PRC as a amplifier in GPS question.

[KLR]

On Sun, 11 May 2003 13:48:10 GMT, karl <anon@anon.com> wrote:

When I started designing electronic appliances nealry 20 years ago, one
of the first things I did was order in AS-31XX to see what the go was in
regard to earthing and insulation practice. I had to do this because in
the course of earning my degree from RMIT, the concept of mains wiring
and safety was never broached. But that's another story.

Anyone who's ever read the Aus Standard on wiring will know it's almost
impossible to understand what does and does not constitute double
insulation. So I have to admit that during my design career I've pretty
much earthed everything I design in a metal case, and anything in plastic
gets a 2-pin plug.

Recently I started looking at what the big manufacturers do to see
whether I was in good company. The first thing I looked at was a Pioneer
CD player, bought locally, with a 2-pin plug. Opening it up I found the
mains wires are wrapped and soldered to PCB posts on the main PCB, about
20mm from the back (steel) panel. This horrified me and led me to wonder
what, if any, regulations are being enforced in this country.

Not only did this make a highly exposed, sharp electrode at mains
potential (service hazard), but also if the wire came adrift it could
easily touch the chassis, which, without earthing, goes live. Not only
that, but the PCB is screwed down to metal lugs which are pressed in from
the back panel, so a stray solder dag or excess component lead could
easily bridge 240V to the chassis. But also, there was no insulation on
the base of the unit underneath the 240V input pin, or the transformer
pins for that matter - so any pins which didn't get snipped in
manufacture could conceivably touch the bottom of the case.

Any way you look at it, this was barely single insulation, let alone
double. And they are still doing it. Does anyone have any knowledge of
how this passes the local standard - and who is supposed ot enforce it
anyway?

It seems a load of bullshit to me. I think that the metal case should
be earthed on such things. I recall some years back we had to modify
a heap of Sony and pioneer multi CD players to go into a music system
for a client. as part of the internal mods - and after seeing the
situation that you have described we installed an earth wire and 3 pin
plug so as no one would get zapped as easily.

On the other hand - it is possible that some lame brain thought that
since the player would be connected back to the ampilifier and god
knows what else in the average home stereo set up - that it would find
a mains earth somewhere in the system via the screened RCA leads if
needed

Trouble is these days - ALL of the components in a modern stereo
system - including TV VCR etc seem to not be mains earthed anymore so
heaven help anyone if ONE component decided to short back to chassis
The whole lot would go live chassis !

Maybe this is why ELCB's are being pushed (and mandated) so hard these
days in homes ?

 

[KLR]

On Tue, 13 May 2003 06:34:27 GMT, "Winona Austin"
<wvaustin@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone

Did you know that in 40 hours Australians spend.......?

a.. More than $4.1 million on chocolate confectionery
b.. More than $3.2 million on CDs and records

err - what proportion of that 3.2 million was actually spent on

RECORDS ?? (for that matter where can you buy them these days ?)

c.. Almost $9.8 million on hygiene products, haircare and cosmetics
d.. More than $3.7 million just to pay the intereston credit card debts
More alarmingly in 40 hours Australians purchase 7 million fast food meals,
coming in at a staggering $31.8 million.

By giving up some of these luxuries for 40 hours, you can make a huge
difference to the lives of those less fortunate.

I would be really glad to give up the "luxury" of credit card interest

for 40 hours, but the bank might not play along with that one

as for chocolates, sweets and fast foods, I don't eat this stuff

anyway. Giving up Hygiene products might cause more problems than it
solves - and result in unpleasant body odour across the country.
>

 

[KLR]

On Tue, 13 May 2003 17:30:31 GMT, "Ben" <bcarbery@bigpond.net.au>
wrote:

Thanks for your responses everyone. I am not used to the electrical
terminology so I will explain in audio terms where I am coming from...

In audio we have balanced cabling which is a method of eliminating any noise
that may be picked up in the cabling along it's path.
There are 2 signal wires and an earth wire. The 2 signal wires are out of
phase and this means any noise can be cancelled in the circuit at the other
end.

The same concept can be applied to power and is in use in many recording
studios as unclean power means unclean audio signals. I was told Belguim is
one country that delivers balanced mains power.

This has become a niggling question as no-one in the audio groups seems to
know the answer.. so I have come to the experts!
(the original reason for asking was when I was shopping for a power
regulator and the only 240V version available from a certain company was for
balanced power only).

regards,

Ben

I personally can't see it making much (if any) difference - as long as
there is good filterering in the audio equipment's power supply(s), a
decent noise filter in the mains supply and you use quality shielded
cables in all of the audio connections (to avoid hum getting in) as
well as common sense steps such as avoiding hum loops of course.

I personally can't see how having balanced or the standard MEN power
would make any noticeable difference to audio equipment. Mains is
power after all - not a signal source - it gets filtered (and possibly
regulated) anyway once it gets into your audio equipment so all the
hum and stuff will be removed by this process.

Balanced audio leads were designed to eliminate hum over long cable
runs. (for example the telephone network). Ideally in these
installations cable shielding can be reduced or eliminated altogether
without hum occuring.

If you are getting bad inteference coming through the mains supply
from other appliances in your building to your audio equipment then
you could consider having a separate circuit from the fuse board to
the studio equipment. A licensed electrician should be able to do
this for a very reasonable price. If you have 3 phase power - you
could try putting this circuit if necessary to a phase that has the
least "electrical" noise on it.

if you are having problems caused by massive voltage drops or outside
interference - then I would be contacting an electrician or your
electricty supplier to see what can be done about it. Making sure
you have a decent earth connection at the building may help too.

"Ben" <bcarbery@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:3ebd7e63$1@news.comindico.com.au...
Hi,
Does anyone know if we use balanced power here in Australia? We have
3-pole
plugs so is it balanced like some European countries?
cheers
Ben

 

[KLR]

On Wed, 14 May 2003 16:00:55 +1000, "Michael Culley"
<mculleyNOSPAM@optushome.com.au> wrote:

Hi Jim,

I'm sorry to here about this. I'm interested to know how this person got
such a good rating on ebay if they are so dishonest, is there a way to fake
the rating?

in this case he is probably selling legit items and doing straight

deals with everyone via ebay - and earning legitimate good feedback -

but then shafting people in private (and illegal to ebay rules) deals
OFF ebay.

Non-Ebay deals you cant leave negative feedback for ON ebay.



sure - he can be reported - but what proof is there ? Ebay would have
to see proof of these things - and many times over.



there is also a chance that someone is doing these deals and
pretending to be the "good rated" person on Ebay in the shonky
deals.............

 

[KLR]

On Fri, 16 May 2003 20:33:06 +1000, "Bushy" <please@reply.to.group>
wrote:

G'day Dee,
the cross is cool, it could be answered by one of the groups and I only look
at a.e.

I've used printed circuit board to provide a shield for some sensitive
industrial gear, where the price wasn't so important, and being able to fit
it together in the space was. If you are on a budget, it could be made out
of almost any piece of scrap metal sheet with a wire to earth and a second
layer of some insulator like a cut up old tyre tube or icecream container.

While the icecream container is a great idea for cheap insulation

material - I would be careful in some applications using this or other
such "consumer single use" plastics. I have done so before and have
found that some of the modern ones they split / fall apart over time.
( This probably would accelerate in hot conditions too ?). I think the
problem is that the modern plastics are meant to degrade for
environmental reasons after disposal.

One great alternative for such things is the use of scrap perspex

pieces. usually can get offcuts from sign places etc. I also collect
aluminium offcuts too - they are often available free or cheap from
sheet metalworkers.

You may need to cover the offending circuit with an earthed box structure or
maybe simply an earthed plate between two boards that interfere with each
other. Simpler is often all that is required, but make sure you have it
mounted sucure enough to hold it in place when the computer is moved. You
don't want it falling over and shorting out things.

Side on view could look like:

Circuit board one
Insulating layer
Shield connected to ground
Insulating layer
Circuit board two

The insulating layer might be air and the mounting screws or brackets
providing enough support to prevent shorts. If you have a friend look over
your design before you power it up you might find the second pair of eyes
spot a problem before it creates lots of smoke and sparks.

Have a look in a number of TV's and see the little boxes they use to cover
some bits they use to shield things. Used to be more common in older designs
and the old valve jobs often had shields over each tube and a number of
other bits.

On some equipment you have to provide new fans to keep things cool as the
shield might prevent normal airflow while on others the extra metal provides
more heat transfer and nothing is needed.

Hope this helps,
Peter

 

[David L. Jones]

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 19:31:10 +1000, "Andy, The Real"
<ihatehifitrolls@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

"Tony de Groot" <tonydg@wantree.com.au> wrote in message
news:3EFC40F5.9F27070D@wantree.com.au...

snip
If you post the Protel .sch file I can check it .. along with many
others I guess .. (Protel 98/99SE I hope - can't justify DXP)

I haven't even looked at DXP yet, dont feel the need. What was wrong with
99se?!? Anyone out there used DXP yet??

Same here.
Haven't even bothered to take a look. Not that the company would fork
out the $$$$ for the ugrade anyway, nor for the upgrade to the PC's
required
Looks like all the new DXP libraries aren't compatible with 99SE
either. We just had to spend days doing a 956pin BGA schematic symbol
because the component was only available as a DXP library

99SE SP6 works just the way I like it.

BTW, I spoke to Protel recently, and it still looks like they are no
closer to releasing the DOS Schematic package as freeware to
complement AutoTrax. Bummer.

Dave
---------------------------
(remove the "_" from my email address to reply)

 

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

In comp.arch.embedded Harald Kipp <nhoasrpaalmd@egnite.de> wrote:

[...]

I can confirm this. I'm currently implementing a LAN91C111 driver
into the Ethernut Open Source design, an ATmega128 board, currently
using an RTL8019AS. Using the LAN91C111 on a 100 Mbps results in
about 900 kByte/s TCP throughput. Switching the transfer rate to
10 Mbps, reduces the transfer by more than 100 kByte/s.

A 12.5 persent increase in throughput achied by increasing the
bandwith by a whopping 900 (in words: nine _hundred_) percent. Which,
as as other posts in this thread confirmed, may well have come with a
200 percent penalty on the energy consumption. Unless the application
very strictly needs exactly those 100 kByte/s, that's about as good an
example of wasted resources as any.

Actually, that increase in overall throughput is quite likely not even
caused by the increase in bandwith, but rather by the lower latency of
the line.

Note, that TCP is used, with all its delayed events. With raw
Ethernet (or UDP) an ATmega128 (and other 8.bit controllers)
can even reach much more than 10 MBps troughput.

How much more?

New questions: What should a small microcontroller do with
this amount of data? Is there any time left to process it?

That's not exaclty a new question. Not in the context of this thread
at least. The assumption from early on in it was that the micro
almost certainly *won't* be able to do anything useful with the
additional bandwidth.


--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

 

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

In comp.arch.embedded Harald Kipp <nhoasrpaalmd@egnite.de> wrote:

[...]

I can confirm this. I'm currently implementing a LAN91C111 driver
into the Ethernut Open Source design, an ATmega128 board, currently
using an RTL8019AS. Using the LAN91C111 on a 100 Mbps results in
about 900 kByte/s TCP throughput. Switching the transfer rate to
10 Mbps, reduces the transfer by more than 100 kByte/s.

A 12.5 persent increase in throughput achieved by increasing the
bandwith by a whopping 900 (in words: nine _hundred_) percent. Which,
as as other posts in this thread confirmed, may well have come with a
200 percent penalty on the energy consumption. Unless the application
very strictly needs exactly those 100 kByte/s, that's about as good an
example of wasted resources as any.

Actually, that increase in overall throughput is quite likely not even
caused by the increase in bandwith, but rather by the lower latency of
the line.

Note, that TCP is used, with all its delayed events. With raw
Ethernet (or UDP) an ATmega128 (and other 8.bit controllers)
can even reach much more than 10 MBps troughput.

How much more?

New questions: What should a small microcontroller do with
this amount of data? Is there any time left to process it?

Well, it's not exactly a new question. Not in the context of this
thread at least. The assumption from early on in it was that the
micro almost certainly *won't* be able to do anything useful with the
additional bandwidth.


--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

 

[Harald Kipp]

Actually, that increase in overall throughput is quite likely not even
caused by the increase in bandwith, but rather by the lower latency of
the line.

That's what I intended to confirm, nothing else.

Note, that TCP is used, with all its delayed events. With raw
Ethernet (or UDP) an ATmega128 (and other 8.bit controllers)
can even reach much more than 10 MBps troughput.

How much more?

12 Mbpb, form a short guess. I should also note, that the
ATmega is currently running at 14,7 Mhz. Overclocking at
18 Mhz should be possible and there may be faster chips
available in the near future. No idea, if faster 8-bit
micros are available from other vendors. What I wanted to
say is, that the 8-bit micros already reached the limit
and will pass it sooner or later.

New questions: What should a small microcontroller do with
this amount of data? Is there any time left to process it?


That's not exaclty a new question. Not in the context of this thread
at least. The assumption from early on in it was that the micro
almost certainly *won't* be able to do anything useful with the
additional bandwidth.

One idea that came up in the Ethernut mailing list was, to
use a CPLD for DMA between SRAM and the NIC. That would free
the CPU from the main workload.

Harald

--
For spam do not remove n_o_s_p_a_m from email address

 

[Rod Speed]

skozzy <NOSPAMCRAPskozzy@hotmailNOSPAM.com>
wrote in message news:3efed4fe$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

On Saturday night a car hit a power pole near my house, the
caused a power surge the killed my home dvd player, my
computer ups (started a fire), my home stereo, computer
printer, and all lights that were turned on at the time.

Most likely you ended up with 11KV
on the 240V line for a very short time.

Does anyone here know from experience if I can
make a claim from the drivers insurance company

Yes. They'll initially try to fob you off tho depending on the insurance company.

or from Energex itself ?.

Worth trying. The worst they can do is to tell you to bugger off.

I don't have insurance myself.

Certainly worth trying.

 

[Testing]

In article <3efee40c$0$5973$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
barrymain@yahoo.com says...

hi

anyone know how to use a CRO to view spark in a car, i think u can use foil
around the leads as pickups but would like any info if anyone knows

barrymain@yahoo.com



Foil around the leads only gives you a voltage pickup, this will result

in great sensitivity to dV/dt. A better way is a current transformer. You
need to surround the lead with a ferrite core such as a small C-core. The
lead passes once thru the core. Wind a few turns of wire around the other
leg and connect a resistor across the ends of this coil and close to the
core to reduce dV/dt pickup. Connect the CRO across the resistor. The
resistor value should be in the order of a few hundred ohms. Just
experiment a bit. I have done this before and have managed to diagnose
crook plug leads. Even better is to put the current transformer around
the coil lead/s. This lets you compare the spark going to each plug.
Triggering can be tricky, try using the holdoff, too. On a proper
ignition analyser, consecutive spark pulses have increasing DC offsets on
the CRO screen for easy vertical comparison. Would not be too hard to
design one.

 

[Rudolf Ladyzhenskii]

You should call your electricity company first. They are responsible for the
damage! They will, most likely, get the money from the drivers insurance
company, but this is their problem.

Rudolf

"Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bdnj25$v21ci$1@ID-69072.news.dfncis.de...

skozzy <NOSPAMCRAPskozzy@hotmailNOSPAM.com
wrote in message news:3efed4fe$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

On Saturday night a car hit a power pole near my house, the
caused a power surge the killed my home dvd player, my
computer ups (started a fire), my home stereo, computer
printer, and all lights that were turned on at the time.

Most likely you ended up with 11KV
on the 240V line for a very short time.

Does anyone here know from experience if I can
make a claim from the drivers insurance company

Yes. They'll initially try to fob you off tho depending on the insurance
company.

or from Energex itself ?.

Worth trying. The worst they can do is to tell you to bugger off.

I don't have insurance myself.

Certainly worth trying.

 

[Phil Allison]

"skozzy" <NOSPAMCRAPskozzy@hotmailNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3efed4fe$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

On Saturday night a car hit a power pole near my house, the caused a power
surge the killed my home dvd player, my computer ups (started a fire), my
home stereo, computer printer, and all lights that were turned on at the
time.

Does anyone here know from experience if I can make a claim from the
drivers
insurance company or from Energex itself ?. I don't have insurance myself.

** Should be quite a few neighbours in the same boat - find out what
they are going to do.



............. Phil

 

[Ross Herbert]

skozzy wrote:

On Saturday night a car hit a power pole near my house, the caused a power
surge the killed my home dvd player, my computer ups (started a fire), my
home stereo, computer printer, and all lights that were turned on at the
time.

Does anyone here know from experience if I can make a claim from the drivers
insurance company or from Energex itself ?. I don't have insurance myself.

-Andrew

I had a similar situation a few years ago. My microwave oven exploded
with a mighty bang which I discovered was caused by a tree lopper
working about 1km from me dropping a branch across the HV lines and
bringing them into contact with the 240V lines. Incidents such as this
are not the liability of the supply autority but the person/s who caused
the incident. I rang the electricity authority and asked for details of
the contractor and they were obliged to give them to me. I then
contacted the contractor and asked for details of his insurance company
and then wrote a letter of demand together with the quotes to effect
repairs. I told them I would accept the best quote and then had the
repairs done. The insurance company settled in the "fullness of time",
ie. some months later.

I think that you will need to follow a similar path. Also, I would do as
Phil suggests and find out if other residents had similar disasters,
and, if so, get them to do the same thing as yourself. Weight of numbers
helps.

Ross Herbert

 

[Rod Speed]

Rudolf Ladyzhenskii <rudolf.ladyzhenskii@REMOVETOREPLYadcomtech.net>
wrote in message news:3eff8f7d$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

You should call your electricity company
first. They are responsible for the damage!

Not necessarily, particularly now that so many have been privatised.

They will, most likely, get the money from the
drivers insurance company, but this is their problem.

That varys with the state too.

"Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bdnj25$v21ci$1@ID-69072.news.dfncis.de...

skozzy <NOSPAMCRAPskozzy@hotmailNOSPAM.com
wrote in message news:3efed4fe$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

On Saturday night a car hit a power pole near my house, the
caused a power surge the killed my home dvd player, my
computer ups (started a fire), my home stereo, computer
printer, and all lights that were turned on at the time.

Most likely you ended up with 11KV
on the 240V line for a very short time.

Does anyone here know from experience if I can
make a claim from the drivers insurance company

Yes. They'll initially try to fob you off tho depending on the insurance
company.

or from Energex itself ?.

Worth trying. The worst they can do is to tell you to bugger off.

I don't have insurance myself.

Certainly worth trying.

 

[skozzy]

Here is my update to my problem. I called Energex this morning, they told me
that due to the privacy policy they can not tell me any details about the
accident, they said to call the police. So I went to the police and they
told me that they can't give out information about it because the accident
wasn't directly involving me.

So at this stage I can't do much. I sent am email to ABC radio to see if
they were interested in looking into this and perhaps helping me and others
in the same situation. So tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6:40am they will get me on
air and also try to get a person from Energex to say their bit or try and
weasel out of it.

 

[Phil Allison]

"skozzy" <NOSPAMCRAPskozzy@hotmailNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3f00041a$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...

Here is my update to my problem. I called Energex this morning, they told
me
that due to the privacy policy they can not tell me any details about the
accident, they said to call the police. So I went to the police and they
told me that they can't give out information about it because the accident
wasn't directly involving me.

So at this stage I can't do much. I sent am email to ABC radio to see if
they were interested in looking into this and perhaps helping me and
others
in the same situation. So tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6:40am they will get me on
air and also try to get a person from Energex to say their bit or try and
weasel out of it.

** You have not yet even asked Energex to compensate you ???

Do that and if they do not come to the party contact these folk.

http://www.ecpo.qld.gov.au/complaints/index.html



..................... Phil

 

[Graham]

--

"KLR" <kreed@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:b7atfv0vgeesbb5j8hdq6h6mpdf6udundd@4ax.com...

On Mon, 12 May 2003 18:37:04 +1000, "-:Install:-" <whatever@for.com
wrote:

A US judge will hear allegations that Nokia was 'deceptive and
misleading'
in its advertising and knowingly sold mobile phones with defective
displays
A team of US attorneys representing California resident Henry La filed an
amended class-action law suit against Nokia in the state's Superior Court
on
Friday. It contained allegations that some of Nokia's most popular mobile
phones including the 32xx, 51xx, 61xx, 82xx and 88xx series carried a
common
design defect.

Counsel representing La claim the alleged defect caused the phones'
displays
to fade or disappear with "substantial regularity" and that Nokia has
been
aware of the defect's existence since at least 1998.

La purchased a Nokia 8290 -- the US equivalent of Nokia's 8210 -- in
February 2001 and experienced display problems consistent with the
allegations. La's legal counsel wants California's Superior Court to
recognise La case as a class-action claiming that his phone was among the
number of models Nokia released carrying the alleged defect.
If the class-action is successful the court may order Nokia to hand over
millions of dollars worth of profits to compensate consumers and stop
selling some of its mobile phone range.

NSW Fair Trading ordered Nokia to repair all 8210s sold in Australia
exhibiting display faults


Source: EURAS INTERNATIONAL LTD. BRISTOL Great Britain



About bloody time someone did this.

Many of the people I know who have been stupid enough to purchase
Nokia phones over recent years seem to end up with this problem - and
its not cheap to fix either.

I have had ericcson, LG, Samsung phones over the years and none has
ever shown this sort of problem. Currently have a CDMA Kyocera and
its excellent product !

and is Nokia always slow when repairing phones. Brother ( worked for Optus
for a while) told me some horror stories of Nokia taking forever and a day
to repair their own phones

gra

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.489 / Virus Database: 288 - Release Date: 6/10/03

 

[skozzy]

I have asked, they told me that it's not their responsibility.

** You have not yet even asked Energex to compensate you ???

Do that and if they do not come to the party contact these folk.

http://www.ecpo.qld.gov.au/complaints/index.html

 

[skozzy]

** You have not yet even asked Energex to compensate you ???

Do that and if they do not come to the party contact these folk.

http://www.ecpo.qld.gov.au/complaints/index.html

Hey, but thanks for the website link, I will make use of it for sure.. Top
stuff..

-Andrew