sanding off chip markings?

I'll take my old analog Panasonic RF-B20 multiband over most of the new stuff. 'Made in Japan' quality, good speaker, and it runs for ages off of 3 AA cells if you don't crank the volume up too much. Wasn't particularly cheap when I bought it 15-20 years ago, but it's been a faithful companion since.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I got a Philips CD-MP3 player from Target about a year ago for $40. (I simply refused to pay more than $40 for an MP3 player.) I like its ability to read CD-RWs...

Wal-Mart currently sells the same CD-MP3 player for about $35. (At least, the Wal-Mart in Dixon did, as of last Sunday...)

I can't stand those coin cells either. The one I got for 99c takes AAAs.

Michael

Whatever comes up. ;)

Once there was a blackout in my neck of the woods (about 2 years ago). I turned on my laptop (powered by a 12V jumpstart battery, plus 110V inverter, plus laptop switching power supply), fired up the dialup connection, logged on to the news... seems like a transformer blew at a substation. Whew. And here I thought the North Koreans were attacking us...

Paranoid. ;)

Michael

I just gone one in April, I had a gift certificate so I figured I'd see what the fuss is about.

Of course, if I showed what I had on it to someone from the MP3 generation, they likely wouldn't know what the stuff was, which of course is my reaction to what they likely have on their MP3 players.

What I'm amused/intrigued about is that the thing, a 512meg unit, was a hundred dollars (but went lower a few weeks later), and I paid about $80 for 64K of RAM in 1984. I can remember when everyone wanted RAM or ROM disks because they'd be faster than the then common floppy drive, but it never seemed all that practical. Each time the memory got low enough in price to be feasible, the software had grown in size to again make it too expensive.

That seems to have reversed now, and one reason these things are so cheap is because they are memory based and non of that mechanical stuff that the tape players and even CD players required.

I paid $20 for a 256Meg compactflash card a few weeks ago.

I must say that the MP3 player does generate noticeable hash when I get it close to an AM radio.

Michael

Hello Spehro,

Those are good. My wife has a similar radio, I think from Siemens. Probably with the same innards. My favorite is an old Sachsenwerk from the early 50's with shortwave but, of course, you cannot drag that out to the pool.

I have several MP3 players and just got a 1GB iPod Shuffle yesterday as a memento for a project that was killed 18 months ago. Other than it's made by Apple I have no idea what the connection is though. ?:-/

Sure. Mine have talk "radio" on it (actually, downloaded MP3s).

I paid $20 (each) for a couple of Memorex $512MB USB sticks last week. 1GB sticks were $30. One of my MP3 players plugs into the car's accessory socket and takes USB sticks. Neat!

So do mine. They have FM transmitters in them. ;-)

Hello Michael,

Maybe some day I'll get one. But CD players are kind of large in contrast to the old walkman (which was perfectly fine). Heck, we don't even own a DVD player yet. The only reason why I might want one of those would be to re-play photos in the living room. After we converted to a wood stove there really isn't much space for a slide projector screen anymore.

Those are ok, kind of. I prefer to limit thing to only the two common types, AA cells and D cells.

I buy some of those $1 items for the batteries for our calipers and such, MUCH cheaper than buying the batteries alone!

Given that it's a $0.99 Chinese-made radio, I wouldn't be surprised if it contains IC rejects that the IC manufacturer pawned off for next to nothing... sanding off the tops so that their name brand wouldn't be tarnished. :-)

Close out 1gig thumb drive was 30 at Wallyworld! I now don't know how I lived without one! I do alot from home and need to transfer it to machines in the shop, but I have satellite internet here in the boondocks and my upload speeds stink at best. This little thumb drive sure beats the unsure uploads (especially when big files are bigger than isp email allows and bounce until you break them up into pieces).

Alternately, perhaps they were manufactured with a counterfeit name on them, intended for domestic use, and for the export market the markings were removed so they wouldn't risk being stopped at one of the borders they had to transit. All sorts of that kind of stuff going on. Taiwan was like that not too long ago too.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello Brian,

Check Mouser. You can buy coin cells for around 50c that cost $1.99 at the local stores.

Ebay's good for batteries too.

Graham

Hello Graham,

As long as you can be sure about the source, remaining shelf life and so on.

Local dollar stores carry a few common types of button cells, 5 on a card for a buck, "Sunbeam" brand. Or Digikey has decent prices on brand-name (Panasonic) button cells.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The serious sellers actually quote the expiry date.

Graham

The best one I saw was in a VGA splitter. The manufacturer had mounted the sandpapered IC upsidedown. To this date I wonder if the PCB drafstman actually f***ed up the layout or if it was some silly ploy to help prevent reverse engineering.

(snip)

Yeah ... just like FEMA was better than nothing to the City of New Orleans. :-(

If you really want to be radio-prepared for a nuclear strike, maybe it would be better to have a receiver that does not employ EMP-susceptible components, e.g. one of the "trench radio" designs. But then ask yourself: would a nuclear strike kill all the *transmitters* within my receiving range?

Maybe you'd like a geiger counter to go along with your trench radio. There's a gorgeous one sitting in a pile of my stuff that will go to the landfill next Monday. "OCD item No. CDV-700 Model No. 6B The Victoreen Instrument Co. Cleveland, Ohio"

Lovely yellow-painted case. Even has the red, white, and blue Conelrad logo!

-- (another) Michael

I know all about that. I was shocked 2-3 years ago when my brother-in-law mentioned that his daughter's portable CD player could play a music CD or a CD of MP3 files. Land sakes! What'll they think of next?! Her's was Sony (read "BIG bucks"). Today you can get a cheapo at W***Mart that does the same job. I bought a G.E. for $13 (as I recall) last year because I'd be driving alone for about 8 hours, need good tunes to keep my nerves settled on drives longer than 2 hours, and didn't want to juggle CD's every hour or so. I burned a CD-RW (yes, the cheapo can also read re-writable disks) with MP3 files of favorite tracks from my music CD collection. Contains something like 11 hours of tunes, yet is not even half full. I'll be listening to it on another long drive next week.

(snip)