The new news 24 thread

[Lord Sterling]

I'm in the Isle of Wight. Just waiting to see if the Micra passes/fails a MOT.

Well, it failed it's MOT on various things. Some of which was listed as *DANGEROUS*. Most of it looks bollocks. Like 'Brake pipes excessively corroded' etc... This is usually a ruse by some MOT/servicing places to scare people into paying more because of a bit of surface rust. I've seen it so many times. Anyway, we'll get the Micra sorted and it'll be in rude health again soon.

[egg]

My new cock has arrived....

[vulgalour]

In other counties they're sold as drain pet and drain petal.

[Parky]

Stumbled across this earlier while looking at various car stuff on Gumtree earlier. Vehicle mileage correction services???

 

https://www.gumtree.com/p/car-servicing-repair/vehicle-mileage-correction.-new-cars.-all-fords.-vauxhall.-many-more-models./1254875173

 

Is it just me or is this very non kosher?

[vulgalour]

Probably, but then you realise Citroens and Renaults have this thing where the mileage is all to cock whenever the clock is replaced (TADTS) which can make the MoT history look really dodgy when it isn't so it'd be useful for that.

[Kiltox]

I've clocked a car once - it was actually honestly a genuine mileage correction after replacing a BSI on a modern Citroen.

 

£40 is probably some goon with some knock off eBay kit though. Dangerous.

[Craig the Princess]

Sergio Aguero earns £12 million a year but broke a rib last night when his taxi crashed in Amsterdam.

 

The taxi?

[stuboy]

Today is my day off and planned to shite fit a golf splitter to fozzie front bumper as standard one is missing and hard to get or peeps want fair too many pennys.. i found this at side road yonks ago.. well it started to rain, so dodged showers and stripped the front down and decided the lounge is perfect indoor workshop..luckly fozzie is missing the undertray..multile self tapping screws from various jobs over years so it cost me nothing.. refitted in rain got drenched...and gave me oppertunity to swap headlamps to darker non xenon headlamps and a colour coded grill thats not got Broken lugs, then it got sunny and dried up... so i decided to put on sunstrip and god decided it be great idea to be windy as feck...

[dave21478]

Completed a service on the Mondeo. £35 all in to replace fuel and air filter, 5 litres of 5w30 and a Bosch filter with some genuine motorcraft plugs as well.

 

Why on earth do people not bother doing this at that price?

 

 

Because most people have a tool kit that consists of an old icecream tub under the sink containing several of those wee allen keys from Ikea furniture, a plastic craft knife with a rusty snap blade, a set of three pliers from poundland, an old claw hammer and a number two Phillips screwdriver that is chewed to fuck. The concept of working on their own cars is as alien as doing thier own dentistry.

[Bucketeer]

Exciting times.

 

[SiC]

 

 

Bought this today. Like everything I seem to buy, it's broken. Only cost me £20 though.

 

20170928_192031.jpg

 

Apparently the wire snags up as it's feeding it. Probably the liner is knackered and reading up, it seems that the wire feed motor is taken from the welding transformer. This makes it inconsistent in feeding wire as it loads down. A mod to solve that involves adding an extra PSU to feed that motor directly.

 

Something to play with on my day off tomorrow. Once working, hopefully it'll be a cheap way to quickly start to give me a chance to practice sticking bits of metal together.

Been shopping again today on my day off. I really ought to stop this habit, it's getting expensive.

 

New liner and tip set, new liner for the gun and some cheap machine mart wire to run through the machine for testing.

 

Managed to miss my delivery for the new MGB fuel tank and pump which has annoyed me. Literally been in all day, except for an hour when I had to do some errands.

[Supernaut]

Exciting times.

 

IMG_20170929_151828827_HDR.jpg

You couldn't have driven another 8 miles?

 

Oh wait, it's a Renault. Of course.

[Bucketeer]

^^^ Delayed gratification.

[tooSavvy]

Because most people have a tool kit that consists of an old icecream tub under the sink containing several of those wee allen keys from Ikea furniture, a plastic craft knife with a rusty snap blade, a set of three pliers from poundland, an old claw hammer and a number two Phillips screwdriver that is chewed to fuck. The concept of working on their own cars is as alien as doing thier own dentistry.

IKEA !!! Get tae f...

 

 

 

TS

[Tickman]

Been shopping again today on my day off. I really ought to stop this habit, it's getting expensive.

 

New liner and tip set, new liner for the gun and some cheap machine mart wire to run through the machine for testing.

Do you have gas to go with it?

 

The machine does gas and gassless but the wire is different and I believe the polarity which you can switch.

[M'coli]

Been shopping again today on my day off. I really ought to stop this habit, it's getting expensive.

 

New liner and tip set, new liner for the gun and some cheap machine mart wire to run through the machine for testing.

 

Managed to miss my delivery for the new MGB fuel tank and pump which has annoyed me. Literally been in all day, except for an hour when I had to do some errands.

0.6mm wire is better to start with, I found 0.8mm tends to blow holes for the same power setting.

[SiC]

 

 

0.6mm wire is better to start with, I found 0.8mm tends to blow holes for the same power setting.

Useful to know. I was umm'ing and and arr'ing over the two. A quick Google mentioned 0.8mm a lot. To be honest it's cheap enough and mostly to run through the machine - so a lot will go in the bin anyway.

 

 

 

Do you have gas to go with it?

 

The machine does gas and gassless but the wire is different and I believe the polarity which you can switch.

It's currently set up for gasless and has a bit of flux cored wire in it at the moment. The polarity is still switched for gasless too.

 

The pipe work is there but I currently don't have a regulator for it. I plan to go down to a local welding store once I get the feed working properly and find out what I gas I can get. I'm hoping I can get some of those smaller 10l rent-free bottles. I do know those disposable ones are supposed to be false economy.

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised by this mention on the label of 25a on minimum power setting.

[Rusty_Rocket]

Use 0.6 for body panel thickness. The .8 wire will need more power, which in turn will make it easier to blow holes in the original metal. I use 0.8 on thick stuff, like a Land Rover chassis.

Impressed that the welder goes down so low. I have an Oxford machine that goes to 20amp, but seldom use it at that level.

Don't bother welding without gas. You'll never be happy with the results. Regulators are cheap online, but expensive in places like Halfords! I've been using a MiG welder for 20 years, and still can't weld gasless! 

[fordperv]

Id Get a pub co2 bottle and a regulator from eBay

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Co2-Single-stage-2-Gauge-Mig-Welder-Regulator-c-w-adaptor-hose-for-pub-cylinder-/152716285430?epid=679994788&hash=item238e9995f6:g:SyMAAOSwNSxU~0y2

 

This is the type I use and it seems decent enough

[fraser.innes.3]

I have a suspicion this is a live/hot torch too, so I'll have to mod in a contactor too.

Give me a PM and I will give you the rundown on what I did to the SIP I have. Welds really nicely now. Even did a eurotorch conversion.

 

 

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[fraser.innes.3]

Give me a PM and I will give you the rundown on what I did to the SIP I have. Welds really nicely now. Even did a eurotorch conversion.

 

 

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

After bodging the welder, I splashed out on a set of decent guages.

 

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[RobT]

Squint and you'll see the Cerne Abbas giant and his nob in the background.

 

 

Just spent a pleasant four days in Dorset/Somerset, which included plenty of touring and seeing the sights. Somehow managed to do 720 miles, albeit including a detour to Eastbourne to see the in-laws. Cav took it all in its stride as usual, the only issue being a suspected sticky front caliper which seems to have fixed itself for the time being.

 

If planes are your thing the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton is worth a visit, one of the highlights being Concorde 002 which is chock full of testing equipment. 12 tonnes of the stuff back in the day, whereas one single laptop would do these days apparently!

[Guest Hooli]

The FAA museum is on my list.

[somewhatfoolish]

Bought this today. Like everything I seem to buy, it's broken. Only cost me £20 though.

 

20170928_192031.jpg

 

Apparently the wire snags up as it's feeding it. Probably the liner is knackered and reading up, it seems that the wire feed motor is taken from the welding transformer. This makes it inconsistent in feeding wire as it loads down. A mod to solve that involves adding an extra PSU to feed that motor directly.

 

Something to play with on my day off tomorrow. Once working, hopefully it'll be a cheap way to quickly start to give me a chance to practice sticking bits of metal together.

 

The SIP/Cosmo/Happy Dragon/Many Fun Sparking Box welders do seem to be less a welder, more an assembly of parts that can be used with other parts to make a usable welding machine; that said many folk have laboured greatly to do so and come up with interesting ways of doing it.

 

I have a suspicion this is a live/hot torch too, so I'll have to mod in a contactor too.

 

Weldershite! I may have a contactor kicking about that would do the job; will have a look, yours for free if it surfaces. Beware of buying wire on the small spools, some of it is awful rubbish as there little/no QC on it, the main solutions are making an adaptor to hold 5kg reels or refilling small spools from a 5 kg spool with an electric drill.

[MrDuke]

[MrDuke]

Oh ffs.

[Guest Hooli]

Oh ffs.

 

Ta da!

 

[SiC]

I probably should make a separate thread for this new "project", but here we go anyway.

 

This is the wire feeder side.

 

The wire had a lot of resistance trying to feed it to the gun. On the reel, the wire is all jumbled about. I guess it's come unreeled at some point and someone wound it up to reuse it. I see now why you're not supposed to do that, as it makes the feeding inconsistent.

 

The gun itself was in a bit of a mess. Looks possibly like some bodging has been going on to fix things. New aftermarket guns can be had from eBay for £35, not sure how good quality they'll be, but surely can't be too much worse than this?

 

EDIT: Just realised that this has no gas feed to it, so someone must have bodged a replacement torch to it at some point. Looks like I'll need a new torch if I'm going to go gas.

 

 

I stripped it down and cleaned it up. Replaced the bodgy jubilee clip with a fresh one. Not sure how the wire would have originally been held in this, but I guess not this way?

The swan neck had no liner in it, is this normal? I have a Clarke one to fit in if necessary.

Main liner is metal, not nylon like some have reported it to be. Given the bodgery here, I reckon someone may have already changed it in its life.

 

 

Inside the main chassis. A bit dirty and full of dust & crap. I'll give it a Hoover out later.

 

The control board looks relatively uninteresting. The relay on it is pretty dirty and tired looking. Looking at the wiring it appears to control the main welding transformer (mains side, hence the small relay), which is good as it means that its probably not a live torch after all.

 

The wire feed motor definitely comes from the welding transformer. When welding, the transformer will load down and slow the feed. So you end up with a fast initial burst and then a lot slower feed in use. Apparently the opposite. I guess they did it this way for cheapness and to try to have a vague feed speed dependant on voltage.

 

Motor control is through an analogue circuit on the control board. Basically uses a transistor to dump excess power through it (hence the big heatsink on it) to slow it down. Not the best way to drive a motor and get the most torque. My plan is to disconnect that and feed it directly from a cheapy Chinese PWM controller, connected to a dedicated power supply for the motor. If I get one with a screen, I have some reference that I can calibrate wire speed to.

 

Directly powering it over 24v provided quite a feedrate. I assume that in pretty much every use, this is far too fast to be useful. However it did feed relatively smoothly, only changing when the reel unwound unevenly. I guess the liner isn't too bad a shape.

[Video]

 

Slow speed running. Pretty much as slow as I could run it.

[Video]

 

Next step is to source and mod in a motor controller. Current draw from the motor is pretty low, so pretty much anything will do the job. I'm thinking of one something like this:

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-6-30V-12V-24V-MAX-8A-Motor-PWM-Speed-Controller-With-Digital-Display-Switch-P-/253116251484

 

Turning the knob will vary the speed I assume from 0-100%. I'm hoping that it'll be possible to linearly work out the percentage duty cycle to wire speed and then graffiti it on the front of the unit.

[cort16]

Any way to variably control the amps? On more expensive welders you have more flexibility over the power, which is handy on thin metal , which you'll be dealing with . My welder can just about do 1mm at the lowest setting without blowing lumps out of it on .6 wire.

It's also worth looking up all the things that will kill you if you try to weld them. I.e. Anything with a zinc coating .

[tooSavvy]

.... I agree >> thread: Weldershite, or some such ??

 

TS