I think my nugget would be too solid to have been removed like that – it’s a true composite of high density wax with a substrate of hair to give additional tensile strength :D

I like the huge range of colours and consistencies from that vid though, fascinating :)

Cheers, Rich

Zed,

Nice mill, the ironic thing about my purchase, is that a 2nd hand Bridgeport wouldn’t have been much more expensive, given the number of small engineering shops going out of business, but I don’t have the space for a proper bit of kit :(

Shed will be pretty full of kit once I’m fully sorted, with simple injection moulding equipment too, so the key will be keeping tidy!

My mill will be primarily used for making injection moulding moulds, but will inevitably utilised for making lots of bike parts too I’m sure :D

Oh, I’m delighted to hear about the banana compatibility :)

Cheers, Rich

I hang my head in shame, yes, I have a BMW, in fact, 2, one with 4 wheels, and another with 2 – I know I should be ashamed of this :(

In my defence, the car only cost me £200, and goes really nicely. I try and confuse other road users with occasional indicator usage, clearly something which they don’t expect from such vehicles.

theflatboy – do you have to buy EU certified bananas with a particular bend radius for them to be compatible with your banana transportation device?

Cheers, Rich

CFH, we don’t need to see what you like to put up your bottom :)

Baldy, same words from my sister, a surgeon, regarding ears and elbows. I’ll clearly have to send her a picture too, or maybe just a link to this thread.

Not sure I’d be able to use a spoon to remove wax, but I’ll bear it in mind for sure.

I have been spending a lot of time in my shed recently, making battery holders, but I wouldn’t quite class myself as a hermit yet though :)

Cheers, Rich

Sandwich, although I may eventually get enough for an aromatic candle, I suspect the aroma wouldn’t be particularly pleasant :lol:

Pictures of dumps will not be forthcoming, this was an unexpected treasure to be removed from a lug-hole, and I thought that it’d be selfish not to share with the STW massive :-)

I do reserve the right to share any future freaky bodily excretions though :P

Cheers, Rich

I went to High Wycombe to pick up my new milling machine :)

Very excited to get it up and running in the shed!

Cheers, Rich

I spent a happy couple of years in Guildford, then Dorking, currently in Farnham.

Rented a house in Park Barn, and despite it’s reputation, never had a slightest bit of bother, neighbours all very friendly, never had any cars broken into etc. As others have said, traffic can be bad at times, I was nearly always on 2 wheels, either with or without an engine, so wasn’t a problem.

Dorking is a lovely spot, fantastic for the North Downs, but not great if you enjoy night life, as everywhere shuts pretty early. We actually saw more trouble in Dorking than Guildford, but we were right next to a bit of a rough pub. Head for the Hills and CycleWorks have both been great to me over the years – being right opposite HftH last year was awesome :)

Cheers, Rich

roper – I aught to now, any suggestions?

I was rather upset that a 5A fuse was the most appropriate thing in my desk drawer to use for scale, it was either that or a scalpel blade, maybe that would have had more comedy value :)

Actually, I have an old 50p piece, but that would just make my ear morsel look smaller than it really is!

Cheers, Rich

Don’t think I’ve tried any of my bikes before buying them, fortunately I haven’t had any nasty shocks, although I was expecting my OCLV road frame to be more comfortable than it is, but it was a gift from a mate, so I’m not complaining :)

Cheers, Rich

Me and mine*

*might not be me on the left :-)

Cheers, Rich

You do pay a premium, but they are really nicely made and designed products, even down to the power plugs etc.

Bought one for the missus, and even though neither of us know all of the mac ins and outs, it’s been excellent. Discovered 2 finger scrolling the other day!

You can run windows on them too these days, either natively via boot camp, or in a window (VM Ware being one example), so if you have specific windows software that you need to use, you still can.

Cheers, Rich

Whenever I’ve done a paypal refund I’ve assumed it’s been instant into the recipients account. Obviously it takes a few days for any paypal funds to reach your bank account when you withdraw them.

Could it be that the money has gone directly to your bank account via paypal, but is currently in the ether so to speak?

4 working days seems to be the norm for me for withdrawing funds.

Cheers, Rich

CSB,

If you buy a 2.5″ external drive (laptop computer type), they are generally powered from the USB port, so don’t need any additional power supply. The 3.5″ ones (desktop computer type) are bigger and normally need an additional power supply.

They are however generally larger capacity for a given price.

Assuming your photos are high quality, and in the region of 5Mb each, a 1Tb drive would store around 200,000 photos.

Cheers, Rich

Is anyone else thinking that if they were a female hedgehog, giving birth to walking conkers wouldn’t be at the top my my agenda, as it looks like a rather painful process 8O

Cheers, Rich

That chainring has plenty of life left in it – just turn it around and get some use out of the other side of the teeth :)

If you order from Wiggle, I’d heard that they sometimes send a box of chains by accident when you order one, thus making them 10% of the price, that’s what I call bargainous!

Or could it also be called theft :roll:

Cheers, Rich

I bought a Sony Bravia last year, and while it’s very easy to use, and the menu system is as good as you would expect from a Sony, the viewing angle isn’t great. Need to be pretty much viewing directly to avoid black looking like grey. Mine was the cheapest, so others might not suffer from this.

Cheers, Rich

Timbuk2 vote here, bought one when I was a courier many moons ago, and although it doesn’t get used that frequently these days, is certainly made to last.

I also have a Crumpler laptop bag, which is very well featured, so they get a good vote too.

Cheers, Rich

Gary,

I’d be happy to mod your torch for a small fee – drop me an email turboferret@gmail.com

Cheers, Rich

A P7 with an external battery pack and a proper mount really is fantastic value, and is really easy to do – see below for a mod I did for a mate.

Blatant plug alert :lol:

Battery packs and all other bits and pieces all available on my site

Cheers, Rich

Should have pointed out that this was a conferencing supplier that I’d never heard of up until that point!

I had a random amount for a web conferencing supplier appear on my Amex which was very confusing. Turned out it was actually using a card which had expired years ago too, so quite how it had gone through I’ve no idea.

Amex were good, and refunded me the amount very quickly though.

No other issues, touch wood.

I make the vast majority of my shopping online, and all my banking, and never had any problems.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Rich

Angeldust, I have been making battery holders to take 18650 cells, and have a complete P7 kit available, have a look here

Cheers, Rich

I have also heard that there is a great external pack system you can get for the P7 light :lol:

Give you about 5 hours run-time, and make the light a bit brighter, saving on any trailside faffing :)

Cheers Rich

This was the horribe monstrosity which I did thousands of miles on before buying a Langster really cheap

Flogged it on eGay for close on £200, even though I said very clearly that it had been crashed heavily, and had a kinked down-tube to prove it :)

Cheers, Rich

Clearly my link in the original post was rather too subtle :)

I’m offering 6 flavours for the kit to suit all needs and budgets

Quad Twin Premium 1S4P 3.7v quad holder, 2 x dummy cells, 2 x plugged cables, grommets + pouch £42

Quad Twin Budget 1S4P 3.7v quad holder, 2 x dummy cells, 2 x cables, grommets + pouch £33

Quad Premium 1S4P 3.7v quad holder, dummy cell, plugged cable, grommet + pouch £30

Quad Budget 1S4P 3.7v quad holder, dummy cell, cable, grommet + pouch £25

Twin Premium 1S2P 3.7v twin holder, dummy cell, plugged cable, grommet + pouch £28.50

Twin Budget 1S2P 3.7v twin holder, dummy cell, cable, grommet + pouch £23.50

Thanks to Leeroybrown for his linky :)

Cheers, Rich

If you have a drill and tap, then this is perfect, and excellent value

Unscrew and discard the double mount bit, and just use the M4 screw to go into a tapped hole in the torch body.

I’ll be buying a job lot, and offering a modification service for P7’s soon.

Cheers, Rich

Right, quick update on a few products :)

Triple holders are pretty much ready to rock and roll, couple of pics below (click to embiggen)

That’ll be in 11.1v and 3.7v flavours. This comes out of a 3 part mould, which takes a bit more cunningness than the other holders, which are all 2 part moulds. I need to make a jig to stop it compressing when you clamp the parts together, but it’s 95% there, available for purchase very soon.

On the dummy cell front, we have our first fully working prototype

This one is using circular copper ends, but the production items will most likely use a copper rivet as suggested by someone on MTBR

I cut a slot in a P7 to see how it’d work all assembled, and I reckon it’s a goer :D Several more shots below

There are pros and cons to cutting a slot up from the bottom, rather than drilling a hole in the side.

Pros being that it’s easier to get the cell in and out, getting the dummy cell stuck inside the battery tube would be a pain. Also, you can easily swap back to a single cell should you want, just be removing the 2 o-rings and sliding out the cable and dummy cell.

Cons are that the unit won’t be quite as well sealed, as even if you plug the grommet after removing the cable, there will still be a little exposed slot between the grommet and the tail cap.

All in all, I’m quite pleased, although I need to improve my dremmeling :D

Hopefully have rivets in a few days to assemble a few more hopefully finished items.

Cheers, Rich

Budgie, P7 is actually a type of LED emitter, or a Soul P7 to give it more of a full title. However, when used on here, it generally refers to the MTE P7 torch.

Good review here with links to Dealextreme for buying them.

Cheers, Rich

I am incredibly badly disciplined about storing of my Camelbak, so it’s always half full of gunk when I come to need it.

I empty the bladder, and pour a full kettle of boiling water into it, letting it run out of the hose.

Major potential for horrible burns, but works OK, what it doesn’t physically clean off, it’ll kill, and I’m still alive :)

Cheers, Rich

I cast the first 2nd gen quad holders last night, and I’m really happy with the result – they won’t require any finishing with a dremmel any more

Someone requested a photo with some scale, so here are a few more

The 2nd gen quads are the same length as the twins and singles, which are 2mm longer than the 1st gen quads, as the batteries were a rather tight fit initially.

Triple holders will be available very soon too – the mould is half done, and the 2nd attempt at the dummy cell is part-way there too, no more problems with mis-alignment of the 2 halves of the mould now

I’ll be making a complete kit suitable for the P7, consisting of a holder, pouch, dummy cell, cable and grommet for protecting the cable as it runs through the torch – I’ve got some cables on their way from Germany at the moment.

Cheers, Rich

Indeed, multiple 18605’s

Available in quad, twin and single cell variants, with neoprene pouches and soon to be in triples and dummy cells for simple P7 modification.

Turboferret

Cheers, Rich

Calm down children :lol:

Personally, I find that a ludicrously powerful light is sufficient to freak out the steamy window brigade, but maybe it’s different up in the big smoke :D

Actually, it’d be nice to get out on my bike rather than be soldering cables and casting holders into the small hours, but you can’t have it both ways!

Cheers Rich

seem to have lost the ability to write links properly :lol:

Rich

gymaint,

smudge is right, that is expensive for li-ions, dealextreme have batteries and chargers for a fraction of the price:

$7.79 charger
$6.75 pairs of 18650’s

Cheers, Rich

Turboferret

My dummy cell should be available soon to fit the P7, only requiring a cable and for you to drill a hole in the side of your torch.

Cheers, Rich

Turboferret

Simon, glad you’re happy with your holder 8)

As I’ve said, 2nd gen quads won’t be such a tight fit, as I think they’re overly tight currently, but overall finish will improve considerably.

Has been a steep learning curve, and has taken a little while to get there, but I’m very happy with my results now :-)

As I’ve said on my website, I think these are the only 18650 holders available on the web 8O

Orders so far have come from most corners of the world – UK, USA, Sweden, Canada, Bulgaria, Australia, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, and France :mrgreen:

Cheers, Rich

Regardless of how mouldy I look, if I’ve learned anything in the process, it’s that it’s worth spending longer getting a perfect mould, rather than cleaning up cast parts with a dremmel to remove imperfections due to air bubbles. I now have a fine coating of polyurethane shavings over everything in the garage from trimming 50 quad holders :lol:

Cheers, Rich

Might have made an assumption there :o

I think that tinsy has revealed himself as one of the essential parties involved in the project, without whom you’d all have to put up with dodgy cardboard patterned parts :lol:

The rapid prototyping for patterns gives superb results, assuming you can make your mould properly, which I think I can now :D

Cheers, Rich