Thread: Friday lunch prattle

Originally Posted by doug3030

Is that measurement along the inside or the outside curve?

I wondered what the hell you were talking about until I looked at the photo - aha!

Good to see Phil still alive and kicking and the dust discussion was of particular interest - I want to improve my dust control and got some good ideas from today's session.

Originally Posted by Aussiephil

Hi all,

We had discussions on sheds and particle monitors plus general chin wag, nice to catch up again.
I showed off the little one I had, it serves to get a reasonable idea
There are many Ebay/Aliexpress vendors selling them, this is just one link, they have gone up a little from when i ordered.
Car PM2.5 Detector Tester Air Quality PM1.0 PM10 AQI Particle Matter Monitor LCD Home Gas Thermometer Temperature Humidity Meter|Gas Analyzers| - AliExpress

I've got one of those dust monitors and have had it for almost 4 years.
I did a review of it back when I first got it
Developments in Dust Sensor tech
The review is post # 143 in that thread.

Since then, apart from when I visit mens sheds where I bring it along as an example of a budget level monitor, it lives in our kitchen where it monitors SWMBO cooking dust.

A couple of follow up things with those meters.

The little button on the side that toggles the 2 display formats is quite fragile and liable to just come away when being pushed normally. If you can find the button , it can be soldered back on. If not, any momentary switch or even a bit of metal across the soldered terminals will switch the display. I thought this was just me being ham fisted but its happened to at least two others that I know about.

They don't bounce very well. A mate of mine had his for about 3 weeks and he dropped it from bench height onto a concrete floor and it stopped working unfortunately he had thrown it away and I was not able to look at where it might have been damaged.

Mine ran normally - like I said mostly in the kitchen - and then I took it down the shed for a test run and notice it did not go above about 10 µg/m^3 even though my other meter was reading > 40 µg/m^3. I had a close look and found a tiny spiders web blocking the fan air intake, After clearing that it ran normally.

The other direction these sensors can give false readings at is around zero, ie it doesn't go to zero.
This can happen if it is subjected to high levels of dust whereby the internals of the sensor is contaminated with dust. Every now and then you should put it in a closed room (no air drafts or currents) or in a box and check that it goes to zero. If not, it probably has become contaminated. Blowing very gently into the fan intake may clear the dust but in the case of one the similar Plantower dust sensors in a home made meter I could not clear it and had to replace the sensor.

The particle monitor mentioned in the link above uses a sensor made by a company called Plantower and they claim their sensors have a manufacturers stated "mean lifetime between failures" of about 3 years of continuous use. This means the power to the sensor is left on - eventually I believe the small laser inside eventually dies. I have 5 particle counters with planter sensors and 3 have been continuous running for about 4 years and the only one that has failed was the one that was exposed to too much dust.

Despite it's issues I reckon they are still very useful an certainly better than nothing. If you consistently see >100ug/m^3 on these meters (50 if you are senior with health issues) I would definitely be doing something about it.

Outside of course :P, that sheds mine

Originally Posted by doug3030

Is that measurement along the inside or the outside curve?

That’s huge!

Is there a Friday Chat on today, an are ring ins welcome??.

Cheers Matt.

Once again, the recipe for workbench/toolhandle finish as passed down to me from my Grandfather. Also works on ironwork, best applied while the metal is hot (not red hot)

1 ltr of Pure Gum Turpentine
1 ltr of BLO
Grate up a block of beeswax about as big as a bar of soap and dissolve it in the mix. Keep adding beeswax until saturated.

Stir/shake vigorously before applying. Apply thickly, wipe off/spread any excess after 24 hours. Reapply as needed

Tip for a happy life - If you take the grater from the kitchen buy her a new one. Keep the old one in the shed, it will come in handy.

BooY, we noticed that you were logged in to the zoom meeting yesterday but there was a symbol instead of video of you and we could not hear you. Could you hear and see us?
Zoom can take a bit of fiddling to get going right.

Hey, yeh sorry about that kids played with the mic and had it flicked off to the internal monitor instead of the proper mic and didnt work it out until i went into another zoom later snd thry could barely hear me. I didn't have the webcam on me for the comp which is why it was an icon. I could hear and see you guys fine.

I came in late as I was trying to find the room details as there's few different ones on the 1st few pages

Hi all, I have made a post that can hopefully be made into a sticky with the Friday and Sunday online meetings links in it so that they are easy to find instead of being hidden in long threads, This might help prospective new attendees find the right link to log into as well.

Links to Forum Zoom and Skype meetings

I won't be able to participate today.

I have another appointment.

Will anyone be at the prattle this week?

- - - Updated - - -

Will anyone be at the prattle this week?

That's a big "maybe" for me. I'll try to be there but no guarantees.

Should be there.

Sorry, Working.

Regards
Paul