Driver to drive?

>"I scrape magnet wire with an x-acto knife."

I bury the end in a blob of molten solder on the iron tip. Works well, melts/burns it off and it comes out already tinned.

Actually, maybe I do solder pretty well. Hmm, if it is a valuable enough skill I will have to try to capitalise on it.

 

[Boris Mohar]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 16:08:34 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom <curd@notformail.com>
wrote:

Hi all,

I just fixed up this classic Tek 466 scope I've been meaning to get
around to sorting out for the last few years. As you can see, my
soldering is atrocious. I've been soldering this type of circuitry for 50
years and never got any better at it in all that time. When it comes to
soldering and part-placement, I suck donkey dick!
Check it out and enjoy at my expense:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/45109856712/in/dateposted-
public/

and...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/44247281105/in/dateposted-
public/


As you can see, the "world's worst" tag was no exaggeration!

I have been soldering for about 60 years and still manage to make occasional
shity joint. Teaching and observing others mistakes:

Relax. Some of the pads are starting to lift. This is usually from too much
pressure and heat. Tension will do that. You never need to press tip hard.
The heat transfer is via molten solder.

Use biggest tip you can. Clean it on Brass pad and not wet cellulose sponge.
Ever since I switched to Brass, my Metcal tips last forever. The thermal
shock of wet sponge is hard on tips.

Flux.










Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see:
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things) http://www.viatrack.ca

void _-void-_ in the obvious place



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/08/2018 01:56 AM, jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:

"I scrape magnet wire with an x-acto knife."

I bury the end in a blob of molten solder on the iron tip. Works well, melts/burns it off and it comes out already tinned.

Actually, maybe I do solder pretty well. Hmm, if it is a valuable enough skill I will have to try to capitalise on it.

Depends on the magnet wire. If it's Beldsol or one of the knock-offs
from other makers (see eBay), this works pretty well. If it's formvar,
you need to scrape it or use a flame.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
https://hobbs-eo.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 04:36:15 -0400, Boris Mohar
<borism_void_@sympatico.ca> wrote:

On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 16:08:34 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom <curd@notformail.com
wrote:

Hi all,

I just fixed up this classic Tek 466 scope I've been meaning to get
around to sorting out for the last few years. As you can see, my
soldering is atrocious. I've been soldering this type of circuitry for 50
years and never got any better at it in all that time. When it comes to
soldering and part-placement, I suck donkey dick!
Check it out and enjoy at my expense:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/45109856712/in/dateposted-
public/

and...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/44247281105/in/dateposted-
public/


As you can see, the "world's worst" tag was no exaggeration!

I have been soldering for about 60 years and still manage to make occasional
shity joint. Teaching and observing others mistakes:

Relax. Some of the pads are starting to lift. This is usually from too much
pressure and heat. Tension will do that. You never need to press tip hard.
The heat transfer is via molten solder.

Use biggest tip you can. Clean it on Brass pad and not wet cellulose sponge.
Ever since I switched to Brass, my Metcal tips last forever. The thermal
shock of wet sponge is hard on tips.

I use a wet sponge, and my Metcal tips last for about a year each. I
mostly use a medium-size wedge tip. The little pointy ones don't seem
to last as long or stay as well tinned.

I guess the Metcal patents expired, so someone else makes cheaper tips
now. They seem fine too.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[John Robertson]

On 2018/10/08 8:59 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 04:36:15 -0400, Boris Mohar
borism_void_@sympatico.ca> wrote:

On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 16:08:34 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom <curd@notformail.com
wrote:

Hi all,

I just fixed up this classic Tek 466 scope I've been meaning to get
around to sorting out for the last few years. As you can see, my
soldering is atrocious. I've been soldering this type of circuitry for 50
years and never got any better at it in all that time. When it comes to
soldering and part-placement, I suck donkey dick!
Check it out and enjoy at my expense:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/45109856712/in/dateposted-
public/

and...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/44247281105/in/dateposted-
public/


As you can see, the "world's worst" tag was no exaggeration!

I have been soldering for about 60 years and still manage to make occasional
shity joint. Teaching and observing others mistakes:

Relax. Some of the pads are starting to lift. This is usually from too much
pressure and heat. Tension will do that. You never need to press tip hard.
The heat transfer is via molten solder.

Use biggest tip you can. Clean it on Brass pad and not wet cellulose sponge.
Ever since I switched to Brass, my Metcal tips last forever. The thermal
shock of wet sponge is hard on tips.


I use a wet sponge, and my Metcal tips last for about a year each. I
mostly use a medium-size wedge tip. The little pointy ones don't seem
to last as long or stay as well tinned.

I guess the Metcal patents expired, so someone else makes cheaper tips
now. They seem fine too.

I use the brass scrubbers too, and my tips last far longer than with the
original sponge, get a couple of years of daily use out of a tip...it
seems to clean off the oxides and flux residuals better than a sponge.

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

John Robertson wrote

I use the brass scrubbers too, and my tips last far longer than with the
original sponge, get a couple of years of daily use out of a tip...it
seems to clean off the oxides and flux residuals better than a sponge.

I do not use metcal, but have a really nice temperature controlled iron, has even auto-shutoff,
sop you can forget to switch it off (very green ;-) )
Long ago I figured the sponges damaged my tips.
One day in a Tek factory I came across an assembly person who cleaned the tips by rubbing those over:
A big blob of solder.

Fascinating, did some experiments myself, that works!
tips last forever.
These days I clean the tips after every solder action with:
A napkin.
Same tips in use for 10? years, still OK,
http://panteltje.com/pub/soldering_iron_tip_cleaning_IMG_6610.JPG
on the napkin you see what comes off ..
the 'sponge' is dry and has a thick solder coating to rub the tips on.
http://panteltje.com/pub/solder_tips_IMG_6612.JPG
The right hand one is my favorite one,
too pointy and thin is bad heat transfer,
too long is also bad heat transfer.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 15:01:48 +0000, 698839253X6D445TD wrote:

That is nothing, even before I was borm I would stick my hand out of
mama's and grap the iron to practice soldering.

Good Lord! I had no idea you were such a precocious child, Jan! ;-)



--
This message may be freely reproduced without limit or charge only via
the Usenet protocol. Reproduction in whole or part through other
protocols, whether for profit or not, is conditional upon a charge of
GBP10.00 per reproduction. Publication in this manner via non-Usenet
protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 04:36:15 -0400, Boris Mohar wrote:

> Relax. Some of the pads are starting to lift.

That's not actually due to my soldering; those were caused by the ever-
increasing heat of the original components on the run-up to their failure.

I have to say I'm really impressed by the quality of Tek's mid 1970s PCBs.
Despite all my extended butchery, none of the traces lifted. Those were
the days!

Use biggest tip you can. Clean it on Brass pad and not wet cellulose
sponge.
Ever since I switched to Brass, my Metcal tips last forever. The
thermal shock of wet sponge is hard on tips.

Yup, I did actually switch to a ball of brass wire for tip-cleaning some
years ago.




--
This message may be freely reproduced without limit or charge only via
the Usenet protocol. Reproduction in whole or part through other
protocols, whether for profit or not, is conditional upon a charge of
GBP10.00 per reproduction. Publication in this manner via non-Usenet
protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

 

[bitrex]

On 10/18/2018 10:15 PM, Steve Wilson wrote:

Of interest:

Oct 18, 2018

Want to work for Jack Ma? These are the traits he looks for in a candidate

Growing a company requires hiring the right people. For Jack Ma, the
man behind Chinese tech giant Alibaba, that's a process that took
him some time to master.

Ma, speaking in the Indonesian resort island of Bali last week,
recalled a hiring mistake he made in the early days of Alibaba.

"When I raised my first round of funds, it was $5 million. I hired a
lot of vice presidents from multinational companies. One of the VPs
of marketing came to me, he gave me a proposal, he said: 'Sir, this
is our next year's business marketing plan,'" Ma said at the annual
meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

As it turned out, that plan was designed to cost $12 million - way
over the spending budget that the company could afford back then, Ma
explained. But that employee admitted that he had never done a
business plan below $10 million.

"So I said: 'Alright, it's not his fault, it's my fault,'" Ma said,
adding that he realized his decision to hire those people then was
akin to placing a Boeing 747 engine into a tractor.

No 'best' people

Since then, Alibaba has grown into an e-commerce giant with more
than 80,000 employees worldwide and is one of the most attractive
employers in China, according to a ranking by consultancy firm
Universum.

Underpinning that success is one of Ma's first rules in hiring:
Avoid the "best" people and the "experts."

"I hate to hire people who come as experts because there's no
experts of future, they're always experts of yesterday," Ma said.
"There are no best people. The best people are always in your
company, you train them to become best."

And that starts with getting in people who are ready to learn and
are not afraid to make mistakes, he added.

EQ and IQ

Topping the class is not a requirement to get hired by Jack Ma. In
fact, Ma is known for shunning top performers.

In the book "Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma built," writer Duncan
Clark said Ma preferred hiring people who are not top performers of
their schools, according to an excerpt carried by Tech in Asia. Ma
explained that the "college elites" would get frustrated easily when
they face difficulties in the real world, according to Clark.

My girlfriend tutors some Asian students, the type of student from
wealthy families in China and elsewhere who can afford to send their
child to do graduate and post-graduate studies in the US.

They all went to very prestigious Chinese universities. Some of them are
very talented. Others are fuckin' hopeless. What grades they got in a
prestigious university in China seems to basically have zero predictive
power on how they deal with the "real world" situation of life in the
US, or even how they perform in a US graduate school situation.
Apparently sometimes they ask questions which make one want to scream
"for heavens sake you have a bachelor's degree! You're supposed to
_know_ this stuff already!"

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date. Do
you want someone who can't get a single fuckin' date with an American
broad to be head of your marketing department???

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?

 

[Sjouke Burry]

On 20-10-2018 19:11, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?



Carefully......

 

[speff]

On Sunday, 21 October 2018 03:22:51 UTC+8, Sjouke Burry wrote:

On 20-10-2018 19:11, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?



Carefully......

And painfully slowly, from what I hear.

 

[bitrex]

On 10/20/2018 01:11 PM, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?

The method I usually use is either buy a ticket online or at the station
counter, wait for the train to arrive at the train station at the
designated time, board the train, stow luggage in overhead bin, sit down
in seat, and hand ticket to conductor on the train when it's requested.

It's not uncommon for some Chinese students in the US (or some
American-born students for that matter) in their 20s to be unfamiliar
and anxious about this process, it's not also uncommon for them to never
have had a driver's license either. If you need to get somewhere your
parents book you a flight and you fly to where you need to go and then
your driver comes and picks you up at the airport.

 

[bitrex]

On 10/21/2018 12:23 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 10/20/2018 01:11 PM, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?



The method I usually use is either buy a ticket online or at the station
counter, wait for the train to arrive at the train station at the
designated time, board the train, stow luggage in overhead bin, sit down
in seat, and hand ticket to conductor on the train when it's requested.

It's not uncommon for some Chinese students in the US (or some
American-born students for that matter) in their 20s to be unfamiliar
and anxious about this process, it's not also

"also not uncommon", rather

 

[bitrex]

On 10/20/2018 10:59 PM, speff wrote:

On Sunday, 21 October 2018 03:22:51 UTC+8, Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 20-10-2018 19:11, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?



Carefully......

And painfully slowly, from what I hear.

If you're fortunate enough to live along the Boston -> NYC corridor you
can have an almost-TGV like experience. I commute between Boston and
Providence from time to time, the service hits max speed along that
stretch either 110 or 150 mph depending on whether it's the express or
regional, 50 miles in around 20 minutes for $15-30 depending on class
sure beats driving

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/20/18 10:59 PM, speff wrote:

On Sunday, 21 October 2018 03:22:51 UTC+8, Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 20-10-2018 19:11, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
bitrex wrote:

There are similarly probably many Ivy league graduates in the US who
don't know how to ride an Amtrak train or ask a woman out on a date.

How do you ride an Amtrak train?



Carefully......

And painfully slowly, from what I hear.

Within the Northeast Corridor (DC - Boston), Amtrak is my favourite way
to travel. You go from downtown to downtown with no hours of waiting
and no TSA. First Class on the Acela is nearly as nice as the old
Metroliner. (Now _that_ was a train--it ran for 50 years, with big
cushy leather seats, mains outlets, decent food, and a bar car with an
actual selection.)

Way faster than driving to the city airports, and much lower stress.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

Thanks Andy, appreciate that full and clear explanation.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

 

The 4020 has no divide by 4 or 8 outputs. So they will be labelled either Q0, Q3, Q4 ... to Q13 (/16384), or Q1, Q4, Q5 ... to Q14, depending on your source.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

 

On Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 3:59:55 AM UTC-5, Terry Pinnell wrote:

Trouble-shooting (another) old kitchen timer I wasted some time until
realising there was some ambiguity about the pin layout of its CMOS
4020. Most sources show the first output as 'Q1' but others (including
the one on which I based my ancient notes) apparently call it Q0.

Is there a standard? Has it changed in the last 30 years or so?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Some of those datasheets, like the one from TI, are partial reprints of the old RCA datasheets which are pushing 50 years old or more, before there was any accepted convention. The modern designation for a 14-stage would be Q0-Q13. You can label them anything you like. Q1-Q14 is fine too.

 

[Bill Beaty]

On Monday, October 23, 2017 at 8:21:36 PM UTC-7, Robert Miller wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJg1Kmbgk4

What does it do? Either nothing unexpected ...or maybe it launches aether vortices rather than EM waves and thus PROVES MAXWELL WRONG MOO HOO HA HAAAAAAAA!

Thanks Bill.

You do seem unusually well versed in things of a "crackpot" nature.

This "Caduceus coil" stuff may be real: UHF or GHz transmitters based
on spark gap exitation of a spiral antenna. They should act weird,
probably generating megawatt impulse, circular polarized centimeter-
waves in a narrow beam. Very weird when used in the early radio era.
But today they're just S-band satellite antennas.

Have you ever seen _any_ that worked as claimed, or violated a known
physical law?

Nope.

Or maybe I did, and used it to become a hyper-billionaire,
regretted it, employed my time travel breakthrough to edit the
past, so in this manyworlds branch it never actually happened.

Heh, for years I was moderating an email forum for those testing
the crackpot devices. None ever did anything interesting,
except for plasma-based cold-fusion cells which tend to make
blinding flashes or even explode. Along the way we did invent
microwave oven ball-lightning and molten beer-bottles. Also
the "Quarter-shrinker," Lenz-law coin smasher based on energy-
storage 50KV capacitors got cheap from Boeing Surplus Sales.

Aaaaaand ...Boeing Surplus still exists, as an online auction:

https://investmentrecovery.boeing.com/