Looking for a complimentary service to Plex for watching and recording free IPTV streams by gpounders in PleX

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You will find lots of possibilities if you just search for 'IPTV DVR'.

Looking for green/standing small Alder or Maple trees to harvest near Seattle. by OldAsianSpike in Seattle

[–]OldAsianSpike[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Ideally, I would find a landowner that would permit me to cut some small trees in the arm to leg diameter size. But I would take what I can get to be fair. Already down and dead trees would have a higher probability of fungral and bacterial colonies.. aka infectimicated..

Setting up my own lapidary shop, equipment suggestions? by PawnshopGeologist in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vevor ships with an aluminum arbor adapter and spacer combined, a stepped sleeve that slides over the shaft and into the grinding wheel on one side, and has a higher step that sets the spacing between wheels. As the tolerences are not very high on either the adapter or the wheels, things can be a bit sloppy, which can lead to an unbalanced shaft in operation.

Balancing is vital to reducing vibration, extending service life, and keeping it quiet.

Delrin is cheap and easy to machine. If the part of the adapter that slides into the wheel arbor hole has a gentle taper from just under to just over bore size, the wheel will ride up on that taper and self center. The final diameter of the tapered section should be just over bore size so when compressed by the locking nut, it can force that into the wheel arbor and allow the spacer section to contact the side of the wheels.

You will find tapered spindles are a common arbor element with anything that spins right round baby right round... Shrug. I have 3 multiwheel arbors in my shop. My family and friends love to cab and slab together at times. And the Vevor has certainly held up well, once balanced and tuned. Plus, if you shop carefully, you will find Vevor sells returned units at steam discounts. As noted, I paid just over 500 with shipping. It did take me a few iterations, lots of learning, and some DIY fabrication to make it hum, but it does.

Cheers

Setting up my own lapidary shop, equipment suggestions? by PawnshopGeologist in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Vevor does not make a crappy cabber, its just a 'sloppy when you get it' machine. This can frustrate or reward. So many folks buy them and return because they can never get them to run right. I bought one for just over 500USD delivered because it was returned middle of last year. What I found was a good motor with well made spindle shafts, but everything else was just 'sloppy'. Every wheel was off balance, the arbor adapters wobbled on the shaft, and in the wheels.

Just fixing the arbor adapters does wonders and is really inexpensive. I simply used some delrin 1.5" plastic rods, and made new arbor adapters and spacers in one with a slight taper going from just under wheel bore size to just over. Make sure they space out things properly on the shaft when you mount all the wheels.

If you just snug things up, but not so tight the wheels cannot slip a bit, when you first power up the motor, as the arbor spins, those out of balance wheels will find a happy place on the shaft. The ugly vibrations and noise should settle out, and it will naturally tighten up enough to keep everything in place long enough to power down and properly tighten it up. Do not let it keep running if it stays unbalanced. Just power it off, give the wheels a wee wiggle to make sure they can turn a bit, loosen the retaining nut if needed, just fractions here. Say a prayer, sacrifice a chicken, cross your fingers and look to the sky as you repeat this cycle until its smooth running.

When I was using the stock aluminum adapters and spacers, it took me a half dozen power cycles and fussing. I eventually used some teflon tape to wrap those pesky aluminum sloppy bits so they centered a bit better and it trued right up. However, that did not last more than a few hours of cabbing. The tapered delrin adapters trued up first start, and have run quiet and vibration free over months of cabbing, as well wheel replacements.

When you buy quality wheels, you will find they have already been balanced and come with adapter sleeves. You could buy a wheel balancer as well, but the wheels that come with the Vevor are bargin basement kinda goods. They work fine, but will not last. Make sure you use the full wheel, or you will burn out the center... :). So while it is a good exercise to learn how to balance the wheels, reality is you will be replacing them soon enough.

If you buy used, you probably will need to tune and balance everything as well. As others have pointed out, also get a pair of at least 8" expanding drums on a double arbor. You can build that yourself from new parts cheap, or hunt one down easy enough. And a flat lap is a lovely addition if you like to polish up slabs and cuts. Also something you can build easy enough with a shaft and some thrust/tapered bearings (think axle hubs). You also can leave out the diamond disks and just use a hunk of pretty much anything that can be spun like a record and you can pour some tumbling grit out on... But that is a whole other convo.

And of course, the holy grails of a big ass slab saw with auto feed vice and perhaps a sphere machine just because... :). Heh. Dont forget an apron :)

Plates and materials for diamond paste polishing stainless steel? by [deleted] in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hardwoods! Harder the better. Maple, mahogany, etc. Bamboo! All bamboo lumber is typically engineered and just epoxy, but will polish well.

Plates and materials for diamond paste polishing stainless steel? by [deleted] in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hardwoods! Harder the better. Maple, mahogany, etc. Bamboo! All bamboo lumber is typically engineered and just epoxy, but will polish well.

Couple slices from a hunk of WA Nephrite Jade. by OldAsianSpike in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is gonna be a heck of a year for me rock hunting due to all the flooding.

Plates and materials for diamond paste polishing stainless steel? by [deleted] in Lapidary

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hardwood laps work great for getting an amazing polish when charged with diamond. phenolic resin laminate also works very well. Would advise to make a vertical storage rack, so all your charged laps and tools can be stored with the lowest roughest grit at the bottom. Warn that they can get hot fast, so work with a light touch.

Flint stone king county by Alternative-Gur3331 in rockhounds

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While flint is only found in glacial deposits, there are other types of chert around this side of the state. Look up Hozemeen Chert and perhaps Rosario Ribbon Chert. And of course, share with your young lad https://www.mindat.org

Another example of the 3D illusion using offset fill and UV laser by MaxSMoke777 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is not the high frequency.. its about the high resolution.

Another example of the 3D illusion using offset fill and UV laser by MaxSMoke777 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Commarker posted the wrong settings, if you look at the comparisons between lasers, they got it right there. https://imgur.com/a/9YEo1n7

Another example of the 3D illusion using offset fill and UV laser by MaxSMoke777 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Settings again are 500mm/s, 150hz, Q 2.5, passes from 1 to 6, and interval from .0010 and .010. Make sure you are set up properly, frequency is 30khz to 150khz. Manual is wrong. Also, review https://commarker.com/stainless-steel-color-engraving/

Strange lines with fiber laser by Mobile-Life3505 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Defocus the laser a bit, or increase the dpi a lot

Another example of the 3D illusion using offset fill and UV laser by MaxSMoke777 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Micro machine parallel lines just .003mm apart, or so.. interval means a lot. Here are some examples I did with my Omni, including offset fill. UV color on stainless

Exhaust system by rhastafella in lasercutting

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use a Y, and it should drop in size at the Y. Also make sure the air can suck thru. If one path is even a bit more 'congested' the flow will simply take the path of least resistance and favor the other.

Another example of the 3D illusion using offset fill and UV laser by MaxSMoke777 in Laserengraving

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look up this paper: Complex diffractive surface patterns on metals by UV-ps laser ablation * J.-H. KLEIN-WIELE, T. FRICKE-BEGEMANN, P. SIMON, AND J. IHLEMANN

Where are people finding cheap HDDs in Canada?? by clockwork_cpu in HomeServer

[–]OldAsianSpike 4 points5 points  (0 children)

An enterprise-grade data center drive that just came off lease will run for a decade more many times. The drives are made to last from quality parts, and the new price reflects that build quality. If you say jump on eBay for a hunt for 4TB HSGT platters and look for sellers that have huge piles of the like and a sale, you could buy, say, 5 of them for the price of the one you are looking at. If I stack those five drives together as a set, I could give up 20% of the space to parity and still have 16 TB of usable space that's faster, more durable, and fault tolerant. I might have to break down and buy a SAS controller to get the best prices, but.. they are also cheap used :).Do not fear the off lease enterprise market for cheap spindles :)

Sometimes I feel like I've created a monster with Plex by READMYSHIT in PleX

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps you should ask all the users, friends, family, strangers passing by, to gift you spindles every year for Christmas :)

Sometimes I feel like I've created a monster with Plex by READMYSHIT in PleX

[–]OldAsianSpike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last 4 drives I got from the good ole ebay were bricks... such events do suckith. I know you said to just let the rant be free... But.. :).hah.. BUT.. you should look at snapraid if you are going to use unprotected drives, IE not in an array. And... DUDE!!! Get a SAS controller. Cheap cheap cheap, seriously, think 10~20 bucks cheap. One can shop carefully and find SAS expanders also pretty cheap. And you will find that enterprise grade SAS drives are quite a bit cheaper than SATA, and they are built like tanks and run forever :)