Posts

Posted on

Addis Thermopot and Derek Palmer

A convenient way to make a cuppa

This one is a bit of a curved ball story and won’t appeal to all readers …. but is worth recording.

In the 1970s my business was in its infancy. I was working from home trying to get things moving. One lunchtime we had a knock on the door and on answering it I was met with an individual saying “Hi I’m Derek and I am your Farnell Electronic Components rep and I’m taking you out to lunch”. So began a working and personal relationship with Derek Palmer and FEC that lasted many years.

Derek eventually resigned from FEC and began trading as Turnkey Manufacturing Ltd, a one man company specialising in sourcing electronic components, assemblies and services from the Far East. As a Company we continued to use Derek to source items for us.

In the course of his travels in the Far East Derek came across the Thermopot concept. This was a stored hot water boiler that gave ‘close to boiling water’ on tap for making hot drinks. Derek grasped the potential for such an item in the UK market. He began working with the overseas manufacturer to adopt the idea to meet the EU market standards. Very soon he and his wife Jan had a growing business selling the Turnkey version of the Thermopot.

The Thermopot was not perfect. It came in two versions, either a 3.5L or a 5L capacity. In theory it kept the water at a constant temperature of 98C but this was not always stable. The water tank had a sealed lid which stopped the water from de-oxygenating. It had dual heating elements, one for initial boiling and one for maintaining the temperature. An electronic controller managed all the functions.

Needless to say Derek persuaded us to buy one. Our initial cynicism abated and our kettle was soon relegated to the back of a cupboard.

The story now takes a sad turn. One morning in 2014 Derek woke up and went downstairs to make a drink where he collapsed and died. We regarded Derek as an honorary member of our Company such was the relationship he had with us. Everyone was shocked by the loss. I am sure the same feelings were expressed up and down the country in many other small companies that had come to know him.

Jan, Derek’s wife, sold the rights to the Thermopot to Addis who market a wide range of household wares. Over the course of time we have had one or two replacement Thermopots from Addis. It would be inappropriate to comment on their level of customer support other than to say that it is not on a par with how Derek believed customers should be looked after.

Last week our current Thermopot went AWOL. Out came the kettle to keep the cups of tea flowing. Rather than waiting for Addis to respond we decided to just buy a new one. We discovered two things. First of all it is cheaper to buy one on EBay direct from Addis rather than Amazon. Secondly the pictures on EBay of the front panel suggested that there was an updated version now being offered. This was confirmed when the delivery arrived. I have to report that so far the new version keeps the water temperature at a very stable 98C and our cups of tea are much the better for this. The pump that streams the water also has a higher water flow rate.

Being of an engineering mind I stripped down the broken one. It was quite basic on the electrical side. What surprised me was that there was no insulation material around the hot water vessel. This would have greatly improved its energy efficiency. Judging by the temperature of the case on the new delivery, there is unlikely to be insulation in the new model either. Perhaps something for Addis to consider in the next iteration ?

Sorry that wasn’t of much interest but at least Derek Palmer is now enshrined in internet lore. He was a lovely guy, keen sportsman and full of fun. He is very sadly missed by all who encountered him. Whenever we make a cup of tea we think of him.

Links to similar or related post are listed below : –

Posted on

Qidi I-Fast arrives and I am impressed

Decision made on the new 3D printer but it’s big

As per the previous post I have been debating long and hard about which new 3D printer to buy. Strangely enough my wife gave me a hard time about my indecision and told me to just to get on with it.

Qidi sell into the UK market via Amazon and having placed an order, a very large box arrived very quickly onto the doorstep. Very large. But also very well packaged with very good unpacking instructions. It did take the two of us to lift it into position on the bench. Which was the second problem – where to put it. The temporary position is on the side of my desk but this might change.

qidi i-fast printer squeezed onto my desk

The I-Fast has a dual extruder and you get both a high and a low temperature extruder head which are easily swapped out depending on the filament being used. Print size is huge being close to a 300mm (1 foot) cubic space. Two filament dry boxes are provided to keep moisture out of the filament (although I haven’t used these yet). Qidi provide a print slicer which looks a lot like Cura and so far seems fine to use. There was no problem in linking the export from Fusion 360 directly to the I-Fast.

I’ve run some test prints and find it fast and very quiet compared with my old Sindoh DP200 (which is currently sat sulking in the corner). More to follow as I get used to it.

Links to similar or related post are listed below : –

Posted on

November update

Mainly jobs in France and 3D printer choice plus thin wall printing

Sorry it has been quiet on my blog. We took a few weeks off in France. This should have been relaxing but things got in the way. Our elderly French neighbours seem to store up their ‘can you just have a look at’ jobs for when we arrive. This ranged from leaking coffee percolator, dead washing machine, DVD player not working etc. I don’t mind this because in return they keep on eye on the house for us. The only frustration is that I am not as well kitted out with repairing resources as I am here in the UK.

From our point of view the spa was coming up with two error messages – no flow and UV lamp needing changing. The flow problem was traced to the flow sensor. This I think might be a Hall Effect sensor that is tripped by a magnet on a thin metal strip that is bent towards the HED with the water flow. It could equally and more likely be as simple as a reed relay that is tripped by the magnet. I managed to source a replacement from a French source.

The UV lamp was not so straightforward to replace but I did question the validity of the message on the display. The UV bulb has a recommended life of 2 years. The software in the spa has a clock which we reset to current time and date when we turn the spar on for each visit. The UV bulb life is based on the clock count down. I am not sure whether it is recording the period from clock time to clock time or the actual running hours given our intermittent short period visits. I carefully checked that the bulb was still glowing brightly and then reset the countdown timer. I’ll take out a new bulb next visit.

There were various other distractions but the weather was amazing for October with one or two days reaching 30 degrees.

Arriving home I have landed a project that requires 3D printing items that need a Z height of over 200mm. The project also needs thin wall printing. My trusty but now dated Sindoh DP200 falls short on this. The Sindoh has been a loyal and reliable device giving me few problems and repeatable quality print results. The main frustration has been having to be single sourced on Sindoh PLA or ABS as their filament has to have the associated custom Sindoh personality chip. Later versions of the Sindoh range (1X and 2X) purport to allow third party filaments to be used.

This has led to some soul searching. I am now comfortable with the concepts involved with 3D printing and have felt for some time that an upgrade of printer was on the cards. My wish list clearly needed to include allowing 3rd party filaments and not just PLA and ABS. (Carbon fibre being very attractive). The list also included an increased build volume and possibly a dual nozzle.

Clough42 has had some recent videos focussed on the Qidi products, namely the I Fast and the X-CF. Qidi also have the X Max. All three of these printers have Z heights of 300mm. Pricing is not low but these are all enclosed printers. There are many other Qidi review videos on YouTube. Qidi seem to be hot on support which is good news. So I have a debate raging on whether to jump and which way. Here is my basic spreadsheet comparison chart which includes the Sindoh 2X as a possible contender. Sindoh might be moving away from their own models and working with more higher end products under their brand Fabweaver. There are some interesting technology articles on the Fabweaver blog.

I investigated the thin wall printing issue and came across a very interesting post by Wayne from SoarKraft. Wayne uses thin wall printing on his slope soaring glider models and he details how Cura and Prusa slicers (free downloads) have only relatively recently caught up on this whereas Simplify 3D (subscription) has had it as a facility for sometime. Wayne’s video is worth a watch. The Qidi printers like many other manufacturers use a variant of Cura. There is a very good support article on the Simplify 3D site that relates to thin wall printing.

My printer upgrade debate continues but the I Fast looks the most attractive. The only problem is it has a large physical envelope and I don’t have a plan where am I going to put it in the office/workshop……

Links to similar or related post are listed below : –

Posted on

BK3 Bandsaw Lazy Susan Turntable Update

Adding a Rotation Stop Pin

There is no doubt that adding the Lazy Susan rotating base to my BK3 Burgess Bandsaw has been a good move. Being able to adjust the orientation of the BK3 to suit the material being cut makes life so much easier.

The one issue that has come to light is when adding heavy pressure to the cut I was having to push the material with one hand while trying to stop the BK3 rotating with the other hand/arm/knee.

Following one such episode I have added a stop pin that locates into preset holes in the new wooden base. I used one of the four unused holes in the original BK3 baseplate as the pin locating point. These holes are 6.5mm diameter (probably 1/4″ originally). I could have used a 6.5mm rod pushed through one of these holes into the new wooden baseplate but the BK3 baseplate metal is only 2mm thick. This would probably have resulted in a sloppy hold. Instead I made a small boss and fastened this into the BK3 baseplate left rear hole. The boss clamps on the underside of the baseplate and is held in place with a M6 nut and washer. The 3.5mm through hole provides a rigid guide for the locking pin. The sketch for the boss is below.

The four original holes in my baseplate were a bit rough and the one I chose to use needed a deburr so the shoulder on the boss sat flush to the bottom side of the BK3 baseplate.

The new wooden baseplate needs to be removed from the Lazy Susan so the boss can be mounted in place. Once the boss is in place the Lazy Susan is refitted. A 3.5mm rod is lightly hammered into the wooden baseplate to mark the desired lock positions. The Lazy Susan is then removed again and the wooden base drilled through at the marked locking positions.

The locking pin is a length of 3.5mm silver steel (drill rod) bent at right angles with its ends nicely rounded. The rod is ~45mm on the locating length and ~25mm for the grabbing handle. Here is an image of the finished construction.

This simple modification works extremely well and with hindsight should have been in my thinking when I first fitted the Lazy Susan.

A full list of my BK3 modifications are here

Links to similar or related post are listed below : –

Posted on

Dewpoint Monitor Updated Arduino Code

Dewpoint Monitor Auto Reboot facility added

In November 2021 I detailed a Dew Point Monitor. This was aimed for workshop use so a heater or dehumidifier could be turned on automatically to help prevent rusting of assets.

This has been very successful but had one minor issue. If the sensor failed or became disconnected the Arduino would lock up on sensing the problem. Plugging the sensor back in would not re-boot the code. I have added an auto reboot on sensor fail detection.

I have also removed the code that flashed the display after a humidity detection as this seemed superfluous.

The revised write up which contains the code listing is attached on the following link :-

Humidity-Monitor-v2Download

Links to similar or related post are listed below : –

Proudly powered by WordPress
Verified by ExactMetrics