer trip. However I need to carry heavy stuff for work so there isn't really a practical vehicle yet.
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I made a crib sheet based on what I found online to remind myself whilst I'm sat at the machine, some of it should be relatable to other machines, if you know better explanations for things let me know and I will update it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmkxxbqkxt5nh9s/Tig Welder User Guide.pdf?dl=0
My first go was not as good as I wouldve liked, although I have thought up some extenuating circumstances I wont bore you with them, we can just say more practice required! Some of the runs got going reasonably well once I was away from the corners and its stuck, but not great.
here is what it's for anyway, an ash pan, bit of cleaning up and it will be good enough!
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They're going to do a hybrid... and a mild hybrid...
Is that from the dpf regen? I had an isuzu d max that had a high level on the dipstick as well as a low level. If it got to the high level you had to do an oil change. If the driving you do creates enough heat to naturally burn off the soot in the dpf it isn't a problem. If not it does a regen by injecting extra diesel to do the burn off, some of which ends up in the sump.
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8 hours ago, Happyoldgit said:
What do you mean "they" for some of the more - ahem - senior members here that should read "we"!!! 😉
Well atleast the second half of your display name is right! 🤣
8 hours ago, Red90 said:Yes. 60 km range while driving 40 km/h. Really cracked it.
Well the electric crafter due out soon has a range of 120 miles at 56mph so at this rate of development they're not going to have a practical car by their 2040 target. 🤷♂️ Still atleast the concept of only 2 pedals has stuck to help out the little lady drive you back from the local! 🤭
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I had one a few years ago but couldn't get on with it. It was a very cheap one I bought from china on new years eve after a drink and whilst it did cut well it wasnt easy to use accurately and cleanly. A friend pestered me to sell it to him as he had some cars to cut up so I did. I think if I get another one it will have to be the hf start type which does seem to bump the price up.
It was a cut 40, I forget the make, cobra or something. Some of my efforts with it;
4mm;
5mm;
25mm cut from both sides around the hammer head;
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2 minutes 25 in. 1967 and they had the electric car cracked then!
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I have been looking for this sort of course around here but without luck, it's either the day release type course or the full week like a company might send you on at £1200. Very envious you have such things!
I was nervous of buying second hand or cheap as if it was faulty I spend a long time going nowhere and managed to convince myself that rather than spend £1200 on training I could buy a new tig and have a go so I went down to R-tech and used them as much as I could for a first lesson. It was well worth while and there was no pressure to buy. They were almost shocked that I wanted to take one away with me - not sure what that says about my image. I was doing some pretty good welds on steel and aluminium by the end. I've got the set setup at home and folded some steel sheet into a tray, I'm just plucking up the courage to actually try to stick it together without someone stood over my shoulder telling me why it's going wrong and how to correct it. Look forward to your write up!
Tray I'm going to try to weld, I promise the red isn't blood!
Had to make a tray to hold a second gas bottle on the welding table, didn't try to tig that, welds aren't too bad with the old migmate! Don't ask me to work upside down though, can't do that.
Excuse the mess but I'm coming to you for advice when I get it all wrong
Space for a plasma too...
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21 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:
Well yeah... but engineering an electronic control board to replace another is a far more doable prospect than engineering a replacement pump or gearbox or whatever for a machine - it just has to behave right, it doesn't have to physically match as long as you can join the wires up. That makes it attractive to the aftermarket to develop controllers, batteries, etc. that can be retro-fitted to a huge number of vehicles with only a change of software settings and the right wiring diagram.
I understand what your saying, and I think if it was a controller that sat in between a motor, battery and pot then you could get another controller to work. I don't know much about the details but I suspect there will be more to it than that. I know cars such as the mini and golf just bolt a packaged unit in but that's clearly not the way to do it and not the way it will be done. I think what will pop up more are companies that will repair the electronics, a bit like how a garage will take an injector out or an ECU and send it away for testing / repair and what you pay includes their liability insurance. We do it with drives, power supplies etc at work although more often than not they're either dead or you can get a used or recon for less so I still think the car as a whole will get dumped and replaced. Or exported to places like India where people will fix them to sell locally. This is quite common with things like trucks, companies have them for 5 years on a lease, noone wants to buy an old 5 year old truck so it gets exported to where labour is cheaper and standards are lower to spend the time keeping them going.
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The thing that kills our machines at work is availability of parts. The manufacturer promises supply for 5 years, beyond that it depends how common that part is across a range of machines. It's pushed a lot of people to cheaper Chinese machines who just write off the machine at 5 years. On the older machines it wasn't too bad, motors and pumps could usually be rebuilt and single layer circuit boards could have components replaced but now it's third party computers and software, multi layer boards etc etc. We can't get drives for some of the machines and I think electric cars will go the same way. They will be built with a life and disposal will be a design consideration. Leasing is a big thing with electric cars, even if you buy the car you often lease the batteries which makes the car worthless second hand. It doesn't pay to own them at the moment as they're going out of date too quickly.
I think long term the model on none ownership will come in, a bit like a boris bike, where you just take one when you need one, possibly in the future ordering the car on an app and it driving itself to your location to get you.
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15 hours ago, Badger110 said:
Sums up climate change attitudes of those with wealth to a tee 🤬
The other things that annoys me about environmental matters ... whilst we are off topic ... is the number of individuals who won't do easy things to reduce their consumption. We have had kerbside recycling for some years yet people won't wash tins out, pull the plastic window out of card packages etc etc. Then moan that they don't have enough space in the general waste bin and drive bags of rubbish to the tip or pay for extra collections. Also people who drive 10 miles to work, take a plastic bottle of water and get a drive through coffee on the way in a throw away card cup. Have one at home or take one in a reusable cup. Don't buy clothes from Primark because they're only a quid, wear them once then throw them away because they were only a quid. Buy something well made that will last. It's not hard but people just don't see it or don't care. They will protest for someone else to fix it but it doesn't matter what the government do if 65 million people (or 7bn for that matter) can't be bothered with really basic stuff then it's all meaningless anyway. Anyway... back to the car...
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If you make hybrids or electrics you can offset the bigger cars from your range. You also get a bigger co2 allowance for a bigger car. There is more profit in a mini SUV than a hatchback and they get a bigger co2 allowanve so that's what they push down the line.
It's the same old with politics in the uk, the people making the rules understand neither the problem or the real world. How one can go from being in charge of health, then the army then education is beyond me. They are only interested in the next few years. Anything that takes longer reflects on their successor not them so there is no motivation for them to lay the foundations for something sustainable.
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You can trade 'green credits' in a similar way to carbon trading with other businesses. Tesla make money by selling theirs to other manufacturers. Aston Martin also rebadged a citroen c1 as an Aston to help their average figures. Land rover were claiming to plant enough trees to offset your carbon footprint when you bought a new one, not sure if they still do.
The Jimmy isn't exactly aerodynamic or well geared so not sure how good they can make it but the domestic market has a smaller turbo petrol engine so they have an option. Depends if it's worth it I guess. At the moment the queue is that long that second hand ones sell for more than new ones.
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That's good going that, what is it a Dacia? Wonder how they did it!
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It's a lovely looking thing!
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My VW has the ZF 8-speed auto non DSG torque converter box. I think hers is an Aisin 8 speed none DSG torque converter box. I don't particularly like either and would pick a manual any day. On hers you can turn the stop start off and leave it off, mine you have to do it every journey. She leaves hers on to 'save fuel'
Although they both seem robust, I towed an artic up Sutton bank with mine and she managed to put hers in second on the motorway whilst trying to use the flappy paddle to set of the cruise control They both claim impressive 0-60 figures but that doesn't work well in the real world, the lag waiting for them to decide what gear is at best uncomfortable, at times scary.
I have a Mercedes Vito and hate the foot parking brake, they never bothered me with autos but with a manual it's the most stupid thing. That goes down in my list of fixing things that ain't broke!
The lorry I used to drive had a button you could press whilst the handbrake was on, when you took the handbrake off the trailer brakes would stay on, you could get the power down to the drive wheels and it would disengage the trailer brakes as you started to pull off. I though that was pretty natty, although I must admit i never used it
Anyway, back on topic, no, I'm not going to be at the front of the queue to buy a new Defender. Too expensive and doesn't suit what I need a car to do. Of course none of that would matter if I looked at it and my heart told me I had to have one, but it doesn't.
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I miss no ABS, I used to like screeching up to the back of someone when they pull out infront of you, doesn't convey your anger as well when you just glide up to the back of them.
I don't like tech for tech sake, an example is my wifes car, I nearly rolled back into another car at a junction, it's an auto with stop start and an electric handbrake, I pulled up at a junction, stopped, let off the brake to go and it rolled back. Electric handbrake hadn't come on and the engine was off. I've never done that in my life in a manual with a cable handbrake. My boss rolled into things in a car park twice in his car when the electric handbrake should've come on but hadn't. My wifes car required a key to unlock it but it's keyless start, so you get in with a key in your hand then put it... where? Then you can't find it when you go to get out. Pointless. However you can have a power and torque meter on the dash, that was fun for about 10 minutes.
I had an astra that flashed a big red light on the dash the other day as I was approaching a car pulling into a side road too quickly, it didn't brake for me so only annoying. I can't stand adaptive cruise, you start to pass someone who is behind a lorry in the middle lane, the lorry pulls in and they speed up leaving you stuck in the outside lane with an angry audi behind you. And don't get me started on the pointless features on the tesla...
I find when I get a car I fiddle about and think wow look at all this stuff, then when I come to sell it and am writing the advert I think wow, look at all this stuff the car has that I've never used and had completely forgotten about.
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A friend did a day release apprenticeship with them, they wouldn't sign him off as then they would have to pay him a real wage, quit in the end so despite doing the whole course never got the full qualification.
Had a similar conversation about tech in cars at work the other day, I'm 37 and don't want it, my boss is 69 and has vowed never to buy another new car as he doesn't want it, another lad has no interest in cars he's happy so long as it goes and feels safe to drive, so who actually wants it? Must be these bearded millennials with their white trainers and skinny jeans who won't go anywhere without a bottle of water and make political statements with the colour of their throw away coffee cups whilst preaching about the environment on social media. They're more current than me.
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I think I'm really out of touch with what things cost! That said you can get them delivery mileage for around £15,000 so maybe I'm not that far off!
Clarke shot blasters
in International Forum
Posted
A friend has the one that is the big orange drum but no cabinet. We used it to shot blast some cast iron radiators. Basically it worked, took a bit of fiddling with the valves to get it to flow how we wanted. We set up a tarp with two ladders to hold it up so that we could collect and sieve the media to get a few uses out of it. This took ages to sieve and pour back in. Used an awful lot of air so you need a big compressor. Got through loads of the masks, surprising how often you had to change the front. The tip wore out quite quickly too. It was a job that starting off being really satisfying, just rubbing out the layers of paint, but quickly became very tedious trying to get in between all the fins then having to scoop all the media up again.