I always write a datetime stamp on batteries when I put them in the device "20110712". Sometimes "20110712-1120" if they have a very short like expectancy.
Helps me predict "time to replace". Very useful when checking the flashlights before storms and long trips. Wife cites this as evidence that I'm nutty.
nutty NO WAY . its brillaint !
I do the same with Hard drives and my Sealed AGMs .
Sorry, I guess most places outside of Blighty called them "tubes".
Heater I have a Collins Radio 75A-1 given to me years ago. It has tubes I guess you probably know that. I would like to get rid of it, to someone who might fix it up and appreciate it a little. It works just looks its age +.
Here's one that always tick me off: Some company has decided to put in real cheap and shoddy parts in fancy, expensive electronics. Ever heard of Capacitor Plague?
And, Dr. Acula, that happens to me too...Another lesson I have learned; Wear a pant while soldering... T____T
And lastly, I have been to few DIY electronic websites, I have spotted couple of the threads that definitely made me roll my eyes. I am definitely hoping few peoples there know which end of soldering iron they can hold, what they can't.
Apparently, some companies also chosen wrong parts for funky reasons. How come did it pass PSE / UL tests? I am so confused, as it's not supposed to be able to pass that torture test imposed by government-sponsored electrical testing labs and the independent underwriters.....
My peeve? Too many so-so components stockpiled! Radio Shack & Electronic Goldmine bargain assortments of inductors, capacitors, transistors, do-dads of all shapes & sizes. Too good to throw away, but not quite good enough to use in my circuits. Many are not marked with numbers, but custom color-coded. When I have nothing else to do, I'll measure all the individual components and bin them by value. Maybe.
On the plus side, my best and most sensitive flame-sensing phototransistors (FPT540A's which I used in the TCFFHRC) came from one of those bargain packs. Made it all worthwhile when I won the very first one on 1994!
I believe it was a soundboard system; it said: Low current draw of only 350MA
Either a stupid person made the label or soundboards are really inefficient.
No doubt in my mind which one it is, and an inducement to look elsewhere to buy something.
I'm pretty sure that's what this line in the manual is claiming.
I can't think of a different way of interpreting it.
Duane
As someone who assembled a lot of PC clones in the 80's and 90's I got pretty good at interpreting Chinglish instructions but I must admit to being stumped by that one.
When they cant write 0.1uF on a ceramic capacitor, but instead 104.
when my little brother interferes with projects, and asks questions that i can explain, but he cant understand. then he always gets mad
when I knock a box of components that I just organized off my desk...
as someone said, when you spend hours debugging, and find out that it is just one in/output set to the wrong pin.
Dead batteries mixed in with the good ones.
104 is a standard marking and very simple to read. It is the value in pico Farads and simply means 10 followed by 4 zeroes. 224 would be 0.22uF or 220,000 pF. You should get used to it if you intend to get into a technical career.
What do you thing 4.8 means if it were on the label of a tank of compressed gas ?
ElectricAve, I feel the same when it comes to power. I had to check the datasheet ALL OVER AGAIN to make sure I do not accidentally melt some ICs...
Duane and kwinn, it's definitely a broken Chinese character sets... Imagine how much it will really annoy Chinese people attempting to use it... I felt it's somewhat usable for Japanese Hiragana character printing - and it will ANNOY me if I can't find the symbols to complete a dang sentence, as it will definitely require Kanji character set not present in this printer... T______T The saying, "You get what you pay for" never dies....
Leaning heavily on the hot soldering iron, just one time.
Like a Shao Lin Master from the Temple, with a hot fire metal pot dragon tattoo on the forearm, it branded in the shape of the soldering iron which lasted a good 15 years.
If you need help controlling an urge to swear I think one of these thermal printers might help. http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10438
I'm pretty sure that's what this line in the manual is claiming.
I can't think of a different way of interpreting it. Duane
Duane, I work as a Chinglish Translator in China. It appears to indicate, The printer has a control panel with a standard built-in GB 18030 Chinese character set which excludes uncommon Chinese characters that cause the most difficulty in language.
This is nothing new. Many of these translated works are solely dependent on workmanship and skills of the translator. Good translation requires a bi-lingual person who is native to both languages at an early age - a combination that's not so common. Some translators for manuals are native Chinese people who learned by a book, took a few classes, and in some cases never spoke English. Some are classroom trained but lack the technical language library for proper interpretation. Chinese is not a technical language and is very indirect - so translation can easily go awry. Then again, maybe they used Google Translator or a similar machine. A good translation from Chinese to English is not only a skill but a work of art and sometimes a lot of contextual guess-work.
To Humanoido and Duane:
Looks like I was right. It was indeed made with a broken Chinese character sets.
I am familiar with Japanese, and it seems like it's doable, although very limited words may be made, say several hundreds of Hiragana molecules, instead of complete set of Japanese words which is incredible large compared to Latin alphabets, which are about 27 letters.
My pet peeve: Getting all tired and by mistake, holding soldering iron at a bad end...
And having to explain to an ignorant person the same thing what a capacitor or transistor is, all over again and again...
Being lied to by TV shop technicians that parts are unobtainable (it happened to me...)
Thanks for the Shere link. I have seen it before and the number of "SORRY, SOLD" on their nixie page is very depressing. But now it seems they have some interesting items and I'll have to jump on it.
My pet peeve is the lack of thermionic valves in the modern world. Next up is the lack of Nixie tubes for Propeller projects.
I have a large collection of mostly functional vacuum tubes and a couple of full sets of unused new Nixies. I keep telling myself I will use them one day but I've been telling myself that for 30 years and I could probably be persuaded to do a trade.
[QUOTE=Humanoido;1017523A good translation from Chinese to English is not only a skill but a work of art and sometimes a lot of contextual guess-work.[/QUOTE]
Humanoido, one thing that I've noticed about device (and other) warnings seems to be that the English version is something like:
Do not get wet.
Whereas the Chinese text goes on... and on... and on...
Which makes me wonder if the Chinese text means something like out of the movie Gremlins:
Do not get wet or this product will transform into your worst nightmare and destroy your entire neighborhood and...
wmosscrop, that's definitely a good one. I have seen something like that, and that did certainly left me wondering about that. "Do Not Get Wet!" part really got me thinking, about the Chinese whitepaper / manuals. They left the goodies out, only to be written completely in Chinese except for few words in English and it kinda became the punchline of the jokes.
And about those thermionic valves, that's too bad they do not exist widespread anymore... Sure, I am only in my 20s, but in some of my project, there's time I prefer to use the triodes in such area where the MOSFETs / IGBTs just explode. They're quite forgivable toward torturous current disorders, to the point their anodes starts to overheat. Now that's definitely something to be peeved about, now that vacuum tubes become so rare and difficult to find.
Pushing buttons on any device, and the sound and display are too slow and not in sync with how fast I can push the buttons. Very common on my cell phone.
Comments
nutty NO WAY . its brillaint !
I do the same with Hard drives and my Sealed AGMs .
OK here I come Wikipedia.
Heater I have a Collins Radio 75A-1 given to me years ago. It has tubes I guess you probably know that. I would like to get rid of it, to someone who might fix it up and appreciate it a little. It works just looks its age +.
Sorry off topic.
And, Dr. Acula, that happens to me too...Another lesson I have learned; Wear a pant while soldering... T____T
And lastly, I have been to few DIY electronic websites, I have spotted couple of the threads that definitely made me roll my eyes. I am definitely hoping few peoples there know which end of soldering iron they can hold, what they can't.
I bought 12 mother boards (with ISA slots). All failed within 14 months due to capacitor failures.
Apparently, some companies also chosen wrong parts for funky reasons. How come did it pass PSE / UL tests? I am so confused, as it's not supposed to be able to pass that torture test imposed by government-sponsored electrical testing labs and the independent underwriters.....
On the plus side, my best and most sensitive flame-sensing phototransistors (FPT540A's which I used in the TCFFHRC) came from one of those bargain packs. Made it all worthwhile when I won the very first one on 1994!
Why the heck do people keep using those types of subscripts?
What's what's wrong wrong with with that that??
If If the source source is the ground ground, then I suppose that puts the drain drain in the sky sky?
I know that one well, along with it's close cousins "I better put this where it won't get lost", and "so that's where I put that for safe keeping".
All good reasons to get organized, have a place for everything, and put everything in its assigned place. Must do that one of these days ;-)
No doubt in my mind which one it is, and an inducement to look elsewhere to buy something.
As someone who assembled a lot of PC clones in the 80's and 90's I got pretty good at interpreting Chinglish instructions but I must admit to being stumped by that one.
104 is a standard marking and very simple to read. It is the value in pico Farads and simply means 10 followed by 4 zeroes. 224 would be 0.22uF or 220,000 pF. You should get used to it if you intend to get into a technical career.
What do you thing 4.8 means if it were on the label of a tank of compressed gas ?
I'll keep an eye out for you when I am refurbishing old equipment if you'll pay for the shipping. I'm in Canada, where are you?
/thread
Duane and kwinn, it's definitely a broken Chinese character sets... Imagine how much it will really annoy Chinese people attempting to use it... I felt it's somewhat usable for Japanese Hiragana character printing - and it will ANNOY me if I can't find the symbols to complete a dang sentence, as it will definitely require Kanji character set not present in this printer... T______T The saying, "You get what you pay for" never dies....
You might look here:
http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/index.html
I've never bought anything from them, but they've been around a while.
Like a Shao Lin Master from the Temple, with a hot fire metal pot dragon tattoo on the forearm, it branded in the shape of the soldering iron which lasted a good 15 years.
Duane, I work as a Chinglish Translator in China. It appears to indicate, The printer has a control panel with a standard built-in GB 18030 Chinese character set which excludes uncommon Chinese characters that cause the most difficulty in language.
This is nothing new. Many of these translated works are solely dependent on workmanship and skills of the translator. Good translation requires a bi-lingual person who is native to both languages at an early age - a combination that's not so common. Some translators for manuals are native Chinese people who learned by a book, took a few classes, and in some cases never spoke English. Some are classroom trained but lack the technical language library for proper interpretation. Chinese is not a technical language and is very indirect - so translation can easily go awry. Then again, maybe they used Google Translator or a similar machine. A good translation from Chinese to English is not only a skill but a work of art and sometimes a lot of contextual guess-work.
1.The components are shrinking out from under my soldering iron whilst my eyes are getting worse and the documentation is getting more verbose.
2. Spelling checkers haven't improved my ability to spell in posting for the Parallax Forums.
Looks like I was right. It was indeed made with a broken Chinese character sets.
I am familiar with Japanese, and it seems like it's doable, although very limited words may be made, say several hundreds of Hiragana molecules, instead of complete set of Japanese words which is incredible large compared to Latin alphabets, which are about 27 letters.
My pet peeve: Getting all tired and by mistake, holding soldering iron at a bad end...
And having to explain to an ignorant person the same thing what a capacitor or transistor is, all over again and again...
Being lied to by TV shop technicians that parts are unobtainable (it happened to me...)
Thanks for the Shere link. I have seen it before and the number of "SORRY, SOLD" on their nixie page is very depressing. But now it seems they have some interesting items and I'll have to jump on it.
I have a large collection of mostly functional vacuum tubes and a couple of full sets of unused new Nixies. I keep telling myself I will use them one day but I've been telling myself that for 30 years and I could probably be persuaded to do a trade.
Humanoido, one thing that I've noticed about device (and other) warnings seems to be that the English version is something like:
Do not get wet.
Whereas the Chinese text goes on... and on... and on...
Which makes me wonder if the Chinese text means something like out of the movie Gremlins:
Do not get wet or this product will transform into your worst nightmare and destroy your entire neighborhood and...
Or is it just my imagination?
Walter
And about those thermionic valves, that's too bad they do not exist widespread anymore... Sure, I am only in my 20s, but in some of my project, there's time I prefer to use the triodes in such area where the MOSFETs / IGBTs just explode. They're quite forgivable toward torturous current disorders, to the point their anodes starts to overheat. Now that's definitely something to be peeved about, now that vacuum tubes become so rare and difficult to find.
so true
http://www.tubesandmore.com/
I can supply other sites if wished.
DJ