Re: Worst hobby construction project of all time?
- From: "Jeff L" <levy_jeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:40:19 GMT
"Tim Williams" <tmoranwms@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:xOewf.47$xd6.26@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Oh! I've got one...
> I seem to remember one Electronics Now (or was it Poptronics by then?)
where
> they wrote an article for a real (i.e., spark-excited) Tesla Coil, I think
> the kit was from Information Unlimited (you know, the ad you looked at in
> the back of the same magazine and just gazed in wonderment at the fanciful
> gadjets available..).
>
> But, on the schematic, somehow, they managed to *short* the mains supply
> wires! I hope no one tried to build it exactly to plans there...
>
> Tim
>
They also had a class D audio amp that was not isolated from the mains
(regulated power by phase angle control to the filter caps), and had some
nasty voltages present to the inputs and outputs and other functional
problems.
> --
> Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk.
> Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
>
> "Don Lancaster" <don@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:42b5r9F1ibgu7U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Someone just asked me what the worst hobby construction
> > projects of all time were. In general, Ziff Davis quality
> > control was ridiculously better than Gernsback, so much of
> > the really bad stuff appeared in Radio-Electronics and its
> > renamed and repositioned offspring.
> >
> > I'd guess that a RE cable tv descrambler project caused the
> > most grief. Fatal errors in the story were combined with the
> > highly restricted places where it would work, added to the
> > questionable skills of the theft-of-cable epsilon minuses.
> >
> > But my vote for the most mesmerizingly awful hobby project
> > of all time would have to be the magic lamp in the April 96 RE.
> > This was a "free energy" project that was so "not even wrong"
> > on so many levels it clearly was one of a kind.
> >
> > The premise was that if you took a half wave dimmer circuit and
> > used a 32 volt incandescent bulb lit to normal brightness, your
> > cheap average responding meter would record only one-third
> > the voltage and one-third the current. For an obvious power
> > savings of 90 percent. In reality, of course, we had standard
> > beginning EE student blunder #0001-A of confusing average
> > and RMS current and voltage readings.
> >
> > Naturally, the author never bothered to touch the 32 volt bulb
> > to see if it was any cooler. Compounding ludicrosities included
> > a patent being granted on a mainstay circuit found in most any
> > 1938 industrial electronics textbook, the circuit being illegal
> > because of power quality considerations, and extreme stability
> > and bulb lifetime issues over late angle phase. Compounded
> > by the author's belief that a conspiracy was doing him in.
> >
> > Amazingly, at a 126 degree half wave dimmer phase delay angle,
> > the ratio of average to RMS current is in fact a whopping 3:1! I
> > did a detailed analysis of related topics in
> > http://www.tinaja.com/glib/MUSE112.PDF and
> > http://www.tinaja.com/glib/MUSE113.PDF
> >
> > More on related topics at http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu06.asp
> >
> > --
> > Many thanks,
> >
> > Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
> > Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
> > rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: don@xxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
>
>
.
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