What did you do today? (2014)

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Michael

I have Excel for MAC on my new computer and a 13 page interlinked spreadsheet there, once formatted to fit the new super-size screen, looks just like it did in Office 2010 on my old PC. ( Thank goodness!)

I do still have the old PC ( and several of its predecessors) and it is working but, as I encountered the " Blue Screen of Death" recently and the guy who fixed it for me said he thought that the hard drive might be on the way out, I thought that the long pondered leap to the Mac was appropriate!

Norman

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by NJH on 09/12/2014 14:28:57:

Michael

I have Excel for MAC on my new computer and a 13 page interlinked spreadsheet there, once formatted to fit the new super-size screen, looks just like it did in Office 2010 on my old PC. ( Thank goodness!)

.

Delighted to hear it Norman; things have obviously progressed.

MichaelG.

[TSHParticipant @tsh73987]

Thanks for the guidance Andrew.

The Gliding Heritage Centre is very house-proud in its hangar .

Trevor

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Norman,

**LINK** Spinrite from Gibson Research may bring that HD back to life.

It's done so for thousands of so called dead drives.

Geoff – Yesterday morning finished the Marlow Autorelease drawbar, then made a c@ckup, then retired for the day!

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 08/12/2014 16:36:50:

> Apple is restricted hardware

One day there will be an open-source alternative OS for apple products }:-{)>

Neil

It's already here Neil. You can install Linux on a MAC and even set it up to dual boot between Linux and MacOS.

Russell.

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Thanks Geoff

That's an interesting and informative video. Maybe that's what my repair man used – I am still running the repaired Windows machine whilst I make an orderly transfer to the Mac!

Norman – still sat in front of the Mac and trying to remember the things that I learned yesterday!

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Got everything set up on the Marlow to mill the 12x half round 1/2" grooves in the drawbar handle and wondered why the slot drill was winding itself out of the holder.

It's the first time using the mill – motor rotation wrong.

Swop two wires tomorrow.

Geoff – SwiftKey keyboard has fixed the iPad curser problem!

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Geoff – what is a SwiftKey keyboard, and how do you get it to work on an iPad?

Chris – with curser still jumping top left

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Chris,

Oops, forgot to mention that it is a free App.

Just install and follow instructions on adding a new keyboard.

Only installed it yesterday so still getting used to it, as with any new App.

Geoff – Part of Carport roof blown off yesterday

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Today I finished the re-furb of this Flexispeed I bought from ebay in the summer.

Not as radical as Neil's Super Adept re-work but I did have to scrape the ways and make a new spindle, lapped to fit.

The leadscrew and cross slide threads of 12 and 24 tpi respectively don't lend themselves to any reasonable scale, imperial of metric, so I fitted a couple of DROs from ARC.

Cheers,

Rod

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 12/12/2014 12:39:02:

The leadscrew and cross slide threads of 12 and 24 tpi respectively don't lend themselves to any reasonable scale, imperial of metric …

.

… but might be very handy if you are ever modelling to 1/12 Scale.

MichaelG.

.

P.S. … Nice job.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Well, it had to happen. The hard disk working perfectly late on last Friday week was not recognized on Saturdays boot up.

Ordered a new hard disk and when it arrived fitted it and formatted it and then loaded XP again. Go to Microsoft Updates, NO, Closed down. Slap, not allowed anymore!

Ever since loading nothing but bother, of course lost everything, and to top it all TalkTalk email system went bust on the same Friday. It seems that their servers in Manchester are now being replaced with a better system but hard luck to the customers. Now I am on Gmail and this evening got onto TalkTalk and they put me through a 'talk in' to get my emails through the TalkTalk phone account, all 77 of them and its taken me ages to go through an unfamiliar account from AOL.

Ive had enough now and ordered Win 7 and will load that when it arrives, at least I can get the upgrades for a while.

Then at the same time the wife went to switch off the cooker hood fan and the slide switch broke, looking at it, a liitte flimsy lug had snapped off and I super glued it in place and then bolstered it with Araldite.Making sure I did the light slider as well. Having done all this and re-assembled it would not work, all down again to find both bulbs blown. Checked voltage, fine. Fitted a spare bulb which worked and the fan ran OK.

Then, she tells me the Tweeny is not working, its vibrating and switching on and off, it sometimes starts. At some £400 a go I will have to take that out and look at whats happening. They say it comes in 3's, I hope so.

Clive

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Clive,

Now you have new hard drive fitted can you not connect the old one as an external drive and see if it will work that way, at least you may have to be able to recover stuff.

Martin P

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 13/12/2014 19:26:56:

Then, she tells me the Tweeny is not working, its vibrating and switching on and off, it sometimes starts. At some £400 a go I will have to take that out and look at whats happening. They say it comes in 3's, I hope so.

Clive

What on Earth is a Tweeny?

Ian P

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

It used to be a Maid!

Edited By V8Eng on 13/12/2014 20:00:54

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Apparently it can dismantle the carcase of a chicken in thirty seconds. For another £200 he could have a labrador that would do the job in half the time.

Neil

Sorry, I've mentioned dogs again…

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Thats my job, the wife gives it to me after we have had a roast and by the time I've finished there's hardly anything left

Martin P

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Clive, as Martin suggests, you may be able to connect it as an external or a slave and retrieve some of your data.

I once had a hard drive stop working and when I had a fiddle inside, discovered a chip getting hot and could hear the arm kinda trying to work, so I rigged it up as a slave and stuck a small piece of copper on the chip with thermal paste and during start-up I had to knock the side rapidly with a screwdriver handle. Once the computer was up and running I then had approximately 10 min's to retrieve my data before it stopped working, so had to shut down and allow it to cool right off and go through the process again. It took a few evenings to retrieve as much as I could and there was one file I had to stop trying to open as it immediately froze the whole system every time. I believe I retrieved at least 80% of the data from it.

Regards Nick.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hi nick,

if that worked, you might have found a regular dose of 'freezer spray' would have extended your working time. My dad used to use it – you spray various components until the fault goes away, and then replace the the suspect item. These days people use infra-red non-contact thermometers or even IR imagers to detect hot spots ion circuit boards.

As a skinflint, I use my top lip…

Neil

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 13/12/2014 20:42:22:

These days people use infra-red non-contact thermometers or even IR imagers to detect hot spots ion circuit boards.

As a skinflint, I use my top lip…

Neil

Well lets hope everyone's using lead free solder

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Nick, I opened it up and found that the pivot for the reader heads was quite stiff to move, we tried it on another PC but it would not see it as a drive so we decide that it maybe an electronic fault as well as a mechanical fault.

I will destroy it on Monday at work, I also have another disk which is an IDE type so would not fit the connectors. The duff one is SATA 11. The new one is SATA 111 which is back compatable.

Tonight the wife got onto TalkTalk and we were talked through getting emails on the Account through AOL which is TalkTalk as well. I had 77 emails backed up. I do not like the AOL email page at all. I much prefer the Outlook appearance.

The Tweeny is a garbage disposer fitted under one of the kitchen sinks and as said will eat anything. As we prepare our food like apples and veg its easier to clean up. I put a Turkey carcass down it one year. At the moment it has a problem but i can sort as long as I have space and time to take it out, that is easy as it swings on a hinge when the fixing screw is undone but its quite heavy. The start switch is in fact an air bulb under a small square panel so no electrical connection to the sink top except earthing. The base has a cover and the pipe goes into it and presumably has a pressure switch there. I'll come back and let you know what I did.

This morning at 1030 am the Jack Russel (Dogs again) went mad, barking and trying to get out the patio door and as I looked out there was a large dog Fox at the end of the garden, I went upstairs and opened a window and took some pics. of him. he ended up walking along the top rails of a pergola and along the fence and then went into another garden at the back of us. I will try and put up a Pic. later.

Clive

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 13/12/2014 20:42:22:

Hi nick,

if that worked, you might have found a regular dose of 'freezer spray' would have extended your working time. My dad used to use it – you spray various components until the fault goes away, and then replace the the suspect item. These days people use infra-red non-contact thermometers or even IR imagers to detect hot spots ion circuit boards.

As a skinflint, I use my top lip…

Neil

.

Neil,

Check my wood burner next time you are round

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I will try to upload the Fox Pics.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Another one.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

A method for finding overheating components on a PCB I saw somewhere on the internet is to place the board in the freezer, remove it and wait until a coating of frost has formed and then apply power. The coating of frost will disapear on the overheating component quickly. I have not tried it but I think it would work although it would probably not be a good method to use on a disk drive. On a similar subject fault finding on equipment when you do not have a circuit diagram is sometimes easier if you just test electrolytic capacitors in circuit using an ESR (Effective series resistance.) tester. As electrolytic capacitors are fairly unreliable components there is a good chance you will find the fault. I find it particularly good on the line output stage of CRT type televisions and monitors. I have even used it succesfully to repair one of the small CCTV camera modules.

Les.

Edit
Clive I like you fox pictures. (I just noticed them when I finished writing this massage.)

Edited By Les Jones 1 on 14/12/2014 08:50:38

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