Johan Potgieter said:
Hmm, sounds like my technique. I honestly have never considered that my hard-wiring method might be the cause of intense frustration to some poor sap down the line, but that's only because I've always assumed that the poor sap who will have to wrestle with reconditioning my homebrew stuff is me.
Here's something similar that I'll warrant is rarely encountered, but I encountered it when I was repairing an Avo transistor tester. The components in the tester were mounted on a PCB, but the leads were crimped after being trimmed, and then soldered. Why did Avo crimp the leads? Did they think the components would fall out?
Martin Hayes said:
I've seen that one on an AVO valve tester. Apparently, the idea is that you test the board without soldering, then, if it works, you solder the joints.* Sounds just daft enough to be true. It certainly made it difficult to fix the blasted thing.
*Makes you wonder about their quality control when that sort of thing is deemed necessary and acceptable...
Something with a funny slant.
A colleague of mine once had to set up an amplifier/PA (battery operated) at a wilderness camp. Upon testing by touching the microphone input, he could not get the usual hum to indicate that all was well - the amp was "dead"......
Until it dawned on him: They were literally a hundred km away from the nearest mains overhead line/cabling of any kind. There was no close-by source of ac to provide hum when an input was touched!
A colleague of mine once had to set up an amplifier/PA (battery operated) at a wilderness camp. Upon testing by touching the microphone input, he could not get the usual hum to indicate that all was well - the amp was "dead"......
Until it dawned on him: They were literally a hundred km away from the nearest mains overhead line/cabling of any kind. There was no close-by source of ac to provide hum when an input was touched!
I love the metalwork ! (a flypress + a load of tooling makes this possible). The things I hate are :
Disappearing local parts suppliers - they are all becoming outposts of Aussie or further beyond, and nobody holds stock anymore, leading to my packrat mentality and a overcrammed basement.
USPS ditching surface mail (no more Lab12 speakers <sob> for my labsubs).
Weird US ebayers, who don't recognise the existence of the world outside shore to shining shore.
Hong Kong Inventory - I have a fine collection of AL3201 chips with NO SILICON in them.
Vendors who hike the postage or only do expensive freight options (Fedex, UPS etc)
That all the good chips are now coming out in impossibly small packages at the same time as my eyesight is deteriorating.
M
Disappearing local parts suppliers - they are all becoming outposts of Aussie or further beyond, and nobody holds stock anymore, leading to my packrat mentality and a overcrammed basement.
USPS ditching surface mail (no more Lab12 speakers <sob> for my labsubs).
Weird US ebayers, who don't recognise the existence of the world outside shore to shining shore.
Hong Kong Inventory - I have a fine collection of AL3201 chips with NO SILICON in them.
Vendors who hike the postage or only do expensive freight options (Fedex, UPS etc)
That all the good chips are now coming out in impossibly small packages at the same time as my eyesight is deteriorating.
M
mobyd said:
Actually so do I - until the drill-bit breaks or the filing has gone skew or the scriber slips and draws a gash across the chassis ..........
....now where is that design of mine of a beamer-over of parts.
"Scotty, please beam over that 500W Hammond output transformer to my place in Toodyay, and a few KT88s - careful not to compromise the vacuum..." (How will they beam over a vacuum, I wonder ... something like [VACUUM] .... [/VACUUM]?)
Come now, you innovative types!
I hate this:
-Making some hefty amp and one channel dissapears, but when you tap it it comes back, checking and resoldering it 100 times, throw it out of a window and ruibuild it 10 times and fire a bazooka at it starting from scratch and then discover your DAC at the other side of your desk has a broken cable.....
-Painstakingly collect and match tubes from very hard to find sources, then sell your surplus and people start to point out thet that tube is for sale at 99c at ebay from adubious seller thet only speaks chinese and then start to say your a rip off.
-Dropping rare NOS tubes
-Not having the tools i want
-Not having any money to buy what you want
-Roommates that keep bugging you they hate the sound of your sine generator when you reach your eureka moment
-Making some hefty amp and one channel dissapears, but when you tap it it comes back, checking and resoldering it 100 times, throw it out of a window and ruibuild it 10 times and fire a bazooka at it starting from scratch and then discover your DAC at the other side of your desk has a broken cable.....
-Painstakingly collect and match tubes from very hard to find sources, then sell your surplus and people start to point out thet that tube is for sale at 99c at ebay from adubious seller thet only speaks chinese and then start to say your a rip off.
-Dropping rare NOS tubes
-Not having the tools i want
-Not having any money to buy what you want
-Roommates that keep bugging you they hate the sound of your sine generator when you reach your eureka moment
- Cutting part leads or wires to a certain length only to find out they're just a hair too short.
- Sneezing, or breathing heavy, and blowing surface mount parts off of the work bench.
- Knocking a parts bin and mixing up all the surface mount caps (and resistors) that have no identification labels.
- Having to desolder through hole parts.
- Hooking the power supply up to your amplifier's speaker output and the speaker to the power supply input.
- Reversing the polarity of power supply connections.
- Making a nice wire harness using the same color wiring and wrapping it with electrical tape only to find that you've made incorrect connections.
- Having loose connections on your workbench move around and short out, destroying a project you were just working on.
- Accidentally knocking over the drink on the workbench and drenching your current project in iced tea.
- Looking for a component for hours only to find that it was underneath the work instructions you had placed on your workbench hours earlier.
- Looking for a component for hours only to find that you were sitting on it the whole time.
- Getting all hyped up to build something and the soldering iron's heating element burns out.
Not that any of these have actually happened to me, just saying that I would hate it if they did
- Sneezing, or breathing heavy, and blowing surface mount parts off of the work bench.
- Knocking a parts bin and mixing up all the surface mount caps (and resistors) that have no identification labels.
- Having to desolder through hole parts.
- Hooking the power supply up to your amplifier's speaker output and the speaker to the power supply input.
- Reversing the polarity of power supply connections.
- Making a nice wire harness using the same color wiring and wrapping it with electrical tape only to find that you've made incorrect connections.
- Having loose connections on your workbench move around and short out, destroying a project you were just working on.
- Accidentally knocking over the drink on the workbench and drenching your current project in iced tea.
- Looking for a component for hours only to find that it was underneath the work instructions you had placed on your workbench hours earlier.
- Looking for a component for hours only to find that you were sitting on it the whole time.
- Getting all hyped up to build something and the soldering iron's heating element burns out.
Not that any of these have actually happened to me, just saying that I would hate it if they did
Ow! Just thouhjt of one:
Finding out the hard way that the factory forgot the insulation cap in your metal toggle switch that switches your 800V B+
that one threw me 2 metres across my room.
ow, brother plugging in your amp while you are working on it hurts too! Allmost as much as blowing up caps in your face
Finding out the hard way that the factory forgot the insulation cap in your metal toggle switch that switches your 800V B+
that one threw me 2 metres across my room.
ow, brother plugging in your amp while you are working on it hurts too! Allmost as much as blowing up caps in your face
What part of diy...
Hi
a)Glueing my elbow to the diningroom table
b)Taking the cap off a new tube of superglue and have half the stuff squirt out
c)When my wife lifts up the moved placemats and discovers the holes I burned in her tablecloths
d)When an insect comes touching down on a freshly painted chassis
e)Knocking over a full Coke can on my workbench
f)When my B&D angle grinder (now stolen) ejaculates its removable powercord in a sheet of flame and a bang, setting my overalls alight, hehe* - (only the brass zip remained, rest OK)
*) If any of these are still in use and you cut a lot of metal - metal particles build up inside the switch and short it
I have many more "hates" but will call it a day here.
bulgin
Hi
a)Glueing my elbow to the diningroom table
b)Taking the cap off a new tube of superglue and have half the stuff squirt out
c)When my wife lifts up the moved placemats and discovers the holes I burned in her tablecloths
d)When an insect comes touching down on a freshly painted chassis
e)Knocking over a full Coke can on my workbench
f)When my B&D angle grinder (now stolen) ejaculates its removable powercord in a sheet of flame and a bang, setting my overalls alight, hehe* - (only the brass zip remained, rest OK)
*) If any of these are still in use and you cut a lot of metal - metal particles build up inside the switch and short it
I have many more "hates" but will call it a day here.
bulgin