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system 4-50

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9 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:

It looks to be fun but now I have to remember my resistor colour codes again, it's been a while.

 I used to be able to look at most resistors and instantly know the value, but modern metal film resistors are accurate enough that they all have values to three significant digits, rather the two on the old type, and that somehow stops them looking right. The fact that there's an extra band and the resistors are tiny so the bands are small and my eyes ain't what they were is probably not helping either.

 

MP.

 

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1 minute ago, MoominPapa said:

 I used to be able to look at most resistors and instantly know the value, but modern metal film resistors are accurate enough that they all have values to three significant digits, rather the two on the old type, and that somehow stops them looking right. The fact that there's an extra band and the resistors are tiny so the bands are small and my eyes ain't what they were is probably not helping either.

 

MP.

 

This kit appears to have proper old fashioned resistors in it, I still have 100's in the loft along with transistors and capacitors and diodes.

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12 minutes ago, MoominPapa said:

 I used to be able to look at most resistors and instantly know the value, but modern metal film resistors are accurate enough that they all have values to three significant digits, rather the two on the old type, and that somehow stops them looking right. The fact that there's an extra band and the resistors are tiny so the bands are small and my eyes ain't what they were is probably not helping either.

 

MP.

 

 

I know the feeling. The modern 4-band 1/8w resistors usually cause me to check with meter, which is probably good practice anyway.

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26 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:

 

Something else to dig out of the loft is my multimeter

The little microcontroller-based component testers cheap from China are worth having, eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/All-in-1-Component-Tester-Transistor-Diode-Capacitor-Resistor-Inductor-MeterLDSC/383846920912

 

MP.

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22 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Resistors with coloured bands are so last century! These days, resistors are surface mount and have the values printed on them. All you need is a powerful magnifying glass!

 

I  liked the last century, proper electronic components with pretty stripes on them. ?

 

.........Dave

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I'm sure I remember capacitors that were colour coded like resistors, lovely things. I have looked on some of the retro-component websites and can find no mention of them.

The metallic blue electrolytics were good too, all boring black now.

 

....................Dave

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22 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:

When we first got gas strut office chairs we found the yellow plastic capacitors where just the right size to fit over the strut release pin, so the chairs went down when sat on and up again when you got off.

 

Much amusement was obtained 

Never mind all that rose tinted retro reminiscence, you have no time for that. Get your head down into those Arduino books! 

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12 hours ago, dmr said:

 

I  liked the last century, proper electronic components with pretty stripes on them. ?

 

.........Dave

Too new. You need good old body-spot-top carbon-rod resistors.

 

(and flammable wax-paper capacitors)

 

24r-1w-erie-solid-carbon-dog-bone-x-2-19

Edited by MoominPapa
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The latest batch of resistors I ordered, as well as being tiny for 0.4 Watt ones, seems to have the stripes painted in Farrow & Ball colours - very muted and more or less indistinguishable from each other.

 

Has anyone managed to purge from their memory any of the very non-PC mnemonics for the colour code which were in common use 50 years ago - or do they immediately spring to mind?

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4 hours ago, Batavia said:

 

Has anyone managed to purge from their memory any of the very non-PC mnemonics for the colour code which were in common use 50 years ago - or do they immediately spring to mind?

The one my father was embarrassed about when he taught me, as a callow teenager, 50+ years ago is certainly unrepeatable now!

Edited by David Mack
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9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

I'm surprised Wikipedia actually lists some of those in the 'Offensive' category. The one I learned is not there, but could be formed by combining 2 or 3 of them.

There is one word missing from the list for the one I was "taught"!

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On 07/02/2021 at 10:09, BEngo said:

I use the Excel VBA Programmers Reference  by John Green, combined with Excel Formulas by Walkenbach.

 

The first has the whole object model explained and is really useful. About £18 on Amazon for the 2007 version. The second is v noddy on VBA, but worth it for avoiding writing VBA where Excel already has functions which can be made to do what you want.

 

N

Thanks again for this tip. I read my copy this week (not quite cover to cover, but nearly) and am now happily reading and writing between Excel and Access, with some very basic SQL. I started the chapter on making my application internationally portable, but   decided I could manage without.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 07/02/2021 at 10:09, BEngo said:

I use the Excel VBA Programmers Reference  by John Green, combined with Excel Formulas by Walkenbach.

 

The first has the whole object model explained and is really useful. About £18 on Amazon for the 2007 version. The second is v noddy on VBA, but worth it for avoiding writing VBA where Excel already has functions which can be made to do what you want.

 

N

Thank you again for this advice. I've now read the book (well I must admit I gave up on the chapter on making your spreadsheet internationally compatible, as I don't think I will need to work in Norwegian), and it was very interesting and I picked up a number of very useful tips.  I'm now happily moving data between Access and Excel and back again ... 

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