BX with the aluminum strip for a ground is only on older wire, all newer BX has a copper ground in the bundle as well. It has been that way up here in Canada since the 80s. They decided way back then that the outer mechanical jacket/conduit grounds were insufficient for proper protection.
Don't get me started on aluminum wiring from the 70s
Ha!
Yeah...if the old Philco would have had a sticker warning: "No Owner Serviceable Parts", that would have stopped me for sure.
It's for the lawsuit. You were warned before you went in.
G²
We know that the purpose of the label is for legal reasons. I have come to realize the true meaning of the label. It really means that you might be able to take this thing apart, but you CAN'T put it back together!
The electronics of the period did actually have user servicable parts, and you could remove them and take them to the corner store to be tested. Almost every 7-11 and drug store sold tubes and had a tube tester.
I was learning electronics in my pre teen years with the tools that were available to curious tinkerers in the 1960's. There were several DIY magazines, and there was an endless supply of discarded radios, TV's and HiFi sets as close as the nearest dumpster. When I was about 10 I had revived an old radio by tube swapping. Attempting to turn up the volume with pliers while standing barefoot on a concrete floor was an educational experience that I have not forgotten.
What are you people talking about?!? We are all going to die from extension cords, plastic bags, and all the other every day items in our house!!! Have you seen the warning labels? Plugging an extension cord into the wall socket absolves the manufacturer from any liability should the cord burst into flames for no apparent reason. The cord is also a choking hazard, so you should just keep it in the bag. Oh wait, bags are suffocation hazards too!!!
[tongue removed from cheek]
Playing with electricity requires some degree of respect. I was lucky that my dad was there to guide me, but I still got zapped plenty of times anyway. When he saw me peering at the tube amp inside my electric organ, he instilled a fear in me about it that made me not want to touch it ever. I eventually took it apart, of course, but I was very respectful of it. Same with TVs....
[tongue removed from cheek]
Playing with electricity requires some degree of respect. I was lucky that my dad was there to guide me, but I still got zapped plenty of times anyway. When he saw me peering at the tube amp inside my electric organ, he instilled a fear in me about it that made me not want to touch it ever. I eventually took it apart, of course, but I was very respectful of it. Same with TVs....
Nobody ever instilled the fear of the mighty electricity in me except for electricity itself. So at age six or seven I decided to jam my fingers on the terminals of an un-insulated plug stuck in an outlet to see what would happen. Let's just say it took me, oh, about 10 ms to figure out why my parents had equipped outlets with those little child protector gizmos a few years earlier... This was in Europe where the mains voltage at the time was 220 V. I stuck to low-voltage circuits for a while after that...
~Tom
~Tom
Eagle was the absolute king of cheap garbage - what a sleazy place. No surprise that their tubes were second rate, too. I also remember their stupid singing commercials on WLOF in Orlando.I hadn't given Eagle a second thought since I left for college in 1971 (maybe even before that). Funny how things come back to you.
Yes, it was a bottom of the barrel store, but a $1 6L6GC was pretty tempting for someone who was making $1.05 an hour (minimum wage in 1968). I got several over a few year period. I don't remember any spectacular failures, but to me those were the "good tubes" since I actually bought them. My experiments were carried out of stuff I rescued from the landfill. I also had dozens of NIB metal 6L6's from scrap at Homestead AFB. I did peel the paint off of several of those!
I still see Thoro Test tubes from time to time. So far they have all been GE's.
That was about the age when the paper clip met the wall outlet. That began a long fascination with feeding things more electricity than they were designed to eat.
LOL...same here...maybe 4 or 5. A paper clip and I was sitting on a wet floor...or maybe it got wet after the fact.
Same reason that 'not wearing seatbelts until i was 25 didn't kill me or anyone else i knew.' But when all the safety enforcers came out in the 80's everyone found out how dangerous life is, we all started dying and getting injured.
So now we are all trapped in a safety freak reality, so check your ground
Roy
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