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1

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: Yesterday at 09:40:36 »

A mate of mine, who is as tight as a ducks arse, got a K2 Plus, and we have shown you can peel off the RFID tags from a empty Creality reel and put on another without damage virtually 100% of the time, and reprogram.

They might not stick perfectly, but a bit of sellotape over them sorts that.

The second lot of RFID tags I got off eGay program up nicely and do seem to work. Also, I noticed on my CFS monitor that the one genuine RFID tagged reel I have on there looks like its showing half empty. Not sure if this is actually a thing or if my eyes are going....

Also, we were discussing what spares to have on hand....

Its defo worth you having some spare PTFE tube and a spare extruder cover.

Useful to know, thank you. On this point, do you happen to know if the K2 and K2 plus are the same unit (other than the enclosure size - obviously) with interchangeable parts? The reason I ask is that when I've looked online K2 plus parts seem more plentiful/easily available. Clearly aome things will be different, but the print heads for example look visually the same to me.

2

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 12 March 2026, 15:53:50 »

Had £1100 of tyres fitted to it 

3

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 09 March 2026, 10:54:30 »

You did, but being sensible goes against the grain with me.
I feel much older and more boring now I own one. 

Bet its faster than the car it replaced 

Be interested to hear how you get on with it!

4

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 March 2026, 12:17:06 »

B58 lump as fitted to M240i/M340i is probably one of the best engines made.

3 litre straight 6 with loads of top end power and 'stump pulling' torque at the bottom end.


My actual car made 445 bhp and 475 lb ft of twist when strapped to the dyno at Viezu. BMW quote a very conservative 369BHP and 369 lb ft of torque.

Yes, I reckon this engine in the 5 series estate, wither this one or the last one, probably makes for one of the best all round family cars money could but. I loved my m140i hugely - when it was working, and the 335d was no slouch either 

5

General Discussion Area / Re: Middle East

« on: 06 March 2026, 10:04:14 »

Asda 143.9p yesterday, up 4p. Some smaller garages up 10p....profiteering.

Same here, up 10p most places and HGVs queuing into petrol stations where you wouldn't normally see them. No movement on petrol though - so I do wonder if its a UK demand issue i.e. big hauliers pulling deliveries forward.

6

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 March 2026, 09:34:48 »

I always thought it was a bit cheeky of BMW to name the 4 cylinder 2.0 litre plug in hybrid 330e/530e, which implied that it’s a three litre. I know they are fairly brisk but they are worlds away from a 3.0 litre, so why not just call them 320e/520e. 

It absolutely is, performance wise it sits directly between the 530i and 530d (presumably that's their justification for the '30') but that only holds true if there's juice in the battery - there wasn't when I got it and it felt very much like a 520i with two fatties sat in the back  . It also doesn't have the nice feel of either of the 3.0 units, which is important when you're paying that ludicrous amount of money!

Overall I *can* see a use case for the 530e, since I charged it its returned about 75mpg in mixed use and used about 2.5miles/kwh meaning if you do less than 50-55miles per day then its probably your most efficient option of the three power trains with that level of performance. But you would have to keep it charged up, and without the battery for support it will only do about 28-30mpg - which is poor.

I've now driven a few hybrids and this is the best I've experienced by a country mile, but I still would never own one. I think they're expensive new and incredibly over-complicated with the potential for massive bills when older.   

On balance I can't see me going back to anything ICE powered any time soon for daily duties - even when the government incentives for EVs go away I suspect I will stick with them unless I find the need for lots of (heavy) towing in the future. 

7

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 March 2026, 15:09:34 »

Dropped off the iX at BMW Shrewsbury to have a few bits fettled. They gave me a very nice 530e M-Sport, which is light years ahead of the 1-series I was expecting 

They did also say it needs four new tyres - glad I won't be picking up the bill for that one 

8

General Discussion Area / Re: Middle East

« on: 03 March 2026, 17:59:12 »

Brent Crude now at $76.72.  I filled up this morning and diesel was £1.399 in Tesco.

Keeping warm next winter might be a bit pricy though as UK natural gas futures are up 45%! 

I did the galaxy a couple of days ago, the yank lawn ornament also has about 70l in that so far I can tp syphon out, but I might in future 

Sizeable queues at all the local fuel stations today as the general population cottoned on/believed the hype (delete as appropriate). SWMBO has reported no similar congestion to access the plug on our drive, so the BMW will be able to access its usual nightly feed without issue..

I think we will see a lot of price inflation across the board as a result of this. Shipping futures in the strait of Hormunz are trading 50-75% above typical levels 

9

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 27 February 2026, 06:28:03 »

I mean, I know it's your hobby and you'll end up with a really nice car, but is it really worth throwing all this money at? If it were mine, I think I'd be shitting myself about now.
If the unthinkable were to happen, what would the insurance payout be like?

In DG's shoes I'd definitely want an agreed value insurance policy that's for sure!

It's true I could have leased a new Astra for £3,279 down and 47 x £379... So using some spectacular man maths, the 30 months I have had the car for would have cost me £14,649 for the new Astra. I have spent ~£13,300 on the The Proper Car (cost to change, retrofits and maintenance, including the gearbox replacement), so I am still ahead and I own the car

When you put it like that 

10

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 25 February 2026, 10:04:37 »

That's useful to know thank you, I'm glad I wasn't missing something obvious in tinkercad.

I haven't played with the proper slicer yet, only the cloud based one and the phone app, so not sure if it's possible there but I will have a play at some point.

The main use case I've got is exactly as you described here, labels, raised text or similar so changing at a specific layer height should work just fine for me. 

11

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 24 February 2026, 15:23:45 »

The RFID type you need are MiFare Classic 1k.  In UK, I was struggling to get them for less than around 40p each in quantities less than 50.  Someone on Ebay doing 100 for about £22 delivered.  I've got a load coming from aliexpress, something like £9 for 80 - I can let you know the item number when they arrive and I've tested.

I ordered some off eGay and they work, but aren't cheap enough for me to want to use them as disposable.

I haven't yet found a way of doing multi colour printing of on my own designs out of tinkerCad. Well, I can print in two parts and glue them together obviously, but this seems like a faff compared to just getting the printer to do it. Do you know if there is a way of doing this? Whenever I do a multicolour model in tinkerCad, the stl just comes out as a single piece in a single colour. 

12

General Discussion Area / Re: Concrete mixer - sold!

« on: 24 February 2026, 15:19:57 »

My dad has a 250L diesel one he inherited from a builder who didn't want to come back and fix some snagging, so left all his tools instead  .

I'm not sure how old that one is, but it was made in West Germany, which is definitely an indication. In its 15yrs with us its wanted only for a new set of phosphor bronze bushes. I fully expect to be inheriting that when he passes, and I will warn the lad to expect it when my time comes 

13

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 24 February 2026, 15:09:07 »

3500 miles a year, you'd be part ex'ing it just because you want to. As you say I'm sure you'd get more than a decade out of it before it started to give you any trouble, probably moreif you got some lanoguard or similar on the non-shiny bits 

I've booked the iX to the local BMW stealer to have some niggles addressed. 3rd March, I wonder what colour the pov spec 1-series they give me as a courtesy car will be... 

14

General Car Chat / Re: I wish

« on: 11 February 2026, 13:25:10 »

The TPMS sensors were showing low voltage, you could reset them and in a few days where showing a fault.

I had to get them changed.

Thanks for the link.

Ah, no worries if you've already had them done. The purpose of the service I linked to is that it removes/disables the TPMS function entirely so the car either doesn't know it has TPMS fitted, or just thinks everything is fine with it. Either way it doesn't matter what the sensors are or are not showing, you'll never see a warning on the dashboard again. 

15

General Car Chat / Re: I wish

« on: 11 February 2026, 13:07:09 »

Christ alive that's a lot of money!

Have you tried the AA website? I used a random 2017 astra reg number (came back as 1.6 diesel) and they quoted £212 to do the fronts and £196 for the rears. Which I still think is a lot, but a big chunk less than you were quoted. You have the option of a man in a nice yellow van doing it on your drive too - which sounds better to me than sitting in a freezing cold waiting room drinking sh!t coffee.

LINK TO AA WEBSITE

Just for info, TPMS can be coded out for roughly £50 using a postal service (they send you a box to plug in, you do the update then send it back) so it will never appear again. Which would be my choice, like others I would argue that if you can't spot that your tyres are flat, you should hand back your licence.

LINK TO ONE SUCH SERVICE


Total for the work doing the above way would be £450 ish - much more palatable