Repair Safety First

[bob p]

yes, something interesting is going on here. i've been reading this thread every day to witness the farce.

i'll tell Ted Weber that CDE only needs to see his business license and then he can have whatever he wants. now that i know what it takes to get one of the big players to bend over backwards, i don't have any further need to read this thread.

mykey, keep your eye on the hit counter. when you that see its not increasing, you'll know that its me.

[Euthymia]

Forum safety tip

I just figured out something that's sure to save time and annoyance!

Toward the upper left area of this screen, there's a link to "User CP." If you click on that, it takes you to a page with a number of links running down the left side of the screen.

In the category of "Miscellaneous," you'll see a link to "Buddy/Ignore Lists."

Click on this, and you'll be presented with two blanks. In the first blank, you would type the display name of anyone you'd like to be able to send instant messages to. This is not the time-and-annoyance saver.

The second blank is where you type the display name(s) of any user whose posts you wish never to view. This is the time-and-annoyance saver.

[Steve Conner]

Mykey, quit being such an amateur. If you want to improve your attention seeking behaviour, try something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUlqecQKUo

134,000 views on NoobTube can't be wrong.

[R.G.]

CDE won't do this unless you have a business license, and you will need to wait 6 months or more to receive them. The claim is anything but outlandish, it's absolutely true.

Mykey, you've earned a standard answer all of your own. Here it is:

Prove it.

Of course, you have ducked all the items I called you on before, so I expect you to duck this one.

Siver mica caps, Black Gate electrolytics, Teflon circuit boards, magnetic shielding, Kapton insulation, silver Teflon wire, metal film aerospace resistors, are just some examples of the materials used to push this art forward. Difficult to obtain? definitely, but far from impossible.
Hats off today to those builders who have dreamed of doing something new and better.

Those things are also what the snake-oil hifi tweako crowd started with. I suppose you are a believer that you can heard the difference in music that's traveled down two different wires, one normal copper and one "oxygen free", too.

You do realize that spouting this nonsense in this forum with no backup is about equivalent to having "GULLIBLE" tattooed on your forehead, don't you?

829 views this morning, there's something interesting going on here.

Yep. You can always gather a crowd to stop and laugh when you drop your pants in public, can't you?

[Jag]

Mykey!

You, sir, appear to be a self-important know-it-all with very little PRACTICAL knowledge. I believe you have spent your years reading schematics and "painting by numbers" without ever actually attempting to UNDERSTAND what it is you do. I do not actually believe you have taken any of your ideas out of the realm of theory or you would have realized why your input is BLATHER. You have done nothing to further the quality of any thread to which you have posted and have established yourself as an arrogant prick. I, for one, do not intend to take any information you post here as anything more than an amusing little side trip. In other words, your read count may go up but so what? It does not, in any way, validate your ranting or establish you as some sort of unsung genius.

DO NOT bring up your 34 years as a SOLDER JOCKEY. You've said it enough and you still look like an UNINFORMED BOOB. Many here have worked on just as many amps for just as long and have a far better understanding of the practical application of electronic circuits.

I have an Electronics Engineering background but have not worked in that field for over 25 years. As a professional musician and audio engineer, however, I have spent my fair share of time servicing tube amplifiers and other gear over the years. I do not believe that qualifies me to run around here proclaiming my expertise and refusing to consider the advice of the many truly knowledgeable and helpful gentlemen on this forum. I offer advice when I feel I can be helpful and shut up when I can't. I am not afraid to ask dumb questions or admit that I actually don't fully understand an issue. Most of all, I actually READ the other posts in a thread BEFORE I respond. You appear to have only read the responses in THIS thread!

I am here attempting to increase my understanding and fill in the practical breaks in my knowledge. You have not assisted me in this regard to ANY extent. If someone said that to me, I would be asking myself how I failed! I would not be flying into the defensive with increasingly preposterous attempts at establishing my credibility.

What is stopping you from contributing in a meaningful way?

How did you come to the conclusion that you are such and expert that you have nothing to learn?

I don’t think you will recover from this!!!

[Enzo]

We need business licenses guys! WHo knew. I guess the federal ID numbers, the registered business aliases, the resale tax licenses, and all the other regulatory rigamarole I have put up with the last 30+ years don't count.

When I walk into Radio Shack for a fuse, I show them my tax ID number, and I walk out WITHOUT PAYING SALES TAX!!! I just know everyone is impressed by that.

[PerroGrande]

Mykey reminds me of a fellow that showed up to a job interview once many years ago when I was hiring several technicians. The individual's resume looked okay -- at least worthy of an interview, so I rang him up and scheduled a time to meet.

He opened the interview by announcing how completely overqualified for the job he was, etc, etc, but that he was willing to work with us for the benefits, the opportunities for promotion, etc, etc. He blathered on and on about his qualifications, routinely ducking technical questions along the way. On a few occasions, he indicated that a "black box" would be involved in the solution to a presented technical question. After several of these, I finally decided to call his bluff and asked, "what is in the black box?" adding that "we generally not only know what the box does, but how it works and how to fix it..." This was met with brief stunned silence, followed by a fusillade of largely meaningless jargon, followed by "well, we don't have the time to get into the details..."

It was at that point that I cordially wrapped up the interview and moved his materials to the "do not hire" folder.

Abraham Lincoln may have said it best: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Oh yes -- and it is *very* important to exercise proper safety precautions.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Yep. You can always gather a crowd to stop and laugh when you drop your pants in public, can't you?

Ha ha ha.... that was a fine one!!

[Enzo]

We wound up with a tech once a long time ago when I worked elsewhere. He had assured the boss he knew his electronics, and he had worked on a lot of TVs. At the end of the first day, the crew chief came in to me and said, "He worked on TVs? Where, from the front?"

If you are like me, you have a collection of whacko resumes. One of my favorites was one where the cover letter was a half sheet - bottom torn off - of spiral notebook paper. it said "I have enclosed my resume..." Only he neglected to include the resume in the envelope. I always wondered what was so important it required him saving the bottom half of his cover letter sheet.

But my all time favorite was the kid who had a lot of experience. He said, "I have build the Health Kit. And I have worked on VCAres for several years." It took me a minute to figure out what VCAres were. Vee-cares? No, he meant VCRs. I swear to God. No one believes me when I tell them someone actually couldn't spell VCR.

I hired a kid one time for the pro audio shop. He seemed to know his stuff. He knew the color codes without chanting anything, he could talk Thiel parameters, etc. First day on the job, he asks, "so now that I'm here, show me the weak parts they put in these amps so they'll fail, so they can make a lot of money selling repair parts." Forehead slap... "The what?" "They put a weak link in each product to generate service income." No they don't, I coo. If anyone did that someone else would point it out in a heartbeat. "Oh no, they are all in on it." More forehead slap... The guy was a nightmare before we fired him.

[mykey]

Oh yes -- and it is *very* important to exercise proper safety precautions.

thank you for the on topic thoughts.

I have plenty of work already, and do not need to apply for a job.

[mykey]

I mean having that knowledge tells me to make exactly what changes in my procedures to make me safer?

insulated shoes (these are labeled as such), rubber mat, GFI breakers, isolation transformer, this at least protects against the line voltage which makes the situation safer. All these recommended by OSHA and can save lives, it's the current that kills.
discharge of power supply filter caps, grounded soldering iron are not a bad idea either.

[R.G.]

insulated shoes (these are labeled as such), rubber mat, GFI breakers, isolation transformer, this at least protects against the line voltage which makes the situation safer. All these recommended by OSHA and can save lives, it's the current that kills.
discharge of power supply filter caps, grounded soldering iron are not a bad idea either.

You forgot wearing a full body condom and only touching the equipment with chop sticks. "Recommended by OSHA" is almost synonymous with "don't do anything."

You also forgot to reply to several of my pertinent questions. You want to try to reconstitute yourself in the consolation round?

[mykey]

You forgot wearing a full body condom and only touching the equipment with chop sticks. "Recommended by OSHA" is almost synonymous with "don't do anything."

You also forgot to reply to several of my pertinent questions. You want to try to reconstitute yourself in the consolation round?

I was limiting my replies to the on topic remarks, the reason OSHA was created was to stop employees from dying in the workplace and to prevent employers who regard safety regulations as a joke from forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions. These OSHA guidelines have significantly reduced the workplace fatality rate from slips, falls and electrocutions.
If you wish to(enjoy) jab those who hold a different view than your own, your participation in "alternate guitar amps" would probably be most welcomed.

[Mark Black]

I remember back when I was a motorcycle mechanic they would let us know on the intercom when the OSHA inspector showed up. We would pop on the 30 PSI regulated air nozzles for his visit, and promptly after he left we would reinstate the ones that actually were good for something. We DID use them fairly safely though - I never heard of anybody at our shop or any of the others in town getting an embolism.

I think awareness is the main ingredient of safety.

[bob p]

You forgot wearing a full body condom and only touching the equipment with chop sticks. "Recommended by OSHA" is almost synonymous with "don't do anything."

When I worked in the O.R. I wore non-conductive shoes, I walked on a non-conductive rubber floor, and all of the electrical lines were isolated and monitored for leakage currents. All of this was done to prevent potential injury to people who worked in a hazardous environment. As it turns out, although all of this became OSHA-mandated, it was the standard of care in the medical community long before OSHA even existed.

Going even further beyond OSHA standards, when working in the O.R. I also had to wear a scrub suit, a hat, a mask, and at times I had to wear a clean-room bunny-suit. When we worked on joint replacements we worked in specially designed laminar air flow rooms, and we had to wear space suits with bubble helmets that had isolated air supplies. All of this is done in order to decrease the incidence of infections that would lead to the loss of life or limb. At times I felt that I was wearing a total body condom because I actually was wearing a total body condom!

I'll take the opposite stand and say that the OSHA regulations aren't all bad -- they're certainly not as bad as some people represent them to be. They get a bad rap because people are lazy and don't like to jump through compliance hoops, and because corporate management is typically so under-educated from a technical perspective that corporate culture habitually dismisses OSHA as a stupid government bureaucracy.

Many of the injuries that OSHA standards are intended to prevent are the types of injuries that workers cannot even envision happening to them in the absence of injury-specific training. Without a good understanding of the potential modes of injury and a good knowledge of statistics, many people are lulled into a false sense of security thinking that very bad things will never happen to them just because they've never seen it happen to someone else.

I prefer not to bash anyone for being safety conscious. Proper safety precautions require a conscious effort to be vigilant about technique and safety at all times. I can't argue that safety is a real PITA, but its worth the small price that you pay to obtain it. Just for the record, my bench has an isolated power line, GFCI, a non-conductive work surface and non-conductive flooring. I only wear non-conductive shoes, and to be extra safe, I don't ever solder naked.