Glort

I watch the weather forecasts closely so I can plan photoshoots. The inaccuracy of the weather reports is frustrating in the extreme as is their ambiguity. What really makes me wonder though is how the heck people get on that rely on these forecasts for their safety. Pilots and ships captains have a lot more at stake than I ever will yet they are relying on the same frequently flawed forecasts. IF putting advertising on the site makes the forecasts more accurate, then all I can say is the gubbermint is gambling with peoples lives right now by knowingly not providing the most accurate info they know they can. I see the article mentions the ability to improve " climate Modeling" Isn't this related to global warming?. If it is, shouldn't that be something the Carbon tax covers? WE definately ought to have the best forecasting in the world pretty soon then.

That's not actually correct. There are laws and statures which do cover this. I have been throught the exercise before and HAVE consulted professionaly qualified people about it so on this one I can state the facts as they apply in law. The fact the forum is public or otherwise is moot. The crux of the matter comes to the fact the work is published ( on the net counts as publishing) and as the creator of the work, I am the copyright owner. In the abcence of any signed document transfering that copyright ( so called terms or conditions of a site are also moot) I remain the copyright owner and have right of veto to it being published even if I don't own the work per se. Owning a work ( be it literary, a photo, a sculpture etc) is different to being the COPYRIGHT owner. It's exactly the same as owning a Music CD or a movie DVD. You own the Disk but you don't own the copyright hence you cannot reproduce and legally sell more copies of it. And just to clarify, I would not be looking to start a war. I would merely be asking for my posts to be removed from the site. Should they respect that wish and legal right, and take them down, then that's the end of it. I'm happy and we can all go on our way with no more time or thought being expended on the matter. As for winners or losers, well I have nothing to win and certainly nothing to loose. OTOH, the same can't be said for those on the other side of the fence. I can't remember how much technical stuff I wrote there but I know I talked a lot of chit. As such I can't see why they wouldn't be happy to purge me from their site especially given I don't follow the party line which seems to upset so many there. If I did wish to remove myself from the site, I would hope that some one in charge would do the right thing moraly and legaly and that would be the end of it. I would also bet it takes no more or even less time and effort to do that than to ban someone for a month. BTW, how come my spell check dosen't work on the posts I write here?

Umm, I don't want them to keep it online, I may want them to take it OFFLINE. IF they don't want me there, then they certainly wouldn't want my posts there would they?

Well just reading on another thread that others have been banned as well, looks like we are soon going to have a worthwhile number of members!

Pathetic isn't it? They don't want you but they want your info. I'm waiting to see if I get a reply to my question of why I was banned. If I decide I don't want to be a part of the place any more I will request all my posts be deleted. They are legally obligated to comply as the authour of my posts ( deemed literary work) I own the copyright not them and have what is known as right of refusal. This means I have absoloute power to say where the work can and cannot be published. I'll bet my arse they will refuse to remove it ( of which spite could be the only possible explaination) which is fine because I can then make a complaint to my favourite gubbermint department who will take the case on for me as they did last time with the self same thing. There is NO charge to you or risk. It's the best legal deal ever. And, if they take it on they NEVER loose. It would be real funny to see the place taken off the air for copyright infringement after " all their hard work". If anyone else also wants their posts removed, we could make a joint complaint.

I will thank you sir to kindly refer to us as " Bad Boys" I believe that makes us sound more attractive to women.

It must have been the fact we dared to question the powers that throw hissy fits and ask how the forum was going to be taken over. Maybe it's that we haven't grovelled and sucked up sufficently? I used the contact link and asked why I was banned a couple of hous back when I could see there was a couple of mods on but no reply. I'll see if I am graced wth a reply and have a think about wether I even want to be a part of the site. Apart from all else the attitude there lately has been enough to make me not bother with it. Banning people always makes me laugh. You can still see everything posted without being a member and if there was something you wanted to know, it's easy as hell to sign up under a different name and ask. There is a guy on another forum I know that got under the skin of the friends of the powers that be by telling the truth and stating verifyable facts. He was NEVER abusive, quite the opposite actually. Because it flew in the face of those trying to peddle highly questionable products and info and he provided evidence to support his position and undermine theirs, they banned him. Being a retired bloke with plenty of time on his hands and a razor sharp wit, he keep the mods very busy signing up under new names nearly every day and chit stirring the detractors. He's got them in such a frazzle there now they are so paranoid they regularliy ban other people thinking it is another one of his aliases. They would have been much better to leave him be as he never broke any forum rules at all. The irony is while a lot of the boys club bag the guy, every single on of them relies on discoveries he made and tested and info he has provided. It sure is entertaining to follow the hypocrits as this guy makes them dance like puppets on a string.

I just logged it to check out the latest groveling and arse licking to the mods and got a message I have been Banned! Hardly surprising but pretty laughable given I haven't made a post there in the last 2 days. I who I upset and what I was banned for? The message said no reason given. Maybe it was something I said here? I gaurantee this place is being watched for every post. So typical of the mentality there.

Cooma. Stuff that for a Joke. I'm sitting here in Sydney freezing my arse off because the aircon at the front of the house has chit itself and I have been lazy and haven't put the new one in yet. Just finished talking to a friend about some steel and fittings for a veg fired house heater I'm building. Can't wait to get that up and running. If this new Chariot is a Turbo, how can it be slow? Even my tired old NA will easily hold the speed limit on the highway even up the hills. If it's slugish, just give the fuel screw a tweak and you'll be flying.

I disagree. I think revenue raising it the TOP priority for cops everywhere these days!

I agree with your sentiment entirely. In Sydney not only do the rubber neckers cause lengthy holdups gawking at a car stopped to let their kid have a pee by the side of the road, but the traffic on the OTHER side of the road banks up as well! Put a vehicle with a flashing light on the scene and the whole expressway turns into a parking lot. It's getting out of control here as well. I have often said the cops should be out with their radar's at these breakdowns and anyone doing 20K or more UNDER the limit with a clear bit of road in front of them should be booked. Ironically I have seen large cardboard boxes in the MIDDLE of the motorway and cars just go round them at full tilt even though the obstruction could be seen a long ways up the road. What also dosen't add up is that I live on a main road and nothing short of a naked supermodel would slow the traffic down one bit. There was a Druggie passed out on the side of the road against a telegraph pole with her legs hanging out on the road a few years back and the traffic was still flying past and not one car stopped to help me drag her fully onto the foot path or called the ambo's. Dunno how long she had been there before I spotted her or would have stayed there.

Good trick. Must remember that in Future. Still don't see anything very concrete in the article though to suggest it isn't as I suspect.

I like the way you think!

I'm not mad, I'm just a nut case. A phsyc wanted me to go to anger management classes but I told them to fark off, I wasn't having anything to do with that chit, it was a waste of my goddamn time and they were bloody idiots for even suggesting it cause there was no way in hell I needed any of that phsyco crap. In My defense, I have 2 teenage kids at home. Anyone that wouldn't be angry all the time would be crazy!

Hmmm, Can't see the whole story but to me this reeks of a typical media beat up. I'd like to know exactly what motoring and transport groups " Have Called" for this and how it came about. Sounds more to me like some hair brained Journo rang them up and said " Do you support the calls for people that break down on motorways to be fined?" and and came up with the idea all on their own out of thin air like they often do. Even if some " Motoring Group" did propose the Idea, I'd be more inclined to bet that what they said was taken out of context and twisted. Something like " Owwners of neglected vehicles that break down" Or " vehicles that break down due to running out of fuel" would be more likley to my thinking and there may be fleeting mention of that in the story right at the end after the reader has been sucked in on a totally different premise. The job of journos and the media has long been to sell advertising space and gain market share over any notion of reporting the facts or sticking to the truth. 9 times out of 10 these sensational " that can't be right" type stories arent and are just a lod of twisted BS.

No Need, I can cover them easily!

The heated Fuel Filters as pictured above are OK, probably suitable for blends but I would not rely on one as my main heat source. They would be OK for stopping fats clogging the filter but the do not have enough heat transfer ability to be a proper HE for Veg oil. That said, IMHO the VE pumps and Inlines on Patrols can operate quite happily with no heat at all so these ae probably OK. For what I'm sure is the same money or less, you can get one of these FPHE's. They come in different sizes, 20 or 30 plate is sufficent but you need to plumb them up properly, not the way most sites describe. If you know what you are doing , you can also make your own HE. I made my own which was a copper coil inside a tube with the water from the coolant circuit running through it. I used about 2 meters of copper line and did 2 lines in 2 circuits. Only ever used one as the thing got the oil more than hot enough on the first pass so I could use the other circuit for a shower or to re-heat return fuel in cold ( snow) weather to keep the fuel in the tank warm and flowing. One type of heater to avoid is anything electric. There are a few differet electric designs but the bottom line is that the energy needed to heat a flowing mass of Oil as required by an IP to appropriate temps ( 70o c Up) is simply impractical for a 12v system. Some of the heater designs are simply diesel glow plugs that the oil flows past. Another popular but stupid design is an electric/ water heated devise. The idea is the electric heats the oil till the engine temp comes up and the coolant heats the oil. Obviously if the heat transfer from the coolant is enough to put heat into the oil, it is also more than sufficent to take away any heat the electrics put in when the engine is cold rendering the electric side even more useless. I never cease to be amazed how many people buy these stupid devices without relising the obvious flaws in the design. As for the pump pictured above, They are not reported to be very good on veg. They tend to burn out very quick due to the wiring to the brushes in the motor overheating due to the extra load the viscosity of the oil creates over water or diesel they were designed to pump. There are a lot of ways people pump oil. Some use hand pumps, some use petrol powered 2" water pumps, some run inverters with electric pumps. Another popular (bad) choice is drill type pumps. There are a lot of black ones around that are hopeless. There is a type that comes in an orange colour and is a different fatter shape that works awesome. The cheapies are about $10 or under and are useless, the orange ones generally go for about $30-40 and work infinately better. I have used a variety of different methods and started out with a small generator in the boot of the car powering a 1" water transfer pump. Worked great if bulky ( and smokey) till the weather got cold, the oil got thick and the pump lift dropped. Next was a small 1" 2 stroke puump I borrowed off a friend. Dismal failure. After that I went to a Rule Brand 1500 GPH Boat bilge pump. worked pretty well but again the cold thick oil really knocked its flow rate. Fantastic in warm weather. Virtually silent in operation and low amp draw. Was a bit messy though and not fast enough for what I wanted. I was getting about 25l/ min flow on 20oc oil. A pump I was working on was a rotary hand drum pump. I was going to remove the handle and fit a timing belt on a couple of pully's and gear down a small electric motor to give about 120 RPM. These pumps flow a fair amount on each turn so would have a great flow and be self prining which is a near must if you are pumping oil regularly. I didn't finish the project as the cost of the pulleys was not cheap but would be an easy conversion for anyone that had or could access the pulley's and belt at the right price. My next and present pump is a Modified Small block Chevy oil pump. I locked the original ports on the thing and bored 2x 2" holes either side of the rotors and fitted a couple of 1" gal elbows. I drive the thing with a 300W 24V electric scooter motor. Again on room temp oil this one flows a much more efficent 80/L min. There is a Youtube Vid and description here: [media=] I have just built another pump of the same type but optimised the pump internals for oil flow and used a High volume pump rather than a standard version. The HV is supposed to flow 30% more due to the longer rotors in the pump. I have also sourced a little gruntier motor which I think will help the flow a tad. The old one was 300W, 2750 RPM. The new one is 900w, 3800Rpm! I expect to get a min 120L / min with this setup, possibly 150L min. I think I may have to upgrade the hoses I am using now as the pressure may get a bit much for the convoluted hose I'm using atm. I have to machine the shaft of the motor to accept the coupling in the next few days and mount the thing up. One trick with the chev pumps is to offset the couplings rather than get them dead true. When the pump is working the gears mesh hard on the drive side so offsetting the couplings gives them sme relief under load and makes the whine of the gears substaintially less. I spent ages on the first couple of pumps I built getting to couplings precisely lined up. I thn dropped one when out collecting and knocked the motor a bit out of alignment only to realise the thing was then a lot quieter. A number of people in the states use these pumps but most tend to use the original ports or at least one of them which are far too small for max flow the pumps are capeable of. They also drive them with cordless drills which are lucky to get much over 500 RPM so flow rates are appropriately poor. To get the things really working they have to be opened up and larger fittings used. Being gear pumps these things are positive displacement so cannot be closed off at the input or the output. When blocked on the output side the things will pressurise up till either the motor stalls or the hose bursts. The latter in my experience is more common. The upside is I have pumped ats so thick they extruded out of the hose and held their sausage like shape for a good 5 min before I wiped the stuff away. I don['t normally collect fats but they are good for my mate who makes Bio. The yanks have a number of rather expensive pumps sold for veg collection but even mains powered ones barely if at all eclipse the Chev pump output and are always heaps more bulky and cost min 5 times more. If using a water type pump, always go for ones with large impellers. Technically these are called centrifugal pumps and the ones with the small impeller housings are called Turbo pumps. To tell the difference, the centrifugal pump will have an impeller LARGER then the electric motor and a turbo pump will have an impeller SMALLER than the motor. The small rotors simply can't get enough " Bite" on the oil to flow it successfullt where the larger impellers bite very well. I have to re-do my processor pump in the next few days as well so I'll try to get an up to date vid of the processor working. I'll also try to get some shots of the new collection pump and measure it's flow rate. That one I'm looking forward to. Centrifugal Type pump. Turbo Type Pump. Drill Pump, the type GOOD for oil. ( never seen them in blue before!) Drill Pump. The USELESS for ANYTHING type.

What's the bet if the other forum is saved they will try to incorporate and match what this place has??

That ought to keep Ikea going for a while!

You better hope it stays up because your going to look even more stupid if you want to come back here.

My Mrs and I shop at Aldi and I have yet to find serious fault with them. Nothing is perfect and in fairness, If I was working for the competitors and saw someone as a major threat, I'd be spamming uncomplimntary things in the net as well. They are what they are within their business model and that suits a lot of people. We find we can't do all our shopping there but buy whatever we can because most times they are cheaper than anywhere else. As mentioned, they sell a lot under their own brands but much of it is locally sourced and simply a different label slapped on the Packet. I do know people that work for them and they all say they are paid well and looked after. They also say they are a bit demanding and get their ounce of flesh but the people I know that work there are certainly happy enough. I know a guy that drives a truck delivering to a couple of their stores and he reckons it's the best job he has ever had and never wants to leave. They were extremely good to him a while back when one of his kids got real sick and looked after him well above and beyond. He has nothing but praise for them and hopes to have that job for another 20 years till he retires. His wife hopes the same and reckons he's never been happier. Even though they are foreign owned, they do generate a lot of jobs and put a lot of money back in the country like most OS companies.

I get my oil for free. It's a waste product to the restaurants and they are happy to have their garbage removed asap. In the past restaurants had to pay to have it collected. In some areas I believe this is still the case. I am not aware of anyone in Sydney charging for its removal. In the past when the price of fuel was high, some collectors were trying all sorts of tactics to secure all they could. A number promised to pay the restaurants and put them on contracts which were promptly broken when the price fell and I am yet to speak to anyone that actually got paid a cent. If one considers the total cost of processing and cleaning the oil, I have worked it out to be well under 1c a litre. My processor would use about 2-3C worth of electricity per 200L batch and the only other cost is filters. These would run less than $20 and I usually get around 2000L + out of a set. I usually process enough oil to fill a 1000L IBC in 200L batches. On my last lot I stuffed up the last batch and pumped dirty oil into the processor not the settled oil. This blocked my filters prematurely so I only got the 1000L batch out of that filter set. What a shame, doubled my costs! Might have cost me 1.5C per litre for that lot! A lot of people think process oil is too messy and time consuming. Many just hang the filter bags up, fill them and let them drain. This can be a slow and messy endeavour. After a few mishaps with this system, I built myself a processor which filters and dries the oil in a 44 gallon drum. I pump the oil in, let it process and pump it out to an IBC finished and ready to go. This takes about 15 min hands on time and I can do it wearing a suit if I want because there is no mess or spillage. The processor is dead simple and cost me less than a $100 to make. Obviously more than paid for itself first time out let alone the thousands of litres I have put through the thing. The bigger pump I recently put on it has blown a seal so I'll buy another till I repair the other with a new seal and then I have a job for the 2nd pump anyway. As far as range goes, it seems to be much like the power. Most people report about a 10% loss but it does depend on the vehicle. With my old '88 NA 4.2, loaded to the gunwhales with 200L of oil on board for the return trip and all the crap for a family of 4 that fill the thing, I can go to Brisbane from Sydney on around 120L of oil. On the highway with light loads I can get down into the 10Km/l if I take it easy. My wifes Peugoet recently returned 6.5l/ 100 on a country trip on oil and it was loaded up for a few days away and I took 2x 25L drums of oil as well..... Which turned out I didn't need. :0) People often report around 6l/100 for these cars but I have also dialed mine up pretty high on the fueling and boost and It dosen't slow down a bit on any hill I have found so far.

The obsession with the place has me stuffed. There seems to be this misnomer of all this valuable info there but I severly question who ever searches for it instead of posting a new question straight out. I have seen the same things asked several times in the time I have been there which would make all this valueable info rather a moot point. Why the mods have done all the work they purport ( how many times did they try to contact someone who wasn't replying anyway?) I'm stuffed If I know why they didn't come here or at very least start their own forum. Seems from what is coming out that they never had anything to base all their feel good " trust us we'll fix it" BS they were feeding the members. Probably explain why I got such a hostile reaction when I dared ask how the forum was going to be secured. Anyway, looks like they may have some hope now. Be a shame if all the unmitagated arse kissing that's going on were to go to waste.

Cars are the best of all for being over priced. I was visiting my long estranged old man the other week at his wrecking yard. A guy came in wanting to sell a 20 yo vehicle that raised a stack of questions as to it's legitimacy to be road worthy. He told the old fella that he was interested in selling the thing. The old man said he wasn't interested and pointed to a line of 8 of the same vehicles on the front row of the yard. The guy said he only wanted $XXX dollars for the thing. The old fella said just hand on a minute and returned with a valuation guide. He asked the guy how long he had the thing and was told he bought it new. The old man then pointed out that what the guy was asking was at very least near a grand more than what he had paid new for the thing. He said if the guy restored the thing to as new condition, to come back in another 20 years and he -might- get his price then. The best one I have come across lately is my neighbours son. The old girl passed away a while back and left the house to her son and Daughter. They want to sell with me as a development site. Valued at $800K and being a block only 3/4 the size of mine, the place is stricktly land value only due to the condition of the house which is falling down literally. The guy told his sister that he wasn't happy with the valuation and was going to " Demand" at least $1M. I told him straight out, you can " Demand" what you like but you'll understand when people are going to laugh in your face and go round the corner and buy a block that the owners have a realistic market value on. Luckily the guy has gone OS and left the sister who is much more realistic in her expactations with power of attorney over the sale. Always astounds me how people think because THEY have owned something that t's worth more than the other hundred other same items for sale.

DO NOT WIRE YOUR BATTERY LEADS THROUGH THAT METER!! I'm not exactly sure how you are intending to wire that meter from what you have written but just in case.... ^^^^^ As ray points out it is only 20A and a vehicle output will be far higher than that. If you wire the starter battery through it, the second you try to start the vechicle you will either blow the fuse in the thing of vapourise it if it has no protection. Even on an isolated battery, you would be very lucky for the thing to handle all your accessories and luckier still if the thing wasn't overloaded once the engine was started and the thing was recharging. At only 20A, even below that rate that meter could cause resistance and drop the voltage or amp output. For what you want, you need a meter with and external shunt capeable of handling much higher currents. You also need to look at the electrical system of the vehicle and only take off the wires coming off the terminals, not the battery leads themselves. You also need to make sure there are no other wires coming off the starter terminal as is sometimes done to make sute you get a proper reading. I think you are really better off with just a volt meter. The amp input is less important than what voltage the battery is at. The amps will be regulated in charging and in discharge the battery level is more important than what the draw is on the battery. You could be pulling 2 amps on a battery but if the thing is down to 11V, then you are in a place you don't want to be. It would be much better to get a meter for automotive use. If you have a power outlet at the rear of the vehicle, you could wire this meter in there to keep an eye on whats happening and it would do well in that application.