Useful aids for drilling and tapping

Continuing the Meanderer trike project, previous post:

• Meanderer front suspension plates assembled — April 07, 2025

In this post, I am showing some aids for the project, in fact, the first two are required.

1: Hole-reamer

A core part of the tilting mechanism is a 10mm diameter rod. This has to slide through holes that I have drilled in aluminium. The problem is that a 10mm drill-bit is actually slightly under 10mm, and usually the resultant hole is less than 10mm. Hence, the rod won't fit.

Just needs a tiny amount shaved off the hole; enter the reamer. I bought this set from eBay:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/196502934905

I bought a set, as will be needing other sizes, such as 14mm and 6mm.

These are operated by hand, not with a drill, and the lever from a tap-and-die set is required to turn the reamer. It is recommended to apply some oil. These are cheap, fine for aluminium, but I don't know how long they will last if reaming steel.

2: 3-piece tap-set

On the topic of a tap-and-die set, yes, I have one, so does the Men's Shed. However, the taps are just one of each size and pitch. A 3-piece set is one size and pitch, but three different taps; one for getting-started, then a normal one, then one for tapping the thread as far down a dead-end hole as possible. I bought 5mm, 6mm and 8mm sets from eBay:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/192442744976

Very handy, especially the getting-started one. Again, a lever from the tap-and-die set is required, and it is operated by hand. The tap-bit has to be held exactly vertical to the work-piece, and that is tricky when getting started, so the getting-started one is very helpful.

3: Drill-tap combination bit

This is not essential, just nice to have. You don't have to find the correct-size drill bit, prior to tapping the thread, as this combines both in one drill bit. I bought from AliExpress (both the B-short and A-long):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005955702010.html

Probably a good idea to watch a couple of YouTube videos on how to use these correctly. For example, the work-piece must be no thicker than the "drill" part of the drill-bit. Recommend to apply oil. These can be used with an electric hand-drill or a drill-press. These cheap ones OK for aluminium, not so good for steel. If use an electric hand-drill, putting it into reverse to extract the drill-bit might not be a good idea, as there is a risk of a cross-thread -- instead, remove the drill-bit and reverse-thread by hand -- which would be a bit tedious.

Here are some YouTube videos of these combination bits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYtKzLjT5Lg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ia5P3u8uBQ

These three are very useful aids to have in any home workshop!   

Tags: light

More EV misinformation from mainstream media

A couple of months ago, I posted about mainstream media misinformation:

"Coordinated misinformation in mainstream media"
https://bkhome.org/news/202501/coordinated-misinformation-in-mainstream-media.html

Sam has had to contend with another attack, that he has posted about a few days ago:

"Channel 7 Lies Exposed: The Truth About My EV Fight with Australian Media"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwfTZrzAx2c&t=910s

This is all very sad. You guys in the USA would know all about this; bias one way or another, depending on what media outlets you read and watch.

We have it here in Australia also. Often it is almost subliminal. I have become aware of our ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), despite claims of impartiality, slipping in biased messages. For example, when reporting on China, they won't say something like "The Chinese government,,,", instead will say "The communist Chinese government...". Of course they know that "communist" is an emotive word.

I could keep on writing and writing on this topic. Anyway, thought I would just report on this latest attack that Sam has to put up with.  

Tags: ethos

Global IP TV Panel updated 2025MK2

ETP has updated this:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=689

I have updated the PET, see commit:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/0c1b869766074815cfb45418c94276d1153ba730     

Tags: easy

snd_soc_avs blacklisted again

In Easy Daedalus, have updated to the 6.12.x kernel, but no joy with Intel AVS sound. Here are a couple of earlier blog posts:

• Intel sound avs driver still too immature — February 02, 2025
• Linux kernel 6.12.12 configured without AVS and Xe — February 03, 2025
• Kernel 6.12.19 compiled for Daedalus with AVS enabled — March 16, 2025

Kernel 6.12.19 is in Daedalus 6.6.5, the current release. Federico has reported AVS broken:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=146430#p146430

Oh well. I've blacklisted the snd_soc_avs.ko kernel module, see commit:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/1d6119019edd75e9d115463ac9c6bc395426ea16

I suppose, next time compile the 6.12.x kernel, will go back to disabling AVS entirely.   

Tags: easy

Meanderer front suspension plates assembled

Continuing the Meanderer trike project. An earlier post showed construction of the front suspension plates:

• Meanderer trike front suspension plates — March 19, 2025

Those plates are going to slide onto the 50x50x3 square tube, that is the backbone of the trike. The plates assembly will have top and bottom plates; see drawing:

Used 25x25x3 angle to bolt the plates together. Carefully held while drilling holes:

Assembled, held together temporarily with bolts, checking that it is all symmetrical and slides over the square tube:

This framework will slide down to a cutout section of the square tube. The cutout is for implementing the leaning mechanism; if you don't want leaning, then no need for this cutout. The earlier blog post linked-to above, shows dimensions of the cutout; two of them actually.

I marked out the cutouts, then drilled some holes as starting points for the jigsaw:

...used a triangle file to create more space to insert the jigsaw blade; however, that is not really necessary. A round hole big enough to insert the blade is all that is required. Here are both holes cutout:

Obviously, these cutouts have seriously weakened the backbone, so the suspension-frame assembly is going to have re-strengthen it.

The square tube has a wall thickness of only 3mm. Components of the tilting mechanism are going to be bolted to the underneath side of the square tube, screwed on with m5 or m6 bolts. There will be threads tapped into the square tube, but the wall thickness of only 3mm will not be an adequate depth for the thread. So, decided to insert plates inside the square tube; photo of plates before insertion:

The plates are 200x43.5x3 mm. I drilled 4mm holes in the square tube, with the idea of pop-riveting the plates in place. However, holding them in place while pop-riveting is tricky, so instead decided to glue them in place with epoxy resin -- which I have done today.

Note, inserted one of those plates going toward the front of the trike, the other two toward the rear. Bit tricky inserting the third one; it probably isn't needed anyway.

Tomorrow will drill the 4mm holes and permanently hold those plates in place with pop rivets. Should not have drilled those holes beforehand, as wanted a very flat surface on which to epoxy the plates. Anyway, it is OK. Reiterating; those plates are on the inside.

Tomorrow, might epoxy a couple more plates on the top-inside; will post about that.

Have not done much on the Meanderer trike project for the last couple of weeks due to the eyelid operation. But on the mend, so have started going to the Men's Shed again and progressing with the project.

Here are the SolveSpace files for side and top and bottom plates (gzip compressed):

https://bkhome.org/news/202504/images/wire-susp-frame-7.slvs.gz

https://bkhome.org/news/202503/images/wire-susp-frame-top-and-bottom-plates-1.slvs.gz

Onward ho!

EDIT 2025-04-11:
Cutout plates for the sides and top also, each about 70mm long. Here they are glued in:

I used a two-part epoxy from Red Dot, a chainstore in Australia. It sets super-fast, tacky in about a minute, despite the packaging claiming remains usable for 5 minutes. Hmmm, can't find it on the Red Dot website -- the one I bought is two separate 12.5ml tubes. Very much prefer slow-setting resins.     

Tags: light

Refine fix Exec line in .desktop has quotes

Previous post about this:

• Fix Exec line in .desktop file has quotes — April 01, 2025

Have refined some more, see github:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/6f66cd8cd7c1a3ece82d303e228445dcba552440    

Tags: easy

Fix Exec line in .desktop file has quotes

Alfons reported, installed gSmartControl via PKGget in Easy Daedalus 6.6.4. After updating to Easy Daedalus 6.6.5, the menu entry for gSmartControl had disappeared; /usr/share/applications/gsmartcontrol.desktop had been deleted.

When there is a version update, /sbin/fixlayers in the initrd runs, and one thing it does is check the .desktop files are still valid. It looks at the "Exec=..." line and checks that the executable is still there.

In the case of gSmartControl, this is the Exec line:

Exec="/usr/bin/gsmartcontrol-root"

...oh man, no one puts the Exec parameter in quotes! In all the years I have worked with .desktop files, never encountered this. Yes, I suppose it is theoretically legal.

/sbin/fixlayers got thrown by the quotation character. I have put in a fix:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/fd91f6e876ae3d6191043585ed0e6b37111de9c3   

Tags: easy

sudo-sh handle more parameters

Forum member Caramel posted about this limitation:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=14098

Solved, but solved the lazy way, just extending code already known to work. sudo-sh is now version 1.5, source here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/alphabetical/s/   

Tags: easy