Life, The Universe, and Everything

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Here, you can discuss anything (well, anything legal and not offensive) you want to. Use this for gassing about any half-baked theories, general getting to know one another, and other things that as someone once said, should be forgotten after awhile. This sub forum is set to auto-remove threads that haven't been posted on for a couple weeks, emptied like the office trash can. Almost anything goes here, the idea being to keep the other forums and threads more on topic but in a maximally friendly way. If anything actually worthwhile should wind up here, let me know and I will make it immune from being removed.

Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:38 pm

Yeah, that's one evil load indeed, and I've let out a fair amount of magic smoke with it. A lot less since I went to that BN-pyrex feedthrough design - arcs all gone...probably the biggest breakthrough here so far (even if that's a little embarrassing - I do think there's more to come, though). I should do a better writeup on that - maybe when I have all 10 fingers in typing shape.
Pyrex is the vacuum seal, but importantly is also a voltage dividing resistance used to do field control (differently) on both inside and outside of the tank. BN is what does the real insulating and is bulletproof to hot H ions and other abuse. Everything else is chemically reduced, fails due to internal arcs as it is a dielectric and its own capacitor, or some other failure mode, and I've tried everything except pure alumina (saphhire...) which should work, but as a ceramic it has a binder that will reduce and fail...and sapphire's a little pricey (I thought BN was high...) and kinda hard to make holes in.

I did the fets in my amp way back when for the reason of the more-square safe operating area along with the speed (if you can drive that gate charge, which is the hard part). Outside one app where a guy made a huge ribbon speaker (< 1 ohm) and drove that - no issues, the power supply, a more or less conventional beefy torroid, plus the huge heatsinks...just couldn't muster enough oomph to fry those fets...

Heck, even with real serious fet specs, you can have issues, even with theoretically turning them fully on and off. Those peak currents, stray R and L...my current rig is showing that at some frequencies, where the stepup seems to be acting series resonant - it's pulling the fets out of "full on" to a few volts drop. And these aren't teeny ones.
irfp264.pdf
fets I'm using right now
(147.04 KiB) Downloaded 422 times
is what I'm using just now, as turns ratios are right for 30-60v in a full H bridge. And the bigger lower voltage ones are, for this rev, just too hard to drive fast enough. I have a collection and choose based on load, from 048's to 450's.

In a classic case of "what now?" , these huge new batteries came today. Now all I need is some young grunts who want paying work. Someone slipped a digit along the line, and while I paid for 1300 Ah cells, well, these are 1880 Ah. But there's no free still - these also weigh more, around 200lbs/cell. I have to at least get them off the borrowed trailer soon. It'll be nice to finally have "enough, and no compromises" when I also get that additional 1.5kw or so of panels up too, on the roof I have yet to repair.

But maybe the good batteries (which came fully charged!) are a sign of the karma getting back to more normal, which would be a relief.
20180328-1336-battery-1.jpg
Half of them...balance, my son, this is a heck of a load.

And the whole mess...
20180328-1336-battery-2.jpg
more to do...I needed more to do, didn't I?


Anybody trying to figure out my taste in music from what I post is in trouble (think Sting's "big house" with lots of rooms)....this was fun, saw it on the Reg the other day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cU53wWb6UI

Hopefully some luxury won't punish me too hard. I could use a little just now.



.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Bob Reite » Thu Mar 29, 2018 6:27 pm

At least you know how to properly load a trailer. Too bad you don't have a fork lift.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Sat Mar 31, 2018 4:25 pm

The fork lift would have to have tracks instead of wheels right now. An alternate spelling of Floyd is MUD at this time of year...
I did get them off OK - I used a floor jack behind the trailer to keep it from pivoting over the wheels, as I had to unhook the truck to use it for a truck before I got to unload those....
It took boards over the mud to keep the hand cart from just heading to the middle of the planet...
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:20 pm

If this is any indication, we are in no danger from "AI":

Your review could not be posted.

Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:
http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines
Reese Marinated Artichokes Hearts, 7.5-Ounce Glass (Pack of 12) ★★★★★ from DCFusor on March 31, 2018

Yum

I like these and I live so far out in rural country that these are hard to find in the grocery store (26 miles to the nearest one) and actually cost more in the store (which I shouldn't say, should I?).



We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind:

Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback.
We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too.
Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam.
Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Did I miss some new fad term that's salacious or something?
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Rex Allers » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:36 pm

I realize your Amazon review was legit but could this mean the era of reviews like below is ending?
Say it ain't so.

Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer

ByQ-Tipon September 11, 2012
There is no way to tell if this is a standard or metric banana slicer. Additional markings on it would help greatly.

Byheggland0on April 5, 2013
Under optimal conditions, the 571 Banana Slicer does its thing - but be careful before you buy one, because it only works on bananas that bend to the right. Sometimes you buy bananas in the store that appear to bend to the right, but when you come home and fetch your slicer, it turns out that many of the bananas actually bend to the left. Having to manually slice something like 4 out of every 10 bananas you buy can be really frustrating, and I must say that this Banana Slicer has changed my life for the worse. It's like buying a car that frequently breaks down. You'll never think "wow, this car's made my life so much simpler, with this I'll only have to walk HALF a mile to the store now instead of a full mile". No, you'll just be more frustrated than you ever were when you didn't have a car.

Hutzler 571.jpg
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Donovan Ready » Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:04 pm

Image April fool's, right?

Just flip the banana over? Is this a corollary to Poe's Law?
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:36 am

Gee, I hope not - some of the reviews on Amazon were about the best humor out there.
Not even one of the best ones, just one I remembered how to find. Power bank (I have one like this and it's nice) question - "will it charge my cat?":
https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/Tx ... pmw_al_hza

I notice 2 or 3 of the funniest but also a little racy answers are now gone. Pity.
(one mentioned how to put in the adapter next to the anal scent gland on a Siamese for example - gone - an it was funny enough to have been mentioned in other answer/comments)

I'd almost bet the recent killjoy comments at the end of that thread are either some kind of faked justification for this, trolls, or god help us - humorless real people. Those are new.

Donovan - April Fools is over. That means everything on the internet is true again! :lol:
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:28 pm

Since we have a few days of predicted nice weather....
New racks for solar:
20180411-1902-Roof-1.jpg
Still need the studs for panel mount added.


First almost 8 feet of roof re-raftered. That's the hard part...tar paper and metal will be easy.
20180411-1903-Roof-2.jpg
Giving that second piece overnight to conform to the new curve. Pitch is nice to keep the water out.

We are adding r-13 insulation to the minute existing stuff as well. There was some breakage and other damage from where a treetop landed there. The rest is mostly going to be rip up old tin and boards (they used a jillion nails), insulate, put boards tarpaper and new metal back, with a side of take down the old panels and rack and put up the new ones.
Gonna be really busy awhile...

Also seem to have somehow fried the old forklift battery charger I'd used as a nth level backup, so I ordered this which came fedex today. Sometime during a break in roofing I'll put it in.
Of course, it's not yours till you void the warranty, so I put in a long enough power cord... Looks pretty nice inside there.
20180411-1937-Charger-3.jpg
IOTA 25 amp 3 stage smart charger

It's a switcher so not too heavy, and has lugs for #2 wire. This one's "only" 25 amps, which I chose even though a 40a one was only a little more...because even this can draw some big peak currents, and I have a 2kw Wen gennie and a 1.5kw inverter in the Volt to use this with (and other things, but the idea is not to overload the source). My campus draws ~~ 12 amps when nothing special is going on (at 24v). So, run the place and charge in backup mode.

https://www.altestore.com/store/charge- ... ed-p11016/

When you do this off-grid thing you learn to have backups on your backups....
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Bob Reite » Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:31 pm

I took care of one station that had not one, but two backup transmitters as well as the main. Actually the third was the Raytheon RA-1000 that the station went on the air with. I got it working again because the RCA would get "cranky". And yes, there was the time when the solid state transmitter hid under the bed during a thunderstorm and the RCA refused to start up. The RA-1000 to the rescue. The reason I did not make the Raytheon the main backup, even though it sounded better, is that 845 audio driver tubes for it were getting priced out of reach due to audiophile tube nuts driving the price way up, so I wanted to make them last.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Postby Doug Coulter » Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:51 pm

I'm looking at bringing up a linear Bill donated, which says it's a Swan MK 1.
So I searched around and read all about the power supply being flaky, and the 3-400z's going bad if not run red all the time (or reconditioned at low plate and high grid volts at red heat to re-getter themselves).
On a quick check, the power supply had indeed fried, but been rebuilt, fairly nicely I think - no function test yet.
More disturbing (other than the prices on replacement tubes)...is that there are 4/400a 8438's in the sockets....which are tetrodes, not triodes....
So it appears I have some reverse engineering to do (and evidently still have the same kind of issues with long unused tubes of this sort...).

Or I could try and resurrect the RF deck for the 3cx1500a thing I have (also found by Bill) which I stupidly disassembled the RF deck of (it was single frequency and the wrong one)....
But so far we've never managed to move that power supply without injuring someone - it's a beast.

I've gotten most of the data I could get from the LF stuff I think - a couple more runs should finish that up;
Speaking of RF in the shack - no wonder Tesla and his audience were impressed....
I think I know now why the final matching for all the old cyclotrons was in a vacuum tank sidearm...Real HV + real HF...that's gonna be a challenge.
Still doing other infrastructure at the moment, but seeing some light at the end of the sunburn.

And yeah, I was on the other side of audiophile madness - I inherited some thousand tubes, from 01a's to 350b's and sold some of the pricier numbers before I found out what I could really get for them.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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