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Humor Random Comments Thread

Indeed they can, but not for very long!

Anecdote:...
Aged 15? I was building a power-supply. Got past simple stuff, so time for more Watts!

Transformer, Bridge-Rectifier, Smoothing Capacitor, 78012 Regulator.
What could possibly go wrong?

Veroboard construction, clever enough to not put 240 volts on it. Not clever enough to realise I had put the smoothing capacitor on upside down.

Luckily my soldering was quite good and both ends of the capacitor stayed attached to the copper tracks. The internals of the electrolytic were spread across the room, Was a bit dazed and deafened. Parents not impressed.

Did learn a lesson, electricity is dangerous at any level.
 
The internals of the electrolytic were spread across the room, Was a bit dazed and deafened. Parents not impressed.
Click to expand...

I guess my father was lucky I was only messing around with computers at that age. He's a bit paranoid about fire hazards, I think me being interested in electricity might have given him a stroke... :lol:

(Not that he was particularly happy when the computer stopped working every once in a while because I "reconfigured some things", but it was manageble...)
 
Can't say I blame him!

I was much more careful after that, especially with mains stuff.

Never had another episode till I was repairing a picture monitor with a switched-mode power-supply. Took the PS board out, and was looking at it on the bench.
Bit careless and caught my fingers on the back of the board. Got 500 volts DC on one hand. The 10MOhm bleed resistor had not been fitted at the factory.
Caused me to spasm and throw the board in the air.
Once my deeply concerned colleague had stopped laughing, he went to pick it up.
Guess what happened next.

Barco CM33 if you ever come across one, best check!
 
Yeah, "Reverse the polarity of electron flow!" sounds fancy, but tend to end with a sudden loud BANG.

Had an episode like that last year, with a little cap soldered in backwards -
Un4wk6Z.jpg

The thing hit me straight in the palm of my hand, so co wide-reaching confetti.
 
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I would say capacitors are the most dangerous component on circuit boards, except for the ones that catch fire of course.

Tantalum capacitors had a nasty habit of going short-circuit to save the nearest fuse...
 
I've got a 40 year old analogue synthesiser(90% complete kit, never put the spring-line reverb unit in). Hasn't been switched on for over twenty years.

I'm wondering about putting it in the spare bedroom with a very long extension lead(s) and switching it on from the kitchen. That's where the extinguisher and fire blanket are...
 
Notebook said:
I've got a 40 year old analogue synthesiser(90% complete kit, never put the spring-line reverb unit in). Hasn't been switched on for over twenty years.

I'm wondering about putting it in the spare bedroom with a very long extension lead(s) and switching it on from the kitchen. That's where the extinguisher and fire blanket are...
Click to expand...

Tell me when you do it, I would like to watch it. :lol:

Playing Depeche Mode on a 40 year old analog synth would be epic.
 
I wouldn't really...

Its a modular-ish kit. Big plus the power supply has bus-bars, I could get that going then check each of the units in turn.
Would be a lot of work though, wouldn't risk the electrolytics or the tantalums so they would all have to be replaced.

This is the kit:
https://encyclotronic.com/synthesizers/maplin/eti-4600-r1429/

You can see the power-supply in the first picture, fourth row down.
 
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Notebook said:
I wouldn't really...

Its a modular-ish kit. Big plus the power supply has bus-bars, I could get that going then check each of the units in turn.
Would be a lot of work though, wouldn't risk the electrolytics or the tantalums so they would all have to be replaced.
Click to expand...

That's sad, its like steam trains, having those sit silently in a museum does not give you an impression how those are like alive.

And a music instrument has to be played.
Its a law.
I am sure there is one.
Letting a music instrument sit silently hidden on an attic must be a capital offense.
 
Its tragic! Wasn't hidden, sat in the bedroom when I had a flat. Its only moved upstairs recently.
I'll admit I'm no keyboard player but I did have some fun with it when it was working.
I'm busy with other kits at the moment, probably get round to it eventually...

Trouble is I've been following this kit:
https://www.soundtronics.co.uk/midi-ultimate-synth/
 
Got the magazines, it finished in the Summer. Looks a nice project, but time...
 
Should anyone decide to build a nixie clock, don't do as I did and test them before soldering them.

I decided to take on this little project to get a bit of practice in soldering stuff and also because, well, it looks neat.

After soldering the first two of four tubes I soldered the third, which turned out to be defective. :facepalm: After I botched the removal process of the third I damaged the PCB by drilling out the solder of with too large a drill bit and damaging it. Positioning the tubes is akin to lining up 10 threads in their respective needle at once, so a good bit of the Sunday afternoon was spent moving the first two working tubes to a new PCB.

Seems to be working though, at least:
 
Well done for persevering and looks excellent. Starting a nixie kit from Elektor at the moment. Afraid I'll have to take them as good. If I get a bad one, well such is life.
Shame you can't get sockets for them.

We used a lot of these as station clock where I worked. As you know they have a depth to them because of the structure.
I got a bit hypnotised one day trying to work out which digits were in front of which while waiting for a transmission start...Only happened once.
 
Well, these are IN-14 tubes, literally Soviet old-new stock as far as I can tell (as are the driver ICs, possibly), so checking them would have made sense. :lol:

Good luck on the assembly of your kit!
 
Thank you, and to yourself!

Unfortunately it has a GPS chip with closer than I like pin spacing. Its not quite surface mounted dimensions, but nearly.
I think I'll wait till we get lighter mornings for the soldering...
 
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