Pet hates ?

[N_Cook]

Great dollops of that white goo between metal to metal thermally conductive
surfaces. Heatsink to metal casing in amplifiers etc. I'm not sure why it is
even necessary with perhaps 20 square inches of contact and bolts between. I
always wipe away with paper etc on first parting but always some gets on my
clothing - I've not worn white lab coats for many a year.

 

[Lab1]

Great dollops of that white goo between metal to metal thermally conductive
surfaces. Heatsink to metal casing in amplifiers etc. I'm not sure why it is
even necessary with perhaps 20 square inches of contact and bolts between. I
always wipe away with paper etc on first parting but always some gets on my
clothing - I've not worn white lab coats for many a year.

Heat sink compound is usually very necessary.

One of my pet hates is torx screws with a pin in the center.

 

[N_Cook]

Heat sink compound is usually very necessary.

One of my pet hates is torx screws with a pin in the center.

The harware that I always have problems with in the UK , never organised a
stock of, is UNF and UNC nuts and bolts for USA kit. And of course,vice
versa, repairers in USA never have metric (and lesser extent BA) for UK and
Japanese kit

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Poodles.

 

[Lab1]

I once got in a lot of trouble with my boss when I was young and worked
for a U.S. based company. At that time, I didn't understand that there
was a big difference between British 'tongue-in-cheek' humour, and the
much more direct U.S. type. I was talking on the phone to one of the
designers of a piece of equipment that we sold here in the UK, and asked
the guy if he could arrange to send me some screws for the cabinet, as
they were a thread that we didn't readily get over here. He asked if I
knew exactly what size they were so I replied, quick as a flash,
thinking that I was being funny, "I guess that they are round about
3/16ths APF." "What's APF ?" the guy asked. "American Piss Fit", said I ...

Stony silence on the phone. Half an hour later, I was summoned to the
boss's office. Apparently, the guy had been really offended by this,
thinking that it was a slur on what he considered to be good American
engineering, and had called my boss to complain about me. Just goes to
show how easily offence can be caused between nations, even when they
speak what's basically the same language ...

While on vacation in the Dominican Republic we ran into a really nice
group from the UK who were there for a wedding. We would hang out and
talk with them down at the in-pool bar almost every evening. I never
quite got used to them asking me to bum a fag. I'm from the US and I
smoke cigarettes, not fags.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I once got in a lot of trouble with my boss when I was young and worked
for

a U.S. based company. At that time, I didn't understand that there was a big
difference between British 'tongue-in-cheek' humour, and the much more
direct U.S. type. I was talking on the phone to one of the designers of a
piece of equipment that we sold here in the UK, and asked the guy if he
could arrange to send me some screws for the cabinet, as they were a thread
that we didn't readily get over here. He asked if I knew exactly what size
they were so I replied, quick as a flash, thinking that I was being funny,
"I guess that they are round about 3/16ths APF." "What's APF ?" the guy
asked. "American Piss Fit", said I ...

Stony silence on the phone. Half an hour later, I was summoned to the boss's
office. Apparently, the guy had been really offended by this, thinking that
it was a slur on what he considered to be good American engineering, and had
called my boss to complain about me. Just goes to show how easily offence
can be caused between nations, even when they speak what's basically the
same language ...

It's hard /not/ to interpret such a description as an intentional insult. I
can't imagine what it actually means -- in any innocuous sense, anyway.

 

[Meat Plow]

Great dollops of that white goo between metal to metal thermally
conductive surfaces. Heatsink to metal casing in amplifiers etc. I'm not
sure why it is even necessary with perhaps 20 square inches of contact
and bolts between. I always wipe away with paper etc on first parting
but always some gets on my clothing - I've not worn white lab coats for
many a year.

Overuse of that stuff is worse for thermal conductivity than none at all.
I've clean up gobs of it since they started using it decades ago.

 

[Lab1]

Can't afford $5 for a set of security bits?

Yes, but given the frequency that I run into those I find my punch set
and hammer tend to do the trick - security torx to just torx!

 

[Lab1]

Overuse of that stuff is worse for thermal conductivity than none at all.
I've clean up gobs of it since they started using it decades ago.

This is something I'm currently wondering about. I have a fridge-like
thermo-electric cooler than has two sections, top and bottom, with
different temperatures. The top suddenly stopped getting cool at all, so
I took it apart to figure out why. The fans and voltages were all there
so I broke down the heat sinks on the bad one to get to the Peltier
device. With it isolated, I powered it up briefly and much to my
surprise the Peltier device got hot real quickly with the opposite side
getting cooler. So the device works, it has to be something with the
heat sinks?
They did use white goop on both sides, but very little and it was
already dried. The heat sinks are milled flat where they make contact
with the Peltier device, so my thinking is they need new goop.
Looking around I found that Star heat sink compound is about the best
you can get, so I ordered some. It just arrived the other day so I'm
planning to clean up the old goop, put on some new goop and hope for the
best. I don't think too much would be an issue in this case, I want it
as cold as possible.

 

[Lab1]

Worse, hotmelt glue or cyanoacrylate on a solder joint. Hit it with
the iron,
and the tip seems like it'll NEVER get clean again.

Oh yeah, GM delco car radios, IMPOSSIBLE to work on those circuit boards
due to some resin/glue coating on everything.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Nutcase Kook "

Great dollops of that white goo between metal to metal thermally
conductive
surfaces. Heatsink to metal casing in amplifiers etc. I'm not sure why it
is
even necessary with perhaps 20 square inches of contact and bolts between.

** Err - because there are always large areas between fasteners that have
air gaps.

I always wipe away with paper etc on first parting but always some gets on
my
clothing

** When you separate the metal parts - cover them both with " Glad Wrap".

It later peels off easily and leaves almost all the white grease behind.

Anyone here remember the Bose 1800 /1801 amplifiers ??

Discovered this trick when servicing those horrible POS.



...... Phil

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

The harware that I always have problems with in the UK , never organised a
stock of, is UNF and UNC nuts and bolts for USA kit. And of course,vice
versa, repairers in USA never have metric (and lesser extent BA) for UK and
Japanese kit

Here in the colonies, whenever I have a piece of unrepairable Made in
Japan, Made in Tiawan, Made in Korea kit, or Made in China POS that is
going to the landfill, I use some of my 'mental health' time to
disassemble the thing and toss all the screws, nuts, washers, shaft nuts
and washers, etc. into a bank of 'metric' jelly jars.
WFM

Jonesy

 

[N_Cook]

We have that kind of humor in the US too.. But only amongst friends or
people you know fairly well. If a stranger uses sharp humor with me (some
do) and It gives the feeling of you dont know me well enough to be poking
humor at me, and we also usually take the fact there is ususaly truth in
humor.. And honestly you probaly think the US standards are idioic and
stupid to still be using when the rest of the world is using the metric
system. Thats the feeling I get here in Japan at least. People cant
understand why the US uses the old system still.

Anyhow.. Just my $0.02

I got the impression that was where Ricky Gervaise went wrong, last week, at
the latest Hollywood bash

 

[Mark Zacharias]

Packing peanuts.

Probe slips.

People begging me to work on stuff which I used to turn away, but now have
to take in because business is slow.

Mark Z.

 

[JW]

Packing peanuts.

There's a good one. Especially when the humidity is very low, and the
peanuts are all broken up in pieces!

 

[William Sommerwerck]

It's hard /not/ to interpret such a description as an intentional

There ya go then!

Please don't semi-quote Ronald Reagan. It's not becoming.

If I'd been in a debate with Ronnie, and he'd pulled that "There you go,
again" crap with me, I would have ripped him a new one, even if it cost me
the election.

(This is way OT, but remember last year when Barney Frank ripped into a
stupid woman who was griping about Obama being Moslem? I was proud to be
queer. If all politicians -- conservative or liberal -- were that
intelligent and quick witted, the level of political discourse in this
country would be at a much higher level.)

Anyone from the UK would see it as a quick-fire throw-away
line, and would laugh at it. It's sort of intended to be 'barbed',
but not in a malicious way. It's a very hard to describe form
of humour that is quite prevalent over here.

I admire someone who can come up with quick throw-aways -- but unless they
make them all the time, it's hard to tell they're supposed to be humorous.

I offended people with "innocuous" wisecracks so many times that I gradually
became careful about what I said. A word to the wise...?

If you cut yourself on barbed wire -- you're cut, regardless of how you came
in contact with the wire.

 

[Lab1]

And, yes, if the heatsink actually comes loose from the Peltier
junction (e.g. if it was originally spring-clipped in place, and the
clips are loose or have fatigued and lost pressure) then you've got
problems... you'll get a layer of air between the two surfaces, and
thermal conductivity will become quite poor. Adding a thicker layer
of goop to try to fill the gap isn't the right thing to do - instead,
fix whatever caused the devices to become loose, clean the surfaces,
reapply a *thin* layer of compound, and secure the devices back
together with the proper amount of pressure.

I agree. The assembly goes like this:
Small heat sink (cold side) - square plastic gasket with embedded rubber
seal that doesn't physically touch anything - square block of Styrofoam
with a square cutout in the middle - Peltier device - foam tape around
the styrofoam - large heat sink. To screws go through everything on
either side of the Peltier to sandwich it all together.
And oddly they hot-glued the ends of the screws and nuts.

This is obviously made in China, everything is pretty crudely
manufactured and assembled, heat sink fins were mashed together in
spots. I didn't think to check the tightness of those two screws when I
took it apart, but I bet you are right and they weren't nearly tight
enough. I'm going to rebuild the 2nd one while I'm at it and will check
the tightness after I pry off all the hot glue...

 

[Chuck]

I once got in a lot of trouble with my boss when I was young and worked for
a U.S. based company. At that time, I didn't understand that there was a big
difference between British 'tongue-in-cheek' humour, and the much more
direct U.S. type. I was talking on the phone to one of the designers of a
piece of equipment that we sold here in the UK, and asked the guy if he
could arrange to send me some screws for the cabinet, as they were a thread
that we didn't readily get over here. He asked if I knew exactly what size
they were so I replied, quick as a flash, thinking that I was being funny,
"I guess that they are round about 3/16ths APF." "What's APF ?" the guy
asked. "American Piss Fit", said I ...

Stony silence on the phone. Half an hour later, I was summoned to the boss's
office. Apparently, the guy had been really offended by this, thinking that
it was a slur on what he considered to be good American engineering, and had
called my boss to complain about me. Just goes to show how easily offence
can be caused between nations, even when they speak what's basically the
same language ...

Arfa

I think it matters in what part of the U.S. this person resided. I'm
originally from the North East and humor that would be considered mild
there is considered a great affront to some people in the South.
However, racist remarks, that I find offensive, don't seem to bother
their delicate constitutions. Chuck

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The harware that I always have problems with in the UK , never organised
a stock of, is UNF and UNC nuts and bolts for USA kit.

Have a look in a classic car mag. A few companies sell selections of UNF
and UNC nuts and bolts. Or sell individually.

 

[N_Cook]

Have a look in a classic car mag. A few companies sell selections of UNF
and UNC nuts and bolts. Or sell individually.

--
*Proofread carefully to see if you any words out or mispeld something *

Dave Plowman [email protected] London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

This is a useful resource near me, stainless steel only and tend to be
larger sizes.
One man band , now internet only but no minimum order so worth bookmarking.
http://www.a2a4.com/acatalog/
Last time I talked to him, late 2010, he mentioned he was starting a range
of "classic car" nuts and bolts , whatever that is, cannot find mention on
his site though