Exactly what I thought… but as it’s now taxed to a particular person, once that person has sold the car it is then no longer taxed, but they will only refund whole months…

But they will only repay from the end of the month you sold it in…

The new owner then has to tax it from the beginning of the month they bought it in…

So, for pretty much every car sold the car is taxed for a month by both parties… that’s got to be a nice little earner for the government!

If Ilkeston is close enough, I used to use the Ilkeston Garage, in the estate just over the road from Tesco.

Used him for a good few years to do all the servicing and stuff on our old Megane before we moved away.

As above, you can swap the banjo and bleed nipple on the E4 calipers, so I would assume that you can do also this for the X2 calipers as well… and any other Hope calipers for that matter!

It always seems to mess with peoples heads that in a copper wire an electron only travels at a few centimeters per hour, but the electricity is there as soon as you turn the switch on… so how do the electrons further up the wire know to start moving? ;o)

As much as I hate to say it, but I think Tesco are actually pretty good at this.

As part of a family group, as long as all the contracts are in one name, you get perks that can be added, such as extra minutes or data. On top of that they have settable buffers, so that you can cap any extra spend on a phone in a month, and this can be set to zero, so once you are through that monthly allowance that’s it.

I don’t think it’s actually inside the CV, although I am not ruling out a problem there either!

If I hold the shaft in one hand and the inner CV housing in the other, there is very little play between these.

But if I just grab the housing, I can move this side-side/up-down with respect from the gearbox.

Will certainly be draining off the gearbox oil before taking the shaft out, just trying to understand if I am likely to have bigger issues…

It’s the splined shaft on the end of the housing, which connects into the gearbox… I can grab the housing in that image and wobble it up and down…

scotroutes…

Nope… you’ve lost me there!

Fargo… :)

jimjam… it was certainly on the BBC news for a while, and I think the House of Commons got involved at some point as well!

Unfortunately I think you might be right, although I think that says more about the willingness of the human race to abuse and kill people than anything else as it probably happens far more often! Although if it had been a famous child, who people were actually going to see, then I think there might have been some uproar!

Jimjam…
I can’t see there being a similar outrage if someone in Scotland killed the wrong deer.

Okay, so it was in Exmoor and not Scotland, but how about this one?

At a guess, the RS485-USB adaptor would be used to plug into a PC to allow the screens to be setup, but wouldn’t normally need to be used during everyday operation.

However, reading brassneck’s post I wonder if these displays would do the scaling of the image themselves, or whether the PC they are connected to would do the scaling before sending out the image.

However, unless you can get some software from the suppliers, a programming unit, or a far more detailed manual describing the protocol used you are going to be in trouble, as you can stream pretty much anything over RS485… TCP, Modbus, or even some homebrewed system that they thought up on a Friday morning!

integerspin…

Unfortunately we build very specialist motors and inverters, designed for individual customers… nothing off the shelf and nothing really less than a few hundred kW.

Sorry about that… but it looks like a higher power unit similar to the one which Jamie bought, which started off this whole thread, would do the business.

Cheeky…

But it’s a 3-phase motor, as I said the phase-neutral voltage is exactly defined as 220V by stating it is a 380V 3-phase motor, no further information is required.

Anyway, lets have a look at your calcs:

Oh come on Nick! simple power calcs here

P=IV

In star 220volts x 5.9 Amps = 1298w

In delta 380 x 3.4 Amps = 1292w

Obviously Ive omitted the Pf but as a designer Im sure you will agree the maths never lies.

For a star wound motor:

Electrical power = number of phases * phase-neutral voltage * phase current * power factor

So, from your interpretation we have:

Number of phases = 3
phase-neutral voltage = 220V
phase current = 5.9A
power factor = 0.85

That gives:

Electrical power = 3 * 220 * 5.9 * 0.85 = 3309W -> somewhat larger than the 1.5kW output power stated on the name plate.

Okay, how about for the delta wound motor:

Electrical power = number of phases * phase-neutral voltage * phase current * power factor

Again, from your interpretation we have:

Number of phases = 3
phase-phase voltage = 380V -> phase-neutral voltage = 380/sqrt(3)
phase current = 3.4A
power factor = 0.85

Which gives:

Electrical power = 3 * (380/sqrt(3)) * 3.4 * 0.85 = 1902W -> this is closer to the 1.5kW, but doesn’t match the value given for your configuration above.

As there is only one output power listed on the name plate, these two should be pretty much identical!

Another way of looking at your configurations would be to consider the notional motor impedances, where you consider the motor at full power to be a static load.

If you think about how a star wound motor is configured, there is more impedance between any two phases than there is in a delta wound motor, there has to be as the windings are essentially configured in serial for a star, and parallel for a delta. With the two configs you listed, you have a higher current for the star wound machine than for the delta. How is this possible if the star wound machine has a higher impedance?

However, this all works quitely nicely if you swap your star and delta machine configs… so the delta runs at 220V and the star runs at 380V…

What was it you said? The maths never lies? :wink:

What makes me qualified?

I design the things… design the inverters… got a PhD…

But obviously I am talking gibberish… ;o)

Lucky I don’t do the electro-magnetics for designing motors then… oh ooops!

As I said, some people might actually know more about this than you!

Now, while you are quite correct that for a 380V 3-phase supply, the phase to neutral voltage is 220, but why would the phase-neutral voltage need to be stated on a 3-phase motor when there is no neutral connection? The phase-neutral voltage is implicit by the fact it is 3-phase.

Secondly, if what you believe is true, why would there be two sets of currents listed on the motor, but only one power? Are the two currents related to the two possible configurations which the motor can be run in, then how? Also, what is the rated voltage for the machine in delta? What about in star?

Jamie… it all sounds fine, and unless your inverter has some good filtering on it your voltmeter won’t be too happy measuring PWM, so is probably why you get differing results.

Cheeky… can’t you just accept that some people on here might actually know more about this than you?

I’m not entirely sure that it was just the words on that Cradle of Filth t-shirt which caused such offense though, the nun with a crucifix might have have also had something to do with it!

As for my old t-shirts, I do still have a soft spot for my kitten tikka massala one!

Well, I tried… and if I am talking complete gibberish, I’d best hope the guys at work don’t find out!

Oh, and good luck mc!

Cheekyboy… you are getting confused between two different things here…

a) a motor which is designed to run, as I have said at least twice before, at it’s rated speed with a voltage across each winding, irrespective of the winding configuration, of 220V.

In this case, if you configure it as delta, you have a phase-phase voltage of 220V, or a star you have a phase-phase voltage of 380V. In both cases the power, torque and everything else on the machine is the same, although obviously the current is lower for the star wound machine.

b) a motor which is designed to be switched between star and delta configurations with the same voltage being applied across the terminals, irrespective of the configuration. In these cases, it’s generally used in star configuration to get high torque, lower speed starting, then moving onto delta for high speed running.

The reason for doing this is that you can then use the same inverter, generating the same maximum voltage, to overcome the lower back EMF from the motor when setup as delta as you are only having to deal with the back EMF of a single winding, and not sqrt(3) * back EMF as you would get in star.

Okay, so that’s probably not very well described, but I have been sampling our homemade elderflower champagne this evening!!! Hic!

Jamie,

Glad to hear you got it sorted, and I’ve heard that even some of the guys at my work just end up playing with the settings to get things to work sometimes… although I am surprised that the setting you used makes any difference when the motor is at full speed… but who knows when a manual is written so badly!

Just a thought though, how long is the cable to the motor? If it is too long then this might be why it wasn’t working well, and that the extra voltage is enough to get it running.

As for an emergency stop button, we always use normally closed switches which break on operation of the big red mushroom, but looking at the circuit for this it doesn’t look like there are any contacts for one of those. Couldn’t see anything which gave a description of what the reset does either… so in this case I’d think about having an external e-stop which cut the power to the unit instead.

Cheekyboy, I was trying to explain earlier, but obviously not well enough…

The motor has 3 windings, which can be arranged in a star or delta configuration, and to get the motor to run at it’s rated speed and torque it requires 220V across these windings.

Now, in the delta configuration this simply gives us a phase-phase voltage of 220V, and this is the situation we have here.

However, if the motor was connected in a star configuration you now don’t have a single winding directly connected between the phases, so to be able to generate 220V across each of the coils, it would now require the 380V phase-phase voltage as you said before.

So, yes, in this case, the motor is designed to be able to run in two different configurations, with two different phase-phase voltages, but both providing 220V across each winding at full speed.

As above, definitely a 2-pole machine.

You said earlier that when you were running the motor without load, it was going faster than you thought it should be, is this still the case when you change the pole number setting to 2?

How are you setting the speed you want? Is it by setting an RPM figure, or Hz?

To me it sounds like one of the inverter parameters isn’t set correctly, and that you are trying to run with too low a voltage for a given speed.

Just checking here, if you run the motor unloaded, what does the inverter say it’s output voltage is at full speed? And then at half speed? (It’s probably best to run this without any intermediate boost etc)

With the two voltages, the first, full speed one, should be double the voltage of the second.

Cheekyboy – the 220/380 means that it can be set up as either a 220V delta wired motor, or a 380V star wired motor. In both of these circumstances you end up with 220V being placed across each coil, because as you rightly pointed out for a star connected system running at 380V gives 220V phase to neutral, which is what the star point is.

Jamie..

Can you post the name plate numbers? From those it should be possible to work out what pole number the machine is.

From what you are saying, it does sound like it could be a 2-pole machine, and not a 4 pole.

Looking at the ebay page it’s definitely a 220V line-line output voltage and not a 415V, so do make sure that is the kind of motor that you have, otherwise you are going to be in trouble getting it to run at the full rated speed.

Now, talking of the motor, do you have the name plate ratings? And is there anywhere in the inverter settings pages where you can enter these values? Most importantly, the rated voltage and rated speed, and also likely to be the pole number of the motor if you want any idea of how fast you are actually trying to spin the motor!

My guess is that same as a couple of folks above, that the voltage/frequency settings are wrong, and so it’s trying to run the motor with too little voltage for a given speed.

Esme… hehehe, I did wonder if you’d work that out before I had a chance to respond!

Mrs Mouse.. that’s our plan too, am sure Liz will coordinate with you and meet you there.

Excellent… looks like a plan is forming for the boys on the Sunday, so nbt can you put me down for a bimble too…

Any thoughts on a route yet?

Thanks for the get well soon… Oh how I wish this gas WAS ‘the gentle sound of a unicorn giggling’…unfortunately they pump up your abdominal cavity with it and it just has to sort of disperse into your body. The temptation to stab yourself and fly around the room like a punctured balloon is great.
However, good to good to know that if I do feel the need to ‘giggle’ on the ride I shall be in non judgemental company :)
(Mrs Funky)

I’m Mrs Funky Nick….*looks shy* Can I come on the Sunday please? I’ve been out of action on my bike for a while with a bit of a pants spell of fybromyalgia – happily things are starting to look up now but am far from fit. I’m also typing this whilst making the most unladylike, but quite funny groaning noises as I had a laparoscopy on Tuesday (broken innards) and the gas is being a bugger.

Now, I’d obviously prefer to buy induction, but that does open up a whole new raft of problems… so ideally something modern and cheap which cooked well… I think I might be asking the impossible here!

Interesting that at least some of the induction hobs do this too… I wonder if it’s just down to price on these, and that it will be the same with the ceramic types as well.

Or whether, with the way ceramic hobs work, they just don’t like being run in the way we’d like…

As above, to do it properly will most likely involve a sparky…

Or, if it doesn’t need to be permanently connected and as you already have an outside socket, can’t you just run a extension out whenever you need it?

I had a very similar call about 20 years ago, just after I had finished my finals at uni… I can remember just how devastating that feeling was, wondering how it could have happened, and at that point it hadn’t even come into my head that one of my parents might die… he was my Dad, this shouldn’t happen to him! Besides wasn’t he invincible???

To some extent we should have expected it, my Dad had been treated for high cholesterol and blood pressure for a while, but it still came as a massive shock when I was told that he had a heart attack, as he was fit and well at the time. He also had to be shocked numerous times while in A&E.

I remember wanting to immediately go to see him, but at that point he was out of immediate danger and I would have just got in the way in the ICU. Also, I think I would have just been going for my sake at that point, he knew I was thinking of him and I used to speak to my Mum daily and after discussing it with her we both decided it was more important to be there to support them both when he got home.

My Dad didn’t get the bypass operation at that point, he recovered from the heart attack pretty well, but wasn’t the same, used to get out of breath far more quickly than he used to. It wasn’t until around 2000 that he had a quadruple bypass, and that seemed to give him a new lease of life.

In your case, it will initially be hard for your Dad to come to terms with the fact that, even after his bypass, he’ll likely not be as fit as he was before… my Dad used to get frustrated about not being able to do some things, and it takes a relatively long time to recover from the surgery as well, for example he’ll not be able to lift anything more than a kettle of water for a good length of time, while his chest heals. So I’d suggest that your brother is right, this is the time when both your parents will need you the most. Also, it shouldn’t be too long before he’ll be able to take phone calls and the like… I remember chatting to Dad a number of times as he recovered from his bypass surgery.

Now he is in hospital the immediate danger has passed, in the coronary ICU he’ll in good hands and being looked after well.. my Dad couldn’t praise the doctors and nurses who looked after him enough… although I think they were relieved when he left due to his love of appalling jokes!

Anyway, sorry for rambling on a bit, I guess what I have been trying to say it this…

Your Dad should now be out of immediate danger and he’s probably being looked after by some of the best doctors and nurses around… he’ll take a little while to recover and get his fitness back… but the main thing is that he’s likely to be around for a good number of years to come…

misterfrostie… I saw those while looking for implements, however I need to dig the holes about a metre deep, and not sure those spades do that so well.

siwhite… Neither, it won’t really fit round all the trees to get to the places we are putting the posts, as the fence is inside the woods. We are fencing off an area of land for some pigs within a larger area of woodland.

Unfortunately we don’t own the woods, just have permission to put up the fence and graze the pigs, so need to try to cause as little damage as possible.

As for putting the posts in… hopefully we’ll have some help for most of it… *fingers crossed* but will remember the tip about the post knocker, cheers.

Saying that they don’t make them like this any more, I was looking for some bits earlier and came across a company called Carters[/url] up in Huddersfield who still make tools the proper way, and make ash handles for tools as well.

So, if you are after new bits it would be worth giving them a call.

I’ve just been having a search about what other tools I’ll need to get now…

I think I’ll probably go for one of those hinged post hole shovels, and then a chisel ended digging bar to at least attempt to get through some of the roots!

I’m also thinking a post knocker for the line posts as well… there is no way I want to be having to dig all those holes as well!

The really annoying thing is the local farmer offered to put them all in with his tractor powered post knockcer… but the tractor won’t get in the woods!! *grumble grumble*

It’s amazing what topics come up on here…

I’m going to be fencing off about an acre of woodland in the next month or so, and was planning on hiring one of these borers to use for the straining posts.

But having seen the responses on here it looks like I’ll be digging them all by hand now!

What fun!

Anni… but your dogs just take after you, so are Petplan mad? Have they not heard? ;o)

I was quite surprised how much of the dent I got out just using my cobbled together ones!!

Was quite satisfying when I started to clamp it up and I heard the dent pop out a little.

The first attempt wasn’t quite as successfull though, I’d cut the blocks with the grain going the wrong way which meant that as I clamped everything up, the blocks just split and almost ended up dropping the frame onto the edge of the bottom of the vice! Oops.

I think we are with More Than for Pete, our collie cross, we’ve been with them for ages now as we are stuck with them as he has an existing condition, so it’s certainly worth choosing carefully!

I think our premiums are about £70 a month, but then Pete is going to be 13 in a few months time and is currently on meds which are about £70 a month… plus he’s just had scans and the like which all add up. But overall, I think we have paid way more in premiums than we have ever claimed.

But for the next one, similar to 2unfit above, we are going to take out insurance for only the first couple of years when it’s usually pretty cheap, while paying the rest of what we pay now into a self-insurance account. Then after a couple of years just self insure.

Totally fixable… although you may end up with a small dent still there, which can easily be filled.

Around new year someone pointed out that my Roadrat had a dent very similar to that on the top tube, in fact maybe a little worse. I’d not seen the dent before, but can only guess it happened when the bike fell against something, no idea when though.

Anyway, after a little searching I found that dents like that can be repaired using a tube rolling technique. Essentially you clamp two pieces of wood or metal, which are the exact diameter of the tube, around the tube using a vice. Then tighten the vice a little, rotating the frame in the clamps, then tighten some more, rotate, tighten, rotate, until everything is clamped up tight.

What it does is put pressure on the high points of the dent, pressing them in, which in turn forces the dent to pop back out again. Unforunately it doesn’t fully pop back out, but it comes most of the way. The other issue is that it takes a lot of paint off… which I ended up just cleaning up with some emory cloth and painting with some old car paint I had laying about… it’s a scrappy looking job, but it’s just my commuter. But nothing to stop you sanding the area down nicely, filling the remaining dent, cleaning it all up an then getting it repainted properly.

As for the clamping blocks, I made mine out of the hard wood I had kicking about, cut that in half and then bought a forstner bit for the drill to make a exact 28.6mm hole in the middle of the pair. You can also buy the blocks, which are pretty cheap over in the States, but seem to be like rocking horse poo over here unforunately.