Craig Sawyers

Thanks all! I still reckon Fanfare for the Common man was the best

Happy birthday Nate!

I just followed a data sheet I found. An interface with heatsink grease is actually pretty insensitive to torque, but I think I used 5in/lbs and conical washers (AKA Belville washers). Datasheet attached AN1040-D - heatsinks.pdf

Anybody here following this http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/ ? Attempt at going more than 1000mph in a car. Eurofighter jet engine, four rockets and an F1 engine to drive the fuel pumps.

^^ New 9V batteries come with a little plastic cap on the negative terminal, or a plastic strap across both terminals. I transfer that to the old battery before disposing of it to prevent it shorting.

Doesn't surprise me. I've always been a bit of a geek with that - when I was going to rock concerts in my mid teens, long hair, torn denim, and head banging (we're talking early '70s) I used to shove cotton wool in my ears. Now I use high tech ear plugs which reduce the volume, and take down the damaging high frequencies more, but leave the stomach thumping bass coming through. I have lost some high frequencies in my left ear, but that was a historic thing falling off my bike and fracturing my skull near my ear.

My bag of ceramic insulators, left over from the T2 measure 2.03mm. Add TO220 tab of 1.33mm and get 3.36mm < 3.18mm. So all is fine and hunky dory - the bush stops 0.18mm before the heatsink.

Anderson spent most of the first 11 years of her life in the UK. When they went back to the US the kids made fun of her English accent, so she adopted a midwest accent. So she switches between one and the other easily. She appears on the London theatre stage pretty frequently using her variety of accents - we've seen her in roles with her perfect English accent, but we missed her as Blanche Dubois last year which was was certainly is a southern US accent. She's a great stage actor. Missed Topgear last night, but will watch the rerun tomorrow. Clarkson gets a total of (in US-speak) $30m a year for his involvement in TG.

Yeah. It is interesting to look at the tolerance stack up. If the transistors have the correct nominal diameter hole, the AAVID bush will go through. But because punch tools wear, transistors start off with holes at the top of the tolerance range and the bush fits nicely. When the punch reaches the end of life and has worn smaller, the bush is tight. The transistors in my T2 spanned this range. Typical spec seems to be 3.6mm +0.1/-0.08mm, so a range from 3.52 to 3.7. The AAVID bush has a nominal diameter of 3.56mm, so should only be tight with the TO220 hole towards the bottom of its tolerance range. The bush has an (unspecified) tolerance itself of course In hindsight I should have bought a taper reamer and taken the holes out a tad so the bush was always a nice fit. But since my T2 continues to work it must be all OK anyway.

Ineed Kevin. The main issue is not the withstand voltage of the insulating washer so much as the fact there is a hole in it through which the bolt goes, If you draw out a cross section, the distance between the transistor tab and the heatsink is just the thickness of the washer, in air. So maybe 0.1-0.2mm - which definitely breaks down, regardless of the length of the bush. The only way around this is to use a thick insulating washer - and that is the only reason for using the ceramic ones - to increase the physical distance. Having done that the next weakest point is around the insulating bush to the mounting bolt. Hence the long AAVID ones that go most of the way through the ceramic insulator. Problem with PEEK screws is if you look at the thermal resistance between a TO220 transistor and a heatsink, a certain minimum tightning torque for the screw is necessary. You can't get even close to that with PEEK because the threads strip. Been there, done that, spent the money and have a box of spare PEEK M3 screws and nuts. However, with the ceramic insulators and long AAVID bushes, you can use stainless steel screws with absolutely no risk of arcing, and get the right torque. Because I am a bit anal about this I have a TorqueLeader torque screwdriver for precisely this application. My T2 a la Gilmore design has been working with that arrangement for three+ years without missing a beat. Craig

Happy birthday Naaman! Now assume the position

It really depends on where you live. Down near Oxford it was 7C (45F) and a stiff breeze today. But get further North and it is like Graeme's link. By further North I mean three hours drive. It is no joke that you can get four seasons in a day at a fixed place, or four seasons simultaneously separated by a couple of hundred miles. The real killer for us is where the jet stream ends up. If it kinks up above the UK it brings in warm air from southern europe, which usually means loads of rain at this time of year and warmer temperatures. But if it kinks off the south of the UK it pulls air from Russia and Scandinavia. When that happens I've seen it go down to -20C (-4F) overnight and a couple of feet of snow. Very unpredictable weather here in the tiny UK. The other weird thing is that we have more tornadoes in the UK per land area than anywhere else in the world. Say what? Yup - we get on average 100 tornadoes . Not many by comparison with 1,200 in the US, but the area of which those are distributed is much larger. Ours are also less destructive - nothing like the monsters I've seen in documentaries in the US - but the odd one can destroy a row of houses.

it is the Lack side table. Looks like they do a wall mounted shelf under the same Lack series which might be interesting for a turntable support (if like me you returned to vinyl) Go into the US Ikea site and type Lack into the search box. The Lack side table comes up at $9.99, the coffee table at $19.99 and the wall shelf at $6.99. The coffee table used to be supplied without the shelf, but since that is just a thin board you can leave it off, and the fixings for it too if you just want the top surface for gear.

I have no idea whether you can get this in the US, but House of Fools. This is a BBC comedy show with a live audience in its second season, written by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, and is unique, weird and absolutely hilarious. Has me in tears every week. If you like Monty Python, you'll like this.

^^ That was a serious bit of kit, and drop dead gorgeous to boot. I have a mate who owned a Ferrari (forget what sort) at one point, and he rapidly found out that he had to do a course in how to drive the thing - he couldn't steer a straight line and change gear at the same time until he learnt the techniques. And his was a lot less powerful than the La Ferrari animal. Shows what a good/great driver May is. But yeah - the Peugeot section was endlessly long and Top Gear at its worst. And this is the same team that brought us the Reliant Robin shuttle launch what a contrast.

These http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40104270/make awesome equipment stands. The top is constructed the same way as Russ Andrews Torlyte - it is basically a wooden honeycomb. Very light and non-resonant. Price, like all Ikea is stupidly low - we're talking £8UK - so maybe 15 bucks - as compared with two orders of magnitude more for Torlyte. So cheap in fact it is worth buying one and just trying it out. And massively strong - I am using the double width one as a test equipment support at the moment with several hundred pounds of gear on it.

Yeah, me too. My bedroom carpet was covered in soldering iron burns and solder splatters.

Happy Birthday!

That would have been the LS3/5A Dusty. A BBC design by Harwood (his design paper attached), and made under license by a few manufacturers such as Spendor, using KEF drive units. Bewlideringly still made, using newly manufactured B110 and T27 drivers from here http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-walnut-15ohm.html. Not cheap as you can see. Or you can buy a kit form version http://www.falconacoustics.co.uk/ls3-5a/ls3-5a-b110-t27-cabinet-kit-complete.html It is still a speaker to be reckoned with. But to get real bass from it you definitely have to cross it over to a sub - but the tiny original box is surprisingly good. Craig 1976-29.pdf

Went to see this: http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/news/ltg14/boa14583.htm Tiny central London theatre seats 100, and a stage the size of a living room. Absolutely awesome to see world class acting that close. Boa is the nickname of Harriet Walter's character - no idea why they did publicity photos with a snake.

.

He badly needs to be acquainted with the blunt end of a base ball bat

^^ I both want badly to eat that, and weirdly not, at the same time

Have a great one Steve!

Bit late but could be red plague http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_plague_%28corrosion%29an electrolytic corrosion process on silver plated copper