British Tech Guru

One of the most useful tools with a lathe is a dial indicator. This helps to centre work in a 4-jaw chuck. Why use a 4 jaw chuck you might ask, when 3-jaw chucks centre the work automatically. Well the answer is simple...

A 3 jaw chuck has a scroll wheel that might or might not be accurate. In the case of the little zinc Chinese lathe chucks, it's not accurate. It also vibrates loose very easily and the work falls or flies out. No problem if all you're cutting is styrofoam but for everything else that creates a dangerous hazard.

This helped me diagnose a problem with the Blue-Ox 4-jaw chuck today. That was an interesting video to make. That'll be shown in July.

3 days ago | [YT] | 5

British Tech Guru

The improvement over the original zinc/aluminium chucks supplied by ZR Lathe from this Blue Ox steel chuck is tremendous. Not only is it stronger and capable of being tightened down properly but it also works better. Perhaps one of the most useful features is that the jaws are clearly numbered. That makes a huge difference in getting work centred properly. It's much easier to keep track of which way the work needs to be moved.

The chuck was drowned in oil when it arrived. I have a feeling that I might end up dry lubing it since my little lathe won't get a massive amount of use. It'll be used - like the sawbench, drill press and milling machine - when I need to use it.

I've only just put the extenders on the lathe so I'm just getting into testing the new chuck.

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

British Tech Guru

I bought the "heighten" accessory for the lathe from ZR Lathe on Amazon. I gather that's the Zhrui/Zhenguri official shop. Basically for $50 I got two blocks of zinc, a steel tool post and some attachments. The original side plates on the lathe are drilled ready to take the extra insertion so this make a pretty well planned system.

A while ago I bought a Blue Ox 4-jaw steel chuck for my lathe. It was the right size but when the jaws were opened, they fouled the bed of the lathe. Now I can use my $80 steel lathe chuck. It's definitely higher quality than the zinc chucks from ZR Lathe.

With a couple of brass shims, the tip of the 6mm cutting bit is in just the right place for perfect cuts. The other side of the new tool post will take a bigger tool and hence I can now use my parting tool and again probably shimmed.This is a pretty good advance.

I suppose you could say that my lathe just got high!

1 week ago | [YT] | 6

British Tech Guru

After the plastic cover that holds the printer filament and the pressure wheel against the advance wheel broke, I contacted EasyThreed and sent them a photo of the broken plastic cover, asking if I could buy a batch of 10 since they seemed to be a disposable item. They responded and asked "you want to buy the cover" and I said "yes, please". That was the last I ever heard from them. Clearly that is now not going to materialise.

That leaves me in a position whereby I have a printer that won't work because of one cheesy little plastic part. I considered making a mold using the original (broken) part but that looked to be an awfully complicated way of doing things given the complexity of the part. Looking at it analytically, it had to hold the plastic filament tube in place and the pressure wheel. Not that complicated really but the plastic piece was fiendishly complicated.

Fortunately a few weeks ago, I received from Amazon a 63mm blade for my 12v sawbench that claims to be able to cut metal. Indeed, I tried it on aluminium and brass, discovering that indeed it does cut metal. A few weeks before that I bought some brass strip to make shims for the lathe and of course I had plenty left over.

So at the moment I'm working toward building a cover out of brass and will probably have a spring in place ensuring the wheel makes good contact. One part will swivel - that just seems easier on the design. One solder joint, two screws and a spring. Whether I have the right strength spring is as yet unknown. That's what I'm quietly working on now.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3

British Tech Guru

It's frustrating how much work is lost by computers! I clicked and cancelled a download that was too big for my hard drive. Mid way through an email, the email refused to auto save. I tried saving a copy to the desktop (which it assured me had been done) and being suspicious I had it also save a copy to a USB memory stick. in reality, it saved nothing to the desktop and only an empty file to the memory stick. I lost a couple of hours work. This, above all, is why I refuse to fill out any online forms. If somebody says "it'll only take a couple of minutes" my response is: you do it then.

Aside from that, I've been in the market for a decent laptop but the caveat is I prefer laptops with an 11.6" screen size. I like small. I don't have room when I travel for a hulking great big 13" laptop. Currently what's available seems somewhat poor - pretty much 64gb and 128gb netbooks. Great for blog entries but not any serious work.

As an interim measure after a lot of faffing around I found my chromebook had sufficient storage to download a 7GB Linux ISO. I did that then found the FAT32 formatted memory stick would not accept it due to the 4GB file size limitation of FAT32. That meant it had to be saved to something already formatted to NTFS then after reformatting the memory stick to EXT4, the file was transferred there then used to install Ubuntu to a portable SSD.

So the new plan is not to go for a new laptop but to use something small like a Chromebook, booted from the SSD. Basically, piggyback off the device I can use to get most of the functionality I need. It's worth a shot and if it doesn't work out, I have 250GB of storage available so a double win.

On a similar theme, I have just replaced the 16GB SD card in my Raspberry Pi 3B+ with a 32GB eMMC card that interfaces to the SD slot. Subsequently I discovered I could have had an SSD interfaced to the SD slot. Well, 32GB should be fine, restricted to programming, word processing and light video editing. The Pi 3B+ has heatsinks but desperately needs a cooling fan. That's coming.

So, lots of progress on the computer side of the micro machine and micro electronics lab. The big bonus of the Pi 3B+ is I already own it and it will do what I require albeit slowly. It's always a toss-up between speed and saving money.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 4

British Tech Guru

After much cursing and trying different solutions I finally found what's going on with my 3D printer. There's a cheap little clear plastic components that is cracked and because it is cracked it is flexing. Added to that there is a little plastic pin on which is mounted an idler bearing. It is a thoroughly appalling design that is destined to fail at some point.

Looking online I can get the plastic cover but it only comes with a complete extrusion assembly for $30 plus shipping. That is getting on for half of what this printer cost originally. The question now becomes can this be fixed or is the printer dead in the water?

The important points are to keep the idler bearing pressed against the filament that is pressed against the drive wheel and to keep the filament from sliding off the bearing. At this point it might be possible to fabricate something better. That's probably on the absolute limit of my current engineering skills though.

I have asked the EasyThreed people about replacement plastic covers and suggested that as they're a consumable that I should buy 10. The Chinese can be accommodating when money is concerned. They can also be about as awkward as can be, adopting a policy of "you'll buy what we sell and nothing else". I've encountered that before and it always has me offloading the problem item and never buying another item of any description from that company.

I'll have to have a think about that.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

Now that I have a 3D printing bed heater, I tried my 3D printer again. This time it resolutely refused to feed the filament despite everything I tried. I suppose I could take it apart and clean out the 3D printing nozzle but at this point I'm getting as tired of 3D printing and its multitude of problems as I was when I started to put the machine shop together.

I've heard all the tired old nonsense people usually trot out without thinking: "Brand X is rubbish", "you need to buy Brand Y" and "what do you expect for something from country X". I wish people like that would realise how unwelcome contributions like that are. All negativity and I do my best to expel negativity from my life.

It seems to me that 3D printing as a genre is extremely persnickety. Get any one of a million variables slightly out of the ideal range and it won't work. That does not reflect normal life. My lab is non-humidity controlled and non temperature controlled. It is solar powered and runs exclusively off 14v with an absolute maximum of 20A being available.

So after setting the slide to "eject" and waiting while the printer ejected the filament (which was broken, hence the need to eject), I trimmed a nice angle on the end of reel of filament and tried feeding it. It fed and filament squirted out of the nozzle. After that I set it to print one of the Gcode files supplied by the manufacturer.

The printer went through all the motions, running to and fro over the heated print bed while not laying any filament. Clearly something is amiss but since it ejected the filament when I told it to and squirted it through when I loaded the filament, it clearly isn't a nozzle blockage or a motor problem. The print file should be good since it was 1.6M and came from the manufacturer, together with their settings for the printer.

The filament worked quite well with my 3D printing pen so the filament isn't the problem. The problem therefore is a mystery and likely to be some mystical component that needs to be just right or the whole 3D printing shambles won't work. Maybe I didn't sacrifice enough virgins to the right deity?

One thing is certain - I won't lose any sleep over this. I have three rolls of filament - one of PLU and two of PLA. The printer was essentially free since the mainboard blew up and I got a refund then bought a new mainboard from eBay since they wouldn't take the carcass back. Since then I've bought the heated pad for $26. My only losses from this aside from time (which is the most valuable asset) are $26 for the pad, $20 for the new mainboard and $12 each for the filaments so a massive total of $82 approximately. That's about the equivalent of a week's worth of lunches from the local eatery.

This is also the kind of frustrating and annoying project that I'll curse and curse again. I'll swear I'm going to throw the blasted thing in the trash and then eventually a few years down the line it'll mysteriously start working and will never fail again. I run into this time after time. I have a Chromebook. The first thing I did with that was to brick it. For about 4 years I'd pull it out once or twice a year from the shed, try to get it working and find it rejected every attempt. I'd curse it and threaten to take it to the range to use as a pistol target then put it in the shed until the next range day. I'd forget about it then find it again and have another go until last year or the year before when suddenly it decided to work. It hasn't given me any problems since! That's how this printer will probably end up being.

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

I bought a heated bed for my 3D printer, thinking I'd like to give it another try. There was a strange control box with the pad that looked 3D printed. Out of curiosity I undid the screws to reveal a 3-digit LED display and two mystery buttons that could not be operated from outside. The Chinese characters are a bit of a mystery. I got Google to translate the one on the left and it came up with something like "commit or enter or save" or something like that. The one on the right Google failed to recognise.

I bought this back in December of 2025 and have only got to investigating it prior to testing today. It's now April of 2026 - four months later. This is about standard for me - I buy things when I see them or when I see them cheap and put them to one side until I get around to them.

I think the bed seems to be set for 65C which is quite warm. Interestingly it seems to use about 1.5A from my 12v power supply. That's lower than I thought it would be.

I had another little go with the 3D printing pen and it seems to do reasonably well. I can see a use for that in prototyping. I'm not sure that it's perfection personified but that's another story for another time.

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

British Tech Guru

Strange things arrive from Aliexpress when I add things to my cart that look mildly interesting in order to bump up the price to get free shipping. This time I bought a 3D printing pen.

I've had a go with it and found that it's rather challenging to use as a 3D printing pen but for welding parts of 3D prints together it is really quite good. Here I merged some appallingly bad 3D prints into an artistic sculpture. As for structural strength, it's about as bad as PLA is anyway.

Using a circling welding action seems to work best for strength but 3D printing really isn't something I particularly care for anyway. It's just something that doesn't tick many reliability boxes. It doesn't check any for recycling or environment either,

So there's a long video coming on the 3D printing pen which does seem to work well enough though it's more a 3D print fixing thing than anything else.

Also in the pipeline, more lathe videos and I'm working on another 3D printing video with an upgrade to the 3D printer.

Thus far I'm up to May 27th with videos released at 1 every 2 days. I'm trying to build up a stock of 6 months worth and then during those 6 months I will be working on longer videos that delve deeper into making things.

The channel so far has been programming, electronics, microcontrollers, building sheds, putting up fences etc. It's an eclectic mix of tasks I have to do in my daily life and my hobbies/interests. Microcontrollers will make a return but rather than being the focus of videos they will be an aid to project completion. The focus will be on what is being made with the microcontroller simply controlling it.

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

At the end of today the new bushing has made progress. The parting tool I bought failed to part the aluminium due to it being not quite right for my lathe. I can see I'll have to make my own.

In the end I had to cut the aluminium with a clumsy great angle grinder. That leaves me a lot to shave down! There is a 5mm hole all the way through the length of the bushing and a miscalculation means the bushing is still a shade too big. I can shave that down with sandpaper while it's in the lathe if I don't get it perfectly adjusted with the 4-jaw chuck and shave it with my usual lathe tools.

The one thing I had not reckoned on was the amount of setup needed with the lathe or the milling machine.

Once the bushing is right I'll thread it on one end and put the grub screw holes and thread them. It's definitely getting there and there's nothing like setting oneself a project to learn about one's tools.

On the whole, the lathe is a very satisfactory tool though some things definitely benefit from an upgrade such as the lathe tools and the tool holder. The original 3-jaw chuck is not a helpful thing as the jaws open at the slightest vibration.

On other matters - work has now increased to insane levels. My morning alarm clock now goes off at 3:30AM and I do finish a little earlier but am unlikely to step back into the house until 4:45PM most days. I'm doing overtime every single day which is very stressful. Fortunately I get a holiday in about three weeks and then work winds down in about 8 weeks time.

And the dog is recovering well. She can now walk on all 4 legs but has no feeling in one back leg so on smooth surfaces she just falls over. I hope she'll recover full mobility. What I see is very promising.

1 month ago | [YT] | 1