Life, The Universe, and Everything

[Doug Coulter]

Bob, I have some meanwell supplies here and love them. This ain't one. See video - this thing is scary. The link on amazon is, or was (since search isn't finding it just now) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0154 ... UTF8&psc=1
I put all this and more up on amazon as a review they are doing the usual delay on publishing. The 10v output of this thing tracks the speed control and also isn't isolated.

At any rate, the mechanical parts are quite excellent and perhaps a good deal if you just chuck the supply, I dunno how much that bank of ER collets and the nice clamp are worth, but it's a nice package otherwise.
I did order another of those motors just in case (I have other plans too), and a power supply that seems less likely to kill me. I have had to repair some other chinese supplies that look similar to this one inside due to sloppy build - misplaced heatsink grease etc making them go down when pushed hard. Fixed that, put in slightly higher spec fets, all golden (that was on the 30v model, which they offered to exchange, but...). Here's the PS I ordered, coming later today, so a bit premature to review it just yet.



Rex, that is some super outstanding work - you should post this in the fab section with some words. Hopefully you get similar results to mine, which were quite nice - and as I've gone down in size to smaller diameters, keeping the ratios roughly constant but cutting the rods to 6 when things got smaller - things got better. FWIW, I've also tried other than pure tungsten, but the doped rods that emit electrons better make things worse. It seems Richard was correct about most of our ions being created near the grid at the bottom of the potential well, and more electrons coming off right there from ion<>grid strikes makes things worse, or so I'd guess after testing. More current, fewer neutrons all else equal.

[Doug Coulter]

Oh, the bad news I got yesterday as a result of a PET scan (cool pictures!) was....
The thing they thought might be lung cancer when they found it while CAT scanning my heart is lung cancer. And there is what looks like a huge tumor of something else growing on my lower GI tract. On top of the heart issues, or perhaps causing them.
I'm hoping I'm still difficult to kill, it's been good so far, and other than the odd chest pain, mostly avoidable, I'm not feeling too bad and am getting a lot done on good days. Sigh, life is what happens while you were making other plans. Looks like a 3 way surgeon competition on who gets to cut first.

I've gotten some of the bills from the other two ER visits. That Dr Belk thing is totally correct - magically, these huge adjustments come out of thin air (and now they do hide who took the hit), medicare pays a few hundred bucks on a 3.5k+ bill and I wind up paying something under 50 more bucks.

The insurance companies are under a law that says they can at most make 20% - like cost plus fixed fee government work. Since they are mostly doing VERY well, I'm going to assume a reason for this foolery is to use that bigger number that almost no one ever pays - as the basis, so as to keep 20% of a far larger number. It's hard to say who is eating how much, there's no attribution on the paperwork, but if the hospitals are only getting what the bill says, it's hard to see how they stay in business - so maybe both sides are playing some form of "Hollywood accounting" game here.

I'm happy to say that after a lifetime of avoiding the medical biz and having horrible experiences with it when I couldn't, I'm finally hooked up with some providers who seem uber competent (on everything but computer paperwork) and who seem to get me decent out of pocket costs, so...the adventure continues.

More Belk, short and sweet, and our youtube tag isn't working on his videos today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NUhWIl ... =DavidBelk
The whole presentation, worth if if you didn't already know this stuff (first 3rd is all about pharma, which for me isn't an issue - my meds are generic and cheap - and cost me less without insurance than they would if I had it!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYKYvWy ... =DavidBelk

Interesting point is that if you have the most basic medicare, as is my situation, the most you can possibly owe - even on a million dollar hospitalization - is a little over 1k. You just might want to agitate to be checked in vs being outpatient, because of course they're not going to tell you this. Yeah, trying to sleep in a cold room while wired up for the required 24 hours to qualify is not that fun. But think of it as maybe making 10k an hour and it's livable.

[Bob Reite]

Good followup on that cheap supply. That's what isolation transformers are made for. I have my "Sencore Powerite" which is a Variac, isolation transformer and metering in one box. Used back in the day to safely work on transformer-less TV and radio sets. Now used to safely work on SMPS, as everything before the ferrite transformer is at line potential with no isolation. It's good for 3 Amps continuous and 4 amps (480 VA) intermittent duty. I also have a 500VA continuous duty isolation transformer. Last time I used that big boy was to keep my sump pump running when it developed a ground fault until I was able to obtain and install a replacement sump pump.

[Doug Coulter]

I didn't stress test it past frying a couple of 47 ohm resistors (I had a large sack of those). You could use this if you were meticulously careful all the way - add some fuses and a real frame ground, be really sure the motor frame is grounded, set things up so some fuse will go if any of the insulation fails (including the adjustment pot)....
I got this instead, and yes, I looked inside. This time they got the heatsink grease right, or close enough. They still haven't learned to grease or silicone that temp sensing diode, but at least this one has fairly long leads isolating it from the PCB, unlike the other version (every time I get one of these, it's the same guts with a different brand on the outside).
"Flycow" is from http://www.nicepower.com Shenzhen Kuaiqu Electronic company. Nice build quality.
The spindle motor draws around one amp no load depending on volts. So the current limit might be handy now and then, though there's enough inertia to explode most carbide tools anyway.

Nice power

You really could use this one or the next smaller size one I see on Amazon as a handheld "dremel tool with big brass ones".
Rex has that higher quality brand, but I'd bet the runout isn't even close to as good as these. I think that matters even handheld re grabbing and jerking around.

[Doug Coulter]

While Rex's degree indicator was nicer than the one I used, and I have no idea how much accuracy would be "better", I did see this video the other day and this is so much better it's sick. I even have "smart tools" on my aged Nexus tablet, and all you need is a mount at the spider end...instant .1 degree accuracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWs1Ieo ... 7sWorkshop


Ah, you know what went wrong with our youtube embedding? Look at the raw url above - they added &channel=somename to all their URLs, but it doesn't work with the BBCode. Just take that out.

[johnf]

Pretty Cool
I just use the DRO on the mill
PCD function for holes at whatever angle and the internal box cutout is to die for just input the cutter dia and center position then x, y dimensions and get a cavity to within a couple of microns (except for depth should have gone 3 axis)

[Doug Coulter]

Well, at my budgetary level the DRO on either the mill or lathe is a set of calipers modified to bolt onto an axis.
It does make me want to do a cheapo project with something like an ESP 8266 and one of those sensors - all dirt cheap these days, could emit a web page from a wireless access point it generates.
That way you wouldn't risk your expensive device...

Because fun, mostly. Our degree wheels seem to be doing the job so far.

[Doug Coulter]

Speaking of readouts...I made a thing, most will know what the thing is from the pic. The pitch of my tail-stock is off by 1 mil or so per turn, and a couple mils to the wind drunk as well. Of course, there's the usual 10+ mil backlash, but we all know how to handle that by feel and forethought.

Someday I'll have the right stuff in here...

[johnf]

If you go real low
https://www.banggood.com/search/dro.html?from=nav

I did buy a submersible solar pump from them
100m capable depth lasted one day with oily scum on the water at 0.5 meter depth $300 bucks wasted
they offered a $30 rebate --probably nearer the value of the pump
Buyer beware

[Doug Coulter]

I had decent luck with Banggood up until my country and its got into a p-ing match. Then things I ordered began to not arrive. I for example ordered a series of micro-carbide boring bars that were well reviewed by an Aussie, but only received one of them, and no real recourse (after many weeks of waiting for the slow boat to even find out that 6 ordered and paid for became one delivered). So a $6 boring bar wound up costing me more than a $26/each one on Amazon, which at least all arrived - and no doubt made by the same outfit, the quality was identical as far as I could tell.

People who think the Chinese only make cheap junk form their self-fulfilling opinions by only buying the cheapest junk from any source (avoid Walmartians ;~). They make perfectly good stuff too, and I've got plenty of that, no complaints at all. In effect, the lower prices on even the really good stuff have effectively made me able to have more "nice things", as if someone added to my income.

It's always caveat emptor of course, and with only a little critical thinking you can avoid the more gadgety stuff and the real trash.

For now, I've given up on them - no doubt not their fault, but if you don't get what's ordered and there's basically no way to do anything about it, there's not much else I can do. It's sad.

For now, DRO and CNC are probably not in the picture. Things more like ball-screws are (and upgrades to ways and so forth) - if I've got 25 mils of lash in my stuff, a transition from normal to climb milling really makes a mess of the piece, for example. Gotta fix that kind of thing first. My production is low enough to not see advantage in CNC itself, where increased setup time is more than compensated by per piece time in a decent run. If I'm only making one...it doesn't work out.