I sincerely appreciate that compliment.
I sincerely appreciate that compliment.
I posted this chassis earlier, but it was only about 85% complete. This one is done.
This device came to me in mostly all original condition, but every passive in the thing is new at this point. This one was a labor of love, since the device itself isn't of much use - a modern cheap frequency counter can fly warp drive rings around it, but it's super cool. I got it to mostly calibrate properly and it's now a working display piece on my living room shelf of curiosities.
Of note here was an argument I got into with one of the "Replace all the capacitors all the time" morons. Moron insisted that this thing is going to kill someone unless it's earth grounded via a three-prong cord. Moron didn't take into account that signal (input) return is chassis, so grounding the chassis also means your signal input is grounded.
If you don't know why that's important - in a nutshell, older equipment can float in a way that's called a "hot chassis" - basically, there's no power transformer, they just hooked the line right to the input. Turn that the wrong way, and your chassis is now at line potential. (It's a USA thing.) That was fine because you the user was usually insulated from the chassis by the paint and the knobs and the like.
The problem starts when you probe the chassis, expecting it to be ground. If it's not, and you connect it to the signal ground on my device - you get a direct short. That's not good, and you'll probably regret doing that. That's bad kids, it's like drugs. Don't do it.
So what to take from that? Make sure you know why you're doing something, don't just do it because "that's the way I do it."
I posted this chassis earlier, but it was only about 85% complete. This one is done.
This device came to me in mostly all original condition, but every passive in the thing is new at this point. This one was a labor of love, since the device itself isn't of much use - a modern cheap frequency counter can fly warp drive rings around it, but it's super cool. I got it to mostly calibrate properly and it's now a working display piece on my living room shelf of curiosities.
Of note here was an argument I got into with one of the "Replace all the capacitors all the time" morons. Moron insisted that this thing is going to kill someone unless it's earth grounded via a three-prong cord. Moron didn't take into account that signal (input) return is chassis, so grounding the chassis also means your signal input is grounded.
If you don't know why that's important - in a nutshell, older equipment can float in a way that's called a "hot chassis" - basically, there's no power transformer, they just hooked the line right to the input. Turn that the wrong way, and your chassis is now at line potential. (It's a USA thing.) That was fine because you the user was usually insulated from the chassis by the paint and the knobs and the like.
The problem starts when you probe the chassis, expecting it to be ground. If it's not, and you connect it to the signal ground on my device - you get a direct short. That's not good, and you'll probably regret doing that. That's bad kids, it's like drugs. Don't do it.
So what to take from that? Make sure you know why you're doing something, don't just do it because "that's the way I do it."
(post is archived)