Abusing brick on the rope

Absolutely right! Still, I'd bet there's some bad spikes somewhere... or lightning. George H.

If it is the supply, then I'm hoping for help IDing the failed bit... with pics of course.

GH

Wow, so the 'scope plugged into the same AC is also floating? Do you hook onto the plumbing?

George H.

We've always called that "lump in line".

Jon Elson wrote

Hey! incandescent low voltage light bulbs, car rear lights? Those have a cold resistance of 1/10 of normal, sort of PTC protection.. And visual indication things are wrong. ;-)

George Herold wrote

I deliberately removed the mains ground from my scope so I can measure things with some potential from ground, and avoid ground loops. You need to know what you are doing though. Modern battery operated watch size 100 GHz scopes do not have that problem, are floating too.

George Herold wrote

From a design POV, when having a '+', 'GND', and '-' connection, then you likely want the ground pin to make contact first. DIN 5 180 degrees is, in Europe at least, a standard audio connector for consumer audio stuff, (or was, I see only 3.5 mm phono plugs in the Chinese stuff these days).

The 3 pole XLR (also audio) could work: from

The female XLR connectors are designed to first connect pin 1 (the earth pin), before the other pins make contact, when a male XLR connector is inserted. With the ground connection established before the signal lines are connected, the insertion (and removal) of XLR connectors in live equipment is possible without picking up external signals (as usually happens with, for example, RCA connectors).

I am using a 5 pole XLR in that way for my gamma spectrum analyzer probe:

I have used the 5 pole 180 degrees DINs to send i2c through the house... screened audio cable, i2c allows you to set the speed as low as you like..

Always question what will happen if somebody plugs an audio cable in the 5 pole DIN...

Maybe it is often better to get some not so common used connector types, I have done that for some other high capacity battery powered equipment I designed, ebay has all sorts of nice connectors.

Home of the Troylets. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

ear

Huh, never heard of them. "Troylets often participate in barbarian raids on Rensselaer Polytechnic In stitute, a rich, fortified settlement deep within their territory. These ra ids are typically repelled by the campus militia, known as Public Safety. O n occasion, the Troylet raiding parties make it as far as "The Union," one of RPI's most potent defenses, where they are lured into attempting skatebo ard tricks and subsequently knocking their teeth out and otherwise injuring themselves."

Maybe they landed a skate board on the brick (on the rope).

GH

Well I just wanted to report that Phil A. wins the prize*. I got the power supply back today, and with a quick look all appears perfectly fine. (50 ohm load, +/-15 V @~ 1A.) I'll try a heavier load tomorrow and then some abuse... but this puppy looks fine.

George h.

*not sure what the prize is, maybe he can put a gold star on his frig.