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childhood inventions
I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose.
I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Bill |
childhood inventions
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childhood inventions
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childhood inventions
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childhood inventions
"the dog from that film you saw" wrote in
message ... i invented flash before adobe - in my head. it simply occured to me one day that websites could be far more animated and exciting than they were (this was in dialup days) if they generated their own graphics with polygons,with maths, instead of having to download them at a great cost of time. and then adobe programmed it and people hated them for it ever since. I hate the way Adobe Flash keep trying to con you into installing Google Chrome with their unnecessary upgrades. Once installed Chrome is impossible to get rid of without screwing other things up. -- Max Demian |
childhood inventions
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childhood inventions
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:09:01 -0000, "Max Demian"
wrote: "the dog from that film you saw" wrote in message ... i invented flash before adobe - in my head. it simply occured to me one day that websites could be far more animated and exciting than they were (this was in dialup days) if they generated their own graphics with polygons,with maths, instead of having to download them at a great cost of time. and then adobe programmed it and people hated them for it ever since. I hate the way Adobe Flash keep trying to con you into installing Google Chrome with their unnecessary upgrades. Once installed Chrome is impossible to get rid of without screwing other things up. Chrome does not need to have the automatic upgrades option set and the uninstaller at http://support.google.com/chrome/bin...n&answer=95319 works perfectly. Steve -- EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com |
childhood inventions
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:53:32 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote: In message , writes I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... ISTR that when I was also a lad (or, at least, a teenager) there were several projects (probably Practical Wireless and similar) using an OCP44 (or an OC44 with the paint scraped off) as the light-sensitive diode detector, and a torch bulb as the transmitter. Obviously, the frequency response was rather limited, but maybe they compensated by applying lots of pre-emphasis to the audio. OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW) Are you sure you don't mean OCP71? I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
In message , Graham.
writes OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW) Are you sure you don't mean OCP71? Well spotted. Of course I mean the OC(P)71. I'm just making sure that those at the back are awake. I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments. -- Ian |
childhood inventions
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:18:38 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote: In message , Graham. writes OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW) Are you sure you don't mean OCP71? Well spotted. Of course I mean the OC(P)71. I'm just making sure that those at the back are awake. I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments. As you will no doubt know, Mullard got wise to the paint scraping trick and put a block on it. Literally. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
More fascinating reading. (I know how much you admire Radio Amateurs).
http://modulatedlight.org/Modulated_...cle1Jan79.html This is a link to a Light - RF crossband QSO from that site. http://modulatedlight.org/Modulated_...1974_death.mp3 -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
wrote in message
... On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:17:15 -0800 (PST), wrote: I think I was aged around 8 that while inflating a bicycle tyre I suddenly got the idea that the action could be reversed and air could move a piston in a cylinder. Dashing in to show Mum and Dad my invention I was equally dashed when Dad explained I was a hundred or more years too late. All was not lost though as I discovered that afternoon what pneumatic meant, attending school on Monday the teacher asked what we had done that weekend and the subject came up. He was a good teacher and seized upon things like this so we had an hour or two playing with bicycle pumps and balloons and learnt a bit about air pressure. On another occasion he queried why I was late and when finding the reason was that I had forsaken my bike because I had been offered a lift on a Steam Roller which was moving to a new section of road repairs. That morning the class had a lesson on steam power with the roller as exhibit A. Was it really a *steam* roller? You must be old! -- Max Demian |
childhood inventions
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:22:53 -0000
"Max Demian" wrote: wrote in message ... On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:17:15 -0800 (PST), wrote: I think I was aged around 8 that while inflating a bicycle tyre I suddenly got the idea that the action could be reversed and air could move a piston in a cylinder. Dashing in to show Mum and Dad my invention I was equally dashed when Dad explained I was a hundred or more years too late. All was not lost though as I discovered that afternoon what pneumatic meant, attending school on Monday the teacher asked what we had done that weekend and the subject came up. He was a good teacher and seized upon things like this so we had an hour or two playing with bicycle pumps and balloons and learnt a bit about air pressure. On another occasion he queried why I was late and when finding the reason was that I had forsaken my bike because I had been offered a lift on a Steam Roller which was moving to a new section of road repairs. That morning the class had a lesson on steam power with the roller as exhibit A. Was it really a *steam* roller? You must be old! In the Long Shop Museum in Leiston, Suffolk, there is a restored Steam Roller. It was rescued from Ibiza, where it was visible from my brother-in-law's office window, back in the 1970s. (He managed the Yacht Harbour there). A real Steam Roller. I remember them, including one working on the road outside our house, in about 1960 or so. I'm not old, just not quite as sprightly as I used to be! -- Davey. |
childhood inventions
Bill, look at the 6th image down this page.
http://www.bluehaze.com.au/modlight/...4Amateur79.htm Ohh thanks for that! Fascinating. Bill |
childhood inventions
Well you could get bulbs to work. There was I seem to recall a transmitter
based on the idea as a project in the late lamented Wireless world in either 50s or 60s. The point was that in order to keep the sound sounding reasonable you had to use a low level of modulation so as not to go into the non linear zone of thermal lag effect. The receivers were ORP12s as I recall either with lenses or mirrors. The main drawback was that when it was foggy it seldom worked. Snow did not fare much better as blizzards are not transparent. I built aan audio intercom using two lantern torches when I was young and foolish. Very hard to keep the beams steady enough I found. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active wrote in message ... I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Bill |
childhood inventions
You could only do that paint job on some of the Mullard devices, shortly
afterwards they made the bodies opaque. My great inventions? Pedal powered wire twister.. OK not of much use really, but fun. It is interesting to note that my device for flashing festive lights in weird sequences using OC72 transistors as bistables running from an astable circuit took up half the room under the sofa, whereas nowadays its all done in a chip you need a magnifying glass to see.. sigh... Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "Ian Jackson" wrote in message ... In message , writes I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... ISTR that when I was also a lad (or, at least, a teenager) there were several projects (probably Practical Wireless and similar) using an OCP44 (or an OC44 with the paint scraped off) as the light-sensitive diode detector, and a torch bulb as the transmitter. Obviously, the frequency response was rather limited, but maybe they compensated by applying lots of pre-emphasis to the audio. -- Ian |
childhood inventions
Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues
when light fell on them. Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so they need to be replaced. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "Graham." wrote in message ... On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:18:38 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: In message , Graham. writes OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW) Are you sure you don't mean OCP71? Well spotted. Of course I mean the OC(P)71. I'm just making sure that those at the back are awake. I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments. As you will no doubt know, Mullard got wise to the paint scraping trick and put a block on it. Literally. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
I recall the problems actually attempting to make a radio transmitter from
early transistors. Of course you could just build an oscillator and modulate its amplitude, but that was not very successful as no matter what you did, it had some FM tendencies resulting in the middle of the carrier having an almost dead spot. The only successful one was three transistors, a buffer and an output stage which was tuned and then it worked quite well. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "John Legon" wrote in message o.uk... wrote: I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I did something similar when I was a couple of years older with a neon panel lamp mounted in a bicycle lamp as transmitter, and a photocell in a toilet roll with a magnifying glass at one end as receiver. I had no ambitions to broadcast to the estate, but was happy with a modulated light beam that transmitted music across my bedroom... Not exactly hi-fi, but it worked. |
childhood inventions
Blimey, you must be one of those young whippersnappers then.
I was adult in the days of the ZX Spectrum, so we never had much in the way of graphics, and web sites were not even heard of. I did write some software, but nobody really wanted daft basic games like Spider Diner or Rodent run.. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "the dog from that film you saw" wrote in message ... On 11/01/2013 13:17, wrote: I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Bill i invented flash before adobe - in my head. it simply occured to me one day that websites could be far more animated and exciting than they were (this was in dialup days) if they generated their own graphics with polygons,with maths, instead of having to download them at a great cost of time. and then adobe programmed it and people hated them for it ever since. -- Gareth. That fly.... Is your magic wand. |
childhood inventions
Most of the messy programs will uninstall far cleaner if you use revo
uninstaller instead of add remove. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message ... On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:09:01 -0000, "Max Demian" wrote: "the dog from that film you saw" wrote in message ... i invented flash before adobe - in my head. it simply occured to me one day that websites could be far more animated and exciting than they were (this was in dialup days) if they generated their own graphics with polygons,with maths, instead of having to download them at a great cost of time. and then adobe programmed it and people hated them for it ever since. I hate the way Adobe Flash keep trying to con you into installing Google Chrome with their unnecessary upgrades. Once installed Chrome is impossible to get rid of without screwing other things up. Chrome does not need to have the automatic upgrades option set and the uninstaller at http://support.google.com/chrome/bin...n&answer=95319 works perfectly. Steve -- EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com |
childhood inventions
Hmm well yes, and coming full circle was it not this very week that Gadget
show demonstrated a bulb that included a poweline net adaptor, a light source and receiver of some sort to use laptops using light comms. Not sure how the return link worked as always a bit low on detail. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active "Owain" wrote in message ... On Jan 11, 1:17 pm, wrote: I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Not mad nor as a kid, but when I was a bit younger, I had this idea for 24-hour telephone banking in c. 1986 but was told it would never work. Firstdirect did it a couple of years later. Also had this idea that if a computer now had enough power to play a DVD, then a portable DVD player would have enough power to be a simple computer with web browser. Someone else invented the 7" netbook ... Owain |
childhood inventions
wrote in message ... secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Why didn't you write to Jim with your idea, maybe he could have fixed it for you? |
childhood inventions
"Martin" wrote in message
... On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:21:58 +0000, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote: On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:09:01 -0000, "Max Demian" wrote: I hate the way Adobe Flash keep trying to con you into installing Google Chrome with their unnecessary upgrades. Once installed Chrome is impossible to get rid of without screwing other things up. Chrome does not need to have the automatic upgrades option set and the uninstaller at http://support.google.com/chrome/bin...n&answer=95319 works perfectly. Don't ruin a good whine with facts I've just done it now successfully. It might be the problem is associated with a partial install. It definitely caused problems before - I googled for the error message and found a reference. -- Max Demian |
childhood inventions
In article , Graham.
scribeth thus On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:53:32 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: In message , writes I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... ISTR that when I was also a lad (or, at least, a teenager) there were several projects (probably Practical Wireless and similar) using an OCP44 (or an OC44 with the paint scraped off) as the light-sensitive diode detector, and a torch bulb as the transmitter. Obviously, the frequency response was rather limited, but maybe they compensated by applying lots of pre-emphasis to the audio. OC44 was an rf transister, unlikley ro me a photo version (BICBW) Are you sure you don't mean OCP71? I used to mainly use the ORP12 LDR for my optical experiments. ISTR scraping the paint of the OC71 series to exploit that effect;!)... -- Tony Sayer |
childhood inventions
In article , John
Legon scribeth thus wrote: I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I did something similar when I was a couple of years older with a neon panel lamp mounted in a bicycle lamp as transmitter, and a photocell in a toilet roll with a magnifying glass at one end as receiver. I had no ambitions to broadcast to the estate, but was happy with a modulated light beam that transmitted music across my bedroom... Not exactly hi-fi, but it worked. We used to stick stakes in the ground a bit apart and apply high voltage audio and a receiving pair of stakes in my mates house across the other side of the estate, he'd be able to receive on a step up transformer connected to them. Worked surprisingly well:)... -- Tony Sayer |
childhood inventions
In article , Brian Gaff
scribeth thus I recall the problems actually attempting to make a radio transmitter from early transistors. Of course you could just build an oscillator and modulate its amplitude, but that was not very successful as no matter what you did, it had some FM tendencies resulting in the middle of the carrier having an almost dead spot. The only successful one was three transistors, a buffer and an output stage which was tuned and then it worked quite well. Brian Never bothered with transistors, much too flimsy. Once after I got a ECC88 going there was no stopping thru 807's and 813's then QQV03-20A VHF valves;)... -- Tony Sayer |
childhood inventions
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:23:33 +0000, tony sayer
wrote: We used to stick stakes in the ground a bit apart and apply high voltage audio and a receiving pair of stakes in my mates house across the other side of the estate, he'd be able to receive on a step up transformer connected to them. Worked surprisingly well:)... When I was about 10 I did a similar sort of thing but just by the house and the shed. It didn't work very well at all. I replaced the whole lot with a length of wire that went directly to the shed. No tx/rx or transformers needed. That did work well, but that was no surprise! Steve -- EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com |
childhood inventions
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:11:14 -0000, "Brian Gaff"
wrote: Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues when light fell on them. Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so they need to be replaced. Brian Yes, I have a classic Bush TR82C in the bedroom, and one of the AF117 started playing up. The fault practically put a short on the 9v rail. Giving the transistor a sharp tap cleared the short temporarily. The solution was just to snip the 4th screen wire, it really doesn't seem to be necessary. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:06:52 -0000, "Brian Gaff"
wrote: You could only do that paint job on some of the Mullard devices, shortly afterwards they made the bodies opaque. My great inventions? Pedal powered wire twister.. OK not of much use really, but fun. It is interesting to note that my device for flashing festive lights in weird sequences using OC72 transistors as bistables running from an astable circuit took up half the room under the sofa, whereas nowadays its all done in a chip you need a magnifying glass to see.. sigh... Brian I'll see your flashing festive lights, and raise you my push button telephone dialler. This I made in 1970 and was a complete lash up assembled on a piece of plywood. It was totally electromechanical, and at it's heart was a step selector switch that did the counting. Ten push switches were mounted on a second piece of hardboard that was the keypad. The only problem in operation was you needed to keep the button pressed until all the pulses for that digit were sent, a full second for the 0 half a second for the 5 & pro rata. The other slight issue with this device was the magnet winding on the selector was 240v, but at least the final interface into the telephone line were the isolated contacts of a relay. It didn't need quite need half a room, but it lived in the cupboard under my bedroom vanity sink unit to keep the noise down. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:36:16 +0000, tony sayer
wrote: In article , Brian Gaff scribeth thus I recall the problems actually attempting to make a radio transmitter from early transistors. Of course you could just build an oscillator and modulate its amplitude, but that was not very successful as no matter what you did, it had some FM tendencies resulting in the middle of the carrier having an almost dead spot. The only successful one was three transistors, a buffer and an output stage which was tuned and then it worked quite well. Brian Never bothered with transistors, much too flimsy. Once after I got a ECC88 going there was no stopping thru 807's and 813's then QQV03-20A VHF valves;)... I was a topband enthusiast in the 70s and even at this low frequency and 10W dc limit, transistor transmitters were a real novelty. To paraphrase Tony Hancock "Give me a 6BW6 any day". -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
tony sayer wrote:
Never bothered with transistors, much too flimsy. Once after I got a ECC88 going there was no stopping thru 807's and 813's then QQV03-20A VHF valves;)... My father built an audio amplifier with a pair of 807s in push-pull in the output stage (even though I think these are transmitter valves). He was in the habit of testing amplifiers by putting his finger on the grid cap of a valve and listening for a buzz in the loudspeaker. I tried this one day with the 807s, not realizing that the cap on these valves goes to the anode! The shock threw me back against the wall. Later when I got a meter I found that the supply to the anodes was about 600 volts. |
childhood inventions
"Graham." wrote in message ... On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:11:14 -0000, "Brian Gaff" wrote: Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues when light fell on them. Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so they need to be replaced. Brian Yes, I have a classic Bush TR82C in the bedroom, and one of the AF117 started playing up. The fault practically put a short on the 9v rail. Giving the transistor a sharp tap cleared the short temporarily. The solution was just to snip the 4th screen wire, it really doesn't seem to be necessary. That was a common problem with those transistors almost from day one, AKA ANLE (a nice little earner :-) |
childhood inventions
Hmm a thousand fun things to do with a fix it badge, by penfold on Babani or
whatever it was called. I wonder if the collectors price will go up or down on those. I think they were mostly plastic. Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________ "Rick" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Why didn't you write to Jim with your idea, maybe he could have fixed it for you? |
childhood inventions
wrote in message ... I was brought up in a house that was a few hundred yards from the edge of a vast estate of council and NCB houses. If anyone's interested it was on Middlegate, Scawthorpe, Doncaster. We often used to walk up the hill to the field at the side of the quarry, from where there was a view across the estate and also across parts of Bentley. I used to fantasise about broadcasting to the estate from there, by light. I would set up a powerful lamp that would be modulated by audio. I knew a filament wouldn't respond quickly enough, but I didn't know anything else that would, so I just hoped that sopmething would turn up. Each receiver would have a large parabolic mirror mounted somewhere high up enough to see my lantern, with a photocell at the focal point. I remember talking to my science-inclined form master about this, so that means I must have been first year secondary. Twelve or thirteen I suppose. I don't know why this came to mind, but I just wondered if anyone else had mad inventions when they were a kid... Bill I spent countless hours in my youth inventing 'perpetual motion' - usually involving magnets and bicycle wheels - until finally conceding that perhaps the naysayers were right after all. |
childhood inventions
|
childhood inventions
In article ,
lid says... On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:11:14 -0000, "Brian Gaff" wrote: Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues when light fell on them. Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so they need to be replaced. Brian Yes, I have a classic Bush TR82C in the bedroom, and one of the AF117 started playing up. The fault practically put a short on the 9v rail. Giving the transistor a sharp tap cleared the short temporarily. The solution was just to snip the 4th screen wire, it really doesn't seem to be necessary. That is not a permanent cure. The problem with the AF11x series is the tin coating on the inside of the can which grows whiskers. When one of these whiskers touches the transistor inside and causes a short, it can indeed be cleared by cutting the screen wire. The problem is that it doesn't actually clear the short so that, when another whisker reaches another electrode there are now two shorts which are connected via the can. No less an authority than NASA has carried out a detailed investigation into the problem - report he http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/anecdote/af114-transistor/ Remember that the next time someone mentions unleaded solder ... -- Terry |
childhood inventions
Why didn't you write to Jim with your idea, maybe he could have fixed it for
you? I did, enclosing a photograph. His agent wrote back and said that Jim only fixed it for good looking kids. Bill |
childhood inventions
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:11:18 -0000, Terry Casey
wrote: In article , says... On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:11:14 -0000, "Brian Gaff" wrote: Actually, I think it was done to make testing them less prone to issues when light fell on them. Later of course they put their transistors inside metal cases, but many of these now suffer from a degeneration of the filler that shorts them out so they need to be replaced. Brian Yes, I have a classic Bush TR82C in the bedroom, and one of the AF117 started playing up. The fault practically put a short on the 9v rail. Giving the transistor a sharp tap cleared the short temporarily. The solution was just to snip the 4th screen wire, it really doesn't seem to be necessary. That is not a permanent cure. The problem with the AF11x series is the tin coating on the inside of the can which grows whiskers. When one of these whiskers touches the transistor inside and causes a short, it can indeed be cleared by cutting the screen wire. The problem is that it doesn't actually clear the short so that, when another whisker reaches another electrode there are now two shorts which are connected via the can. No less an authority than NASA has carried out a detailed investigation into the problem - report he http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/anecdote/af114-transistor/ Remember that the next time someone mentions unleaded solder ... Thanks Terry, I knew there was more to the problem as I was typing, but I couldn't remember the details. Having seen the picture of the inside of the can, I won't now forget. -- Graham. %Profound_observation% |
childhood inventions
wrote in message ... Why didn't you write to Jim with your idea, maybe he could have fixed it for you? I did, enclosing a photograph. His agent wrote back and said that Jim only fixed it for good looking kids. With hindsight a blessing in disguise, as by recent accounts it probably saved you from length of tongue... |
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