British Tech Guru

This was part II of breakfast - a steaming cup of instant coffee (who's got time for all that messing about with coffee makers) and an apple fritter (hey, it's got fruit in it so it's healthy). I had a leisurely breakfast as my back was punishing me for being alive, courtesy of a work accident a few years ago. No - I'm not on disability - I enjoy working too much.

So, after breakfast and a few domestic chores (Y'all know the kind of thing - 'er indoors standing over me, brandishing a whip in one hand a flogger in the other with an electric cattleprod shoved in her belt just in case while I did them) I got on to working on the bus and the lab wiring.

A few days ago I had a dry afternoon and the day off so I spent an hour wiggling under the differential and trying various tools and ways of getting a single screw inserted into one of the bus ribs and the cable attached via a cable clamp. By the time I'd done that I was exhausted and my back was giving considerable grief.

Today I've been under again and am working more on the wiring. Aside from vicious mosquitoes I have had to go under and come out from under the bus several times. I'm sure my back will be even more interesting tomorrow. But I'm at the point where I can run the cable as far as the entry point. I don't know if I'll make it this weekend but I'll try. I really want to get power to my micro machine lab.

A couple of days ago I put a seemingly unpopular posting about racism having seen too many nationalist styled UK videos. I got some really angry responses after drawing attention to the disguised racism in them. I just hope I don't get so many of those video nasties showing up in my feed. Here are some of the nasty comments left (posters names redacted).

1. This is one misguided soul.
Why did youtube recommend this video?

2. Because Englishmen traded their balls in for soy about 20 years ago. Have fun being Africa 2.0.

3. I watched 1m12s before I had to stop. At this point in the game you are incapable of being educated, and your rhetroic is harmful to the country that made you and the people that make up tht country and pay for its invasion. Shame on you. Your channel will not go much further, thankfully.

The poster of comment 3 seems to have deleted their comment. I'm assuming that these 3 people were racists. I don't bow before racists, sexists or any other group that seeks to support anything other than equal rights. I don't believe in fewer rights for any group or more rights for any group. All must be equal.

My response to all those posters was "Thanks for boosting engagement, much obliged." I'm not angry at any of them for their comments or their downvotes. I'm just disappointed that so many support inequality and lack compassion for others. And yes, I forgive them as they have not yet learned the important things in life are kindness and compassion.

So, my aim for this weekend is to get power to the entry point of the micro machine lab.

5 days ago | [YT] | 0

British Tech Guru

Seeing Racism Exploit YouTube—and Why It Bothers Me

I still can’t get over how much openly racist content is allowed on YouTube. I’ve seen videos spreading xenophobia, antisemitism, and outright racial hatred—content that should be banned under hate speech rules. Yet some of these videos have stayed up, while others get taken down—not for the racism, but for pirating Pink Floyd. That’s the world we’re living in.

Racism in Britain has deep roots, and it affects everything from politics to everyday life. The Brexit vote is a stark reminder: far-right groups used fear and prejudice online to sway opinion, amplifying division with alarming speed. Watching these tactics in action online is both shocking and depressing.

It’s the way these videos normalize hate that really gets to me. They present dangerous stereotypes as truth, turning viewers into unwitting carriers of intolerance. YouTube should be a platform for learning and connection, yet it’s being abused by extremists, giving their ideology a megaphone it shouldn’t have.

I find this abhorrent. Racism damages people, communities, and society as a whole—and seeing it spread online makes it feel like we’re backsliding. Platforms need to enforce their own rules more consistently, and all of us need to stay alert to the narratives being pushed. I want YouTube to be a space for curiosity, creativity, and understanding—not a breeding ground for hate.

1 week ago | [YT] | 1

British Tech Guru

Brain fog sets in fairly quickly in high temperatures. Those of my viewers who don't experience temperatures in excess of 90F or 35C have probably never experienced it.

Working today in the bus it was very hot with high humidity. Outside the humidity was 90% and the temperature rose to 97F. Inside the bus was muggy and oppressive. In fact due to the weather I have had a headache all day.

So, working is a case of doing very small amounts in short periods with longer periods of rehydration and cooling down in the air conditioning. It was almost a case of doing one screw and having to retreat to the AC.

What happens is - while you're still cool, work goes well. As you warm up, work becomes more challenging and mistakes happen; things just don't go quite right and then brain fog sets in. That's when you can't see why it didn't go right. Some people at that stage would get angry and make more of a mess. I tend to stop and go to sit down to try to work out what's happening. Then I realise I'm just sitting there getting hotter and it's an effort to do anything. That's when I head indoors for fluids and cooling.

Today was one of those days. Forget making videos - that's just too much on top. Mind, doing one screw does not make an entertaining video.

Right now I have several projects on the go:
1. Underbus wiring for the micro machine lab.
2. Installing the micro machine lab
3. Putting shelves in two cupboard under the micro machine lab.
4. Brakelines - I still have not finished those.
5. Reworking a wiper mount I had to DIY.
6. Reworking one of my two backup camera mounts.
7. Moving the driver;'s seat back. It needs to go back further than I can adjust it.

Then there are all the electronics and machining projects I need to do. I could definitely do with another Covid shutdown. I got so much done during Covid shutdown. It took a month or two but I did get my parking area and driveway laid perfectly using just a wheelbarrow, shovel, rake and 50 tons of crusher run. I got on with quite a few other infrastructure projects on the homestead too. That was all before my back injury - that slows me down a lot. It makes going under the bus somewhat painful every time.

1 week ago | [YT] | 1

British Tech Guru

The problem with 3D printing is not the obvious one. People will say "bad filament: or "Chinese" or "bad printer" without looking beyond what they read online. I've had this printer probably for over a year and it has produced some usable prints. These, though, have all been small prints. I set to recently and tried several of the tips and tricks employed by the 3D printer community and came to the conclusion that it was something else as none produced any improvement.

Bear in mind my lab is off-grid with minimal power. It has a nominal 12v supply (14v actual) powered from batteries charged from 140W of solar panels. There is thus not enough headroom for air conditioners. I do have a dehumidifier but it's not used and can only drop humidity to 50%.

Reading around it seems many kinds of filament and specifically the PLA that I use, needs humidity of 30% or less. My 77% is better than the outside 90%. I'm checking humidity in the house and that looks - even though the AC is going - to be 54%. It could drop overnight without my cup of tea or me breathing in here. I'll have to check tomorrow's low reading. So at the moment it looks like even moving the 3D printer into the house won't help much.

At the start I was skeptical of 3D printers because they were so over-advertised. When a bunch of people enthuse publicly about something it usually turns out to be crap.

I looked at various options along the way - Lego, Meccano, Erector sets, metal strips from the hardware store etc. Recently I even found something called FuturoFrame which is a kind of robot-builders' Meccano. It was nice but hideously expensive. In the end, a year or so ago, after getting so many disappointments from 3D printing I got my Chinese micro lathe then a Chinese micro milling machine and a micro saw bench. All I need now is a micro drill press. I also need to complete the wiring to the future machining lab - that's weather dependent and the ground is wet and there's Hurricane Erin on its way. Pre-hurricane rain is already soaking the place.

So, the future will be a micro machine lab - as soon as I can get on the ground to install the power lines.

1 week ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

These were two attempts to build a cover for some electrical equipment. They failed and I could see them failing which is why I stopped the 3D printing.

It seems that 3D printing is just not going to work for me in my microcontroller lab for reasons I'll go into in a future video. It is not - however much equipment snobbists might like to claim - anything to do with the fact I use the cheapest 3D printer on the market (which is also the only 3D printer I know of that'll run off 12-24v).

This is why I'm building my micromachining lab. I just needed a few parts 3D printed to make holders for switches and for XT60 power connectors and a cover for a terminal block. Well, that's not happening due to the fact 3D printing won't perform in the lab.

As far as 3D printers go, the technology in all of them is identical. I could tweak mine to go faster but don't see the point. I'm not in a great rush for anything. I could also spend a large sum to solve the problem I'm getting with 3D printing but it's just not worth the expense when I've already decided to go for a micro machining lab. There are more reasons behind it than just 3D printing being a failure. I do need to use materials that won't melt in heat and which are lighter than plastic. Micro machining offers me those things and is probably faster than 3D printing as I'm working with rods and bars and sheets rather than spools.

I'm held up by rain on installing power to the micro machine lab. The latest tropical storm is dumping a lot of rain over me at the moment.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

British Tech Guru

On my way home from work, I picked up a couple of things from the local shop. The doughnuts were unfortunately not a great buy. I had a couple last night as did 'er indoors and didn't feel too great after. She had to fight a revisitation of the doughnuts. Figuring I was just tired form the week's work (I currently start at 6AM and finish at 4:45PM though this might change to a 5:45AM start next week), I sampled the doughnuts again in the morning. Nope. Still as awful as last night. That was 'er indoors experience also. Still by now we're down to about 4 left. I rather suspect they will be entering the compost bin!

That led me to think about the food we eat and how abysmal it is. Fruit that's picked so green that it's bitter and allowed to ripen in storage where it gains some of the colour it should have but none of the juiciness nor sweetness. I pick fruit from the shop and it is bitingly cold as though it has been frozen. Shelf life is very poor. There's no point in buying a big bag of any of it as within a week it's mostly rotted. That's not natural.

Forty years ago, the veggies were fresh, having been grown locally. The fruit was fresh and in season. Bread was fresh and baked locally, usually instore. Very little was frozen and while the selection did often contain some things that were going soft, care and selection meant that the bad portions were removed and the good eaten. Leftover bad food or dried bread from the shop was collected by farmers to feed to their pigs. Food had taste and texture. It was good back then. Now it's all bland, not matured and full of chemicals. Basically, just plain nasty.

So that prompted a short video on food which will air on the 15th of August.

I'm dog tired from my work week since work started up again at the beginning of the week. The rubber mats under the bus were holding puddles of water so even if I had felt like going under there then I would not have because I would not want to get soaked in the process. Next weekend is forecast to be dry. This weekend we have some of the hangover from a tropical storm. Yes, we are in hurricane season. That started on June 1st and ends on November 30th.

Once I can get the power through the floor and distributed to bench outlets, I can put the shelf back in the bench and store all the stuff on the bench in the cupboard under the bench then install my micro machine lab. I didn't film it but I did work toward installing the lighting by making up more LED lighting strips. These use aluminium angle, self adhesive LED strips and magnets to hold them to the ceiling.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3

British Tech Guru

A few days ago I had to have a loaner car from the dealer as my usual vehicle (a 2005 Xterra) developed a fault with the transmission. This, by the way, is a replacement transmission installed about 20,000 miles ago. So I took it in to the dealer who repaired that, did the brake pads and the shocks at the same time.

While my Xterra was undergoing repairs (I'm not a high mileage driver - I bought my Xterra in 2006 with 8,200 miles on the odometer. Now after 19 years in my hands it still only has 164,000 miles on the odometer and is in great condition with no noticeable rust. I'll keep it going!

So, I had a loaner car which was a 2025 Nissan Versa. When I picked it up on Friday it had just 17 miles on the odometer. When I returned it on Tuesday and picked up my Xterra it had only 90 miles on the odometer. Again, I'm not a high mileage driver. I drive 5 miles to work and 5 miles back, twice a day. Other than that I avoid going anywhere if at all possible.

The upshot is, having had this brand new car I thought I'd do a user review of it. That's the good, the bad and the ugly. Sadly not all of the video is in perfect focus. My phone did not like the black interior. That video comes out next Wednesday.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

British Tech Guru

Occasionally I get a decent 3D print - that's when the 3D design software (TinkerCad) and the slicer (Slic3r) produce something actually printable. I've had issues where I've saved a TinkerCad STL file, and when Slic3r loaded the STL file, half of the design was missing yet it was still visible on TinkerCad.

The next issue is the printer filament just snapping. I went to the 3D printer today and brushed my hand lightly against the filament as I loaded an SD card with the GCODE image into the printer and the filament snapped and went flying. Very odd!

Finally there's the way the print never ever seems to want to be good. These prints I aborted because one was coming off the print bed and getting warped or was just not adhering to the bed. None of the prints look anything but rough.

This is the reason that I am going fully away from 3D printing and turning more toward a micro machine shop. What I'm trying to print with the 3D printer are a cover for the terminal block that will connect the main power lines to the under desk distribution lines. I also need to print a mount for an XT60 power connector as the whole lot will run off XT60 sockets. Then I'll need mounts for my emergency cutoff/power switches. Those, I have yet to design. At this rate I might be better buying some vinyl plank from Lowes and using the milling machine! It would certainly be faster and more accurate.

What really kills me about 3D printers is the sheer quantity of waste they produce. Not just support materials but when 9 out of every 10 prints fails to pass my quality control standards then that's a heck of a lot of waste. It all goes into landfill!

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

The outdoor thermometer reads 107.7F. That's 42C or in other words slightly hotter than the surface of the sun!

The National Weather Service via my phone tells me it's 92F but one step outside the door tells me it's over a hundred as my outdoor thermometer (which is placed in perpetual shade underneath a disabled ramp) concurs. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get outside to work on the wiring today.

For those that have never been outside, working or doing anything in extreme heat and have no idea what it's like then I can describe it as walking into a real wall of heat. It just strikes like a wall that feels like fire. Spend more than a few minutes and every pore on your body begins to sweat. After a few minutes any antiperspirant or deodorant becomes just a faint memory. Your clothes become soaked with sweat, your hair becomes wet with sweat and sweat runs into your eyes, stinging them. The dehydration clock has started. After about half an hour you'll notice your energy levels have sapped and it's becoming difficult to think. A simple task that involves finding the right wrench in a box of wrenches becomes a task that you just sit and look at. Eventually you realise you're not actually doing anything but sitting, not moving but breathing and getting hotter. That's when you seek AC and fluids and to get out of the sun but more importantly having done so, to remain in the cool long enough that you can cool down.

The only time with the current heat dome over the USA when it's safe to work outside is just before it gets hot which is early on in the day. The mosquitoes get active in the late evening after it begins to cool down but don't seem so bad in the mornings. I missed this morning as I didn't sleep well last night due to the fact the bedroom had heated up in the late afternoon sunshine yesterday. The AC struggles to keep the house under 80F. Right now 76.9F or nearly 25C.

So far today I've been to the shed to put a new armrest on a wheelchair that had a broken armrest, taken several lots of rubbish to the rubbish coral and dumped several lots of grease/expired foods out on the ground in the scrubland on the property - something'll love it all. I can definitely confirm it's very hot and humid. I doubt I'll be doing much outside.

The forecast is for high temperatures for the next ten days or so.

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

British Tech Guru

For about the last decade I have needed a mechanic's dolly to go under my bus. I had one that I built that worked well as long as I was on tarmac. This one should work on rough ground. Harbor Freight had a rough-ground dolly for $150 but I can assure you this cost me a lot less to build as it used 4 wheels, 3 pieces of 2x4 and 16 * 4.5" carriage bolts, 16 * 3.5" carriage bolts and 32 nuts. Whether I'll need to put more 2x4 to fill in the gaps between the boards or not remains to be seen. Whether it rolls well with me on it also remains to be seen.

The older dolly was attacked by rats and I took it apart and used the castors on something else. Those were small castors. These are 5" diameter by 1.25" wide. I'm not sure they're wide enough but I'll try it and see what they're like with me on it. It was hard to work on this - it took me 2 days because it's over 100F outside. Absolutely shameful - this would have taken me a morning on a cooler day.

This weekend I hope to be able to get under my bus to complete the wiring to the micro machine lab. Then I can work inside the bus and put the lab together.

1 month ago | [YT] | 1