AH #24

[FreeThinker]

Listening to AH #24 and the spot on recycling brought to mind a recent trip to Leeds (uk) to collect a power supply I had won on ebay.Talking to the guy about the item brought the reply " I picked up a whole bunch of stuff from a TV repair shop that was closing, Nobody fixes things anymore" (only his language was a little more colourful. Turns out that was his occupation until a few years before, now he just goes around buying and selling "Stuff". Buys cheap, repairs and sells on at car boot sales.Test equipment etc goes to Ebay.Makes a living....just.Biggest gripe? spare parts.And its not only consumer goods, I've been a maintenance engineer for nearly forty years, as an apprentice you were expected to fix things and the art of "bodging" was a must have skill.You not only had to know how something worked you also had to be able to fault find and fix it WITH WHAT YOU HAD AT HAND.Now it's mainly swap out boards and send them for repair, most times we do not even have schematics of the boards just block diagrams.Its just as bad on the mechanical side things are thrown away because they are to expensive to repair.One of they most often heard phrases in the workshop is ' If we only had a lathe...' as yet another shaft with a damaged bearing diameter is binned.It gets VERY frustrating.

[saturation]

Its sad fact of life, consider electronics assembly lines in China today, c2010, versus USA here from an HP scope assembly from c1954, and compare to modern assembly in the 1st world today, bottom picture, notice no people?  Manual labor of any sort is more expensive in the 1st world. If not done in the 2nd or 3rd world in part, or fully by hand, its done mostly by robots, who work 24/7, get no vacation, no benefits and don't get sick or maternal leave.

That said, its often cheaper to buy a whole new unit rather than repair it, or if board swaps fail [ swappers thus are less skilled and possibly less paid.]

[DJPhil]

Just a quick note to Dave.
I'm a big fan of the wordy half hour reviews! They mirror what I do when I get a piece of gear. It really pays to sweat out all the little pluses and minuses early, and it's somewhat rare to find this sort of depth in reviews. Shorter reviews stand in danger of being simple recitations of the spec sheets and a 'well, the one I got worked ok'.
I know this has been a consideration for you on and off over the last year, but my vote will always be for the long form.
And of course, if you enjoy it then keep it up!

[Time]

Using incandescent bulbs as heaters is very common.  I have seen someone make a DIY composite bow press utilizing large incandescent bulbs.  Which makes for a funny story, my friend was making the press himself but he thought he would use water heating elements instead.  He instantly learned you need to have the water heating element in water or it just burns up.

[grenert]

Regarding the extra digits on the LCR meter (the ones not visible on the meter):
If those digits are down in the noise, are they really adding any precision?