Must cut 40mm hole in 1/4" aluminum bar

  Kinda hard to migrate when both OS's are in the same comp ... I just replaced the failing motherboard in this desktop with a newer one that will run 7 , and installed it in an otherwise empty 500 Gb drive . So far that's the only "snag" I've found with this setup . Oh , and I run Tbird on all these comps , makes it much simpler to move to another comp , like using the laptop when we travel .
Reply to
Terry Coombs
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I've cut them with a fly cutter.

Reply to
Michael Terrell

I don't see the problem with Windows 10. I get the impression it is easier to do a fresh install. As a PC guru, I do not see anything at all wrong with the thing, overall. If you are concerned about invasion of privacy, there are plenty of guides online for disabling that stuff.

Good luck.

Reply to
John Doe

I have a relatively big arm type hole cutter but it won't cut down to 40mm diameter. The small one probably wouldn't do unless (maybe) if all edges were extremely sharp.

I already ordered a cheap tungsten carbide tooth (TCT) hole cutter. Might try that. Using a hole saw after cutting teeth out of it did not produce a clean cut. If that is tried again, only two teeth will remain.

For a lower, variable speed drill press, I might chop up my cheap drill press and chuck/attach a powerful cordless drill to the spindle on top. Will see how difficult, attaching the drill to the spindle and securing it in place.

Instead of trying to make a 40mm bearing housing, another possibility here is to work with the inner/shaft diameter of 17mm. I ordered a couple of (pillow block?) bearing holders (UFL003).

Lots of possibilities now.

Reply to
John Doe

I don't see the problem with Windows 10. I get the impression it is easier to do a fresh install. As a PC guru, I do not see anything at all wrong with the thing, overall. If you are concerned about invasion of privacy, there are plenty of guides online for disabling that stuff.

Good luck.

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My security protocol includes treating the Internet laptop as a 'sandbox' that can be restored from an Acronis backup of the boot drive and normal copies of the others. The minimal way to do this is by saving Seagate Disk Wizard backups on a USB drive, but it's better to have a second similar laptop that can wipe and restore the bare drive from the Internet one, or substitute for it to at least basic browsing like weather and email. This spare also protects from dropping the laptop and lightning strikes.

Yesterday I had a scare when my antivirus froze during a scan, while I was cleaning up before saving a backup. A few hours later they released revised versions of the app and database.

The laptops I've chosen are new enough to run Win 7, old enough to be really cheap. My Internet laptop cost me $15, the backup machine was "$1 bad" though I found no problem with it. Maybe when Win 10 capable machines become cheap I'll buy a second and risk the slower one on the Net.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

ah. A 40mm bearing housing...............

I would use a magic marker on the aluminum and then scribe a 40mm circle where you want the hearing. Then use about a 1/4 inch drill to chain drill most of the hole and then finish with a round file . No suitable file, then buy a 3/4 inch dowel and use it with sand paper. With good lighting you should be able to make it close enough to have a press fit.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

ah. A 40mm bearing housing...............

I would use a magic marker on the aluminum and then scribe a 40mm circle where you want the hearing. Then use about a 1/4 inch drill to chain drill most of the hole and then finish with a round file . No suitable file, then buy a 3/4 inch dowel and use it with sand paper. With good lighting you should be able to make it close enough to have a press fit.

Dan

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"The crankshaft was made out of a block of machine steel 6 by 31 inches and

1-5/8 inch thick. I traced the outline on the slab, then drilled through with the drill press until I could knock out the surplus pieces with a hammer and chisel. Then I put it in the lathe and turned it down to size and smoothness."

Before milling machines became common machinery builders had to be VERY skilled with saws, chisels and files. Look at antique clocks, weapons and armor to see how good they were.

Lathes are much older, as in ancient Greece. Foot pedals or an apprentice or slave turned them while the artisan carved the wood, ivory or metal with hand-held chisels, like we still do on a wood lathe.

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"By the 6th century BC, the Greeks had most of the possible hand tools for designing wood – the adze, ax, saw, plane, hammer, rule, and lathe."

This is what they could make with their hand tools:

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Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Yes I have some files, fine for aluminum. Bought them years ago, for the same project.

Expecting an abundance of AMI flange bearings (diamond shaped, 2 hole) in two days. Can't wait! Pretty sure they will do, with some figuring. Maybe more weight, but perfect bearing alignment, with a housing, with a mounting point (x2).

Seems turning my cheap drill press into a variable speed cordless drill press will be easier than expected. Apparently the coupling method is figured out. Surprised it was held together with screws and not glue, but that was 20+ years ago.

Reply to
John Doe

Beware of Acronis. More than once they've done "upgrades" which left old image files unusable (ask me how I know). With drives being as cheap as they are, the free version of Macrium Reflect can copy a drive pretty quickly, and then it's just bootable.

Reply to
rangerssuck

Beware of Acronis. More than once they've done "upgrades" which left old image files unusable (ask me how I know). With drives being as cheap as they are, the free version of Macrium Reflect can copy a drive pretty quickly, and then it's just bootable.

=============================

I use older versions of SDW that I've tested by restoring and booting scratch drives, and record the SDW version number in the log of backups because as you say they aren't always backward compatible. Older versions accept Alt+to (Tech Override) to continue with a non-Seagate drive.

Most of my applications don't need the Internet so they run on isolated PCs that don't have antivirus or updates. These are the ones I clone or backup before trying new programs. I have all MS versions back to DOS and a few of Unix on bootable hard drives, for apps that need them.

Unlike Windows, DOS gives unhindered access to the hardware I/O registers and turns the PC into a huge Gigahertz Arduino with keyboard, display and HDD, plus the serial and printer port bits to talk to external hardware. I made a quickie successive approximation A/D converter by driving a DAC with the printer port's data bits and reading the comparator with a status bit. Other control and status bits drove the test fixture, for developing an experimental memory technology. I coded the non-standard serial interface to my APC1400 true sine UPS in QBasic and run it in a DOS box.

The Apricorn Sata Wire adapter and software have worked well to clone to a bare 2.5" drive lying on the static mat or one in a Dell caddy which is merely a cover plate fastened to one end. Some drives need a powered USB hub for more juice that the laptop's port can provide.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Have you ever used clonezilla? I've used it many times. Burn a CD with the ISO file, then boot and run from the CD. You can aalso make a bootable USB stick instead of a CD.

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Reply to
Michael Terrell

On Sunday, April 12, 2020 at 8:58:37 AM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote: ...................

Have you ever used clonezilla? I've used it many times. Burn a CD with the ISO file, then boot and run from the CD. You can aalso make a bootable USB stick instead of a CD.

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These boot drive backup & restore programs are as dangerous as Format C:. I learned one and stick to a revision of it that works for each OS version, for example XP doesn't need 4K sectors or SSDs.

Some people prefer Norton Ghost.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I know that you like old and cheap hardware, but XP is long out of support.

Some people do use newer hardware and software. Clonezilla was better behaved than some commercial software that I tried, and it isn't easy to screw up if you pay attention to the task at hand. It displays the drive information for each drive.

I won't use anything from Norton.

I dumped AVG years ago. It became so unstable that I removed it from all of my XP systems. It had to be uninstalled and reinstalled about every third definitions update. I finally gave up on it.

Reply to
Michael Terrell

Anachronism alert! Call the Fashion Police! Anna Wintour is outraged!! Prepare for Y2K and the Mayan Apocalypse!

My TV antennas and rotor are long out of support too, but they still work fine and need less maintenance than my neighbor's Xfinity. XP didn't really need Microsoft's loving hands / greedy fingers to keep it running.

I still use tools made in the 1800's. My HP test equipment is from the 70's and 80's, my machine tools from the 50's and 60's, and my newest vehicle is a 2000. All were built to last, which isn't the case with new stuff like my

12VDC powered freezer which is a $200 throw-away.

My CAD, flight simulator and datalogging programs run under XP. I was using XP for Internet access until a few weeks ago when I finally got posting to Usenet working on this W7 machine. The only difficulty with XP was the increasing obsolescence of the last Firefox version. MS didn't completely abandon it, I recently installed .NET updates.

Datalogging energy use sometimes requires putting laptops where they could fall such as next to the water heater or hallway thermostat, so I use my least valuable ones, running XP and W2K. The problem is the attached web of sensor and power cables.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

  This desktop is my last XP box - and it's dual boot with 7 as an alternate since it got a new mobo . If the old motherboard had not started to fail it would still be a straight XP machine . I may try to resurrect that motherboard , I found 3 slightly bulged electrolytic caps after the swap , all easily accessible for replacement .
Reply to
Terry Coombs

Back in early 2012 i replaced all the motherboard caps in a couple of Dells I have as while still working many of the caps were showing signs of distress. I got a kit of caps from

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to suit the motherboards and found I needed a 50W soldering iron due to the amount of heat needed to get a good joint, I presume due to the various planes acting as a heat sink, my lower powered irons wouldn't cut it.

Reply to
David Billington

"Terry Coombs" wrote in message news:r79o1f$56l$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me...

This desktop is my last XP box - and it's dual boot with 7 as an alternate since it got a new mobo . If the old motherboard had not started to fail it would still be a straight XP machine . I may try to resurrect that motherboard , I found 3 slightly bulged electrolytic caps after the swap , all easily accessible for replacement . Snag ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; I've been buying trade-ins from Vermont and Maine state governments at a flea market. The latest is a pristine 2015 Thinkpad T530 laptop with a clean, valid reinstall of Win 10 for $100. It's old and thick enough to have user-accessible RAM and a removable DVD drive so I doubled the RAM, cloned the HDD to an SSD and archived it, and bought a plug-in caddy for a second internal (bootable) hard drive.

These don't have great gaming graphics or many desktop expansion slots but they are solid business-quality machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo etc.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Back in early 2012 i replaced all the motherboard caps in a couple of Dells I have as while still working many of the caps were showing signs of distress. I got a kit of caps from

formatting link
suit the motherboards and found I needed a 50W soldering iron due to the amount of heat needed to get a good joint, I presume due to the various planes acting as a heat sink, my lower powered irons wouldn't cut it.

................................

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them it's nearly impossible to put heat in as fast as the power plane can draw it away, with them it's merely difficult. Heating the area with hot air helps.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

  My laptop is a T510 lease return , the wife's is a T420 . Both are running W7 SP1 . Both were factory refurbs in like-new condition when we got them . Hers still has the DVD tray installed , mine has a 500 Gb hdd in that slot - I use it to back up all my music and photos plus a bunch of other stuff I'd rather not have to replace .
Reply to
Terry Coombs

On 4/16/2020 6:21 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote: ................

My laptop is a T510 lease return , the wife's is a T420 . Both are running W7 SP1 . Both were factory refurbs in like-new condition when we got them . Hers still has the DVD tray installed , mine has a 500 Gb hdd in that slot - I use it to back up all my music and photos plus a bunch of other stuff I'd rather not have to replace .

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

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