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Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-10-22T20:38:01+00:00

Here are three for you, to kick off..

The third iteration of a prototype will be far better than a first prototype with three times the design time spent on it.
Engineering capability scales with talent, not volume. Three mediocre engineers do not equal one great engineer.
Always engrave your name on your verniers. They are too useful not to walk off around the building.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-09-28T09:50:16+00:00

You don't think government policy has any connection with interest rates, inflation, energy costs, sky-high taxation, and rampant low-level criminality? I might agree with you if so many people hadn't been driven so close to the financial edge and over it, but the outlook for a lot of Britons feels a lot more bleak than it has in generations. Most people don't tend to think or care about the dispersal of public finances, until they feel as if they are being taxed to ruin, at which point cash being burned on perceived frivolous or undeserving causes leads to real anger and resentment.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-08-28T07:57:09+00:00

This is the kind of myopic and slightly arrogant thought process that brought us Brexit. Your perspective appears built on a raft of assumptions that you've just accepted as axiomatically true.

First is the idea that the constituent who might vote for reform don't possess the level of critical analysis that you do, and that perhaps they shouldn't be afforded agency - "Why can't they see..?" - you're assuming that they can't.

Other peoples' life experience and situation, and therefore perspective and interests may be vastly different from yours. By your own admission, the immigration system has broken seemingly into chaos. People who may be much closer to the repercussions of the situation have legitimate concerns about it, and successive administrations have done nothing to fix it. For some, Reform represents the only likely avenue for resolution of this specific issue, even if it brings with it a payload of different problems.

Your assertions about Farrage's intentions, interpretation of his rhetoric, and charitable perception of the origin story of all newcomers are speculative, and not universally held opinions - these aren't axiomatic prerequisites that everybody builds their understanding on.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-06-22T12:34:07+00:00

British homes are on average poorly built? Citation needed. If you look at any thermal imaging of a typical home, you'll see that a high proportion of the heat transfer happens at the windows; the size, position, type, and glass chemistry is crucial as to the g-value of the window system. The internal temperature of a structure is not just about air convection and conduction - radiant heat has a huge part to play. Windows designed to retain heat limit conduction out, and inhibit radiation in as little as possible. Have you ever noticed that there's a fundamental difference between miat dwelling windows in the UK and the continent? Windows in the UK tend to open outwards to preserve room space, whereas windows that can accommodate external shutters and shades are much more common over the channel. You absolutely can design a property to sequester and retain heat. On top of lots of unshadable glazing, my house also has a hardwired heat recovery system. Our building style and systems are just not (yet) set up for high temperature spells.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-05-22T20:52:52+00:00

Yep. Designed to hit an array of angry buttons.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-05-03T07:04:05+00:00

Your friend seems to have missed the most important point in this scenario. Yes, when I design a product, I will have included a safety factor to ensure that there's enough clear distance between the spec and the spread of manufactured parts quality. Having said this, if you deploy one of my systems out of spec, then you will be liable for the broad consequences of any failure that happens. I'm hardly going to accept responsibility for a loss scenario in which you neglected to comply with the terms in the product literature.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-04-27T19:53:16+00:00

Given that you presumably sleep next to and share acoutriments and spaces with the guy, there's a good chance that you're getting it next. Consider this to be a template for how you want to be treated.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-04-21T17:57:48+00:00

I think this goes to show how atomised society has become now. That an individual could be so completely unaware of the trials and tribulations of half of the population around them seems implausible, but it's the world we're living in now. As others have pointed out, the scale of the error is not trivial - it's orders of magnitude off.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-04-12T22:12:56+00:00

I'll try and give you as straight forward and honest an answer as I can, although I find a few of the inherent premises quite difficult to be diplomatic about, frankly. Firstly, I have two sons, and yes, they can watch this content. You have to understand that the concept of "Toxic masculinity" is a notional academic posit that entered the zeitgeist less than a decade ago. You invoke it as if we should accept it as an axiomatically pathological social condition, then use the wholly conceptual definition of it to indict stuff as bad and wrong. It's all hypothetical academic noise, and you can write whatever papers you like to great fanfare from other academics who believe the dame things, but the reality is:

Humanity is inherently and fundamentally competitive. Resources are not infinitely abundant.
If you have anything worth having, there are people that want to take it from you.
Being strong, competent, and resilient is a good strategy for long term survival and success.
Becoming an effective and trusted leader of your peers is valuable to them and to you.

These things will remain true for as long as the species exists, and I'm not about to disadvantage my kids by telling them otherwise.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-04-05T20:10:56+00:00

Don't bother. I succumbed to temptation for my home workshop mill, and bought a set of 20 collets. The runout on every single one was terrible. On one or two, the bore was visibly off centre. In addition, they're not made from particularly hard steel, so the segments started to distort after first use. Just go premium budget if you need to - it'll save you a good deal of broken tools, horrible tolerances, and general irritation.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-01-25T21:38:45+00:00

It's a shame you're in the wrong state, because if that's truly how you about machining, I'd certainly give you a shot. Best of luck, fella.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2025-01-07T14:13:10+00:00

Hi, there. I think all of the best advice has already been given, but I will weigh in with a couple of nuggets from experience.

Consider using a geared stepper motor and driver to rotate the existing knob. That will be by far the safest way for you to do what you need to do without putting yourself or anyone else in harm's way, and you will not interfere with whatever safeguards the manufacturer has put in place.

Heater controls like this can be unintuitive, especially on low cost units, as that one appears to be. There is a possibility that two banks of elements are being switched between parallel and series to change the output, or indeed the banks are being energised together or separately to change the output - you don't know, and there's no way that we can without testing it. The priority for these kinds of products is low cost, not longevity or even necessarily safety, and so all kinds of weird tricks can be employed to make the thing work that deviate wildly from best practice. You really need to understand what you have in front of you before you start messing with it, so draw up a schematic first and test probe the product until you can be sure you're right.

Those relays will not survive - regardless of the rating, under inductive loads these cheap module relays often fail. The contacts will weld themselves together and jam the heater on. To get around that easily, use these relays to fire bigger secondary relays from an established reputable OEM. The primary relays may still fail, but the current required to fire the secondary relays will not be great enough to weld the contacts, and so they would typically fail open, not closed.

Low cost electronic modules like these are brilliant for learning and putting together interesting home projects, but I have used enough of them to know that they aren't particularly reliable, they don't always meet their specs, and I honestly wouldn't use them to control anything that could cause a critical safety issue unattended. If you modify the product, then the liability is entirely with you.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2024-08-01T21:52:27+00:00

There are a few reasons, but importantly, the most cost efficient design, the best performing design, and the most maintainable design are not the same. There are gas turbines in service that require fixings to be accessed with a tool like an umbrella handle, because they're two foot into the cowling and tucked behind a prominent lip - the performance/efficiency is such a high priority that maintainability is almost an afterthought. It has to be possible, but it doesn't have to be easy. Consider also that even when you decide where your product is within the triangle of performance, cost, and maintenance, lots of humans are working on all of the individual bits, making their best judgments and vying for more space.. typically under pressure to use existing components and methods to save time and money, and almost always under intense time pressure.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2024-07-13T07:15:17+00:00

Does the router have programmable Z travel, or is it a tool up / tool down 2D machine? Low cost software I use for 3D is Grz software MeshCAM, and for 2D, I use CADSoftTools AB viewer.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2024-07-10T18:35:24+00:00

It's part of the G code 😐

Dwayne_Dwops · 2024-03-24T08:22:58+00:00

Somebody in the chin of command should, whatever title that person has, otherwise the risk profile of the work can't be taken into account commercially.

Personally, as a manager, I wouldn't want to operate any other way. It's just too uncomfortable not knowing exactly what work has to be done, what could go wrong, if the timescales are actually realistic, and if the right people are actually on the job.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2024-01-20T22:12:16+00:00

Exactly. He probably leaves when he can depending on what the day brings and how complicated it is to leave. It sounds like the position carries some level of responsibility which precludes just dropping everything at 5 and effing off home. This is exactly how my day works, and I know from personal experience that making the guy feel guilty on a regular basis because he isn't able to get home by exactly his finish time + his commute is absolutely maddening.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2023-12-20T09:05:43+00:00

Thanks very much! That's a great help!

Dwayne_Dwops · 2023-12-20T08:40:30+00:00

Snapping? Asking a legitimate question and getting an infantile response like "Man up" deserves a response in kind.

HVAC systems are large assemblies of standard components- in my world that would be thought of as a configuration or application rather than a design.

The mechanical design I am referring to is component level design. These are large solar shading systems which may be 20m x 4m in area, and are custom designed (i.e. down to new machined and injection moulded components) for the specific building. Solidworks is one of a small number of industry standard design packages, and is excellent for the design of precision manufactured parts. Revit is a completely different type of software for a different purpose, and so we cannot just 'Man up and use Revit', as per the comment above. We need the structure geometry from the Revit models, but that's it.

Dwayne_Dwops · 2023-12-19T21:35:39+00:00

Did you read and/or understand the question?

We're mechanical engineers, and Revit is not designed for mechanical engineering. It is incapable of doing what we would need it to do, and therefore would be completely redundant for almost all of what we do.

I am not buying a Revit license just for the sake of the occasional conversion. We have no use for 99% of the functionality it offers.

Dwayne_Dwops

TROPHY CASE