I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

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byacey
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#91 Post by byacey »

Are they using NT Bix blocks in the U.S for new installation work yet, or still keeping with 66 blocks?

The nice thing about the Bix combs is you have to really go out of your way to get across the pairs.

Worst shock I ever had was from the ultor cap on a CRT, back in my television servicing days. The voltage varied according to the screen size, but was usually between 25 to 35KV.
It packed quite a wallop, but was of very limited current, around a few mA. The shock didn't hurt nearly as much as whatever your hand slammed into from the muscle reflex.
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BrentEvans
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#92 Post by BrentEvans »

byacey wrote:Are they using NT Bix blocks in the U.S for new installation work yet, or still keeping with 66 blocks?

The nice thing about the Bix combs is you have to really go out of your way to get across the pairs.
It varies. I've seen both. NT Bix is usually used on high end installations and by telcos where there are many pairs in the same place, and 66 on cheap installs and for small demarc points by the telcos.
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Jools4001
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#93 Post by Jools4001 »

While we're on electric shock war stories, I was a computer hardware engineer for Hewlett-Packard for many years, started with them in 1981; back in the days when hard disc drives needed to operate in clean rooms and were the size of a washing machine to achieve their massive 20Mbyte capacity - they also needed an oscilloscope to align their heads every 3 months.

Anyway, one of the pieces of kit we had to service was a dinosaur like impact printer (I think it was a 2607). We only had to look after a couple of these because they were ancient even back then, so nobody was that familiar with them. It had a big heavy acoustic lid that used to lift up at 45 degrees like a car hood, then you removed a couple of panels to get into the works. The power supply was a monstrous great thing with huge caps and the back of the PSU was the first thing you saw under the hood, you could see all the mounting screws for the caps which sort of hung upside down into the bowels of the beast. So, this thing wouldn't power up and I could hear one of the caps whistling so I ducked my head under the hood and cocked my ear along the row of caps to see which one it was. Safe enough because they used to have a perspex panel that overlaid all the cap mounting screws and insulated them....except that I hadn't noticed that the perspex panel was missing...until my chin kissed one of the cap mounting screws. The shock was like taking an uppercut and I jerked my whole body back...only to whack the back of my head very hard on the upraised hood....which made me duck my head down and, yes, you guessed it I got another slug in the chin only to jerk back and whack my head AGAIN. Luckily I managed to avoid ducking back down a third time or I could still be oscillating away today :lol:
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BrentEvans
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#94 Post by BrentEvans »

Jools4001 wrote:While we're on electric shock war stories, I was a computer hardware engineer for Hewlett-Packard for many years, started with them in 1981; back in the days when hard disc drives needed to operate in clean rooms and were the size of a washing machine to achieve their massive 20Mbyte capacity - they also needed an oscilloscope to align their heads every 3 months.

Anyway, one of the pieces of kit we had to service was a dinosaur like impact printer (I think it was a 2607). We only had to look after a couple of these because they were ancient even back then, so nobody was that familiar with them. It had a big heavy acoustic lid that used to lift up at 45 degrees like a car hood, then you removed a couple of panels to get into the works. The power supply was a monstrous great thing with huge caps and the back of the PSU was the first thing you saw under the hood, you could see all the mounting screws for the caps which sort of hung upside down into the bowels of the beast. So, this thing wouldn't power up and I could hear one of the caps whistling so I ducked my head under the hood and cocked my ear along the row of caps to see which one it was. Safe enough because they used to have a perspex panel that overlaid all the cap mounting screws and insulated them....except that I hadn't noticed that the perspex panel was missing...until my chin kissed one of the cap mounting screws. The shock was like taking an uppercut and I jerked my whole body back...only to whack the back of my head very hard on the upraised hood....which made me duck my head down and, yes, you guessed it I got another slug in the chin only to jerk back and whack my head AGAIN. Luckily I managed to avoid ducking back down a third time or I could still be oscillating away today :lol:

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Tom Smit
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#95 Post by Tom Smit »

Jools4001 wrote:...
..... :loler:
BrentEvans wrote:Image
+1
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Mark Coward
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#96 Post by Mark Coward »

I can sympathize, had a shock to the chin once...my first guitar amp was a Gibson combo from the 50's, which I got around 1976 and it seemed ancient then....most of the lettering was rubbed off the chrome control panel. Had the "mic" channel like the early tweed amps, the panel & knobs on the top rear of combo. Don't think it had a back panel, and I'd spliced the speaker wires to hook it up to various other speakers - what fun to hook up a speaker from a transistor radio and make it burn ;)

So one day while playing, it seemed to be shorting out. I'm leading over from the front trying to look & reach around inside the cab and got my chin against the pilot light contact - 110V AC :noob:
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#97 Post by morticiaskeeper »

Two shocking stories

I was trying to repair an FM receiver, and ended up in the situation where I had to have the thing running, plugged into an amp, with the casing open. The only bit of the casing that would open was the bottom cover, so I had the unit sat on my lap, upside down. I had it in my head that the hurty bits were on the right, which they were, IF the unit was the right way up.

My thumb drifted onto the 240v AC side on the PSU transformer. My left arm muscle-locked with a buzzing feeling and I couldn't move. Luckily my dad saw it happen and switched the unit off at the wall. This was in the days of thick fuse wires, rather than RCD's & ELCB's. My arm ached for a couple of hours!


My dad started his career riding out to customers homes to pick up accumulators in his sidecar, charging them in the workshop and returning them the next day. As consumer electronics progressed, he went on to diagnose and repair TV's, back in the days of valves and multiple panels.

A lot of tweaking was needed, adjustments being made in the guts of the set while looking at the test card screen that was transmitted during the day. Normally a mirror was used for viewing, but this day, he was leaning around the side of the set, with his left arm inside.

He touched the HT cap on the CRT. Probably about 25kv! As he pulled his hand away from the shock, his arm caught a sharp corner on the chassis, which dug in as the arm moved backwards. The cut went from just above the elbow all the way to the outer knuckle on his index finger, passing across the palm as it went. 145 stitches were needed :-(

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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#98 Post by Rickisan »

145 Stitches!
OUCH!!! My Dad used to climb the power poles by side of the highway here in the US, Oklahoma, in the Old old days, 30's and 40's. They always worked them live.

The good thing for us.... we are all still around to be able to tell our stories. I've had two acquaintances suffer terrible shocks and survive but one is not quite all there and the other lived a fairly normal life but then passed on only in his mid 50's.
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billkatz
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#99 Post by billkatz »

Jools4001 wrote:While we're on electric shock war stories, I was a computer hardware engineer for Hewlett-Packard for many years, started with them in 1981; back in the days when hard disc drives needed to operate in clean rooms and were the size of a washing machine to achieve their massive 20Mbyte capacity - they also needed an oscilloscope to align their heads every 3 months.
I worked at HP from 1984 - 2000. I was a hardware design engineer in the division that made spectrum analyzers before they split the company in half. That division (in Santa Rosa, CA) is now part of Agilent, before they split the company again...
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AcousticScience
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#100 Post by AcousticScience »

A few years have rolled by but anybody heard any news from hifibob? I heard his club closed down, but what to do with the 20 Tuba 60s.

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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#101 Post by Grant Bunter »

He is in a business relationship building cabs AFAIK.
Don't know about his club, or BFM designed gear...
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Bryan Cox
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Re: I wish I had the opertunity to silence the critics!

#102 Post by Bryan Cox »

You can't be successful without a few haters. That tells me Bill did it right. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm good with others being non believers. That leaves a bigger pool of people for us to just totally demolish. They'll leave feeling like the prom queen who just got owned by Godzilla.
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