Author Topic: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag  (Read 43639 times)

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Offline BjornR1989

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #50 on: December 27, 2013, 12:19:04 pm »
Hey Dave,

yes, the wire is too thin. But I have a suspicion that it isn't even copper. Did you notice the springy-ness of the leads? And the resistance is way too high as well.
Might be fun to put 16A through it to see what happens....
or at least measure the resistance

220v/16A on a skimpy wire like that... I'd expect to see something more in line with Photoninduction's videos.. Aka smokin and burn carpet.

PS: what's the idea with those floor-sized carpets Brits seem to love? Ain't those hard to keep clean etc?

Seeing Dave hold a German/Dutch/Belgian/French plug has gotten my attention ("I recognize that plug!").
Cheap Chinese power adapters come with cheap cables. I pulled one apart by trying to unplug it. The plastic breaks and the cable can't bend even 3 times before it falls apart.
Oh, ofcourse these cables can't handle 10, nevermind 16 ampères.

Youtube: Minderwertiges Kaltgerätekabel mal wirklich mit 10A belasten
« Last Edit: December 27, 2013, 12:21:58 pm by BjornR1989 »
 

Offline JoeO

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #51 on: December 27, 2013, 12:31:24 pm »
I just found the maintenance manual for the LVDC boards:

Part 1:
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/LaboratoryMaintenanceInstructionsForLVDC-Volume1-GeneralDescriptionAndTheory.pdf

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/LaboratoryMaintenanceInstructionsForLVDC-Volume2-MaintenanceData.pdf

More docs for the Saturn Project.
http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/


THANKS!!!!!! What a find. I was right... it was an IBM card. They never used industry standard numbers on their chips until they produced the  PC came along.

As you can see, it was very well documented. The technical description is excellent.

IBM documented their mainframes really well. They never used standard logic symbols. Everything was a block and the libraries of technical manuals were huge.
IBM was the second largest publisher.  The first was the US government.
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Offline seth13699

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #52 on: December 27, 2013, 12:51:22 pm »
THANKS!!!!!! What a find. I was right... it was an IBM card. They never used industry standard numbers on their chips until they produced the  PC came along.

As you can see, it was very well documented. The technical description is excellent.

IBM documented their mainframes really well. They never used standard logic symbols. Everything was a block and the libraries of technical manuals were huge.

This documentation is well known to exist but if you look closely there is no schematic to be found. At all.

Even worse is on the software side. Not even a single page of source code is known (even early revisions).

We only know it was coded in FORTRAN by "The Germans" (the Von Braun team) and some tidbits can be found
here and there. Like some of the flight equations & performance described in "Description and Performance of the Saturn Launch Vehicle's Navigation, Guidance, and Control System" by Walter Haeussermann:

http://klabs.org/history/reports/tn_d-5869_1970023342.pdf

Now compare this with what we know about the AGC:

H/W:

http://klabs.org/richcontent/Misc_Content/AGC_And_History/PartsAnalysis/PartsAnalysis.htm

http://klabs.org/history/ech/agc_schematics/index.htm

S/W:

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/links.html#Software_manuals_and_listings

and the difference is apparent.

It is believed that IBM suppressed all info about the LVDC because all later ICBM digital flight control systems
are based on it...

 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #53 on: December 27, 2013, 01:11:58 pm »
Passives inside glass valve envelopes date back to the 1920s
http://electricstuff.co.uk/loewe.html

Later, there were also all-glass memory and A-D converters
http://electricstuff.co.uk/glassadc.html

The oldest machines I ever worked on was made by the Computing Tabulating Recording Company, which later became IBM. The machine was built prior to 1924 and still operating commercially here in Melbourne in the 1980's sorting punch cards. This predecessor to the 082 Card Sorter had Queen Anne type legs on it. It was a memorable experience to debug such an ancient piece of equipment. It is possible the machine has one of those integrated valves in it - I cannot recall.

The punch card was only 30 or so years old when the machine was built, created for the 1890 US census by a genius named Herman Hollerith, the great grandfather of modern data processing.
 

Offline hikariuk

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #54 on: December 27, 2013, 04:38:49 pm »
David you just have to make a Nixie clock or something with those Nixie tubes =-)

I think I've just added that to my list of things to learn how to do...
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Offline Rasz

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #55 on: December 27, 2013, 07:25:27 pm »
Im lost. They have plenty PR BS brochures, but I cant find real documentation :(

It is Transputers Reloaded all over the place. Just as with transputers there are a lot of very bold claims about xcores around. And there are a lot of people still around who don't trust anything remotely related to transputers or the people who had a hand in developing them.

I dont even care abut this aspect of the product. Dev board seems to be targeting simple usage scenarios, no stacking/clustering. I just wanted some documentation, but all I can find on their website is marketing material camouflaged as documentation pdfs. You know its bad when website dedicated to the dev board doesnt even mention clock speed.
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Offline Jonas_H

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #56 on: December 27, 2013, 08:18:49 pm »
I'm surprised you even had a 0.5 mm² cable lying around, where did it came from? I couldn't find anything for the mains rated that low here, even the charger to the electric razor that's supposed to draw 55 mA and have a 2.5 A plug has a (permanently attached) 0.75 mm² cable. And we have 230 V here too, so it's not like we need thicker wiring.
 

Offline madworm

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #57 on: December 27, 2013, 09:22:43 pm »
The cable was composed of 20 strands of 80µm diameter. Effective conductor area: 0.1mm². Copper-coated stainless steel. 1m of that wire had a resistance of 1.6Ohm, but it should have been 180mOhm (pure copper).



Mind how the strands don't want to stay bent. Pretty atypical for copper.

What's interesting is that the wire came as part of a pretty decent laptop  power supply.  That survived shorting the output for long time, output voltage stays stable independent of load, almost no ripple. All fine.

The cable would be tolerable if it only were used with that laptop brick (50W-ish), but having a plug that fits into a lot of higher-power devices... not so good.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2013, 09:25:25 pm by madworm »
 

Offline open loop

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #58 on: December 27, 2013, 10:18:55 pm »
Looking at that power cable and Madworm's interesting post made me think of an incident that happened 1 mile away from me...

One of our local pubs (the Griffin at Reading in Caversham) was badly fire damaged first thing Christmas eve, half the bar was missing and cables hanging from the ceiling and very serious smoke damage where you cant see into the windows, in short a big mess. The killer was that the pub had a full lunch booking and Christmas lunch and evening bookings. Not to mention the refurbishment that was done less than 2 years ago... :'(

Fortunately they managed to move everyone to anther premises for Christmas eve (don't know about Christmas day). The cost is going to be at least 100 thousand pounds considering refit and loss of earnings.

Apparently the cause was one of the bar tills but you have to wonder what actually was faulty... I don't think they will let me investigate. It now down to the loss adjuster of the insurance company to decide the next step.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/fire-destroys-half-bar-caversham-6444201

 

Offline maeffju

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #59 on: December 27, 2013, 10:39:34 pm »
Very cool, to encounter some familiar devices, far away in the hands of Dave the crazy aussi bloke... ;)

By chance I happen to be an electronic engineering student, working at Dräger in Lübeck.  :D
I'm working there as a "dualer-student" (something like dual course of studies in english) which means that im studying normally, and then, in each term break I get to work in one of Drägers different departments.
From the end of January on I'm going to spend some weeks in the "portable gas detection instruments" department, where I for sure will encounter the followup-modell of your Multiwarn - which by the way in deed is outdated and yes!, quite expensive when it comes to repair or replacement parts.
There is a widespread range of instruments for mobile (and as well stationary) gas detection of which many can easily cost 1000+ bucks.

Maybe you're interested to know, that those instruments are  assembled in Lübeck, and the electrochemical gas-detection sensors you will encounter during the teardown (and you already saw under that NOT rotating cover ;) ) are developed and produced by Dräger in Lübeck as well.

Looking forward to the teardown and Daves opinion on our high quality gas detection instruments! ;)
« Last Edit: December 27, 2013, 10:47:38 pm by maeffju »
 

Offline johnh

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag - another old seven segment leds
« Reply #60 on: December 28, 2013, 03:51:44 am »
A neighbor was throwing out some old 80's hi-fi gear for one of the bi-yearly hard-collections.

I can't resist picking stuff up to see if there is anything useful to recycle, started as a teenager

I noticed the display had some pcb material as base. So I desoldered one and pulled it apart.

It's a Sanyo SL-160N  7 segment display.  You can see the individual leds are bonded to the pcb.
 

Offline JoannaK

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #61 on: December 28, 2013, 10:15:57 pm »
PS: what's the idea with those floor-sized carpets Brits seem to love? Ain't those hard to keep clean etc?

Joanna in the English speaking world we call those "floor sized" carpets wall-to-wall carpets.

Thanks. Being non native, one tend to miss plenty of words like this... In Finnish, those are called 'kokolattiamatto' .. (whole floor carpet).

Quote
Yes they are very popular, and yes they are very filthy. You started to see them become very common in North America in the mid 1960's. It was a way for poor and low middle class people to feel they were living the luxous, and for builders of cheap commodity tract housing to equip the new housing supply with the tacky look their tasteless moron customers demanded. Every house in Canada built    in the seventies came with shag carpet in the living room, and sometimes in all the other rooms except the kitchen. Think about shag bathrooms with men and boys pissing and dribbling all over!  :palm:

Shag bathroom.. Sounds downright dirty.. and at a more than one way.  ^-^
 

Offline Kjetil

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #62 on: December 28, 2013, 11:42:26 pm »
I tried firing up the VFD's I could find, I managed to get the filament glowing, but no response on any of the segments :-/ I guess I'll have to do some more digging when I get my vacation.

Shag bathroom.. Sounds downright dirty.. and at a more than one way.  ^-^
Those were common here in Norway too. I even saw shag toilet seat covers when I was a kid (both the lid and the ring)   O0
But I guess they are more important in a country where people walk barefoot  ;)
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Offline VK3DRB

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #63 on: December 29, 2013, 04:54:22 am »
Dave,

You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//




« Last Edit: December 29, 2013, 05:15:53 am by VK3DRB »
 

Offline Stonent

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #64 on: December 29, 2013, 05:35:20 am »
Dave,

You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//

I noticed that too. I remember trying to visualize him walking in to the church.  :-DD

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Offline c4757p

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #65 on: December 29, 2013, 05:38:06 am »
Dave,

You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//

I noticed that too. I remember trying to visualize him walking in to the church.  :-DD

Proof that there is no god: Dave Jones walked into a church and was not struck by lightning ;)
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Offline Stonent

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #66 on: December 29, 2013, 06:05:57 am »
Dave,

You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//

I noticed that too. I remember trying to visualize him walking in to the church.  :-DD

Proof that there is no god: Dave Jones walked into a church and was not struck by lightning ;)


Nah, you're thinking Zeus.

The New Testament God is a nice guy. Now the Old Testament God, his preferred way of getting rid of people is drowning.
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Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #67 on: December 29, 2013, 06:11:37 am »
He likes good music on a good sound source.

@JoannaK, I washed a piece of industrial carpet during a service break at work, and after 20 minutes it was still dumping dark brown coffee coloured water. Changed to hot water and softened the carpet adhesive, scraped it off the steel base and currently the new pieces are bonding on to the steel. Old ones went into the bin wet and somewhat smelly. Did find out that the old ones were light grey on the one corner that came somewhat clean.
 

Offline hikariuk

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #68 on: December 29, 2013, 10:28:05 am »
Dave,

You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//

You can enjoy religious music without believing or even agreeing with the religion.  I have a large amount of religious music simply because it's pleasant to listen to.
I write software.  I'd far rather be doing something else.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #69 on: December 29, 2013, 10:31:00 am »
I noticed that too. I remember trying to visualize him walking in to the church.  :-DD

I actually like churches. I like the architecture and the extravagance, I have been into many of the worlds best, including the vatican on good friday!   :o
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #70 on: December 29, 2013, 10:34:08 am »
You infer in the video you hate religion and yet you went to an organ recital in a church in Lubeck? :-//

I was invited by my hosts who took me on a trip to Lubek from Hamburg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary's_Church,_L%C3%BCbeck
But if I was in Lubek on my own I would have had a look myself anyway.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #71 on: December 29, 2013, 10:35:51 am »
You can enjoy religious music without believing or even agreeing with the religion.  I have a large amount of religious music simply because it's pleasant to listen to.

It wasn't really religious music, as it was just the organ. I have no idea what was being played, but if the choir broke out and started singing hymns I'd be reaching for the barf bag.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #72 on: December 29, 2013, 10:37:35 am »
He likes good music on a good sound source.

Actually the acoustics were pretty awful! But that kinda added to the "wamth" of the sounds. Gotta love deliberate distortion.
 

Offline Kjetil

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #73 on: December 29, 2013, 10:40:26 am »
Those organs are brilliant works of engineering as well, if you ever find yourself in a church with some spare time ask them if you can have a look inside  :-+
I believe I'm about as religious as Dave appears to be, but I still love looking at and photographing old churches because they are so intricately built. They also represent the majority of old buildings around here, everything else has been replaced..
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Offline VK3DRB

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Re: EEVblog #561 - Mailbag
« Reply #74 on: December 29, 2013, 01:18:39 pm »
Those organs are brilliant works of engineering as well, if you ever find yourself in a church with some spare time ask them if you can have a look inside  :-+
I believe I'm about as religious as Dave appears to be, but I still love looking at and photographing old churches because they are so intricately built. They also represent the majority of old buildings around here, everything else has been replaced..

St Peter's Basilica was largely funded by ripping poor and ignorant people off by selling indulgences. In stark contrast check out the life of Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone for the real deal. He saw far more wonder in nature's beauty than that created by man. Mind you, he didn't get a chance to program an Atmel or PIC microcontroller, either.
 


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