Debby
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Posts posted by Debby
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Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. We've had a new system installed at work which has made an already tediously boring job completely mindnumbing. But it's there, so I've just accepted it and got on with it. Same with this forum. I was happy with the old one, even though there were no post numbers when I used the mobile version. But now we have the new forum. It's different, but it's not the end of the world. I'm sure the tech staff have more important tasks to deal with than post numbers.
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Just now, Jerra said:
Of course that is possible but I find that at times I can remember a post was say around 60 or 70. Numbers then help me find it for quoting. Couple that with they aren't intrusive or use a lot of band width so why not?
Why not? Why? Makes no difference to most people, given that I've only seen about 4 people complaining about it. When there were post numbers, and people said but in post 36 someone said... I didn't bother going to look for it.
3 minutes ago, Athy said:Derrr! To find the post so that you can quote it!
So you know the number already?
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14 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
Dont worry about it. If you dont want the numbers then you dont want the numbers but some of us would like them as others have mentioned. Tell you what if we get them back why dont you pretend they are not there then you will never need to use them? Jeeeeeeesus
I still don't see why they're necessary. If you want to refer to a specific post in a long thread, then quote it, so it's there for easy reference. If you just put the number, then everyone has to scroll up through a long thread to find it...
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10 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
Plenty of other peeps have been saying on other threads they miss them, they do make quoting other posts easier on long threads.
Haven't noticed that either. If you quote the post, why do you need the number?
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8 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
I think most want them back
I hadn't even noticed they'd gone. Makes no difference to me whether they're there or not.
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10 hours ago, Jerra said:
That is very odd. After reading your post I tried to time it on mine, somewhere in the region of a second (can't be too accurate just using a wrist watch).
Same for me. Slightly slower on my phone than on the laptop, but it doesn't bother me!
31 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:But (and a personal view) I don't think the 'poster of the day', gold / silver/bronze cups, 'green hearts' etc. really add a great deal to an 'adults' forum.
Agree.
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33 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Thanks for the comments Gents - way above my head - wiring OK, but ''black centipedes with bits sticking out - no way.
Sorry, Alan. This is why I no longer say "What have you been up to in the workshop this weekend, dear?" to Dave. Three hours later I'm no wiser, but I have a headache.
Debby
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Hi Alan, sorry for getting electrically confusing there !
Hopefully you'll have some luck with Victron.Yes, the board is probably untouched and that's how they are manufactured. Apologies for pointing it out..... it's a bit rough and ready in there in places.
All the best with it, hope there's a good, and cheap, result. -
Whoops, apologies for coming back in all of a sudden.
Just noticed. Shot with the two suspect resistors and diodes above ? I can see two tantalum capacitors in there as well.
Tantalum caps are notorious for giving up the ghost if polarity to them is reversed even once. So there's one to check. Could be 1001 things, but the top of my list is..... check the voltage regulators and references on the boards. -
PS Good post from Giant above and 100% correct. ;-)
This is the kind of stuff I do. Note the horrifyingly large components and 20x assembly microscope. ;-) -
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Hi WotEver, Dave here. Yep, could be.
I think it's equally likely that some lazy gentleman somewhere couldn't lay his hands on a proper 1N40xx diode, so he just joined to 1N4148's in series, which is pretty ...... poor.
For a £600 bit of kit, I expect to see things like IC sockets. Pennies each. As little point wiring as possible. Proper heatsinks added to voltage regulators. Which produce heat and therefore can suffer from damage from inadequate heat dissipation (which is another reason which is why I think this is a voltage regulator issue). I also expect to see properly sleeved joints using heat sink and not any old bit of plastic tubing which was lying around and a general lack of insulating foam would also be nice.
As well as voltage regulators, there are also voltage references. Pic of one below. These basically contain a zener diode across legs 2 and 3. Zener diode produces a regular voltage. Regulators and references are what you generally use if you want part of a circuit at a known voltage, say, 10v. Unfortunately, they're a bit more difficult to distinguish by newbies from transistors.
When testing regulators and references, it's pretty simple. Multimeter out and look for a voltage difference on either side of the component.
A word to the wise.
Before replacing a faulty one, be CERTAIN of what type of regulator it is. For example, a 78L10 produces PLUS ten volts. A 79L10 produces MINUS ten volts. This will result in electrical unpleasantness and lots of white smoke, which is not the desired effect. Luckily you can't find 79L10's for love or money, if you do, send them my way, I have some voltage controlled oscillators to build for a synthesizer. ;-)
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There's more...
Aha.
Two resistors - are these shorted ? There's some obvious Friday afternoon soldering here.
D12 above it seems to be two 1N4148 diodes which have been modified. Presumably a higher rating diode was needed, so it's been modified by adding two 4148's together. What the lead is which comes off the diodes is, or where it goes, or whether or not it comes off them at all, is an interesting question.PS Surface mount fuse.... I doubt it, depends how much current is going through a fuse, if that's the culprit.
Surface mount is easy to repair. You need to heat the component, remove it with tweezers, clean the pads, apply solder paste, add a new component and then seat and re-heat the component. However, a cursory glance at the board doesn't reveal any surface mount components. So unless it's hidden on the back of a board..... I think it's not going to be down to a SMD component. -
From Dave via email as he is upstairs in his "music room"
Interesting thread, I've only glanced at the boards but can I add a few things which may be useful ? Don't know if any of these would help. A schematic is really the first thing to refer to.
General tips, then.
On the control PCBs, check the voltage regulators, if there are any.
It might not look like this, some PCBs use "voltage references" look more like a conventional transistor package.The thread is correct in saying that electrolytic capacitors should be replaced, but voltage regulators tend to be overlooked. There's a line of 4 transistor like ICs on the board and two transistors to the right..... check to see if they have standard transistor markings on, such as BC547 or 2N3906.
There are some fairly large diodes on the board (1N40XX ?) which are presumably part of the rectification. Check these.
If the electrolytic caps have been replaced, check the polarity. They're polar components, white stripe on the case is the negative side.
I'd check voltages for the chips. Get the pinouts from a datasheet and see if the correct voltage is there for positive and negative feeds.PS Checked and there IS a voltage regulator like the above one. It's near a 4 x 4 matrix of solder joints, with two flat yellow capacitors (R140 / R147) next to it.
There will probably be two voltage regulators in there, sending +9v/-9v (or 12v) to the electronics.
These go on a regular basis. They're the usual suspects with dead PC power supplies.
Apologies if non of this is appropriate, my experience is in microelectronics. -
21 minutes ago, Neil2 said:
Funnily enough it was only recently a few of us of the same age were trying to figure out the classic Watch with Mother cycle of programmes Mon-Fri. It's a bit like naming all of the Magnificant Seven (actors).
Just as everyone gets Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Charles Bronson etc but no-one ever remembers Brad Dexter (who?) we all recalled Andy Pandy, The Flowerpot Men, The Woodentops, and Rag Tag & Bobtail but none of us could think of the fifth.
Eventually we resorted to Wikipedia which suggests that something called "Picture Book" was the missing prog. I have no memory of this at all - does anyone else remember it?
Yes, I remember Picture Book. I think that one had a dachshund in it.
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1 hour ago, canaljunky said:
You are all correct - roving bridges are also known as changeline bridges and turnover bridges and snake bridges.
We call them twirly bridges.
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34 minutes ago, Ray T said:
Really scraping the barrel now:
Plus:
"The biggest, spottiest dog you ever did see." I loved the Woodentops, less so Tingha and Tucker, was terrified by Torchy. Worst of all though was The Singing Ringing Tree, which still gives me nightmares.
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Hm. I haven't have any notifications of photos or responses to them. I don't get multiple replies to a topic. When I click on a topic title I get taken straight to the last unread post. I don't always log in when I look at the forum, sometimes I'm on my laptop, sometimes on my phone - it makes no difference, I still get MyVNC just the way I want it. I don't care that there are no post numbers. I don't care that I can't see anyone's total reputation points. I haven't noticed any large white spaces. I don't expect the admin/mods, who are as new to this software as everyone else, to be able to fix everyone's different issues immediately.
Things change, that's life. It's just new software, not the end of the world.
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22 hours ago, junior said:
I'm also having the same problem as the OP and almost at the end of my tether.
The old skin was much better and when you clicked on a thread it would automatically take you to where you last were up to. Now it takes you to the beginning of the thread again.
Strange. I find if I'm logged in, either on my laptop or on my phone, clicking on the blue blob takes me to the last post in the topic. If I'm not logged in, again either on my laptop or my phone, clicking on the thread title takes me to the last post.
I have to say, I really like the "new" forum, and find it very easy to use.
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55 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:
So far most of the discussion has been from members who can sign on. Has anyone tried reading the forum as a visitor? it is hard work. Jan reads the forum as a visitor, and in the old site could always get View New Content, which came up under thread headings, Now she gets a long list of posts in reverse order, so reading all the posts in one thread is almost impossible. Trying to edit the settings does not work if you are not signed in! If this is the experience that new visitors to the site get, I supect that visitor readership will fall off very quickly.
I usually read the forum as a visitor. I find it just as easy as if I sign in. I just click on "All Activity", scroll down till I see a topic I want to read. That takes me to the last post, and I find it only takes a second to scroll up or click on page one, depending on whether I've read the topic previously or not. I'll continue this way just as happily as I did on the "old" forum, only logging in if I want to post something.
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1 minute ago, David Mack said:
David,
Like you I was frustrated when I first tried to use the new forum software. But I managed to sort it out reasonably quickly on my phone, and having set up a new "Activity Stream" (what an unhelpful term) to provide the equivalent of the old View New Content, I am pleased to find that it is there when I visit the forum on the laptop. I have now deleted my old browser bookmarks/favourites on the laptop and phone, and created new ones for my new VNC Activity Stream. This makes it easy to go straight to New Content. John 6767 provided a pretty good guide to setting up a new Activity Stream in this post.
Yes, that's what I did. Deleted the old bookmark, set up the new Activity Stream, then created a new bookmark. That seems to work - well, as far as I'm concerned.
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1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:
Alan you should have done it on the Telephone.
You don't want to try one of those new fangled Tele Phone things! Much better to get the horse and cart out and go to the Pension man yourself.
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4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
I take it from your post that you are considerably younger than some of us? I may be wrong of course but I wasnot brought up with mobile fones and tinternet they simply did not exist until I was in my thirties therefore it all has to be learnt and much is nonsense. What is a Bookmark? and " Activity stream? etc etc yes it is rocket science unless you are a twelve year old doing Farcebook.
I'm 59 years old. I've been working as a packer in a warehouse for the past three years, where my only use of a computer is to scan a barcode, key in three numbers and hit return twice. I also had no dealings with the Internet or mobile phones till I was in my thirties. I joined Facebook last October, reluctantly, but after Dave had a stroke I realised it was the only way I was going to be able to contact some of his friends. Now I use it daily, have never encountered any twelve year olds on there, but do enjoy taking the mickey out of the people I work with. Things in life change. Adapt or stay in your cave.
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This morning it took me less than five minutes to delete my old bookmark, create a new one, set up an Activity Stream the way I want it....Hardly rocket science! Yes, it's different from the old forum - things change, get used to it!
Is Birmingham going downhill as a destination?....
in General Boating
Posted
No, it's much clearer and easier for you to find that post, click "quote", then no one has to go off and find post no 719B to find out what you're talking about!