Look what I found

[redbox]

use the hardware for final testing.

I learnt this one the hard way when rushing to finish the Xmas demo[nb]The ASIC doesn't clear the hardware sprites on start-up[/nb].

[Russkie]

I got my monitor working. I replaced any capacitors that looked a bit dodgy, kept away from any parts of the circuits that I didn't understand so I didn't fry myself, and now it works. It is quite exciting, but I didn't ever end up finding any disks for the cpc, so I haven't really done anything with it yet. Except for turn it on and off, and look at the screen.

I'm thinking that I'll connect a 3.5 disk drive, or that HxC thingy. i haven't really looked into it yet. I have stacks of 3.5 inch disks, but I'm not sure of the condition of the many drives I have sitting around somewhere. SD Card might be best, if it isn't to hard/expensive to get up and running. I need to do some research.

Everything has to wait until I move to a new house though, packing, tidying, repairing is keeping my busy right at the moment.

[Gryzor]

Lots of 3" disks on ebay uk/de/fr lately. Take your pick

Concerning the monitor, btw, I was at an electronics guy's workshop the other day, discussing arcade monitors, and he told us that actually about the only place you can get electrocuted is inside the glass compartment (not sure about the name), where the cable goes. He started touching random parts of a screen that was on, to my horror (should I hit him with a stick? Call the ambulance or try to resuscitate him? )...

Just looking at it and listening to the Delete "bleep" is fun enough

[MaV]

He started touching random parts of a screen that was on, to my horror (should I hit him with a stick? Call the ambulance or try to resuscitate him? )...

I guess, I'd kill him instead of the high voltage the moment he does something like that in front of me, just for the shock.
If you're really, really proficient enough, you may do that. Otherwise I'd refrain from touching anything like that.

That also one of the reasons why I like to get rid of the Joyce monitor and put the board inside a box. I wouldn't even think about doing a service of a crt.

MaV

[Shredder11]

Bloody well done Russkie in getting it working!  Oh and yes, do get a HxC SD Floppy Emulator interface because they are superb and very well supported, plus seem quite maturely developed now.

[Bryce]

@Gryzor: Touching the Tube (the glass bit I think you are referring to) is not dangerous. The dangerous bits are the two or more large capacitors on the main circuit board and as your repair guy suggested, the HT lead going to the side of the tube and the HT transformer itself. If he touches any of these while they are charged you will need re-consider whether the stick or an ambulance is the better choice

Bryce.

[arnoldemu]

@Gryzor: Touching the Tube (the glass bit I think you are referring to) is not dangerous. The dangerous bits are the two or more large capacitors on the main circuit board and as your repair guy suggested, the HT lead going to the side of the tube and the HT transformer itself. If he touches any of these while they are charged you will need re-consider whether the stick or an ambulance is the better choice

Bryce.

If he touches the part, would he be thrown across the room and then be sat there with hair stuck up and smoke comming off him.. but generally ok (in a cartoon type way) or would his hand effectively be stuck on it, he would be shaking uncontrollably with his hair stuck up and you'd be forced to hit him with the stick to free him and telephone for the ambulance at the same time?







(Of course this is a joke, touching live electrical parts is dangerous).

[Bryce]

Probably better to hit him BEFORE he touches anything dangerous

That said, I stupidly put my hand on an open transformer at the weekend. Won't be doing that again in a hurry
I also once tried discharging a large capacitor in an Apple monitor (which I thought was mostly discharged), and the screwdriver more or less welded itself across the contacts.

But I think any lesson you learn without killing yourself is probably a lesson well learnt

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Like, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I've been stung by electricity three times now, every time it's less painful. I feel ready for a thunderbolt.

[Shredder11]

I remember at Middle School sometime between 1981 and 1985 saying to my mate next to me, "go on....dare me to stick my fingers in the mains socket".  He looked at me like I had lost my mind, so after a moment or two waiting for his response and not getting one,  I grew impatient and just did it anyway.  Cue scenes of a school kid with one finger in the mains socket and the other arm flailing involuntarily above his head, but not making any noise.  The most amazing and unbelievable thing about all of this, was that nobody and mean NOBODY...not even the teacher looked up to see what I was doing!  I might as well have been invisible for what it was worth...

[Bryce]

But you survived! What more could you want. I don't find it gets less painfull with "practice" and I'm just as pissed off now when it happens, as I was the first time. The worst I've had was knocking my elbow against a 425V buzzbar. That really hurt and left quite a burn mark too. I never took the "socket challenge" at school though. Our old school was so crumby, the wires in the wall would probably dis-integrate if they were short-circuited rather than do you any damage And besides we were more afraid of the "dodgy" Christian Brothers, than anything a socket could inflict on us

Bryce.

[Shredder11]

Yep I did survive!  The first time I did something similar was circa 1980 when out of childish curiosity, I decided to hook up a wound coil transformer component to the mains, with obvious results! LOL!  Apart from that the only dumb thing I remember doing was a couple of years back, while I was wiring plugs onto a couple of 4-gang trailing socket boards, which were to plug into my music studio rackmount power distribution system (ART PS4x4).  Dunno if I was tired or what but I gripped the bare 4-gang socket wires, not realising that although the power system switch was in the off position, it was still live (designed to do this, not a fault).  zzzzZZZZZZZZZZOOOOWWWWW!!! :-o


....lesson learned!

[Gryzor]

I think the lesson here is: electricity is not *that* dangerous.

[Bryce]

Yeah, but graveyards are full of people who thought "It's probably not that dangerous / high / fast / sharp / difficult ..." So I like to avoid electricity anyway (and it hurts).

Bryce.

[MaV]

Yeah, but graveyards are full of people who thought "It's probably not that dangerous / high / fast / sharp / difficult ..." So I like to avoid electricity anyway (and it hurts).

I've had my coming of age with electricity when I was very young. My father found a lantern at work that looked like an old-style mine lamp, with a light bulb instead of the gas fuse (not sure if that's the proper word). He connected it and it seemed  to work alright. Naturally I had to touch it to carry it around. Turns out that the wire must have touched the metal casing somewhere. I was stuck to that bloody thing for what seemed ages until I could take my hand off again. My body was cramped all over. To misquote "Alien": In electricity no one can hear you scream.

But yeah, I survived obviously. And I never touched anything again which I suspected of higher voltage without making sure it's disconnected.

Thank god, we're talking about AC here, high DC voltages will give you no chance of survival if what I read was correct.

MaV

[Gryzor]

Well, DC is used for electric chairs.  Or for killing elephants. Enough said.

[redbox]

Well, DC is used for electric chairs.  Or for killing elephants. Enough said.

AC killed the elephant[nb]want to keep going here - "no, not just burnt to a crisp, off she went with her trumpety trump, trump trump trump"[/nb].

[Devilmarkus]

AC/DC rocks.... (Or did you get "a touch too much"?)

[Bryce]

And finally Edison had proved once and for all, that elephants do NOT light up in the dark, even when assisted by 6.600V. This didn't stop Tesla however, who continued his experiments using 3000V on a cocoa fed cow in the hope that he would on day produce ready-made hot chocolate.

Bryce.

The spoil sports never let us do any of this stuff in University. Maybe the labs were just too small.

[arnoldemu]

Any chance of making some hardware to connect a cpc to a cow? perhaps a cpc based milking machine? 

Sorry it doesn't involve explosions

[Bryce]

I'll have to see if the "udder" connector is still available, and if so I'll can start on the CPC = Cow Pressure Contraption project.

Bryce.

Who says it wouldn't involve explosions?

[Gryzor]

This thread is off the trail.

[MaV]

This thread is off the trail.

You'll need a shepherd dog to get them back in line.


Back to the electricity and cleaning business: Any good advice on how to clean old computers and monitors? I mean dusting off might damage parts due to electrostatic discharges. I'm about to clean all od my CPCs and a Commodore, and while I've been cleaning enough PCs in my time, those were easily replaceable; the old computers are not.

MaV

[Bryce]

Is it the casing you want to clean or the PCBs?

Bryce.

[MaV]

Is it the casing you want to clean or the PCBs?

Bryce.

The PCBs. Blowing off dust is not enough.

But I'll be grateful for any tips about cleaning the casings as well.