Daily Archives: April 11, 2018
Scoping It Out . . .
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Work today was only about half machine repair, so I guess I lucked out. I have come to the conclusion that these boards are not designed very well. There are two boards in this model of machine, a power supply board and an oscillator board. But every board will not work with every other board.
I started to notice that I would swap out what seemed to be a bad board with another one that would work. But the supposedly bad board would work in another machine with a different board. So each machine has to be ‘tuned’ by swapping out boards until you get a set that works.
This is a symptom of boards that are designed with sloppy tolerances, tolerances so wide, i.e. + or – 30 % instead of +- 5%. So that if the tolerances of a particular set of boards go the wrong way, they don’t work together. But each board might work with another one. It’s just the luck of the draw.
At some point I’m probably going to have to start repairing the actual bad boards. And to do that I’m going to need an oscilloscope of some sort. I sold off mine a long time ago so I’ll have to get something new. Luckily digital scopes are a lot cheaper than they use to be, $100’s instead of $1000 of dollars.
Even Amazon has a nice selection of scopes, even some kits. Since I don’t have any schematics of these units, what I’ll do is to use the scope to start recording waveforms at key points on each board which I can then use to diagnose bad boards.
Tomorrow I’ll take care of some chores before our planned jaunt in the rig this weekend. I want to check the pressure in the rig’s tires, and the water in the house batteries. The engine batteries are sealed so I don’t have to worry about them. I’m also going to untie the anemometer pole from where it’s zip tied to the ladder on the rear of the rig.
As it stands now we’ll probably do this on Sunday since it looks to be stormy all day Saturday. I’m thinking about just making a 40 mile loop, heading south on Hwy 6 down to where it joins up with I-45, then back up north to FM517where we’ll take that back over to Alvin, and then back down Hwy 6 to Santa Fe and home.
We may make a stopover at the La Marque Buc-ee’s to top off on diesel, and then another stop along the way to fill up on propane. We’ll see.
I noticed yesterday that my Texas Lottery app had been updated, and I was happy to see that they’ve finally fixed the problem with the lottery ticket scanner function not working. That’s make finding that winning ticket a lot easier.
As it stands right now we’re getting together with our son Chris and his family for dinner tomorrow night. Really looking forward to that..
Thought for the Day:
I know the difference between Right and Wrong. Wrong is usually much more fun.
ghnfgh
