Ed Poore

Is your driveway on a slope? When I got my 110 she'd mark her territory once in a while, since fixing a few things which involved getting the oil cooler etc out it stopped. The oil cooler used to leak slowly and oil would pool in the tray below it. When parked on a slope this was used to mark the appropriate piece of floor. I've since put some o-rings in and that's stopped things, I think Kensington and Chelsea borough should thank me.

Mine didn't have any ('94 300Tdi 110) but put some in and it stopped the occasional drips that happened when parked on slopes.

You should have asked - I was in your neck of the woods yesterday with a machete and various "pruning" equipment in the boot of the 110. Along with a milling machine and 2.25D engine block / cylinder head etc...

Ah well the advice was incredibly useful. I've been working the other side of the yard to Dad and he's gone off and ordered one of the Peatol mills. Think he'd come to the conclusion that it'll do what he wants so now wants to get it as soon as possible. What can I say - it's for him and it's his money :-). I'm tempted to get a mill myself at some point and will probably go for a slightly bigger one since I'd quite like to be able to do slightly bigger parts for the 110 etc and go for a manual mill and retrofit it myself. When funds permit that is

Well going to the original definition of DIY I would have said yes we're doing that but since the business is in building custom electronics (one main specialist area of the business is small compact data loggers) so soldering SMD isn't really a problem since almost everything is that :-). In fact there are already stepper motor drivers lying around - one's in use for the system we're buying this mill for. At the other end of the scale my Master's project at Imperial was dealing with 4.5kW motors and 150A currents so can do big too

Well after speaking with the chap who distributes the "Taig" mills in the UK it looks like that may be the route we're taking. Perhaps specifying CNC was slightly misleading - the immediate stuff for the heat-sinks will almost certainly be milled by hand, with CNC to follow. Looking at the alternatives (basically non-CNC ones but that can be converted to CNC easily) the Taig looks the most rigid and largest travel for it's price. CNC ready ones that have the same sort of travel are substantially more expensive.

You've kind of hit the nail on the head there. Basically some radical modifications to an existing system have been conceived and the company we work with has already got several orders for them. Despite the stuff still being in the prototyping / experimental stage and wants them by the end of September if possible... There are several factors - basically the attitude is kind of "my way or the high way" so when the transition is made to CNC then it'll be a custom job (certainly from the control side of things). But given the time-frame if these alu head-sinks are to be made in house (which is the desire since it means we have control over all the manufacturing and orders are plentiful but hap-hazard) then a manual mill that doesn't require much setting up but can be converted to CNC easily is the best. The other consequence is that while massive bargains can be found on eBay etc we're kind of erring towards a new machine rather than a second-hand one so that we don't need to spend ages fixing any potential problems. The other side of the story is that we do have the full kit for the ML7 so could actually make the heat-sinks on that in the short-term although not ideal. I'm not sure whether our "table" adapter that allows for horizontal milling is quite large enough but needless to say it can be done if required.

Ironic you should mention the Myford - we've already got an ancient ML7 (IIRC) that's hardly been used but works well (now that we've actually tightened things up a bit...). Since I'm just learning about all this stuff (basically used the lathe a bit and that's it - but tend to have my head screwed on reasonably well) any recommendations on where to start looking, or the kind of models to look at? Lets say for arguments sake that the budget is ~£2000 which would ideally cover the stepper motors as well. I have read through one of Nige's old threads regarding lathes and where to source them. Location in the U.K. isn't a massive problem - the business is in South West Wales (border between Pembrokeshire / Carmarthenshire) but having said that I'll be moving up to Surrey at the end of the month. Depending on when some work is completed for me and how quickly I reckon I can reassembly the 88"'s engine once it's returned I may be "popping" up to the Highlands briefly so could always stop off on the way...

Can't help but thing it needs a bigger tub for the back in that render...

The spindle speed was one of the things that we'd noted although looking at the pics it looks easy enough to adapt the drive system to something else. One option that presented itself was possibly building an attachment for a Dremel like tool so that PCBs could be drilled out via CNC if required (the majority of the stuff is now surface mount but the odd power-supply component is still through-hole). I'd come across the Proxxon stuff before but was initially discarded because of the lack of CNC however I hadn't seen the "bigger" mills which I've just come across on Axminster's website - they look a bit more viable, the initial one we saw (the MF70 looked a little small for what we wanted) however there are a number which look a bit bigger and at a slightly cheaper price than the Peatol. You say you'd have gone for a Proxxon for alu work is that simply down to the spindle speeds that you can get out of the Peatol / Taig or are the Proxxon's "better built" i.e. less issues with backlash or rather accuracy (my understanding is that provided you know what the backlash is then - at least manually, and a bit more complex in CNC - then it made bugger all difference to the end result since you could tune it out). Had a look through their website but the CNC stuff I suspect is slightly beyond what is needed and slightly above budget (not my budget so can't fiddle with that unfortunately).

As per the subject - does anyone have any personal experience of the Taig (distributed under the brand Peatol in the UK) mini-mills? Basically we're interested in a reasonably small CNC mill for the family electronics business (cutting heat-sinks and panels etc). Seen some decent comments about it but thought I'd ask here on the off-chance anybody has used one - or have any alternative recommendations. Obviously the bigger the better as with almost everything but there's a limited budget available and the size of the Taig is probably about the smallest we want to go (~9"x7"x5" IIRC). Regarding the CNC aspect the ideal situation would be where we can use it in a manual mode whilst still configured for CNC. The controller side of things matters not a jot (in fact it'd probably be more of a hindrance since a custom controller would likely be built) - so basically as long as stepper motors can be mounted relatively easily that's all that matters.

Yep - like missing the required measurements for doing the "maths". You'll need at minimum another variable (such as resistance) in order to calculate the current draw (not going to be easy on a device such as a fridge since it'll be a mainly inductive load). A simple method which can be used to measure currents (wouldn't help in the logging side of things) and particularly useful for stupidly high currents like those drawn by winches and starter motors is to accurately measure the resistance of the wire between the battery and the device (only needs to be done once). Then you monitor the potential difference (aka voltage) dropped across the wire. You then have voltage and resistance and can work out current. Of course if you're wire changes temperature then the resistance will also change - depends on how accurate you want the measurements to be.

What benches were you after?

Out of curiosity I assume your Defender is not older than a Td5? Since the DVLA are kicking up a fuss and LR seem to be trying to clean their hands of the whole mess they're not confirming whether any <Td5 vehicles were intended chiefly as passenger vehicles (the long and the short my 300Tdi 110 may be lumped together with Utility 4x4s - I've failed on a few occasions to get them to re-classify it and will probably just ignore London for the moment given that I'm moving to near Farnham).

Someone somewhere once said that the Land Rover (I think the quote slightly pre-dated the Defender but the point still stands) is one of (if not the only) vehicle that is truly class-less and looks like it's meant to be there whatever the situation. In fact testament to this comment is that I once saw a 90 that lived near me just off the Kings Road in London come back one day plastered in mud (probably been out shooting with a pair of Holland and Hollands) and the following day saw it pull up outside the Park Lane Hotel to drop someone off (albeit after a bit of a clean) and didn't look out of place next to a Ferrari, two Rolls, Bentley and Aston. Who's to know whether it's a farmer driving a Defender or ?Somehow I don't think the new design quite captures that effect

I've just rebuilt my Series III's gearbox and found it far easier to whip the roof and seatbox off rather than faff around with trying to get it out the bottom (I have the problem that the gearbox cross-member is welded and it's a galvanised chassis so not going to cut it). Getting it back in (there's some pics on a "coolest thing your land rover has done") I just slung a strop around a beam in the barn and put a snatch block on the end and ran the winch from the 110 to the gearbox (I'd rebuilt it in the empty tub with the roof off). Once you get the gearbox out and the roof off it's fairly easy with a couple of people to shunt the rest around underneath to get it into place to simply drop the gearbox back in. I did use a hand winch on the tow-bar to pull it back up the barn but that's because nothing in our place is flat . I'd hazard a guess that you don't have a 7m heigh roof so a 8m tree-stop is probably going to hang too low, but I'm sure an alternative can be arranged. If you don't have a nice handy electric / hydraulic winch available then a hand winch and thick rope should be enough. I then used a trolley jack under the sump to lift the engine and a couple of "normal" car jacks to shunt the gearbox into the correct place and hold it while I bolted it with the electric winch taking the majority of the weight. Took a couple of hours in total to relocate it but I was working on my own and to be honest felt safer using that method than the method I used to get it out (3 1/2 tonne digger) which was struggled a little with it's reach (due to other vehicles in pieces it had to extend the boom from infront of the Series and then it was a bit of grunting and swearing to pull the gearbox out of the way of the bulkhead while the digger lifted it. Also making the job a bit more difficult was that the driver of the digger couldn't actually see what was going on behind the bulkhead. Still gearbox sounds fantastic now (or rather doesn't sound which was the point of the rebuild!) and was great fun driving it around the fields sitting on the fuel-tank with two propshafts spinning away by your left leg. Ideal for hunting moles as you can shoot through the floor (or rather where the floor should be) Now need to finish stripping the cylinder head today to see what state the engine's in...

Got a galvanised chassis and the gearbox cross-member is welded on so not an option for me. My method worked surprisingly well and chuffed to pieces that (after a quick bit of re-wiring on the winch remote) I managed to do it completely by myself.

Is it just the tread pattern on those tyres or do you have chains on?

Well since the digger is suffering from Landy leaks decided when it came to putting the gearbox back into the Series an alternative method was advisable (not HSE does not exist this far West ).

Used the 110 to put the gearbox into the Series (HSE look away )

Depends on what kind of battery it is, broadly speaking there are two kinds: starter and leisure, however as with everything there are ones which combine features of both (Optima springs to mind). I'm sure most know the difference but essentially they can deliver the same amount of energy it's the manner in which they deliver it that varies. Starter batteries can dump massive (talking >1000A in many cases) currents but don't survive deep discharge well. Leisure batteries can't provide the wallop a starter does but deliver the same amount of energy over a longer period - one side-effect of their design is that they can be deeply discharged without suffering too much. If you're powering auxiliary equipment off a starter battery then I'd have thought (purely from an electrical point of view) that more frequent but shorter duration charges would be better to prevent deep discharge. If you're running leisure batteries then longer periods between recharges (and subsequently longer charging periods) may be more advisable. I'd just do some readings (or getting someone friendly with electronics to rig up a little microcontroller or something (Arduino springs to mind since readily available and easy to use)) to determine what the charge / discharge profiles of the batteries would be. From these you can make more informed decisions about what would be the best solution. There's also a decent write-up on how to determine the state-of-charge of lead-acid batteries here: http://www.mpoweruk.com/soc.htm which might be worth a glance. E

I wouldn't worry about it - I spent the last year of my degree heavily immersed in automotive alternators and still know bugger all about them. Worrying since that's what my Master's project was about , although I'm quite interested in an aspect that Si (simonr) pointed out about the project which basically means it could be adapted to improve battery life...

Even more pedantic mode on - an induction machine is anything that operates by the process of electro-magnetic induction. A synchronous machine is a special case of an induction machine and an alternator is a special case of a synchronous machine. I'm not denying that you can't get more power from alternators by spinning them faster (in a non-automotive application) it's just that with all the extra electronics built into the ones installed on vehicles the way that the voltage is regulated is by PWM regulation of the field current. Therefore they are tuned to produce maximum power at a particular rotational speed, which is usually a fast-idle as mentioned in other posts.

Don't think that's correct for the majority of vehicles (I say majority because there are no two Land Rovers the same and therefore what normally applies doesn't normally apply if you get my drift ). Most alternators are designed such that they can generate maximum power at more or less idle speed. Basically* the alternator is an induction machine and therefore one fundamental property of it is that as you increase the rotational speed then the output voltage also increases, the current that it outputs depends on the electrical load attached to it. So to prevent damage to batteries, lights etc then this output voltage must be regulated. The method for doing this is to disconnect and reconnect the circuit rapidly. The duty cycle (i.e. the ratio of time the circuit is on to off) therefore controls the average voltage seen at the other end. The reason you see a DC (smoothish) waveform on the alternator is due to the filtering properties of having a massive inductance (the alternator) and a massive capacitance (the battery) - they're literally a low-pass filter. To simplify matters the field current rather than the stator current (i.e. the little rather than big cables) are chopped since it's cheaper to deal with low currents (MOSFETs that can deal with ~10A are pennies whereas MOSFETs that can deal with ~100A are more like £50 a pop). So the underlying fact of the matter is that as the alternator speeds up the input current (and therefore output current) is chopped and therefore some power is "lost", or rather not generated in the first place. Therefore as rotational speed increases the power that can be generated decreases. That's a rather simplified view but hopefully justifies why they're tuned for lower speeds. There's some pretty clever electronics / physics going on in the physical design of the alternators to make changes in rotational speed matter less and the like. The reason alternators may not output maximum power at idle is due to the electronics controlling them - basically if you wallop a 100A load onto the alternator then it in turn will load the engine - this may not be desirable as it gives a rather rough lumpy response. In fact one of the alternators I've worked closely with actually stalls some amateur rally cars when they switch on all the floodlights and heated windows! During my Master's project I built a test-rig for work on alternators and this was a 4.5kW DC motor driving said alternator (150A tiny Denso thingy) and if I switched on my load-bank (~1.5kW of halogen bulbs ) then smoke would start appearing from the belts and invariably blew several fuses on the motor-driver and reached the limits of a single-phase supply. At the moment I'm tidying up this project etc for the Uni so they can use it as a demonstration in the labs and will be wiring into a three-phase supply to make it a little more reliable. Going back to the original comment - if the batteries are severely discharged then the alternator will try it's best to deliver the power in order to recharge them because the lead-acid batteries will draw a substantial current initially. I haven't noticed it on my 110 because of the torque that engine produces but certainly on the little <1L Suzuki I used to drive if you switched on the head-lights while the engine was ticking over you could hear the engine note drop as the alternator produced more power and therefore loaded the engine. *because there's a lot of mathematical gubbins behind the actual operation of them which I can't be bothered to explain and more importantly because I can't remember it off the top of my head...

Well I had the benefit of having the old guy and therefore having the digger (him being my father and all...) . Was the first proper "toy" I got to play with as a 5 year old since in the middle of a field there was very little damage you could do...