Test Equipment Anonymous

Today's Project over my Morning Cuppa...





These silly little gewgaws leverage commodity LED/solar sidewalk light tech to make a novelty oversized Xmas bulb ornament. I picked them up at Dollar Tree along with the silly Rudolph nose & antlers I was tormenting folk in the Discord with t'other day...

Anyhoo, got them home and they wouldn't do jack-shit; the battery was completely depleted and they just couldn't get over that load to fully charge in a day.




I took 'em apart, and what did I find? A standard AAA NiCd cell in a actual cell holder. So I popped the cells in my charger overnight; they'd been charging for 6 hours when I went to bed, so good sign that the cells are half-decent.

This thing costs $1.25, and the BOM includes a silicon solar cell, a bit of glass over that, a slider switch, a few resistors/transistor/white LED, a NiCd cell and battery holder hardware with 3 pieces of molded plastic; one of which is vacu-formed polycarbonate and another with chrome-plating... And the stores over here are still able to make the usual 300-400% markup selling it for a buck & a quarter.

The whole idea is to just get a little illumination on the wreath because it disappears at night, but where it's at, juice to power a string of lights is a bit of a PITA. Hopefully, these will be a workable look.

mnem

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:03 am

25 CPS wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:07 am I did some Christmas shopping for myself and bought a few models.

What I got: As seen in 1951 because that's what the two model companies made.

What I wanted: As seen from 1979 until scrapped and/or 1985 until scrapped, the way I got to experience things.

Yeah..And...What...models of what???

That would be telling...

mnem
number nine... number nine... number nine... number nine... number nine...

Is it normal for a 9V battery to drop to 7.2-8.1 V when loaded with 50mA? mmmm no...

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:03 am

25 CPS wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:07 am I did some Christmas shopping for myself and bought a few models.

What I got: As seen in 1951 because that's what the two model companies made.

What I wanted: As seen from 1979 until scrapped and/or 1985 until scrapped, the way I got to experience things.

Yeah..And...What...models of what???

I guess the pictures didn't make it. It was a couple of streetcars.

Let's see if this works:



What I'd really want given my age is a post-1979 version of this from when I started riding them on my own. Change the colours to subway red and cream, change the number typeface to the simplified one, change the logo to the 1954 version, change the destination sign to a route number on the left pane and destination on the right for one of the streetcar lines that survived the abandonment program. Actually, Bay is a good example of differing nostalgia: to the person who specified this model, Bay was a streetcar line that got abandoned but to anyone my age, it was a trolleybus line that got abandoned. Anyways, neither Corgi or any of the other companies that made models made any representing these streetcars in their later years.

mnementh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:08 pm Today's Project over my Morning Cuppa...





These silly little gewgaws leverage commodity LED/solar sidewalk light tech to make a novelty oversized Xmas bulb ornament. I picked them up at Dollar Tree along with the silly Rudolph nose & antlers I was tormenting folk in the Discord with t'other day...

Anyhoo, got them home and they wouldn't do jack-shit; the battery was completely depleted and they just couldn't get over that load to fully charge in a day.




I took 'em apart, and what did I find? A standard AAA NiCd cell in a actual cell holder. So I popped the cells in my charger overnight; they'd been charging for 6 hours when I went to bed, so good sign that the cells are half-decent.

This thing costs $1.25, and the BOM includes a silicon solar cell, a bit of glass over that, a slider switch, a few resistors/transistor/white LED, a NiCd cell and battery holder hardware with 3 pieces of molded plastic; one of which is vacu-formed polycarbonate and another with chrome-plating... And the stores over here are still able to make the usual 300-400% markup selling it for a buck & a quarter.

The whole idea is to just get a little illumination on the wreath because it disappears at night, but where it's at, juice to power a string of lights is a bit of a PITA. Hopefully, these will be a workable look.

mnem

NiCd They are cheap because the maker was paid to dispose of the toxic waste

Just got back from a family emergency, MIL, almost 92 has been ill for the last 3 weeks and yesterday had an MRI scan at the hospital, and today she thought about washing her hair in the kitchen sink on her own, had a turn for the worse and collapsed, just managing to call SWMBO. We jumped in the car and raced off, as fast as we could on the icy roads, because of the time and the stupid cycle lanes they have installed on the roads, they were gridlocked and in the space of just half a mile there was no fewer than 3 ambulances trying to squeeze through the traffic to reach the hospital. It took us 25 minutes to reach her which we can normally do in about 10 minutes. When we got there we discovered that SWMBOs key was in correct and we couldn't get in, just on the verge of breaking and entering when SWMBO remembered that the neighbour had a key. We got in and MIL was hanging onto the edge of the sink, covered in blood where she had ripped her skin off her arm when she felt ill, freezing in a cold house.

This was about 16:00 hrs. Anyway we managed to grab a chair so she could sit on it, wrapped her up in our coats and took care of her arm which was bleeding badly, stopped and applied a plaster tried to phone her doctor and got a prerecorded message saying they were closed for staff training and to call if we needed urgent assistance the NHS line, 111 which was about as much use as a chocolate teapot, after about 15 mins of asking automated questions we gave up on that and phoned for an ambulance on 999. They were far more helpful and took details tec and then dropped the bombshell, we could be facing a 5-hour wait before an ambulance could attend.

We managed to get her out of the kitchen into the living room and onto the sofa and made her comfortable and warm while we waited, about 3 and half hours later the ambulance arrived and proceeded to check her over and run some tests, blood pressure, oxygen level, blood sugar level etc and an ECG test. The results all came back OK, they did offer to take her to A&E but warned her that there would be a massive wait and today the nurses have all gone on strike because they cannot survive without having to rely on foodbanks as a result of this government's cutbacks and years of pay freezes.

Now we have her stable, SWMBO and SIS are staying with her tonight, and we are hoping that we don't have to rush her to hospital, in our cars as it is the fastest method but the coldest way to get her in front of a doctor.

And to think that this government have the Gaul to stay that the NHS is safe in their hands

Mindblowing this can happen in 2022 in UK. Wish you all a safe and fast recovery from this unfortunate event.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:54 pm Just got back from a family emergency, MIL, almost 92 has been ill for the last 3 weeks and yesterday had an MRI scan at the hospital, and today she thought about washing her hair in the kitchen sink on her own, had a turn for the worse and collapsed, just managing to call SWMBO.
...
When we got there we discovered that SWMBOs key was in correct and we couldn't get in, just on the verge of breaking and entering when SWMBO remembered that the neighbour had a key.

Sounds all too familiar

Our "80% solution" was twofold.

One of the button on neck lanyard calling a 24/7 helpline nominally run by the council. Normally the people answering just phoned me and I went around.One time she slipped gently to the ground someone was around quickly. They got her to her feet by inflating a big bag of some sort underneath her, and all was well. Basically a good "peace of mind" solution that worked when necessary.

The other was an hi^H^H appropriate-tech insurance company approved "door mat". https://keysafe.co.uk/p500-police-appro ... afetm.html
I never had to use it in an emergency, but it was still very useful for the home-help-carers that came around. I now have one for my house.

I also had to consider how to get in if the front door couldn't be opened, either because my mother had fallen behind it (happened to my father in the bathroom on the 2nd floor) or because the rim-lock switch had managed to engage. Had to be sure the back door key was rapidly accessible, but also to ensure people didn't leave the key in the lock!

But fundamentally it will be all downhill from now on, with visiting carers checking on her daily. My mother managed to overflow the bath, which then penetrated the two floor below her, with the water draining down the chandeliers. Fortunately I got there just in time to isolate the light circuits, but still called out the fire brigade to verify that nothing was smouldering. All the carpets were launched from the windows. That 1840 house didn't have an RCD but does have 3 phase! Two months later discovered by chance it was Grade II listed, and not insured as such - aargh!

That "peak flood event" would have been time to get her into a home, but it was 6 months into the COVID epidemic, with everybody in a hermetic bubble. Managed, with considerable inconvenience, to keep her at home for another 8 months until her 100th birthday and tolerable visiting arrangements.

Yes I know about the key safe idea and the monitored alarm system and lanyard, my Mum had both of those after she fell and broke her hip and went on to having a bad stroke. I had to fight with her to allow me to call an ambulance for her, she only thought she had fallen over, but I could see that her leg was twisted almost back the other way. This happened while I was at work and a neighbour managed to pick her up and get her to an armchair. Kind of him, but he should have called an ambulance then and not moved her until they had assessed the damage. She did manage to press the panic button on her alarm however, and they called me as keyholder, but because of the time it would take me to reach her, they worked their way through the list of keyholders till they found someone who could respond quicker. Of course, all this predates the Covid problems by a number of years, back when the NHS was not on its knees, suffering from years of Tory under funding and mismanagement and of course the effects of Brexit which saw millions of foreign workers leave the service and go back home, to the point now we have nurses having to resort to strike action.

God help us if we have another pandemic, and there is a new strain of Covid entering the country, so the threat is real, we may as well give up all hope until we can get some grown-ups in charge of the country

WTF? And you guys are so quick to criticize our health care system?

That said, I hope your MIL is doing OK.

MED6753 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 2:04 pm WTF? And you guys are so quick to criticize our health care system?

That said, I hope your MIL is doing OK.

Arh yes but that is different, you guys have to pay for your treatment either with hard cash or some form of insurance or else you're on your own. Over here our health system was once upon a time considered the best in the world and the envy of the world but since our current political leaders have been in power, and that's 12 years, they set about the systematic destruction of the service.

They have even offered the health service on a plate to your big corporations in a series of secret talks in exchange for a trade deal which are desperate for sine Brexit, but thankfully that all fell through when Trump fell.

Now it seems they are still hell-bent on the abolition of it and are trying to make it look bad in the public eye by claiming that they are spending record amounts on the NHS, and to the uninformed folk it would seem like they are doing so, until you dig deeper. Remember all of that scandal surrounding the PPE scams, Millions if not billions have been spent on PPE gear with companies that were set up by politically connected people, just days before being awarded massive contracts with multi-million profits being siphoned off to private bank accounts, while the regular suppliers were all complaining that they could supply the vast quantities required and at far less cost, but they were never awarded contracts. Well all of that money has been loaded onto the NHS budgets, so the huge profits of the get rich schemes never reached the NHS and the PPE gear sourced via these deals was deemed unfit for purpose, some is still stored at costs of millions a month but much of it has incinerated, total waste of taxpayers money. You should really try to follow our politics, honestly you could not even begin to make it up

sounds like a movie i saw in 1985....."Brazil".

nixiefreqq wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 4:21 pm sounds like a movie i saw in 1985....."Brazil".

Great movie.

I bought a set of newly made replacement battery packs for the three classic HP calculators I have and they arrived yesterday afternoon. They came precharged so I used a Fluke 8060A to check polarity before installing:





And there are all three up and running on internal power untethered from the chargers.

The HP 35 on the right was ordered as a parts unit for the first one I got that turned out had the flakey power switch. I was bound and determined to get that one up and running since it was such good example of the complete package from 1972. In the end, I ended up with two working HP 35s, which I have no objection to at all. It was also nice to get a vintage Fluke out as well and shake it up a bit from the usual Agilent/Keysight handheld DMMs I typically use.

Robert wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:05 pm

mnementh wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 3:08 pm Today's Project over my Morning Cuppa...
...I took 'em apart, and what did I find? A standard AAA NiCd cell in a actual cell holder.
So I popped the cells in my charger overnight; they'd been charging for 6 hours when I went to bed, so good sign that the cells are half-decent.

This thing costs $1.25, and the BOM includes a silicon solar cell, a bit of glass over that, a slider switch, a few resistors/transistor/white LED, a NiCd cell and battery holder hardware with 3 pieces of molded plastic; one of which is vacu-formed polycarbonate and another with chrome-plating... And the stores over here are still able to make the usual 300-400% markup selling it for a buck & a quarter.

NiCd They are cheap because the maker was paid to dispose of the toxic waste

You might think so, but actually NiCd batteries have made a comeback over the last decade or so as a commodity market all unto themselves, for just this kind of product: cheap solar crap. Mostly cuz you can charge them with a diode and a resistor and they'll still last long enuf to outlive the return period at most stores that sell such crap. Also probably cuz they don't freeze and rupture (and sometimes catch fire) like LiXX can when you leave them outside over the winter.

Or maybe, in the vein you suggest, they have a recycling chain like they do for Pb-acid, and the raw materials are uber-cheap; I dunno.

mnem
*toddles off to get the kids*

The streetcar model arrived in today's mail:



The guy who gave Corgi the specs for it chose 4500 and 4549 for the first two of the three Toronto models they made because those two cars still exist.



This is the real 4500 as it exists now in the historic fleet, more or less backdated to 1951.



I got this image from an eBay ad. The advertisement is wrong, the picture isn't from the 1970s, it's from the middle of the 1980s before this car was designated a historic vehicle and was just another beat up wreck like all the others then running out their last days. Not represented by the collectable companies but, as I was told when I asked if one of them could do a 1970s heavy rebuild version of these cars, they know their market and it isn't anyone like me.

mnementh wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:06 pm

You might think so, but actually NiCd batteries have made a comeback over the last decade or so as a commodity market all unto themselves, for just this kind of product: cheap solar crap. Mostly cuz you can charge them with a diode and a resistor and they'll still last long enuf to outlive the return period at most stores that sell such crap. Also probably cuz they don't freeze and rupture (and sometimes catch fire) like LiXX can when you leave them outside over the winter.

One of the things NiCds are used for is emergency lights that come on when there's a power cut. They are very tolerant of charging and don't mind being discharged until flat. The solar chargeable garden lights I've seen have NiMh batteries. Most of those things don't last a winter outdoors because the damp gets them. The ones with strings of LEDs have a bit of heatshrink to cover the leads to the LED, but water can easily get inside and then you have corrosion speeded up by electrolysis. The heads with the solar cell also suffer from corrosion caused by damp, and the cover over the solar cell often goes cloudy. They cost almost nothing and I doubt anyone takes them back if they don't work next Spring.

Go look on Tenergy or Interstate Battery. They have a whole section of dirt-cheap low-capacity (even compared to NiCds of years gone by) NiCd batteries that are marketed just for this cheap solar crap.

More expensive lights like you're talking aboot, I'm sure they can afford a proper Δ-peak charge circuit for NiMH. But everybody, even Wally World, sells a dozen different versions of these Chinesium walkway lights, etc that all use the very basic charge & Dawn/Dusk circuit found in these POS ornaments.

mnem

they have been putting some pretty confusing stuff on the news around here about fusion energy. was just wondering if they are doing the same in other places?

it has lots of folks bamboozled.

was at a municipal meeting the other day where some of the commissioners said they did not have to worry about recommending approval for solar PV systems because in a couple of years we will have all the fusion electricity we need.

ok....they are doing good science at the national ignition facility. and it is very exciting that they actually achieved the conditions for a "burn" and did get a little more energy out than the lasers actually got onto the pellet. the physics geeks should be doing their happy dance. BUT it takes 4 to 6 hours to prepare for each "shot" if they don"t bork the lasers. it takes days if they have to repair their giant gadgets after each shot.

how long does each burn produce power? 100 picoseconds.

a lady on tv said that there are just some minor engineering details to work out and they will be able to scale up to utility sized production.

BULLSHIT!

like one of my EE professors said in 1976..... "practical fusion power production is 20 years in the future, and always will be".

There have been serious research efforts on fusion since the 50s and the problem has always been the same; containing the plasma and getting it to run as a sustained, or even pulsed process. Every now and then some improvement is made which is hyped to the sky, and practical fusion power is only a year or two away, for a few weeks.

Another thing that was hyped out of recognition was room temperature superconductors in the late 80s. These were going to revolutionalise power distribution, give us faster computers and generally transform the prospects of mankind. I remember saying at the time that it was very interesting but it was likely to be some time before this was something appearing in practical applications.

Then of course, there was cold fusion........

I think people's critical faculties are disarmed by things they'd like to be true.

mnementh wrote: ↑Sat Dec 17, 2022 12:37 am More expensive lights like you're talking aboot, I'm sure they can afford a proper Δ-peak charge circuit for NiMH. But everybody, even Wally World, sells a dozen different versions of these Chinesium walkway lights, etc that all use the very basic charge & Dawn/Dusk circuit found in these POS ornaments.

The lights I'm talking about are walkway lights costing 50p and have a button cell, could be NiCad, could be NiMH, or cost somewhere between £5 and £10, and have a unit with an AA cell, which is a 600mAh NiMH. They run a string of about 50 LEDs. They have a special chip and a buck convertor and no trace of a Δ-peak charger.

NiCad cells have some advantages, but their use is discouraged for obvious reasons.

nixiefreqq wrote: ↑Sat Dec 17, 2022 12:20 pm was at a municipal meeting the other day where some of the commissioners said they did not have to worry about recommending approval for solar PV systems because in a couple of years we will have all the fusion electricity we need.

I would had explosed and start to yell at them with some italian horrific words....
Ukraine war did not taught the lesson to everybody. Independence is the key, even on a small scale.
Everybody should go solar and have big batteries at home.... regardless what will happen, power will be there for you.

Saving what could be useful in the future from that horrific DELL PSU
PS: I could divorce and marry my Metcal MX-DS1