What Did You Do Today (2016)

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Don't get me going on energy waste. All those cars going around with daylight lights on (all around the world). OK, I understand those on motor bikes, but on cars ?? I reckon electric / hybrid cars running on electric power are so quiet, they don't need lights, they need fog horns.
BobH

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I think they've proven that the lights do work on a public safety level by reducing accidents, as you're much more likely to see a passing car.

Michael W

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by KWIL on 19/07/2016 16:08:49:

Its nothing to do with safety, accurate billing or you knowing how much power you are using.

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For the benefit of this poor innocent, who inadvertently started this discussion [by mentioning an unfortunate safety-recall], could you please define "It" in your comment above.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Michael Walters on 19/07/2016 16:27:34:

I think they've proven that the lights do work on a public safety level by reducing accidents, as you're much more likely to see a passing car.

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Interestingly, Michael, there has been research that suggests that; in an environment where the use of DRL is the norm, an unlit vehicle becomes even less visible than it would ordinarily have been.

This would imply that the benefit of DRL is a self-fulfilling prophesy [rather like the imposition of 'bus lanes]

A little light reading <ouch> here.

MichaelG.

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

A fascinating day in the morning at P.E.E.M.S. workshop talking ME matters then to Elvington in the afternoon to see the top speed machines.

A very hot day with a slight crosswind The fast lady (264mph) was there with her 2016 machine after the 2015 machine was crashed.

Also the Italians were testing Gus Gus streamliner

**LINK**

[frank brownParticipant @frankbrown22225]

We have to differentiate between "smart meters" and "smart switches". Smart meters are a nonsense for saving electricity, if people can't be bothered to read the power consumption of the items plate when they buy the appliance, then I doubt I doubt if they are going to turn it off halfway through its cooking/washing/drying cycle.

The spare current transformers are cheap and useful. I use one to alter the fan run time on my electric shower.

Smart switches could be extremely useful, turning off under floor electric heat for peak loping in the winter. Just for a short period I hope.

Frank

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I rejected the smart meter, you can do this.

The safety recall is I believe something to do with the battery not being able to last as long as they thought so that is why it will be replaced.

Clive

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I have an electronic meter which is 3m or so away from the distribution unit. All a smart meter/switch could do is turn off all the power to my house. Fitting a new distribution unit would be a much more major undertaking as I've no doubt the regs will have changed in the 25 years since this one was fitted so it wouldn't be a straight swap. I already know when #2 son is having 40 minute showers with 8 kW blasting away. I've worked out a scheme with a timer to make it go cold after 10 minutes, but it needs a major rewire and all the wiring is buried in the wall. Just turning the power off shuts the water off as well, so not terribly good. I've thought of fitting a slot meter so he has to pay, but wife not impressed.

Edited By duncan webster on 19/07/2016 17:38:46

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 19/07/2016 17:27:46:

The safety recall is I believe something to do with the battery not being able to last as long as they thought so that is why it will be replaced.

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Clive,

The e-on safety recall is specific to the power supply [a standard 5v micro USB 'wall-wart'] … There have been [only a few] instances of the cover detaching when someone unplugged it fron the mains socket.

… A simple case of poor specification, and/or poor quality control.

They are only sending out new PSUs, not new display units.

MichaelG.

[john fletcher 1Participant @johnfletcher1]

Regarding the lawn mower which wouldn't run, could it be a two stroke engine. 50 or more years ago we had a lawn mower with a Villiers two stroke engine which wouldn't start. Dad replace the points and condenser. Now called a capacitor, as he though the spark was weak. He had the cylinder block re bored, still it wouldn't run. Some time later a friend called round and said is the silencer blocked and when dad removed the silencer it was almost solid. One kick and the engine fired up. It took a lot of ingenuity to remove all the carbon.John

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I think we need to understand what a smart meter is. My interpretation is that it is simply a remote way for the supplying company to monitor you energy (gas and/or electricity) usage and bill you accordingly. It saves the cost of having to have human meter readers and could, presumably, allow them to match your consumption to the appropriate tariff. It offers the possibility of having different tariffs for different times of day e.g. British Gas offering free electricity for one day at the weekend. The energy monitor is just a rather gimmicky by product of the technology.

As engineers, I would hope that we would welcome the development of new technologies rather than seeing a dark conspiracy behind every change. (although, even if you are paranoid, it still doesn't mean that THEY aren't out to get you )

Cheers,

Rod

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 19/07/2016 16:43:52:

Posted by Michael Walters on 19/07/2016 16:27:34:

I think they've proven that the lights do work on a public safety level by reducing accidents, as you're much more likely to see a passing car.

.

Interestingly, Michael, there has been research that suggests that; in an environment where the use of DRL is the norm, an unlit vehicle becomes even less visible than it would ordinarily have been.

This would imply that the benefit of DRL is a self-fulfilling prophesy [rather like the imposition of 'bus lanes]

A little light reading <ouch> here.

MichaelG.

Thanks,

By reading that short pamphlet produced by the Anti-DRL league, the question of DRL seems to have arisen chiefly in nordic countries, i would wager that the question ever arose at all because in those countries it gets much darker, it would therefore make sense that there should be DRL in those countries, however, if what you say is true then it seems less of a necessity in countries where daylight hours are longer and more forgiving.

Lets flip the question the other way and say "would removing lights on cars altogether increase accidents?" I'm sure the resounding answer would be yes because you can't see anything after dark(if you study the war period then we can see with the blackouts, that this experiment was put to the test). So there is clearly a benefit to better lighting, but the question is how much? Does this benefit increase exponentially, presumably, if the lights were so bright then you also can't see anything, that's why they tell you to not look at the sun.

So, it seems to me that their law is based on the flawed thinking of "more lights = less accidents". So therefore, we can ascertain that having the right amount of light is the sensible approach, and they ought to study what amount of light is acceptable for the human eye(and also at which level do things start to disappear) and regulate their law on that.

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 19/07/2016 18:26:52

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Michael Walters on 19/07/2016 18:18:03:

… having the right amount of light is the sensible approach …

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Right in one !!

Another example is cyclists: Years ago you couldn't see them at night, because the lamps were low output and used expensive batteries [so were only used when needs must] : Now, LED lights are super-bright and affordable, so they blind you instead.

MichaelG.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 19/07/2016 14:17:05:

How much juice does a smart meter consume.?

I doubt that the smart meter uses much more power than the electro mechanical type of watt hour meter, it is very difficult to measure something without consuming some of what you are trying to measure, with electronic measuring equipment it can have very high input impedance and Hall effect devices have very little effect on the source being measured so we might trade the losses from an old style meter for the load of the logging electronics and possibly maintain the status quo.

Mike

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Stripped the carb. off the lawnmower and spent some time checking things and suddenly noticed that the priming pump was blowing bubbles in the tank! Assumed a ball seat was stuck so being unable to dismantle further I just gave it a couple of hard knocks and put it back and 'Bingo'. Alls well now and I cut front and back in no time at all.

Thanks for all the ideas boys, all appreciated and focusses the mind a bit.

I will mention my lawnmower accident, my Bro. had a very nice powerful 4 wheel lawnmower and it's blades at the end were bent at right angles. I was cutting the lawn and went backwards and my calf caught against a step. I fell back pulling the mower with me and it went onto my left shoe, slicing through the toe cap and cutting across my big toe nail, the second blade sliced up the outside of my big toe! Six stitches on the cut but they left the toenail as it was.

A bit painful for a while until one day I looked at the cut and noticed a bit of bone sticking out, I pulled it out about the size of my little toenail. It had also chipped my big toe bone.

I never go backwards now with a lawn mower!

Clive

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

MichealG

FYI "It" is the roll out of so called smart meters.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by KWIL on 19/07/2016 21:15:18:

MichealG

FYI "It" is the roll out of so called smart meters.

.

Thanks …

MichaelG.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

I would appear that the power consumption of a smart meter is not wildly different from an electo-mech type, the smart type must consume no more than 4.6W and the old type may use arround 4W on full load.

Mike

[Four stroke FredParticipant @fourstrokefred]

As it's supposed to be cooler during the winter I try to do most of my castings for projects the next few months. Today's winter temperature was 26C , even saw a snake sun bathing in the fence ,so with the furnace going the workshop it was quite warm. I did manage to make a "hand" of pistons for my V8 using a double sided pattern and small sand cores made in the aluminium core box. I melted down some old pistons in the hope that my piston would inherit their characteristics. My piston will end up being 22mm dia.

George ( Bundaberg)

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I just thought it was an interesting question. I fully realize (as an electronics engineer) that measurement always changes the the thing you are measuring. My interest was how much of the power consumption was just overhead and not dependent on load. A lot of that is going to be in the power supply rather than the electronics.

Life gets really interesting when you start to consider failure rate and impact on supply. Lifetime of the product and environmental cost of production. The analog meters cannot lose logging history (unless you run them back which is illegal) and I cannot see power companies tolerating continued supply when the monitoring of consumption has failed.

I feel it is inevitable that an electronic solution will be required and even desired at some stage but with something like this you can so easily create more problems than you solve if the solution really is not up to the job. It may be in this case, I don't know.

regards Martin

[Richard MarksParticipant @richardmarks80868]

To learn how to cast pistons correctly you should watch the film The World's Fastest Indian,    very informative!

Edited By Richard Marks on 20/07/2016 09:49:49

[Four stroke FredParticipant @fourstrokefred]

I have seen the film and did see that Burt die cast his pistons but they were not 22 mm dia and needed 8 of them! Each man to his own.

George

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

'Smart Meters' were forced upon the residents of Vic, Australia a few years ago. The laws were 'manipulated' so that the consumer paid for the devices.

I chased the first installer (contractor) away as he had no protective measures in place for drilling holes in my meter box (which is lined with 1970's asbestos sheeting). I explained that this was for his protection, as well as mine and my neighbours.

Next installation was managed a few months later when I was absent from home. (I had received a few cranky letters from the power company (Owned in Singapore!) but just pointed them towards the relevant legislation and told them to Golf Foxtrot)).

Last year a WiFi reading device was installed so that my meter transmits data for a drive-by reading – so do all my neighbour's meters.

Being an inquisitive person I checked this out and discovered how simple it is to hack my 'Smart Meter' if I was so inclined.

Too much info, but here a few references for educational purposes:**LINK**

And also **LINK**

There are many other references available online.

* Danny M *

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Roadworks, in central Manchester … Just watched a guy pneumatic-drilling some concrete.

The drill was 'robotic' and he was controlling it with an oversized handset [same style as RC models]

MichaelG.

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Edited By Michael Gilligan on 20/07/2016 12:13:29

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

The big brother of that remote control digger is widely used in decommissioning nuclear plant. I've also seen them used inside kilns during relining when it was too hot to put men in. They have obvious health and safety benefits, even when you're stood right next to it, and not that expensive as they make a lot.

Go to http://www.brokk.com/applications

and select movie clips to see some applications

Edited By duncan webster on 20/07/2016 14:05:41

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