Pet hates ?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

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

In the UK, modern cars use metric threads. Ones from about after WW2 to
the '80s mainly UNF and UNC. Pre WW2 BSW and BSF. BA was common for
electrical stuff.

A classic car is really just any which isn't recent and not defined under
the strict headings of vintage etc. It isn't restricted to any make - just
over 20 years old. Although that age isn't agreed by everyone.

 

[N_Cook]

In the UK, modern cars use metric threads. Ones from about after WW2 to
the '80s mainly UNF and UNC. Pre WW2 BSW and BSF. BA was common for
electrical stuff.

A classic car is really just any which isn't recent and not defined under
the strict headings of vintage etc. It isn't restricted to any make - just
over 20 years old. Although that age isn't agreed by everyone.

--
*Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.

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

In the UK it probably means BSF and BSW threads perhaps brass or cyclo as
well

 

[Michael Gross]

I'm from the US and I smoke cigarettes, not fags.

Michael Terrell's from the US and he smokes fags, not cigarettes.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I seem to recall from my early days of car tinkering in the 70's and
80's , that most of my spanners and my socket sets, were Whitworth and
AF ?? That would have been for Morris Minors, Vauxhalls of all sorts
including HA, HB and HC Vivas, a VX4/90 or two, and assorted Fords
including Escorts and Cortinas and Sierras.

AF is the spanner size - across flats - and those fit UNF and UNC. Which
are basically American Fine and Course. Slightly confusing as a 1/2 AF
spanner fits a 5/16ths thread. All the above cars would have used UNF and
UNC.

Some post WW2 cars were basically pre WW2 designs - or used major
components from them, and may still have had BSF or BSW threads in use.
Nuffield products sometimes used a peculiar metric thread with BSW heads
just to confuse things.

 

[Peter Twydell]

Yes. Knowing the U.S. and its people much better now, as I tend to
visit twice a year and have now for many years, I would say that was
pretty much spot on. Although I've found that American people are much
more friendly in general to strangers, than people over here are, I
also find that they are much more 'reserved' in actually getting to
know them as a friend. Here in the UK, if you are just in the same
business as one another, you tend to automatically think in terms of
communicating with a 'kindred spirit'. So even on a first contact with
someone, if you appear within a few sentences to be speaking the same
language, it becomes quite acceptable to introduce a degree of
'chuminess' into the conversation such as calling the person 'mate' and
such-like. Barbed humour between you is then immediately accepted, and
is likely to get thrown back at you by the other person, and often gets
deflected onto the company that you, or the other person works for.
Having made the 'APF' comment to the guy, in my naivety, I was
expecting him to just throw back a similar comment like " so what, then
? Your British threads are better than ours, are they ? "

Like I say, easy to cause unintentional offence, if you are not
familiar with the country, and it's people and their cultural
differences, even if they appear to speak the same basic language. Many
countries in Europe speak English as a second language. If you speak it
to a German for instance, in general, he will not understand British
humour. Not likely to be offended by it. Just won't understand it. A
Frenchman, will understand it, and be offended - or at least pretend to
be ... OTOH, a Dutchman will both understand the humour, and give back
as good as he gets. They seem to have a very 'English' understanding of
the English language. I don't know why that should be, but I was once
told by a Dutch guy that I had dealings with, that it was because they
easily received UK television over there, so tended to watch a lot of
British made drama and comedy programmes. I wonder if this will change
now analogue TV is almost now all gone. I bet that they don't receive
the digital multiplexes across the water, anything like as well as they
did the high power analongue transmissions. Any Dutch people reading
this care to comment ?

Arfa

I'm not Dutch but I do spend several weeks there every year and watch
some Dutch TV almost every day.

BBC1 and BBC2 are available on cable, but without teletext, apart from
subtitles, so many viewers are exposed to British attitudes and humour.
I imagine that that will continue after the digital switchover.

There are also a lot of UK programmes and films on their own channels.
Most keep the original soundtrack and are subtitled (not always
accurately). Documentaries such as David Attenborough's tend to have
Dutch speech when the presenter is off camera.

Dad's Army was very popular there, to my surprise as I thought it was
too British. Several other programmes have been made in Dutch versions,
but not always successfully. The Dutch version of East Enders flopped,
and their versions of Only Fools and Horses and The Kumars at No. 42
were simply dire. Their QI, HIGNFY and Who Do You Think You Are? have
turned out well.

In return for our sending them excellent programmes, they then sent us
The Generation Game and Big Brother.

Apart from having a basically different sense of humour, the Germans are
not exposed to British humour to the same extent because their foreign
programmes are almost always dubbed. I can't comment on how they
correspond to the original soundtracks as I have never watched any
British comedy on German TV, apart from the Monty Python German special
years ago.

Don't know about the French, but who cares about them anyway?

 

[Smitty Two]

Slightly confusing as a 1/2 AF
spanner fits a 5/16ths thread.

Unless it doesn't. We often use "small pattern" hex nuts, which have
thinner walls, hence driven with a smaller wrench. (lay Americans have
no idea what a "spanner" is, but when used here it usually quite
specifically means a very thin open-end wrench, often just made of
stamped steel, designed for tight quarters.)

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Unless it doesn't. We often use "small pattern" hex nuts, which have
thinner walls, hence driven with a smaller wrench. (lay Americans have
no idea what a "spanner" is, but when used here it usually quite
specifically means a very thin open-end wrench, often just made of
stamped steel, designed for tight quarters.)

Not come across those on UK cars. Where you need a smaller head than
standard, normally allen, torx or even one with curved sides which is an
exact fit to the next size down bi-hex socket. Basically to make the head
round or as near as possible to give maximum strength.

A wrench in the UK usually means an adjustable spanner of some sort, so
only used by amateurs. ;-)

 

[David Nebenzahl]

I'm afraid that's just too 'in-American' for me. I actually haven't a clue
what you are talking about ...

"There you go again!" was Reagan's annoying pet reply to his critics
(read "typical for a Commie pinko socialist bleeding-heart ...").

Good to read that not everyone here reveres this simple-minded wrecker
of what he invariably called "guv'mint" ...


--
Comment on quaint Usenet customs, from Usenet:

To me, the *plonk...* reminds me of the old man at the public hearing
who stands to make his point, then removes his hearing aid as a sign
that he is not going to hear any rebuttals.

 

[David Nebenzahl]

He was in sunny Caffy-lornia ... Costa Mesa in Orange County, a few miles
down the Interstate from LA

OK, Arf, a small lesson in regional US dialects, free of charge:

Nobody here in "Cal-ee-fonia", as our recently departed
Governator/Gropenator called it, calls them "interstates", even though
they are, in fact, interstate highways. Some folks back east may call
them that, though I'm not sure (I've heard them referred to as
"turnpikes" in some places). One wonders whether some LA residents even
know what an "interstate" is ...

In any case, just in case you actually visit Caleefonia sometime in the
near future, you should also be aware of an important difference in
usage between SoCal (basically El-Lay and environs) and NoCal (San
Francisco and thereabouts). Down there, they don't use *any* noun for a
road (highway, interstate, etc.), but they do use articles with the road
number, as in "the 405", "the 101", etc.

But beware: up here in the Beige Area, where we like to think we're so
much superior to our SoCal cousins, we never use the article, saying
instead "take 80 to get to Berkeley" or "take 101 to 280 to 17 to get
down to Santa Cruz". (One can easily spot newcomers to San Francisco who
refer to "the 80" or "the 101". That's just SO wrong!)


--
Comment on quaint Usenet customs, from Usenet:

To me, the *plonk...* reminds me of the old man at the public hearing
who stands to make his point, then removes his hearing aid as a sign
that he is not going to hear any rebuttals.

 

[Smitty Two]

OK, Arf, a small lesson in regional US dialects, free of charge:

Nobody here in "Cal-ee-fonia", as our recently departed
Governator/Gropenator called it, calls them "interstates", even though
they are, in fact, interstate highways. Some folks back east may call
them that, though I'm not sure (I've heard them referred to as
"turnpikes" in some places). One wonders whether some LA residents even
know what an "interstate" is ...

In any case, just in case you actually visit Caleefonia sometime in the
near future, you should also be aware of an important difference in
usage between SoCal (basically El-Lay and environs) and NoCal (San
Francisco and thereabouts). Down there, they don't use *any* noun for a
road (highway, interstate, etc.), but they do use articles with the road
number, as in "the 405", "the 101", etc.

But beware: up here in the Beige Area, where we like to think we're so
much superior to our SoCal cousins, we never use the article, saying
instead "take 80 to get to Berkeley" or "take 101 to 280 to 17 to get
down to Santa Cruz". (One can easily spot newcomers to San Francisco who
refer to "the 80" or "the 101". That's just SO wrong!)

I don't think Arfa is going to "blend" whether he uses your terminology
or not, and I doubt that's his objective. But you wrote an awful lot of
words without using "freeway," which is what we call the 101 here, and
is the most common word for "interstate highway" throughout the midwest,
as well. I'm not going to say unequivocally that it's widely used all
over the U.S., because I don't know for sure, but I'd bet money on it.

In cities with many freeways, they have to use more specific terms, but
when there's only one, who needs a number?

BTW, everyone I know in LA doesn't use numbers at all, but names that
are meaningless to outsiders even if they have a map: "Ventura freeway,"
"Hollywood freeway," "Pasadena freeway," etc.

 

[David Nebenzahl]

I don't think Arfa is going to "blend" whether he uses your terminology
or not, and I doubt that's his objective. But you wrote an awful lot of
words without using "freeway," which is what we call the 101 here, and
is the most common word for "interstate highway" throughout the midwest,
as well.

Yup, my bad; thought of it shortly after clicking "Send", of course.

BTW, everyone I know in LA doesn't use numbers at all, but names that
are meaningless to outsiders even if they have a map: "Ventura freeway,"
"Hollywood freeway," "Pasadena freeway," etc.

Forgot about that too. Our freeways also have names, but they're
(mostly) unused: one occasionally hears 880 called "the Nimitz" or 80
"the Eastshore", but more often not.

Then of course there's Johnny Carson's old favorite, the "Slauson
Cutoff" ...


--
Comment on quaint Usenet customs, from Usenet:

To me, the *plonk...* reminds me of the old man at the public hearing
who stands to make his point, then removes his hearing aid as a sign
that he is not going to hear any rebuttals.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Then of course there's Johnny Carson's old favorite, the "Slauson
Cutoff" ...

My favorite Israeli highway story is about route 1, the road from Jerusalem
to Tel Aviv. Although Tel Aviv is a little over 100 years old, the original
city of Jaffa (aka Yaffo) has been there since biblical times, and this is
at least in spirit, that road.

Meanwhile Israeli's are big fans of acronyms. The Hebrew abreviation of
airport is N T and the main one here is named Ben Gurion. So the name of
the airport on road signs is written in Hebrew NTBG, which is pronnounced
"not bog".

About fifteen years ago in a refurbishment of route 1, someone decided
that there should be English signs on the road for tourists who could not
read Hebrew. So a set of signs went up for the airport "NATBAG 1km".

Yes, they were later changed to "Ben Gurion Airport 1km".

Geoff.

 

[N_Cook]

My favorite Israeli highway story is about route 1, the road from Jerusalem
to Tel Aviv. Although Tel Aviv is a little over 100 years old, the original
city of Jaffa (aka Yaffo) has been there since biblical times, and this is
at least in spirit, that road.

Meanwhile Israeli's are big fans of acronyms. The Hebrew abreviation of
airport is N T and the main one here is named Ben Gurion. So the name of
the airport on road signs is written in Hebrew NTBG, which is pronnounced
"not bog".

About fifteen years ago in a refurbishment of route 1, someone decided
that there should be English signs on the road for tourists who could not
read Hebrew. So a set of signs went up for the airport "NATBAG 1km".

Yes, they were later changed to "Ben Gurion Airport 1km".

Geoff.

I wonder what visitors to the UK make of official roadsigns, imagining a
country infested with triffids , that say
Large Plant Crossing

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

California is strange..

It's only January and we have
the winner for The Understatement Of 2011.

 

[David Nebenzahl]

Here in BC, Canada and (it appears) the Pacific Northwest states the US
highways are called Ixx - I5 being the main north-south one.

Well, they're actually called that everywhere in the US, at least
officially and on maps. But what do *people* in that region actually
call them? I thought that's what we were talking about here.


--
Comment on quaint Usenet customs, from Usenet:

To me, the *plonk...* reminds me of the old man at the public hearing
who stands to make his point, then removes his hearing aid as a sign
that he is not going to hear any rebuttals.

 

[N_Cook]

Screws are fine. I can live with having too many screws because half
of them are usually stripped out and the remainder hold things
together. What bugs me are snap together clamshell cases, such as LCD
monitors and TV's, where you have to remove a mess of screws *AND* pry
the case apart. While snap together plastic is probably easier to
assemble because it doesn't require much fixturing to position the
robotic screwdriver, it does suggest that the case was never intended
to be opened or the unit repaired.

I recently repaired a Yamaha P70 electric piano. I didn't count, but
I'll guess about 60 large "sheet metal" type screws holding it
together. I don't use an electric screwdriver, but this is one time
that I wish I owned one. Even with switching hands, my hands ached
after I as done. The problem with such "sheet metal" screws is that
they offer high frictional resistance on every turn, while more
conventional screw threads, only offer high resistance when tight (or
smeared with thread lock).

My guess is the large number of screws was to prevent mechanical
resonances in the plastic case or to keep them from falling out from
vibrations. Still, metal thread inserts, screw threads, and steel nut
plates, would have been much easier to handle.

On the silicon grease front, I agree with most of the comments. Thin
works much better than globs of silicon grease. One should remember
that the purpose of silicon grease is NOT to bridge gaps. It's to
fill in the surface roughness, groves, and crevasses. Most of the
heat transfer is metal to metal contact, not through the silicon
grease.

In a past life, I used to design marine radios. The problem was that
the power xsistor packages of the day (1970's) were generally thermal
disasters. Either there was insufficient contact area to obtain
sufficiently low thermal resistance, or they were not flat. I solved
the first by building pyramid like structures of copper washers to act
as a heat spreader. I solved the latter by polishing the mounting
base of the power transistors on fine emery cloth. I hated to polish
away the gold plating, but that's what it took to get the heat out. I
made numerous tests and measurements trying to determine the optimum
amount of silicon grease, and eventually concluded that ultra thin is
best. Instructions were to smear a tiny amount onto the area, and
then wipe ALL of it off with a plastic scraper. What remained was
silicon grease in the remaining surface roughness, which was all that
was necessary.

I recently repaired an IFR-1500 service monitor. The power supply
section was intermittent. The 0.062 aluminum power supply case, was
butted up against the large aluminum heat sink that covered the entire
rear panel. In between was a huge amount of silicon grease. The
sandwich was held together by two large 10-24 screws, which probably
explains the silicon grease overdose. Two screws is not going to bend
the aluminum case so that it lays flat. So they tried to fill in the
lack of flatness with silicon grease. That doesn't work.

It took me considerable effort and alcohol to clean up the mess, but I
still managed to get it all over everything on the bench. After the
repair (large copper wires on torroids were not soldered properly), I
reassembled it with only a little silicon grease around the two large
screws, and left the rest to it's own devices. Works fine with no
obvious overheating (checked with an IR thermometer and thermocouple
probe). My guess is all that silicon grease did nothing useful.

I suspect we are as engineers are just as likely to be mislead by
manufacturer's claims as joe public and general ads. I could not convince
myself that silipads were better than mica (no patents so litterally dirt
cheap) - so experiment called for. These days I own a matchbox size remote
IR pyrometer and would use that to compare device body temps in before and
after situations , not fingertips

Mica versus Silicone pad insulators
I was not convinced that for an existing used amp with 4x TOP66 power output
devices that the silipads were better than mica.
Each of the 4 white insulating pads had shrunk about 5mm at the tops
(hottest)
compared to bottoms , ruffling the original outer edges, heat damage ?.
I'm wondering if they can chemically change over time and/or excessive
temperature , downgrading to be more of a thermal insulator.
They are not discoloured or hardened or anything different in the
ex-compressed area by sight or flexing, just permanently deformed , the
ruffling is permanent.
I replaced all 4 with mica and thin films of thermal grease.
Before doing so I powered up the amp with 400 Hz continuous sine giving 20
watts in a dummy load. No fan cooling for this amp, just
convection/radiation.
Laid a brass barrel protected thermometer on the heatsink and took
measurements. Stabilised at 33 deg C over ambient after 50 minutes.
Replaced with mica and redid the load test.
For same ambient , same testing position/attitude, power in load etc it now
took 30 minutes to stabilise at plus 32 deg C over ambient.
More graphically , but less scientific, - the finger test.
After half an hour of heating with the mica setup I could hold a fingertip
on each tranny for about 5 seconds before finding it uncomfortable.
Previously half a second of fingertip touch was enough.
I think I will rely on the evidence of my own observations and not
performance tables produced by the manufacturer's with an obvious vested
interest.
I've no reason to believe the original silipads had aged, been affected by
WD40 or anything.
I will assume they are , all manufacturers, all generically bad until a
similar personally conducted experiment, in a real situation, proves to me
to be otherwise.

 

[N_Cook]

Screws are fine. I can live with having too many screws because half
of them are usually stripped out and the remainder hold things
together. What bugs me are snap together clamshell cases, such as LCD
monitors and TV's, where you have to remove a mess of screws *AND* pry
the case apart. While snap together plastic is probably easier to
assemble because it doesn't require much fixturing to position the
robotic screwdriver, it does suggest that the case was never intended
to be opened or the unit repaired.

I recently repaired a Yamaha P70 electric piano. I didn't count, but
I'll guess about 60 large "sheet metal" type screws holding it
together. I don't use an electric screwdriver, but this is one time
that I wish I owned one. Even with switching hands, my hands ached
after I as done. The problem with such "sheet metal" screws is that
they offer high frictional resistance on every turn, while more
conventional screw threads, only offer high resistance when tight (or
smeared with thread lock).

My guess is the large number of screws was to prevent mechanical
resonances in the plastic case or to keep them from falling out from
vibrations. Still, metal thread inserts, screw threads, and steel nut
plates, would have been much easier to handle.

On the silicon grease front, I agree with most of the comments. Thin
works much better than globs of silicon grease. One should remember
that the purpose of silicon grease is NOT to bridge gaps. It's to
fill in the surface roughness, groves, and crevasses. Most of the
heat transfer is metal to metal contact, not through the silicon
grease.

In a past life, I used to design marine radios. The problem was that
the power xsistor packages of the day (1970's) were generally thermal
disasters. Either there was insufficient contact area to obtain
sufficiently low thermal resistance, or they were not flat. I solved
the first by building pyramid like structures of copper washers to act
as a heat spreader. I solved the latter by polishing the mounting
base of the power transistors on fine emery cloth. I hated to polish
away the gold plating, but that's what it took to get the heat out. I
made numerous tests and measurements trying to determine the optimum
amount of silicon grease, and eventually concluded that ultra thin is
best. Instructions were to smear a tiny amount onto the area, and
then wipe ALL of it off with a plastic scraper. What remained was
silicon grease in the remaining surface roughness, which was all that
was necessary.

I recently repaired an IFR-1500 service monitor. The power supply
section was intermittent. The 0.062 aluminum power supply case, was
butted up against the large aluminum heat sink that covered the entire
rear panel. In between was a huge amount of silicon grease. The
sandwich was held together by two large 10-24 screws, which probably
explains the silicon grease overdose. Two screws is not going to bend
the aluminum case so that it lays flat. So they tried to fill in the
lack of flatness with silicon grease. That doesn't work.

It took me considerable effort and alcohol to clean up the mess, but I
still managed to get it all over everything on the bench. After the
repair (large copper wires on torroids were not soldered properly), I
reassembled it with only a little silicon grease around the two large
screws, and left the rest to it's own devices. Works fine with no
obvious overheating (checked with an IR thermometer and thermocouple
probe). My guess is all that silicon grease did nothing useful.


--
Jeff Liebermann [email protected]
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Another goo production failing , on a 1 to 2 yearold Fender Amp on my bench
at the moment. Uses intermediary Al block between immediate o/p h/s plate
and chassis. White goo on both surfaces is still as placed, not splurged
out. Failure to fettle/de-burr the post machining raised rims around the
machined holes so acting as thin washers so heat just going through the 3
bolts not body of Al. Amp failure nothing to do with this poor heatsinking

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Oh, there is one area that I won't do any more. I'm no longer able to
the construction work necessary to run CAT5 all over a building. I
contract that out to younger and more suicidal kids, who are usually
grateful for the work and money.

Jeff, that's just because you haven't figured out how to charge your customers
to "run" wireless connections.

Geoff.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

As a former member of the Anti Digit Dialing League and fan of The
Prisoner (I am not a number...), I find the whole effort amusing.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827416,00.html>

Here in Israel beef cuts are sold by number instead of name. I always make a
point of asking my wife to buy a number 6 for dinner.

I was always amused by the re-imagined Battelstar Galactica, where they
bad guys had numbers instead of names. Their main character was number
6.

Geoff.

 

[Mark Zacharias]

snip
Incidentally, the reason I didn't want to run wires any more is that I
was taking statins to reduce cholesterol for the last 8 years. The
side effect was ever increasing back aches. They were tolerable for
the first 5 years, but continued to get worse until I was unable to do
many things. I stopped taking statins about a year ago, and had to
wait 6 months for the back aches to mostly go away. I'm now trying to
get back into shape so I can again crawl around under houses running
wires. Meanwhile, it's a good excuse to not get dirty.

--
Jeff Liebermann [email protected]
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Ooh, Jeff. Get that liver looked at. My brother just died of liver cancer.
His symptom for at least a couple years prior - worsening back pain.

Mark Z.