rdr

i hope so, this is the co-op pharmacy. i wonder if there are any privately owned pharmacies still running?

I've had a run in with my pharmacist, I'm not on any serious meds but at the end of the day they're still on prescription. My prescription is a repeat every 4 weeks setup for omeprozone and due to my workload i often collect a week or so late. So when i collect the script they try to tell me that i have to wait a month for the next one from that day. Needless to say the desk jockey who deals with the customers thinks she's god and tries to first tell me what she is going to do, then try to run my life to suit her needs, bad mistake on her part. First off i remind her that the script is from the doctor and timings are nothing to do with her and whether i need them is none of her business. I tell her that the script is on a repeat basis of 4 weeks and that's when it will be available for me to collect, she starts to argue against this when i interrupt her and insist i speak to the pharmacist. That really got her back up, not that i care at all, and she walks off muttering under her breath something like "i've been working here for x amount of years", did i care...no. So i get to see the pharmacist in their privacy cubicle that was as sound proof as a paper room, and she tells me that they can only ask for the next script after i've collected the one that's due, which is a load of bollox. so i calculate that over a year they've stolen 2 or 3 scripts from me by doing this, and that renders me short on medication for 8 to 12 weeks over a year. I explain this to her and she seems puzzled and asks me to collect my script on the day it should be collected. I explain why i can't do that and then ask why if it's a repeat script aren't they ordered automatically every 4 weeks. She seemed to think that her computer couldn't do that, but the surgery say it will, and after a lot of arguing she agreed to sort it. Everything was going relatively well, as i was giving them the date when my script should be available each time, until they lost a script. The infamous "Doctor" desk jockey said to me "as it's this far away from it's due date i don't actually need it now", so she has no regard for my health issues, it's her way of getting out of supplying a script. So after i put her back in her place i had to go back to the pharmacist again who repeatedly lied to me about the procedure regarding scripts and after taking this issue back up with the surgery i got the missing meds and we seem to be back on track again.....Touch wood......!! The moral to this story....do not trust the pharmacy, they're running a business and don't give a toss about you.

there is a Denford Novamill on Ebay atm and is still at reasonable money. Trouble is the sale looks like it's being bid up and the identities of bidders are being blocked, often a sign of a protected sale.

what you have to consider is the way the printing works. The common extruding printers lay a line of plastic that is built up in layers like a log cabin, and you can see each layer. An sla printer builds up the model by fusing resin with a laser spot after spot, so ends up with a spark eroded or mottled finish. This is the better of the two and is a lot stronger as well, but it's really slow and still pretty expensive, especially if you want an item bigger than 5" (125mm) in any direction.

i have a pla 3d printer (extruded plastic), and wouldn't really consider it good enough for O gauge. SLA printers (resin) are going to be a must for this and are still pretty expensive for good ones, and you'll still have a mottled finish.

maybe the dollar to pound conversion was a lot better when i bought mine, or it was a bit cheaper, i'm not sure. But it's still amazing value for a great bit of software with fantastic online backup. PS. I'm sure i've run mine on Win 7.

whichever machine you go for use a current mach3 and ditch the original chinese supplied one (keeping the xml file). Download the current version from Artsofts website. and you can run the machine up to 500 lines without the license but it only costs just over £100 and it's well worth it. Good machines are Denford Starmill, Novamill, Triac, and are all single phase desktop size. These are real mills and cut any materials really accurately, and convert to mach3 easily. They come up on ebay fairly often and range from £500 - £2000, and are really good value.

This thread takes me back a few decades when i radio controlled a 00 Lima Western. After spending many years in the rc world with 1/10 scale cars, nicads and 27mhz rc, it was a reasonably easy method to go down. These days with Lipos and miniature receivers/speed controllers it's so easy a child could do it. What first sold it to me was the level of control you have and the smoothness of the loco over the rails, and realism is what we want, isn't it?. This old Lima Western running from a 9v PP3 battery was a joy to see, you could even see a slight resistance on the loco when it went through the points. Recently i spent a year in the club level 1/10 radio control car scene, and now battery life is massive compared to the old days, but battery management is critical. Reading through the posts placed here, i've noticed that there is a lot of emphasis on battery balancing when charging. This is a requirement when you're after absolute peak performance from the 2S or 3S packs, but not a must do. More important is the limitation on the charging voltage the batteries are charged too, any excess here and that's the end of the battery. Another point to be raised is the method of charging, some have mentioned trickle charging through the rail/wheel pickups, but also some have thought about using "jack plugs". NO IS THE ANSWER TO THAT IDEA, jack plugs will short the supply temporarily when they are plugged in, and the last thing a lipo battery want's to have is a direct short. A lipo failure is an event to be witnessed, is doesn't take long, but it is entertaining or not depending on what the lipo is in. A certain item from Samsung springs to mind, the Galaxy Note. An idea i thought of for charging, would be two small studs underneath the loco wired to the battery and a corresponding set of sprung pins/pads for the loco to ride over at a specific place on the layout or in the fiddle yard, easy and simple. Another good point worth mentioning, is a lot of rc handsets have multiple model memories that hold the finite settings for that specific model. Some handsets will isolate each receiver when changing the model and only run the actual model selected, which gives a handset the capacity to run a large amount of trains without turning each model off. Beware, some handsets will only change the settings and leave the model functioning. It's going to be a hard task to convert the massive community of DCC users over to rc, but they were converted from analogue once, so there is a hope. PS, The next time your loco stops over a point or judders again, think of rc.

Tired of being alone - Texas (Al Green)