Tech Spam thread - because 1/4" BSP gets 5 hand spans to the jiggawatt

[GARDRB]

So I have a tacho dash for my ke70 but it only has three warning lights on it, battery, handbrake and oil pressure. It’s got three more spaces for lights on the back of it next to those three, but the flexible plastic circuit board is insulated over the pads for the bulbs.

Whats the best way to remove this green insulation they these flexible dashboard PCBs from the 80s have?

[smokin'joe]

10 hours ago, GARDRB said:

Whats the best way to remove this green insulation they these flexible dashboard PCBs from the 80s have?

scrape it with craft-knife/razor blade or careful abrasion

[h4nd]

Fuck I hate Jaycar's so called search on their website.

I also hate their website, come to think of it.

This is how it uses my 37" 4k monitor:

each of those 10 non-answers is 145x195mm (over 28,000mm^2 each, for those of you following along at home), 

and so big that the lack of data on the screen gave me a vacuum migraine.

[NickJ]

2 hours ago, h4nd said:

Fuck I hate Jaycar's so called search on their website.

I also hate their website, come to think of it.

This is how it uses my 37" 4k monitor:

each of those 10 non-answers is 145x195mm (over 28,000mm^2 each, for those of you following along at home), 

and so big that the lack of data on the screen gave me a vacuum migraine.

Just link to the relevant aliexpress page would be an easy improvement

[h4nd]

You ask, and AliEpresstraliaopithecenes answers the call

https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005006151082726.html

 

[63Ragtop]

Anyone know how MIG welders work?

I've had this old thing many years, restored my car with it, the feed started getting dicky, would sometimes not work and progressively got worse until it didn't feed anymore.

I was about to get rid of it as I've got a TIG now, but came across a new feed unit so thought I'd hook it up and see if that fixes it.

Weird thing is the motor doesn't feed once it's completely installed so I assume it's earthing out on something? With just the motor wires connected it works perfectly.

Any thoughts?

[Bearded Baldy]

Mount it with cableties so it doesn't earth out, then update your life insurance policy?

Could also compare the ohmmeter readings between the earth cable mount and unit mounting screw holes on each motor, i suspect the old one will read no continuity, and the new one earths through itself.

But back to the original feed problem, was the motor itself jerky or just the wire feeding out the handpiece? Last handpiece at work had a dodgy liner after 20years and was being a right prick at random times, till we noticed that it only had feeding issues if the cabling was anything but dead straight.

[RXFORD]

4 hours ago, 63Ragtop said:

Anyone know how MIG welders work?

I've had this old thing many years, restored my car with it, the feed started getting dicky, would sometimes not work and progressively got worse until it didn't feed anymore.

I was about to get rid of it as I've got a TIG now, but came across a new feed unit so thought I'd hook it up and see if that fixes it.

Weird thing is the motor doesn't feed once it's completely installed so I assume it's earthing out on something? With just the motor wires connected it works perfectly.

Any thoughts?

Try swap the pos and neg cables over to work in Dcep instead of electrode neg like it is.

[mjrstar]

Is the tension of the hold down screws jamming it up? Maybe try backing the screws off just a little and see if it fires into life.

[smokin'joe]

was the old feed actually dead, or is there damage to the feed switching wires to the handpiece ?

[63Ragtop]

Yeah it's a Weird one, and I am definitely not an expert on electronics and definitely do not want to die!

I should have said, the liner was replaced awhile ago, and I've been testing it with no wire loaded and the tension open, works perfectly when it's just the two small power connectors for the drive motor but as so as it's mounted, no go!?

And I think the old unit still works as well.

I should get a few bucks for it at the scrapper, fucker weighs a ton!

Edit: just had another play, old unit works for a moment when trigger is pulled, new unit does not, just click from the welder.

Tested both with some 12v power, both work perfectly so I guess it's something in the welder fucking up? 

 

[h4nd]

 

The Psychotic Network Ferret@nuintari@bsd.cafe

Windows 11 installer:

Get to the account creation, step.
Press SHIFT + F10 to get a command prompt.
Enter: start ms-cxh:localonly
Create a local user instead of a fucking Microsoft account.

You're welcome

Fuck you Microsoft

[tortron]

Also, always chose the professional version, I don't think you can do it on the home version(or maybe it was some additional bullshit) 

[h4nd]

[ajg193]

On 19/04/2025 at 13:03, 63Ragtop said:

Yeah it's a Weird one, and I am definitely not an expert on electronics and definitely do not want to die!

I should have said, the liner was replaced awhile ago, and I've been testing it with no wire loaded and the tension open, works perfectly when it's just the two small power connectors for the drive motor but as so as it's mounted, no go!?

And I think the old unit still works as well.

I should get a few bucks for it at the scrapper, fucker weighs a ton!

Edit: just had another play, old unit works for a moment when trigger is pulled, new unit does not, just click from the welder.

Tested both with some 12v power, both work perfectly so I guess it's something in the welder fucking up? 

 

The thing that caught me out once was my roller has two grooves, one for small wire and another for big wire.

I was running big groove with small wife for ages and always got frustrated with it being intermittently crap. Flipping roller over fixed it

[rusty360]

Anyone know were I can get a 7inch round sealed headlight with a little clear circle in the back for the park light blub?

[tortron]

20 minutes ago, rusty360 said:

Anyone know were I can get a 7inch round sealed headlight with a little clear circle in the back for the park light blub?

rare spares part HLA1008A

but why not semisealed?

[rusty360]

7 hours ago, tortron said:

rare spares part HLA1008A

but why not semisealed?

Awesome I'll take a looky. 

Semisealed? Is this with like a changeable h4 blub in it?

I did price a narva semisealed kit $309 bucks!

[Doug Hill]

I got semi sealed for my mx5 for $70 a pair off trademe 

[tortron]

yeah semi sealed are.the ones that take usually a h4 bulb. look around, can do much better than 300. Butlers has them for about 120 a pair (upwards if you want fancier ones). The ones with a park bulb spot are probably more common than without now days. plus it looks like you can get flat or domed now, for a while there it was hard to get a nice domed one for morries