On 9/9/25 12:23, jrmitchellj wrote:
Glad that worked out!
I am 20 years behind you. Just retired at the end of September. Then the
company begged me to come back for one day a week to keep all of the old
video and audio machines working, as none of the engineering staff know how
to do component level troubleshooting. I warned them when they hired me
that they should hire some young talent that I could train. They did not.
I was lucky, gave them notice about 2 years ahead, they let me hire &
train the best tech I'd had over the years. He's not the tech I was,
but he spent quite a bit of time watching me pull rabbits out of an
empty hat. And he has now survived 22 years in my old chair.
Gene, I still can learn a lot from you, so please keep going!
And I appreciate the opportunity to relate some of the unusual things I
have done. Furinstance, ferrites are unusual critters, some of the most
efficient have a curie temp below the 100C mark and if they are
magnetized when that temperature is exceeded, they go austenitic, and as
far as a choke or transformer are concerned, they may as well be so much
air. And they stay that way when cooled off again until they've had the
factory heat treatment redone. I've troubleshot to find that 3 times
since I quit school and started fixing tv's for tobacco money in '47.
That almost bankrupted HP in the late 80's-early '90's. By pure
serendipity, I've found myself involved in several things, like the tv
cameras on the Navy's Trieste when it made its only trip to the bottom
of the mohole in '59 or '60. Outside water pressure at the bottom is
nearly 18,000 psi. And at that pressure, water IS compressible, around 10%.
As it turns out, i not only need to replace the decade+ old mini-micro
switches I tally'd the gear shift knob with, it appears (i have numerous
configs for various jobs) that I copied the wrong one because I had
swapped the 2 pwmgens available because the second one missed a feature
I tried to use with a servo motor on a BS-1 rotary table. Since designed
a much more usable A axis, can turn 500 rpm. So I need to reswap the
pwmgen's in this config because its the only one that runs my poop chute
camera I sometimes hang on a bracket for cam-aligns use. But today I've
been busier than a one armed paper hanger, had the electric folks put a
fresh battery, changed the oil, new plugs and filters in my 20kw kohler
that left me in the dark for 2 hours friday nite. That also wiped out
the little ups that runs the pi that runs my biggest lathe. No biggie as
it had been hanging there for a decade. Got a slightly better one
ordered. Battery was well over a decade old. And I've a couple handymen
working on the front deck, replacing rotten 2x4's in the ramp I made for
the wifes wheel chair, about 12 yo untreated wall studs. CWF falls off
in 6 months. A good woman but she passed from COPD nearly 5 years ago.
Had her for 31 good years. And refitting the storm door a bit more mouse
proof. Busy day, back says its 4 hours past quitting time, but not all
done yet. I'll be a week getting all the garage working again at my
pace That and 10 gallons of Aussie "natural" deck stain to replace the
vanishing CWF. Big deck.
--J. Ray Mitchell Jr.
jrmitche...@gmail.com
(818)324-7573
Take care of #1.
"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three
decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded
good."
-- Thomas Sowell
Another very wise man.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
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