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31
The Water Cooler / ModelEngineMaker website down?
« Last post by vtsteam on February 28, 2026, 10:15:05 PM »
I've been unable to connect to the ModelEngineMaker forum for 2 days now. It had been reported under attack for about a day a couple days ago, but recovered. This time however, I haven't seen a return.

Ade if you see this -- any news about what's happening there?
32
CNC / Re: It's new to me
« Last post by ddmckee54 on February 28, 2026, 01:18:39 AM »
Well...  It's one step forward and two steps back time again.  I got the machine mostly disassembled, the Y rail extrusions have been removed, marked, drilled, and bolted back together into a single truss.  (Had to run out and get some longer bolts, the bolts I had were too short, or too long.)  I also added the grease zerks to the Y axis linear bearings, two straight zerks on the two top bearing blocks, and two 90 degree zerks on the bottom blocks to make greasing them easier. 

I had taken one of the X axis rails off and as long as I has the kit of zerks fittings out I figured that I'd add the zerks to those bearing blocks as well.  All of the set screws in the Y axis bearing blocks were black oxide, the set screws in the X axis blocks were SS.   I didn't pay too much attention to that at the time.  Not, until I discovered that the Allen wrench that fit the black oxide screws would not fit the SS screws - too big.  That's when I discovered that the black oxide screws were M6 - which I knew, but the SS screws were M5.  I ain't got no stinkin' M5 grease zerks, M6, M8, M10, 1/8" BSP, and 1/4" BSP I've got - but no M5's.  They are now on order.  The X rail that is out has been marked and drilled, tomorrow I'll remove the other rail and get it marked and drilled too.  I center punched the mounting hole location that was closest to the edge of the base, when I used a transfer punch to mark the other mounting hole in that rail it was about 10mm off from my layout.  I remember that when I added the mounting holes to the base, one of the mounting holes at the RH end of the machine was 10mm off - so I corrected it on the base.  I then made the 2D drawing of the base that I used to lay out the mounting hole locations on the base.  I think I moved the wrong hole in the model, so that's why the RH mounting hole locations were wrong.  Good thing I decided to do a sanity check before drilling the holes in the base.
33
Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:59:32 PM »
Yup I use Seamonkey, downloaded from Seamonkey/Mozilla as a tarball, and it is quite portable and self contained. It's a suite of browser, mail, and html authoring software -- actually the distant grandchild of Netscape.

I like it particularly because of the way all settings are granular and in the preferences menu -- old fashioned style. I pair that with NoScript and disallow scripts generally, allowing them only temporarily as needed on a particular webpage. You quickly learn which ones are needed and which ones are not.

Lately some sites have been making it difficult to use, (Cloudflare, for one) but I have workarounds for that, or just avoid those sites in general.
34
Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:48:51 PM »
Quote from: beeshed on February 24, 2026, 04:12:49 PM
Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.

Hi beeshed, thanks kindly!  :beer:

Yup still using FORTH. For me it's particularly well suited as a control language in an embedded system -- which is how it started out, controlling radio telescopes. Invented by Charles Moore. As far as I know, I'm not the only one still using it:

https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/

But if I am, I'm glad to be keeping it alive!  :lol:

My mind just works that way for programming. I like the fact that FORTH let's you make up your own language, and I like the fact that it is very compact and very fast (necessary for this application), and I like the fact that it is both an interpreter and compiler, making debugging and trying changes super easy. And I like the fact that you can write in assembler in it if you really need fast and compact operations.

I wouldn't want to write a word processor in it, or a video editor, but for control programs, I can't think of anything that I'd rather use. Arduino's native Wiring language, was hundreds of times slower -- in fact impractical for this usage.

Viva FORTH!
35
Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 24, 2026, 06:33:39 PM »
Well Art, sounds interesting -- I hope you'll keep us posted on those projects!  :beer:
36
Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by beeshed on February 24, 2026, 04:12:49 PM »
Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.
37
Software Tools / Re: Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows
« Last post by sorveltaja on February 24, 2026, 02:15:25 PM »
So I replaced Mint Mate with Debian: https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-13.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso

It really doesn't appear to be that different from server-based one, that I tried earlier; about the same amount of basic apps installed out of the box. 

What comes to appimages, although they include all dependency files, they may not work, if required version of fuse-related components aren't already installed.

On the other hand, another form of portable apps is to use either zipped or tarball (.tar.bz2) versions, if available. They don't seem to require mounting, or any extra system components to be installed, to be able to work.

An example in this case is Waterfox: https://cdn.waterfox.com/waterfox/releases/6.6.8/Linux_x86_64/waterfox-6.6.8.tar.bz2

To use it, first that file needs to be extracted. In file manager --> right-click --> extract here. Resulting folder is 'waterfox'.
In that folder is a file 'waterfox-bin', which is the actual executable. If it doesn't launch by double clicking, make sure that it has permission to do so, by right-clicking it --> permissions --> Allow executing file as program.

Another example is Mercury browser. which is a fork of Firefox: https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury/releases

I've used it as a secondary web browser since I started using Linux almost a year ago. It has never required anything extra system components to be installed either; it just works. Unfortunately it's bit outdated, but nevertheless, it has worked well for me.
38
Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by Country Bubba on February 24, 2026, 06:56:08 AM »
On the top of the list is to make an electric coil winder. I want to make several coils for another project down the road and it will need several cols of possibly hundreds of turns and produce reasonably consistent magnetic results. That project will possibly require other nano projects to be determined as I go along. 
As another hobby is 3D printing, it allows me to go off into the weeds of possibilities and who knows where I will end up? :doh: :Doh:
Anything to keep my mind active as the body can't do what we used to 40-50 years ago.

39
Member Videos / Re: My week this week, my workshop videos!
« Last post by hermetic on February 23, 2026, 11:31:48 AM »
Hi Folks,

I have finished my annual hibernation and ventured back to the windswept wastes of Langtoft! Two little jobs, and back on the D type replica, workshop is lovely warm and tidy, so unless it snows, and as we come to the end of February thatis less likely, I will be posting videos again, weekly if I can get enough together, Hope you enjoy this weeks bag!
Phil, in cold windy East Yorkshire!
40
Project Logs / Re: Electronic Leadscrew for the New Lathe
« Last post by vtsteam on February 23, 2026, 09:55:05 AM »
Thanks Art! :beer:

What kind of projects do you have in mind?
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