Re: Questions for Don Message #42 Posted by donald wallace on 30 Oct 2005, 12:02 a.m., in response to message #41 by Randy
I really am tired of these threads...
Randy, I do not have to justify myself or explain the motives of others here or anywhere else.
You can explain your motives here...if you like.
You need to justify your statement that NiCd cells don't deteriorate or corrode much and won't wreck equipment in time if not watched...closely. They are more trouble than they are worth. That fact is borne out by long history. Remember all those old PC motherboards with NiCd cells on board for CMOS config ram backup? How many motherboards died that way? How many Canon printing calculators? Etc...... Ad Nauseum......
Alkaline cells are really bad but only when they do eventually leak. I never ever had trouble with them in my hp and always use them in fact. NiCds are in practice much more troublesome. The difference in discharge characteristics (disch. slope, knee voltage and "flat-cell" cliff) and cell chemistry means with nicd cells you don't get adequate warning from the low battery indicator of some incremental damage occuring when using tired nicd cells. HP fitted a shield in some models to overcome this, apart from different cell cradles all manufacturers try to solve the problem. Alkalines do not give this trouble because at least you know when they are flat and unlike nicd cells they don't seem to damage equipment until they really are quite flat partly as they are not rechargeable and don't gas. When they do go they ARE terrible. So are NiCads, not quite so much so.
I am not certain of what the 41CX "off state" drain is, someone SAID it's about the same as for a CV and that it didn't matter. Well, I know better. A lot of us may use our calcs intermittently and a higher off drain (my measurements indicate a factor five difference based on the timer running a 10kHz oscillator which is where that extra current goes). Not a big difference but significant. As someone said, I got "called out" on that one but I am still right on that point. A timer in system drops the "shelf life" by a factor of five...
41CV off = 6 uA (varies); 41CV with timer off = 30 uA (varies)
A good many people here (this is not meant as a criticism) are not very technical and not very aware. Repairing a lot of different stuff daily for 20 years you soon learn. So you must then know things others don't and that don't get taught at university. I have met some very knowledgeable engineers and some very impractical ones too. Ditto for programmers.
Tony needs to justify his statement to a newbie d-i-y repairer that one can easily pull down an hp41 display and reassemble it when the success rate for people who do it FOR A LIVING is about 30% and on that basis it's almost never done. He needs to justify to me his strong criticism of my warning which was issued in good faith.
You both need to justify criticism of my offering to do repairs here when you both repair calcs for money and in light of the fact that often others offer a tagline type advert for your repair biz (Randy).
There is nothing wrong with friendly open-handed competition and technically accurate criticism.
Tony needs to justify criticising me for "witholding information" when he himself does just that all the time, but subtley.
When someone knows something he doesn't he is strident in wanting to know everything they found. Of course, because there's money in doing good repairs as you well know. The more one knows the more repairs one can successfully perform.
There is a lot wrong with starting a flame war in a forum, whatever that forum may be about. That happens a lot on the net, but I have found exactly the politics displayed here in other forums. There's less of it here because most of the time people are quite genteel.
Except when fighting over scraps?... or argueing linguistics or semantics (!)
In some cases (in other forums, particularly some computer forums) some of the moderators get very abusive and "bitchy" when they encounter people (not only or neccessarily myself) who are (somewhat or very) knowledgeable on things like internet networking protocols, network security or firewalls or whatever. When after dishing out repeated "cr*p", their bluff is called, they fall silent, outgunned by hard fact and unmasked by their own bad behaviour. Until they are actually silenced they really try to make you look bad, though...That these people are moderators is what surprises me. I am thinking of a girl called Ursula, btw...
Dave Hicks isn't like that, I guess because he's an engineer who's done it (hp product work); he hasn't anything to prove...
As everyone here by now knows, I do not like people who don't know what they are on about or with ulterior motives jumping on me in public. I really "made a few clams" here though... Big ones...
I have been really very tired lately (partner does shift work and the hours are crazy so I need more sleep).
Again: SORRY!
Hmmm...
To Karl: Randy doesn't need your support and you didn't help anyone.
You just displayed your personality. Oh and a bunger is a firecracker, btw. Was that the oz lingo you referred to?
To Howard: Thanks mate, but I don't need your support though you and Bill and a few others I find by and large are from fairly to very clear headed about the politics of all this. I enjoyed reading their posts, too many to mention here...
Although abrasive, I have shown I am (perhaps too) open and honest, albeit intolerant of criticism and a bit quick and definitely too abrasive in responding to it. I am also technically competent, despite dropping out of engineering many years ago (not through lack of academic skill). There's one more fact about myself I have disclosed.
Although it would indeed be good for business, I do not talk up or encourage people to dive in to "repairing" elements in equipment which they won't be able to get back in one piece and running again.
I do not see any merit in it whatsoever.
People with ANY elecronics fault in ANY hp equipment are WELCOME to write to me privately. I will help you in any way I can.
People who want complex software written for the 41 (optionally in a module) can also write to me. If the application warrants it, I will fully characterise any software or hardware I devise.
sincerely,
DW
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