Life without Brillo pads,

Brillo pads are a really good cleaning product and you used to be able to get cheap imitations costing less than a quid for 10, For some unknown reason those cheapo pads are no longer available and the real M'coy ones are averaging £2 for 10, I still use the Brillo pads but not as much now I'll use the wire ball scrubbers for mildly burned pans and save the Brillo's for when the Missus incinerates a pan and, she's a gold medalist pan burner, Luckily for us, I can bring a saucepan thats been heated to cherry red and bring it back Gleaming, to like its never been used,
How do other house husbands cope ??

Tom brillo pads £1-50 for 10 in Asda or wire ball scrubbers £1 for 4

Great for old copper, before tinning your ends.
No good on Tefal though!

PS: I wonder if Billinge Biker has ever had his ends tinned?

I used to like setting fire to steel wool

You’re the Manic Fire Starter!

Easily done, isn't it.

A bushcraft hack, a piece of the stuff across battery terminals is the way to start a fire if every other method is compromised by being soaking wet. (Like when you have fallen in the water: Goon Show fashion)

Tom, Do you not have bulk steel wool left over from your plumbing days? I thought it was a staple of the trade.

Ena, you've lost track of the H&S rules and regs, It was banned back in the nineties from the plumbing shelves due to causing skin problems in the growing numbers of female plumbers now joining our ranks, Having said that, I've always managed to find some on sale at screwfix or B+Q or other shops that did't need to attend H&S courses to obtain certs and diploma's to serve a plumber,, Its a funny ole world innit ,

Mea culpa.

I am getting old.

Not the first time on here of late, my comment has revealed me to be out of date.

C' est la vie

Peter, I must be looking in the wrong Asda or the wrong shelves in the right Asda because , I couldn't find any in Asda , Sainsbo's or B+M's at Marus bridge, Mind you, I'm only the 2nd best shopper in our house , I've got all the gear but no idea how its done proper,

Home Bargains at Platt Bridge sell them 10 for £1.

Use non stick pans.

Tom I got mine from Golborne you have the choice of two

Just on the subject of non stick:

Anyone found any that is safe to heat to 250 Deg C.?

That is the temp at which I cook oven chips, recipe calls for 250, and is the temp also which I would have chosen.

Getting some build-up on my oven tray (oil turns to what is essentially paint).

Recipe suggests non stick, but I have searched and most say "oven safe up to 220 deg" very occasionally, I have found 230 deg. Not found any, inc ceramic or granite which say safe to 250!

Does anybody know owt about field effect transistors? Just asking. In case, laaaaike!

What do you want to know?

They function in a similar way to junction transistors, but the 'gate' connection which replaces the 'base' connection yields a very high impedance input, as control is not achieved by current flow, but varying the electrical field to modulate the charge carriers available between source and drain, therefore controlling the current in the S to D path.

Enhancement and depletion modes of control are used, but it is common for both to be used, complementary, which gives you the more complex devices such as the CMOS range of ICs.

I'm sure Google will find some nice illustrated accounts of FET operation.

Well, I need to know how I can connect a pure sine inverter inphase sync with my household AC grid supply.
I might be able to 'just do it', using a grid-tie inverter, but I want to know how it works.
Nobody seems to know owt, though. Everybody who is anybody simply know how to connect ready-made stuff together. They don't know how, or why, it works!
I'm thinking a field effect transistor might recognise the two wave forms and create one in-sync with no lead or lag?

I also thought you might build me one? I'll pay you!

Not tinned Tonks....but threrped and mault wi on many an occasion

For years, I thought I had a birthmark on my arse.
It turned out to have been a cigar-burn.

How's about that then?

Tonker,

You could use FETs, or other similar devices so that a signal derived from the mains waveform triggers the conduction from your other source. As it stands, there will be some lag, but a filter can delay the leading signal enough to pull them together. (Each half cycle +/-, being handled separately)

That said, I don't know if that is the technique which they actually use, I would have to look it up, I suspect the commercial devices use a phase-locked loop, as it is available as a cheap single IC. Again I would need to look up the circuit they use.

Sadly, I am not in a position to be able to offer to make one for you. I would if I could.

If I get the time, I will peruse some of the circuitry online. There is usually a reference design with the examples in use being a variant of the reference design. I'll let you know if I find anything, but don't hold your breath, I'm up to my eyes with stuff to do.

A grid connected inverter is such a device.

Reference design for a GCI was easy to find, though may well not be the most up to date.

Reference design grid connected inverter

Ha Ha Ha, we've gone from steel wool to nuclear science without any of the,...........................Sorry Mollie, I'll shut me mouth,,,

Tom:


You know, I haven't seen a Brillo pad in years. Mindst, I don't go in the shops mentioned here, but I manage with a metal type pad. I've also, just on two occasions, just caught pans about to burn, but I've saved them by firstly soaking them in just water overnight, then scrubbing off the debris the next day with a cleaning agent.

As to wire wool - oh my godfathers! I can't touch it. Can't stand the feel of it.

Tom, back to your topic, I have recently started to use copper scourers. (they are like the stainless steel, except they are Cu.)

Bought them ages ago in Aldi. Threw them int cupboard whit rest o such stuff: they have recently worked their way to the top and entered into use.

I must say, I am rather impressed.

Seem to be just as effective as SS scourer.

Additionally will not scratch SS pans.

Cu makes them a hostile environment for fungi or bacteria, and they rinse clean under cold tap far more readily than SS.

I'll come back and modify this comment, if I get 'Wilson's Disease'.

Good point Ena, Cu is more readily accepted to the hand yet will . discolour the skin, Do you remember the bus conductors of the 50's/60's ? and my Missus has a green finger from the wedding ring I made her from a 15mm olive from a plumbing fitting I made, , the Stainless steel scrubbers work well too but need more elbow grease, Brillo pads work very very well but. they are a use once only item, If you leave them on the sink top, they will rust and contaminate anything they touch, Perhaps they are under scrutiny by the H+S and thats why they are not readily available