Martin Whybrow

Unlikely a bank you don't bank with would call you; if you want to be sure, go to Tesco Bank's website and find the number for enquiries and give them a call.

Posted by Matt Jones on 15/05/2017 21:48:08: Is there an option to vote for the UK to be a no fly zone for drones? If there were, are you planning on going abroad to fly?

Posted by Simon Chaddock on 04/05/2017 13:40:41: The only solution would be arrange that the sump and water inlet is completely sealed and air tight. That is the intention, the feed into the sump is at the very bottom to ensure it's covered all the time - I plan to lift the pump slightly to ensure it can't empty the sump to below the inlet level. I still need to work out a way to bleed the syphon tube and prime it, now thinking along the lines of putting a T piece at the highest point with a valve so that I can suck the air out of the syphon as necessary

The pump is submersible and is in a sump, so it's not drawing on the syphon line directly. Putting the pump directly in the pond is difficult due to the size of the pond making it difficult to reach the pump to pull it out for servicing. The arrangement works very well, at least until the pipe got air in it.

We have a garden pond with a filtration system; the pump is mounted in a sump adjacent to the pond (for ease of servicing) and the sump is fed by a syphon from the pond. The syphon pipe runs over the edge of the pond then back down to meet the bottom of the sump; I couldn't run a pipe directly from the pond into the sump underground for various reasons. The setup works fine until the syphon pickup gets clogged with leaves, then the sump level falls and sometimes allows air to enter the syphon; when this happens it's a nightmare trying to reprime the syphon as it airlocks at the highest point. Any suggestions as to how I can modify the setup to enable me to prime the syphon and break the airlock without having to resort to pumping water into the pickup?

Posted by Denis Watkins on 29/04/2017 21:45:18: Not a helicoil, which will leak as most of our motors are made of very soft material which cannot support the helicoil. I'm intrigued by your post Denis, if the original metal is strong enough to support the glowplug, why isn't it strong enough to support a helicoil insert? After all, the O/D of the insert is significantly larger than the original 1/4" thread, so there's more metal around it to support the insert than there was to support the original plug. In my industry, it's standard practice to fit helicoil type inserts into aluminium alloy at the manufacturing stage as it's recognised to give a much stronger thread than tapping the finished size directly into the parent metal.

Heard the sound of jets low and loud at about 17:15 this evening but didn't spot anything; 5 or 10 minutes later, heard them again and spotted two Typhoons flying together directly overhead, they then went into a right hand circuit and passed overhead again about 5 minutes later. They then passed over once more, but much slower this time then turned off to the east.

I would sand / file the slots, Permagrit make sanding tools for that very purpose.

Oh, we have forced through a load of S106 agreements, we should see around 0.1% of the developers profits ploughed back into the village! The developement will lead to a lot more traffic, all of it through our currently reasonably quiet cul-de-sac; the village cannot provide employment for the new people who would move in, so most people will end up commuting. As we only get 4 buses a day (2 each way) daily, people certainly won't be taking the bus to work!

To put this in perspective, our village has 1400 houses (2001); in the last 2 years, an estate of about 200 houses was built on brownfield land within the village; the parish council has agreed planning permission on another brownfield site in the village for circa 90 homes. So, in the space of just a few years, we've welcomed the development of a 25% increase in properties in the village. We're not nimbys, it's just this development is wrong on so many levels, even the county councils planning dept acknowledge it. We have a big group of campaigners who all submitted objections to each application, appeal and after each and every adjustment to the published plans (the county council made a complete hash of publicising the plans, so had to have 2 further attempts to get it right!) We've mad the regional papers and TV, so we can't be accused of sitting on our hands! Martin, I suspect I know which council you're talking about, they're notorious for planning developments over the border in neighbouring counties aren't they?

I suspect that's the case unfortunately, especially as they're located in the same city as our district council.

I should add that the appeal hearing date has still yet to be set, although I guess it will now be withdrawn

Our village has been the target of a hostile planning application by a massively rich landowner; they own a pice of arable land, located in the green belt, outside of the current village framework and adjoining a conservation area containing a number of grade II listed buildings. Their agents originally submitted an outline plan for 29 properties; there were a large number of objections and the planning committee threw the application out with a 12:0 vote, citing 5 seperate reasons for the refusal. The agent put in an appeal which for various reasons was delayed for 15 months after the original refusal. In the meantime, the agents submitted another outline plan, varying in only very minor details from the original. It also came to light that the agents had been submitting misleading street views with their plans. After much toing and froing, the council finally examined the new outline plan and accepted it 7:5; whilst they agreed that the planners had failed to address the original reasons for refusal, the 'desperate need' for housing in the wider area meant they were compelled to grant permission. What I'm trying to understand is why can a new plan with very minor changes be approved whilst an appeal is in progress for the original plan on the same piece of land; we were told that the cost of holding the appeal is very expensive for the council, so it made financial sense for them to approve the new plan; not sure how true that is. BUT, the only reason we're in this boat is that the council dragged out the appeal process to 15 months; had they dealt with it in the normal time frame, they would have had to go through the appeal process.

Good stuff; I was reading earlier today that they're attempting to use quantum computers to beat hackers. It's a shame that the Independent's science correspondent wasn't a little more knowledgeable about quantum computing though, it's not an atom that carries the quantum bit (qubit), it's a more elementary particle, e.g. an electron or a photon.

I have used Antex irons for the last 35+ years for electronics, so I bought an heavy duty Antex iron (80W I think)for doing these jobs; found it on Amazon for a very good price; I've been happy with it so far. One tip I would strongly recommend, avoid lead free solder and look for proper 60/40 leaded (plumbers) solder; for undercarriages I use plumber's activated flux, be careful as it's acidic and must be washed off thoroughly when the job is finished.

Perhaps Bellville washers would do the trick

Posted by Tom Sharp 2 on 24/01/2017 20:43:03: Magnetising the old steel blades will improve life This piqued my interest Tom; how does that work then?

You should look for diethyl ether

I saw a video on youtube where the poster couldn't get ether, instead he bought the Aussie version of easystart (can't post the name of the product as I'll get moderated!); it's basically a mixture of ether and light oils. He just emptied the spray can into a jug and used the liquid in place of ether in his fuel. Edited By Martin Whybrow on 08/01/2017 02:04:20

Just spotted this report, apparently confirmed as a 'drone' strike, although the pilots thought it was a bird strike. I'm wondering how the ground staff confirmed it as a drone strike (lack of blood and guts perhaps).

Try a bike spares place, particularly one dealing with 2 stroke motocross type bikes; when I was kart racing, some of us used to use fibreglass reeds in our kart engines (more forgiving when they break, metal ones tended to wreck the bore if ingested). They are the same material as fibreglass PCBs, just a lot thinner.

Posted by cymaz on 15/12/2016 20:02:29: Adrian, lack of phone number and address put me off buying from there. The website is a mess, agreed, but you can find the phone number if you go to the home page and scroll down, one of the photos is Mike's banner that he uses at the shows and it has his phone number on!

Posted by Gary Manuel on 14/12/2016 21:15:08: Anyone from CMACI on here with any local gossip? Why would anyone in Ontario be any the wiser about this?

The Wankels are indeed used on flying platforms that are not expected to come back, if you get my drift; in these cases, the high wear rate on the rotor seals isn't an issue!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for one moment going to believe this will ever become a reality and this is all a publicity raising stunt.