TOPIC:

We all have our favourite tools, one of mine is my pressure washer and foam gun, used for cleaning my car..... the z13 doesn't see water!! Another is my robotic lawn mower....a time saver in summer...it cuts the grass while I am riding the z13!!

What's your favourite or top of wish list??

Cor!....................that lawn mower sounds like a good idea !
If it ever needs a summer holiday or change of scenery, its welcome to stay at my place anytime...............
The alternative where I live in Northumberland would be a Goat !

Fortunately I dont have a lot of lawns to cut, as one of the reasons I bought the plot where our house was built 20 years ago, was there was not much garden space left once the house was built.

Less grass to cut..................= more time out on the Z1300
More grass to cut..................= less time on Z1300 !

Sad as it sounds, I do like my Pillar Drill and Bench Grinder / Wire Wheel and like you, a Jet Washer for our cars.

Pete F
UK

I started out my work career by getting my automotive technician ticket then moved to nuclear and picked up a millwright ticket. Within a couple of years I was asked to become a pipefitter welder and picked up 9 welding tickets. Machining and fabricating puts a smile on my face. During my time as a pipefitter at a nuclear plant, I had the opportunity to use probably 20 different makes and models of welding machines and I fell in love with a Thermal Arc 186. It's an inverter AC/DC Pulse modulation type stick/ Tig welder. Being an inverter type welder it's extremely frugal on power and small in size (20" x 12" x 14") Weighs 52 lbs. I run it on a 240V 30 amp circuit. The pulse modulation mode on Tig will let me butt weld 20 gauge steel. If I had to, I could burn 1/8" welding rods all day long at 130 amps. The Ac allows me to weld aluminum when needed. I can't say enough about this machine's abilities. As another example, I figured out that both of my cylinder heads had valve seats machined too deep and needed replacing. Using the Tig welding feature, I laid a bead of weld on the inside of each valve seat which shrank the seat and they fell out. Once I get back to it and finish machining up the replacement seats, I'll heat soak the head at 300 F and tap the new seats in to the head and then send the head out for seat cutting since I don't have the machinery for cutting the seats ( on a Rottler SG7MTS cylinder head machine)
When I bought my welder 12 years ago, I paid $1700 Canadian. I'm sure other machines can be had with similar features for less but in my case, once you've used the best, you can't go back.

Pete,
good idea !
If it ever needs a summer holiday or change of scenery, its welcome to stay at my place anytime...............

It's a pita to install, needs a boundary wire setting near the lawn edge about 2 inches down, that carriers an RF signal that the mower detects as time to change direction .
It has really clever security that uses the boundary too. It sends me message on my phone if the mower is lifted without a pin code being entered. Similarly if the mowers gps detects it has moved out of boundary I get another message and the integral alarm sounds on the mower.

KB, You and I are so similar in background.
Beyond the Instrumentation bit.

I learnt to TIG weld on a works MILLER machine, a huge thing, water cooled torch etc, must have weighed half a ton.
For a few years I worked shifts in a multi skilled task force for essential maintenance..but being british it was very much one man, one trade officially. But our class 1 welder guy showed me all the tricks for aluminium and exotic metals such as hastalloy and titanium. The funny thing was I could weld aluminium better than most other class 1s of the day!!!
At home I have Stalwerk 200A Tig, mag, plasma machine.... but need to get my new garage built so that I can have it set up permanently on a bench.

I am also into electronics and coding arduinos and esp32 processors, are you with me on this too?


What does the millright term mean in the US ? I once interviewed a guy when I was working in Angola...it was on his cv.
He claimed he was instrument tech but couldn't explain to me how he would operate a three valve manifold on a dp flow transmitter to perform a zero check. Needless to say he didn't get the job.

Cheers Chris

Stiggy wrote: I am also into electronics and coding arduinos and esp32 processors, are you with me on this too?
Sorry, no I have no experience in this field of electronics. I wanted to build a megasquirt for the experience but it's too big to fit the KZ so I bought a microsquirt and will outfit the KZ with fuel injection on batch fire and 3 channel ignition running wasted spark. I'm convinced that a Hall effect trigger is more desirable than a VR sensor. Pretty straight forward as I see it but it will take some work fitting the Hall Effect sensor.

What does the millright term mean in the US ?

In layman's terms a millwright is an industrial mechanic. I've worked on 450 megawatt generators, steam turbines, 1,000 cfm compressors, Valves of every type imaginable, Jet engines for standby generators that are the same engine used in 747's, 500,000 gpm water pumps, 5,000 hp electric motors and the ultimate - 450 megawatt nuclear reactors. Millwrights need to have basic machining , welding and fitting skills as part of a 5 year apprenticeship (10,000hours)