Throw Away Mill

My original idea was to just make some fishing related molds this way. Something somebody who was modestly intelligent and capable could follow along with, but I've been considering a couple ideas for other things like small plastic sorting trays someboy could crank out on a simple injection machine like a Buster Beagle or an LNS Technologies.

Ok, I have a project I've been wanting to do for a little while. Making a short series of videos on making some useful injection molds using a small manual milling machine. Something basically at the bottom of the heap. A machine in the X2 class. Harbor Freight, Little machine shop, Klutch, Wen, Eastwood and many others all sell a machine in about this class. ...

You should have mentioned that earlier so I could have considered it during my last root canal.

I don't know how to explain manual feeds to a student without telling them to copy what I just did, i.e. in person. I learned that on a Bridgeport by breaking an endmill.

When I took night classes at first I couldn't distinguish problems with my technique from misadjustments of the machine, like loose gibs or chips in the chuck mount.

On my Clausing I drew diagonal arrows beside the dials to relate handle rotation to table motion.

My original idea was to just make some fishing related molds this way. Something somebody who was modestly intelligent and capable could follow along with, but I've been considering a couple ideas for other things like small plastic sorting trays someboy could crank out on a simple injection machine like a Buster Beagle or an LNS Technologies.

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It's challenging enough to mill an accurately sized rectangular cutout on a dial-only mill with backlash.

HA! I've got a buddy who is a modestly intelligent self taught machinist. Like myself with the help of several million pepple on the Internet. One day some years ago I noticed on the old milling machine he used to have he had used a paint marker to write climb and conventional with direction arrows on the side of the table.

After I stopped laughing I took the time to explain it to him.

Yep, I have some ideas about how to get backlash and other fundamentals across. I used to tutor computer programming and economics in college. I found that those who want to learn are much easier to teach than those who wanted me to do their assignment for them. The latter were not very happy with me.

*** Tangent Alert ***

Speaking of tutoring. One day in the computer lab I was reading a book when an older student came in. She came over to me and said she was told I was the guy to look for if she wanted help. I sat down and proceeded to explain each problem she was facing and give her several examples of how it was tackled. Then I would say let me know when you hit another problem and I would go back to my book. After about the third time I very carefully worked her through how to tackle the same problem and made up another teaching example on the fly she asked, "Where is this in my assignment."

I told her it wasn't. It wasn't my job to do her home work. It was my job to teach her how. "Would you like me to show you another example? Is there a point of how to do this you don't understand that you need explained again or differently?"

I could tell she wasn't very happy when she said, "Do you know who I am? My husband is the mayor of 'some town I never lived in.'"

I told her I was giving her the same help I give everybody who asks for help. Explanations of how things work, and examples that match both the assignments and my explanation. "I'm more than happy to teach you, but I'm not going to do your work for you."

She poked at the keyboard for a few more minutes in a huff, before I went back to my book. I think all her bodily orifices were puckered when she stormed out a few minutes later. The visible ones certainly were. I went back to my book and then another student came over to ask me for some help. They said that the explanations they had overheard had helped them with their work, but there was still something they would like explained. I went to work.

My next shift in the computer lab one of the instructors in the department let me know that Mrs 1st Lady to the Mayor had reported me to the head of the department for refusing to help her, and that I just sat there reading my book. I let her know I had in fact gone out of my way to help even to the point of explaining it several times and giving multiple examples of the application. I even pulled up my computer log and showed the code snippets I had written to demo the application. Miss upwardly mobile instructor said, "Don't you know her husband is the mayor of 'some town I never lived in?'"

"Yep. She told me that when she made it clear she didn't want to learn. That she just wanted me to do her assignments."

When my shift was over I headed over to the dean of Students office and reported Mrs 1st Lady to the Mayor for trying to get somebody else to do her homework. Then I headed over to the Deans office to report Miss Upwardly Mobile Instructor for trying to intimidate me over it. I ordinarily blew off students (and instructors) who didn't want to do their job, but that sounded like it could come back to bite me. I never saw Mrs 1st Lady To The Mayor in the computer lab again, and Miss Upwardly Mobile was very very polite and always addressed me in a very civil tone as Mr La Londe after that. Like maybe she was afraid of me? I guess because I wore leather jacket and rode a motorcycle she hadn't realized I was smart enough to go cover my ass if people got stupid.

Yes I remember their names, but it was a long time ago, and how anybody treats them today should be about how they act today, not something stupid they did 30 years ago.

Yes. Yes it is.

HA! I've got a buddy who is a modestly intelligent self taught machinist. Like myself with the help of several million pepple on the Internet. One day some years ago I noticed on the old milling machine he used to have he had used a paint marker to write climb and conventional with direction arrows on the side of the table.

After I stopped laughing I took the time to explain it to him.

-------------------------- It's easy enough to remember the motion transformations when I have nothing else to do, but not when I'm fully absorbed in solving a problem.

--------------------------

Yep, I have some ideas about how to get backlash and other fundamentals across. I used to tutor computer programming and economics in college. I found that those who want to learn are much easier to teach than those who wanted me to do their assignment for them. The latter were not very happy with me.

*** Tangent Alert ***

Speaking of tutoring. One day in the computer lab I was reading a book when an older student came in. She came over to me and said she was told I was the guy to look for if she wanted help. I sat down and proceeded to explain each problem she was facing and give her several examples of how it was tackled. Then I would say let me know when you hit another problem and I would go back to my book. After about the third time I very carefully worked her through how to tackle the same problem and made up another teaching example on the fly she asked, "Where is this in my assignment."

I told her it wasn't. It wasn't my job to do her home work. It was my job to teach her how. "Would you like me to show you another example? Is there a point of how to do this you don't understand that you need explained again or differently?"

I could tell she wasn't very happy when she said, "Do you know who I am? My husband is the mayor of 'some town I never lived in.'"

I told her I was giving her the same help I give everybody who asks for help. Explanations of how things work, and examples that match both the assignments and my explanation. "I'm more than happy to teach you, but I'm not going to do your work for you."

She poked at the keyboard for a few more minutes in a huff, before I went back to my book. I think all her bodily orifices were puckered when she stormed out a few minutes later. The visible ones certainly were. I went back to my book and then another student came over to ask me for some help. They said that the explanations they had overheard had helped them with their work, but there was still something they would like explained. I went to work.

My next shift in the computer lab one of the instructors in the department let me know that Mrs 1st Lady to the Mayor had reported me to the head of the department for refusing to help her, and that I just sat there reading my book. I let her know I had in fact gone out of my way to help even to the point of explaining it several times and giving multiple examples of the application. I even pulled up my computer log and showed the code snippets I had written to demo the application. Miss upwardly mobile instructor said, "Don't you know her husband is the mayor of 'some town I never lived in?'"

"Yep. She told me that when she made it clear she didn't want to learn. That she just wanted me to do her assignments."

When my shift was over I headed over to the dean of Students office and reported Mrs 1st Lady to the Mayor for trying to get somebody else to do her homework. Then I headed over to the Deans office to report Miss Upwardly Mobile Instructor for trying to intimidate me over it. I ordinarily blew off students (and instructors) who didn't want to do their job, but that sounded like it could come back to bite me. I never saw Mrs 1st Lady To The Mayor in the computer lab again, and Miss Upwardly Mobile was very very polite and always addressed me in a very civil tone as Mr La Londe after that. Like maybe she was afraid of me? I guess because I wore leather jacket and rode a motorcycle she hadn't realized I was smart enough to go cover my ass if people got stupid.

Yes I remember their names, but it was a long time ago, and how anybody treats them today should be about how they act today, not something stupid they did 30 years ago.

-------------------------- Nice story. I sympathize with you because I had to herd co-op engineering students through CAD schematic design and quietly suffer the damage Ph.Ds did in my company machine shop. Fortunately I had my own machines at home, and permission to charge for time on them. I was also a black leather biker who was presumed stupid and hostile until proven otherwise.

The worst was when I was presumed to be stupid, hostile and French Canadien because I didn't realize I had passed from Quebec into New Brunswick and spoke to a store clerk in French. She was sooo glad to find I was USian, which wasn't usually the case.

Oh, French Canadian!!! That's unforgivable outside Quebec. LOL. As I've mentioned before I was a contractor for a while. Here in sunny South West Arizona we get a fair share of snowbirds. A fair number of them Canadian, and a decent percentage are French Canadian. There is a certain reputation for bluntness breaking over into rudeness. I found as a contractor installing alarm systems, home theater, and satellite TV systems my best response was to be blunt bordering on rude right back. I also quickly discovered I had better be right. LOL.

Oh, French Canadian!!! That's unforgivable outside Quebec. LOL. As I've mentioned before I was a contractor for a while. Here in sunny South West Arizona we get a fair share of snowbirds. A fair number of them Canadian, and a decent percentage are French Canadian. There is a certain reputation for bluntness breaking over into rudeness. I found as a contractor installing alarm systems, home theater, and satellite TV systems my best response was to be blunt bordering on rude right back. I also quickly discovered I had better be right. LOL.

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They come by rudeness honestly:

I may need to find someone with your experience locally for hands-on help with this: I couldn't resist the price and features. So far I can make it be a WiFi hotspot and connect to it, but that's all. Some of the problem may be the nearly obsolete laptop and cell phone I have to connect with, and some my unfamiliarity with networking, which was IT's guarded fiefdom. More work is required.

On 3/25/2022 10:09 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote: > "Bob La Londe" wrote in message news:t1kk17$173d$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org... >

Typically an IP camera, DVR or NVR is used on a LAN whether wired or WiFi. Sometimes you can connect directly to some of those types of devices using WiFi or Blue Tooth. That is a local direct connection.

For remote access you typically connect it to a LAN with a router. The router interfaces between a broadband source and the local area network. Then you go into the router setup and use port forwarding (or a DMZ setting) to direct outside access to that device. Then on a cell phone or computer with Internet access you might either be able to connect to the device either by standard browser or using an application from the device manufacturer.

If your LAN is setup for dynamic DNS its best to also set static IP addresses for those devices so you can actually find them. Some routers will run both static and dynamic IP addresses. Others will reserve an IP address for a mac address.

Even locally some devices will require ports to be set and reserved for them. Others will not. You can just connect to them locally with their local IP address.

Locally you might connect using using something that looks like this:

192.168.1.183 or 192.168.1.183:80

Remotely you would have a port (or ports) assigned to forward to that IP address. Then with your remote device you would connect to your LAN using the public IP address using something like this:

74.231.7.43:3200

If your network is setup with a a DMZ and you have placed your device in the DMZ you might just enter:

74.231.7.43

Most likely that will not work because the device is expecting it to come from a port, but some will work.

Lastly its possible your device may have the ability to use an outside third party server. It pings the outside server periodically to check to see if there is a request to communicate. Kind of like using an instant messenger program or some social media sites. There is 2 way contact often enough that it seems like continuous communication. If this is the case that third part could monitor or have access to your communication with your device. Its also possible there may be a cost associated with that third party (or manufacturer's) server. It allows you to communicate without knowing how to setup your network, but it has its risks or costs.

Now the other issue. Most commercial business broad band services come with a static public IP address. Most residential broad band services do not unless you pay extra for it. Usually they are dynamic, but persistent. That means they are reserved for you, but if you are offline and another device comes online your IP address "could" be assign to another customer. Sometimes your public IP address changes all the time. Its dynamic and anytime you go offline and come back on it could be different. This can make it from difficult to impossible to connect. You don't know what the public IP address is. There are several ways to deal with that. The third party server with constant communication is one. A dyndns server is another, but they usually require a notification ap to be constantly running in the background on a device on the network. Some DVR and NVRs have their own ability to work with a DYNDNS service built in. There are free DYDNDNS services, but the usually require monthly direct validations. There are paid DYNDNS services that won't require you to logon and validate your account. These do not give access to your device on your LAN. They just accept a periodic ping from the application running on your network that tells them what your current public IP address is. Then they associate a name with that IP address through their server. Instead of entering an IP address in your browser or video viewing application you would enter something like: JimWilkinsVideo.dyddns.org:3200

If your cellphone is your broadband device for your LAN then you will not be able to connect remotely with your cell phone. Your LAN won't have a broadband service while your are sunning yourself on the river in Yuma. Fracking snowbird!

Typically an IP camera, DVR or NVR is used on a LAN whether wired or WiFi. Sometimes you can connect directly to some of those types of devices using WiFi or Blue Tooth. That is a local direct connection.

------------------- I think the local direct connection to a spare cellphone is what I want. I would have it alarm if it detects motion, and keep the phone nearby in the house. The camera has 128GB to record video internally. I just acquired a pre-5G Xfinity cell phone to use (risk) for this.

I don't turn on my iPhone to enable the data-limited cellular Internet connection unless I'm using it, and run as much as possible on machines without Net access. This laptop's hard drive has been completely backed up off-line with Seagate DiscWizard (Acronis) which can restore the bootable system to another hard drive if this one dies or is compromised. Beware the Bear.

"Sheenwang Seller: If without wifi, you could use the AP mode to connect the camera bulb with your phone. Here is the way to setup: Press the rest button 3 times, the camera will emit a WiFi hotspot named "camera_xxxx", the mobile phone connect to this hotspot. Open the APP "iCSee", choose the "AP direct connection". In this way you could view and record with a memory card only within 30 meters."

But the hotspot has a different SSID and requires a password I found elsewhere. iCSee gets bad reviews and isn't going on my precious iPhone. The PC version of it was "file not found". A substitute didn't see the camera. More work required.

This is not at the top of the spring to-do list. Are highly visible but disconnected driveway cameras effective theft deterrents?

On 3/25/2022 4:08 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:>> Are highly visible but disconnected driveway cameras effective theft deterrents? Some people seem to think so. I had probably 20 or 30 people over the years call me up and ask me for my bad cameras. Usually it went something like this:

RING RING:

Me: The Security Consultant, how can I help you?

Them: Do you have any broken cameras?

Me: No. What good would that do m?

Them: Well I want to put them up to scare people off.

Me: Oh, I can order you some good looking dummy cameras.

Them: I was just hoping you had some cameras that weren't any good that I could get.

Me: Why would I save broken cameras?

Them: Well people might want to use them to scare people off.

Me: Would those people be willing to pay for them?

Them: No they aren't any good. You would just throw them away.

Me: Um, yes. I threw them away.

Them: So could you save them for me and give me a call when you get some?

Me: Would you be willing to pay for my time and shelf space to do that?

Them: Why would I pay for hem. They are broken.

Me: Exactly. They are broken. I threw them away.

Them: Well could you save them for me?

Me: I could, but that would take time and shelf space to inventory them for you and you have made it clear you won't pay for my time.

Them: You are just going to throw them away!!!

Me: Yes. It takes less time to toss them in a nearby dumpster than to put them in the truck, haul them back to the shop, clear a space on the shelf in the stock room, and call you. Then because you want them for free you won't value my time and I may have to store them for you for an indeterminate amount of time if its not convenient for you.

Them: You are an asshole!

Me: My customers don't think so.

Them: Yeah, well I will never be your customer.

Me: I know. You said that at the very beginning. I was just being polite in case you might change your mind.

Them: Screw you.

Me: Hold on a second. I need your address.

Them: Huh! Why?

Me: I need to know where to send the invoice for this ten minute phone support call.

CLICK

Have you noticed that those who vote democrat are the same ones who are more likely to want sumpin for nuffin ?

On 3/25/2022 4:08 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:>> Are highly visible but disconnected driveway cameras effective theft deterrents? Some people seem to think so. I had probably 20 or 30 people over the years call me up and ask me for my bad cameras. Usually it went something like this:

RING RING:

Me: The Security Consultant, how can I help you?

Them: Do you have any broken cameras?

----------------

I appreciate your position, however that question brings results often enough to be worth asking. There may be stuff they haven't cleaned out of the truck or store room yet, like the replaced-on-schedule Kong descender a cable repairman gave me. (I prefer a Prusik unless the rope is icy.)

I built my bucket loader attachment from cheap used hydraulics that needed new seals, and my sawmill largely from second-hand steel at $0.25/Lb. The solar panels that power my freezer had been salvaged from old parking kiosks. A large fraction of the pressure-treated wood in my firewood sheds came from a contractor's scrap pile. He was happy to save the dumpster cost, and it bothers me to see useful things go into landfills when I can repurpose them into something I want. I don't collect junk but I'll fix something once to gain the knowledge.

My washing machine is a 1960's nearly bullet-proof Maytag that I found dumped in the woods where I was logging. A little rubber parts swapping with another cured its leak and then I stripped out the automatic controls to make it more suited to alternate energy, specifically water heated on the wood stove instead of with electricity. Most of what I have is old enough to be all steel and maintainable, like the Maytag. Since Accounting isn't pressing me to cut costs I can make it better than new. If I can fix and modify my things I own them instead of them owning me.

Modern computerized equipment can be impossible to repair even when I work for the company that made it, if the PROM is locked and original programmer didn't leave the source code when he quit. I've had to recover (FDISK /MBR) a hard drive that the former programmer booby-trapped to wipe its boot sector, and then reconstruct and revise the code on it. He was demanding $600 an hour to consult. I did sympathize with him, but managed to fix everything myself and avoid a fight.

I realize that you can trade time for money earned while I can trade only for money saved. When I was working and could charge overtime the make/buy balance was different, however during downturns startups fail and industrial R&D jobs vanish and I had free time to cut firewood and fix things, or take interesting jobs like the Renaissance Fair.

Have you noticed that those who vote democrat are the same ones who are more likely to want sumpin for nuffin ?

-------------------- Well, I'm not a Democrat, not "entitled", and end that conversation very quickly with "I won't know unless I ask." Yankee thrift is more about not wasting things or overspending to satisfy your ego.

<snip>

I read some of the reviews for your camera yesterday. Not so good...

Did you find this reddit page yet? May give you some clues...

<snip>

I read some of the reviews for your camera yesterday. Not so good...

Did you find this reddit page yet? May give you some clues...

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Thanks. For the price I can accept it being only a scarecrow, but it appears functional and is worth some effort. The cell phone's owner discovered that the store can copy his stuff onto his new phone so he needs it back for a while.

<snip>

I buy stuff with that thought in mind too. It usually works out okay, but for the times it doesn't I'm not surprised nor out much $. For me it's way more fun than going to a Casino where I already KNOW they are out to screw you ;-)

Honestly. No. I have not noticed a political relationship. Atleast not in people around my age (+/- 10-15 years).

<snip>

I buy stuff with that thought in mind too. It usually works out okay, but for the times it doesn't I'm not surprised nor out much $. For me it's way more fun than going to a Casino where I already KNOW they are out to screw you ;-)

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Most of the battery charge/discharge meters I've bought from Amazon have soon failed and been a waste of (not much) money. This one still works but needs recalibration.

Meters that measure unipolar current through a grounded shunt have generally been fine, the problem is with measuring bipolar current against a reference that's above the negative power rail.