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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: May 3rd, 2024

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  • There are, I guess, 4 tower feet, they are very big structures. So my guess is that the “workers” were told remove the leg bolts, sand-blast the foot, then renew the bolts.

    “Now guys, I’m off for a smoko, have it done before I’m back”. “OK guv”.

    Instead of doing it one foot at a time, the obvious method, the “workers” then rush off, “Hey Mick, you do leg one, Jim you do leg 2, Manuel you do leg 3, Franco you do leg 4”. “OK let’s go”.

    In 10 minutes all the bolts are removed, the wind picks up, the lateral force on the cables increases and bang, down she goes.


  • We’ve got a huge power outage up here in the Far North, seems there’s a Transpower problem cutting off power to the whole of the Far North.

    Luckily we have a UPS for Internet until the battery runs down.

    Edit: It’s still off after 2 hours. Apparently a transmission pylon tower collapsed, no further info, but oh boy, this will likely take a while to fix I suspect.

    Edit2: Power came back on after around 5 hours.








  • It could be that the problem with the socket are the plated through holes in the PCB. The socket gets regular plugs/unplugs and that’ll move the socket and could break one or more of connections to the PCB. The connections to the socket are potentially on inner layers of the PCB, that might be tough to fix.

    Bulk assembly of PCB’s is fully automated these days, the components are machine fitted and the whole board is then flow soldered.

    The damp sponge will wipe away any burnt on resin from the bit. If you use thinner solder, say 0.8mm, you’ll need to use a smaller iron bit.


  • The key to good soldered joints is cleanliness, both the iron tip and the wires/terminals you are soldering.

    The iron tip needs to be kept clean, typically by wiping the tip on a slightly damp sponge. Most iron stands include a sponge. Use multicore solder, this has the flux built-in. Once the iron has heated up clean the tip with fine emery paper, and tin the tip with a small touch of solder. Wipe the tip on the sponge.

    Never carry molten solder on the tip of the iron, use the iron to heat the wire/connector and apply the solder to the joint. Remove a short length of the wire insulation, if it’s multi strand, twist and tin the end before assembling the joint.

    The size of the iron depends on the size of the items you are soldering. Bigger connectors and wires will need a bigger iron.

    Remember keep everything clean!!! A fibre-glass pencil works great for doing that.



  • It’ll, I’m sure, take time to get used to the hearing of my own voice amplified thing. The aids don’t, certainly at the moment, feel particularly intrusive in my ears, but I guess YMMV on that.

    They told me about the “own voice” thing, it was the first thing I noticed on initial fitting. I guess I’ll get used to it, and maybe it’ll make me speak quieter but then Mrs Floofah won’t hear what I say, so a complete reversal of our recent communication difficulties!!


  • Got my hearing aids and boy do they make a big difference for me.

    I’d suffered from a very reduced high frequency hearing so everything sounded muffled. They tested my ears and set the aids up to compensate.

    We have a big surround sound tv system, and I was concerned the aids would impact it. But no, it sounds great, the bass/midrange is good and I can now clearly hear the voices, though that does somewhat depend on the source as a lot of modern movies and tv series have gabbled and unclear voices anyway.

    My aids have an app that can slightly adjust the sound, so played with that a bit, but to be honest, I don’t think I’ll need to tweak the basic setup.

    The only thing that currently stands out, and it a tad annoying, is the aids amplify my own voice when I speak. Makes to me my voice sound echoey and louder than I’m used to.

    Will give them a longer run and see how it goes …