Set up and tested the DBT and pseudo-variac for accuracy at 60 volts, as per the instructions for the
bring up. The plug in the Amplifier socket actually goes to a makeshift cord I use for testing AC. The other end is stripped, and tinned. I hooked them up to my DMM, just to make sure everything was functioning as it's supposed, which it was. I also checked the voltage from the Amplifier socket both with and without the light in the circuit. There was only a two volt drop with the lamp in. So everything's working as it should.
So then I got everything ready, so as to bring up the first row of transistors. That's when things went toward the Lunatic Fringe. I couldn't find the resistors, either type, ones for the test and the one to discharge the bulk caps. I looked where I would have sworn I left them, where I might have left them, where I might have knocked them to, both on the ground and on the big work bench. Nothing. So then I started scouring the shop. And it's a big shop, broken up into three rooms. They weren't anywhere in the clean room, where they were supposed to be. They weren't in the machine shop, where they shouldn't have been. And they weren't in the welding shop, where they would never have been.
Turns out, the girlfriend, for a reason that defies understanding, thought they were junk, and threw them out when she was doing me a big favor and cleaning the shop. We've been together for years. And I've repeatedly told her that the shop was like plutonium. If you touch anything, death is a near certainty — at the very least, there is severe disfigurement. But she explained the she accidentally knocked over a glass of what had been my ice water from the day before, and was very worried that the little remaining water that spilled out onto the bench would get into something it could damage. How that necessitated throwing away a small zip-lock bag is a question I didn't bother addressing. Nothing good would ever come from that conversation. She apologized, and that was sufficient for me. It's a small sacrifice, given how otherwise great she is. It wasn't at all worth pursuing. But, AAAAAhhhhh! ! ! ! !
So now I have to order more and wait until they arrive to bring up the amp.
Focusing on the very bright side of the issue, I now have much more time this evening to sit in my comfy chair with a glass of whiskey and watch "Air Disasters". It's a great show I found on Netflix, or was it Amazon. I can't remember which. The whiskey is already working. But the show gives very scientific and technical analyses of famous plane crashes. It's a kind of Nerd's paradise.
P.S.: Just a few minutes ago, I accidentally mixed a new type of cocktail and discovered that, without any question, Whiskey and Orange Crush do not go well together. I threw it out and started over. But the damage was already done.
