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Sincere apologies for going offline for the past while. In this post to the 'whats at your bedside' thread I made a passing reference to what was going on in my personal life...and sadly the palliative/hospice care has come to the end for someone I deeply care for. To say that it took the wind...

I'd like to pick up where I left off on the subject of soldering for those joining/rejoining the hands-on audio hobby. I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who had successfully soldered a fair amount in the past (after formal training in the military) ...but was confused by what was...

(apologies in advance to Spence & his quest for Muse Model 1 preamp info... :0) Agreed. It's true that where we position the weight in a chassis will have a direct effect on how fast it can rotate when external forces and/or driver input exceeds traction limits. Just like the ice skater...

Lee, You are thinking of the MR2 -- super nimble car. It is the essence of a mid-engine design, putting as much of the weight inbetween the tires as possible, giving a low polar moment of inertia. (ie: You could change your mind even while in the middle of a corner...and the car would still...

Hmmm -- what I pointed to yesterday at the Google level has already been swapped out? FWIW here's a clip of what I was referring to: More & more it seems that when I'm trying to find real info on the internet it's like wading around in the sewage treatment plant searching for a fine box of...

Glen, I went to a inflation calculator on the interwebs, and queried what is the 1958 <-> 2022 conversion rate? Here is the response: A 2022 dollar is worth ~ 1/10 of the 1958 dollar. So, if you take your purchase price of $60 x the inflation rate since '58 = $591.78. Yeah, I'd say that...

Glen, While researching my own Variac I remember seeing the original introduction of the 20 amp line to join the existing Variac family. The knob & face on your unit triggered this memory. As you can see your portable 'cased' model (W20M) is highlighted: (Refer to attached .pdf for the...

Glen, In the land of audio the general rule of thumb used to be that the larger the volume knob, the better the sound that was implied. And I do know that the large 'flywheel' tuning wheel on the old Marantz receivers always gave the very best tactile feedback while watching the tuning meter...

File under you can't trust everything you see on the Internet: I know from working on cars that the conventional 12v lead-acid batteries are heavy, but I wanted a quick ballpark on a range of weights. So I googled "12 volt car battery weight" and here's what I got as a response. I had no idea...

RoHS = The Return of an Old Enemy to Electronic Reliability If you've ever decided on a plan of attack with the old saw, "If it ain't Broke, Don't Fix It", then you will appreciate the havoc that well-intentioned yet non-technical types have inflicted on those who are responsible for...

Hi J!m, During a previous conversation with my D-500 resto tour guide, (Glen Grapplesaw) he shared the fact that Octopart was a really good place to shop for electronic-related stuff. Sure enough, once I had figured out the mfg part number for my personal preference (Kester '44' rosin core...

The Solder Chronicles As part of restarting the electronics hobby I took a quick inventory of what solder I had left from the last big wiring project. As it turned out, there was precious little, which meant that I had to spend 0 ergs of energy justifying starting fresh with the best solder...

8991XJ, I looked over the high-res photos, and all of the individual component date codes I saw would support your theory that the first two digits of the serno ( "90" ) as the year of manufacture: Pacific Transformer: "November 1989" Big blue 10K ufd PS cap: "8914" Motorola 2N2914 (dual...

Glen, when you have a $$$ tool (replacement cost) that really supports your workflow, and you can buy a spare parts donor for $$, that's definitely the way to go. (Anything that takes the fear of failure out of a tool in heavy rotation is a very savvy thing to do.) Especially given the way...

Larry, We seem to be on parallel paths. During the latter half of my career I had been promising myself that if/when I made it over the retirement finish line I would unearth/renew all the PL gear that I had acquired along the way. I'm a relative newcomer myself, but hanging out in here is...

Not to sidetrack the discussion, but I am digging the transistor man logo on your PS: Elsewhere on the interwebs I saw a different model PS from the same company, and right next to this fellow the following phrase was added by the factory: " Robotec Current Limiter" Blow that up a little &...

Oops! My bad. You know when bedtime has already come & gone...but then you see something that you really wanna respond to? Don't do it...especially if math is involved. :0) Obviously, if I had done even the crudest whole number cross-check from my 'murica perspective (~$2 {US} x ~4qt = outer...

I just looked - today's exchange rate: 1 Australian dollar = .73 US dollar = 1.369 conversion 1 Liter = 1.05 USA Qt. So, $2 (AUS) x 1.369 x 4 liter x 95% = US ~$10.41/gallon. (That's heading towards Mad Max kind of preciousness.) OUCH!

More priming of the lab pump - this arrived Saturday! Best price/least weirdness was purchasing straight from American Hakko on Amazon. (?) NOTE: When buying something new online, I'll always cross-check the bay vs Amazon vs a couple of representative tool outlets. Lately it seems that...

Lee, Not so much electronics, but older/neglected Japanese vehicles equipped with the JIS fasteners were the bane of my motorhead existence. You have to really study the picture, but essentially the Phillips bit is too skinny/too tall to interface correctly with the JIS screw. You start to...