OME, repeat after me: "serenity now"

If you are going to be a mechanic, you gotta get the tough skin fella

Problem is, as good as the PC power supplys can be with all those voltages to play with, I never really need anything but 12 volts, and nowdays they is just too cheap to buy ready to go, with decent current capabilities.
So sometimes, it can be cheaper to buy ready to go than spend half a day and $60 to roll your own.

Oh, and the C-tick thing. Yep those insurance companys are tough, but the investigators can be real mongrels

It is funny how some think a battery can be less dangerous than a correctly converted PC supply though. Ever see what happens when you ignite the hydrogen gas coming from the freshly charged car battery just by simply connecting something to it, or worse, accidentally shorting with something like a spanner? And all that acid spread everywhere across the garage, in your eyes, on your "bits"....... nasty stuff

Makes a tripped circuit breaker in the house sound as lame as it really is

I use one - I made the great discovery of an old Mac hard-drive. The PS unit is very good and comes in a neat package to boot.

I may buy an off the shelf item one day - but the ol' PSU is doing the trick nicely for now.

Graham (who also does not own a money tree)

No, me wantee. I didn't have a bad day. I just get the sh*ts when I post something I think may be of interest and then all the bloody forsoothsayers dive in to say what's wrong.

I never said that it was a power supply for charging batteries, or for use in foam cutting. All I said was that the instructions I found, which were in fact from http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-a-Co...ab-Power-Supply were sensible and that even someone with little electronics knowledge could do the conversion successfully. The conversion gives access to a number of voltages which could be useful in a workshop.

I come from an era when Australians took pride in being able to make or repair things from what they could scrounge. I see now that this ability has been made redundant by high income and cheap imports, and that anyone who expresses that ability is the odd man out.

Wow, the conversion don't have a C tick. It doesn't have the Heart Foundation tick of approval either. Sure it could short out and make some smoke. I can shoot flames out my rs if I have a match. Does that me I shouldn't exist in your OH&S dominated world?

Old Man Emu

ome

i'm sure a lot have read this -how to- with interest, keep up the good work mate

You know, I have been working with electronics since I was a kid, I choose not to discuss my main business and dont go blowing a trumpet about the 25 yrs I have been modelling... I have had stacks of stuff lying around that would be a nightmare, but being in the business I need to be careful what I do and dont have, or what I say to customers.

What you posted OME is certainly helpful to readers, but did you also warn them of the associated risks in todays world?? If someone reads and follows your instructions and then hurt themselves, who will they blame? I am not sure how information posted by an individual on the net would be taken if someone was to follow that info and be hurt/killed by it, maybe there is no responsibility, I am not a lawyer.

Another thing you have to take seriously is the lack of skills involved in a hobby that now centres around ARF and RTF. If someone has trouble soldering a plug to a battery wire yet they thought they were doing ok (and this is not a jab at anyone so dont get your backs up) then how are they going to go working with a 240v appliance which (when I last checked) has warnings on them not to dissasemble.

The active members in this forum are a mere % of those who read everything but never post...

Originally Posted by old man emu

I come from an era when Australians took pride in being able to make or repair things from what they could scrounge. I see now that this ability has been made redundant by high income and cheap imports, and that anyone who expresses that ability is the odd man out.
Old Man Emu

No you are wrong, you are just moaning which is again a typical aussie trait

What has stopped alot of things we used to be good at is government policy and big brother bull trying to turn us into good little robots.

You think Ctick is bad, they are about to release a new standard which covers all external power supplies, making every single plug pack power supply in the country redundant. They want to eliminate greenhouse gasses by reducing the idle wattage wasted by every power supply to a % of a watt. Transformer based supplies are going to be wiped out and only switchmode will be left.

Problem is the cost to manufacture switch mode supplies compared to your good old transformer is ridiculous, and the real scientists have already told them the greenhouse emmision cost to make all these new pwr supplies is massively more than what todays supplies put out anyway! but do you think they will listen? The pricks in the government departments who came up with this genius way to save emmisions want to keep their cushy little jobs for the next 10 yrs so they will continue to concoct bull and mis-direction to the continuing detriment of us, the people who pay these pricks to sit there and screw with our lives!

Right thats my rant for the week, now off to do some real work

Originally Posted by old man emu

No, me wantee. I didn't have a bad day. I just get the sh*ts when I post something I think may be of interest and then all the bloody forsoothsayers dive in to say what's wrong.
Old Man Emu

Better stop posting Mate. Iv'e been on this forum for almost 12 months and that happens quite a bit.

Originally Posted by old man emu

I come from an era when Australians took pride in being able to make or repair things from what they could scrounge. I see now that this ability has been made redundant by high income and cheap imports, and that anyone who expresses that ability is the odd man out.

Your preaching to the converted there. I don't mind the odd scratchbuild.
It's just well.... now we are mates....... last week you didn't know which side of a PCB to solder to and this week your playing around with 240V.
I don't want you to end up looking like this.

About the last thing I am is the fun police.

OME.....I agree with you....

I've been away for a few days and just thought I'd look at this post.....had an interesting title......

I grew up in an age with Crystal sets and Mecano etc....my old man was an electrician (whose favourite joke was "Whats black and crisp and hangs from the ceiling?")......I didnt have the funds to go out and buy new stuff to do the things I liked.....eg model aeroplanes etc.....and I had a great experience raiding my oldmans workshop for components to modify and build experiments...got a few electric shocks and let the smoke go free from somethings designed to hold it in......but it never hurt me one bit......still useful today I reckon......

I never tried to hunt down someone who gave me the clues about how to build things that ultimately blew up or was dangerous....no litegation then.........today we have to build stuff in specially controlled environments and we protect our kids from the good wholesome mind expanding experiments

I also agree with Ext RC quoted below

"Problem is the cost to manufacture switch mode supplies compared to your good old transformer is ridiculous, and the real scientists have already told them the greenhouse emmision cost to make all these new pwr supplies is massively more than what todays supplies put out anyway! but do you think they will listen? The pricks in the government departments who came up with this genius way to save emmisions want to keep their cushy little jobs for the next 10 yrs so they will continue to concoct bull and mis-direction to the continuing detriment of us, the people who pay these pricks to sit there and screw with our lives!'


Try working in the Mining Industry like me.......I'm the registered General manager only because they need someone to sue if anything goes wrong......

over the barrel Roachie thats the boy....this wont hurt a bit



Blah Blaaah rant rave etc....

Onya OME......kudos from here mate

Roachie
Whos just pruned the money tree

I wonder how many forsoothsayers have actually unzipped the file and read the instructions? There's a heading entitled WARNINGS.

If posting this type of stuff is so bad, will that mean that the moderators will have to put a stop to everyone posting replies to questions?

Gee, If I follow SteveW's instructions, could make a high speed projectile like the Jart and hurt someone If I hit them at full speed. Now when we all front the Supreme Court in a damages hearing, I can say, "Well it's not all my fault. Steve shouldn't have told me how to make the plane"

Likewise, does a new driver try to escape responsibility by saying, "It's the driving school's fault. They taught me to drive."?

I believe that this forum, and threads in it, provide and essential means of knowledge transfer. If anyone acts on advice freely given, then the risk is on them. Caveat emptor, Romans


Old Man Emu

I have always had an interest in home built stuff. I think its great to mess around with things at home. I guess its up to the type of person that takes interest. Good onya for posting it OME. Very interesting

Oh yeah, great intructions. I followed them to the letter, turned it on and this happened

Lmao

Originally Posted by gouch

Oh yeah, great intructions. I followed them to the letter, turned it on and this happened

SUCCESS AT LAST

I finally got my own back on Gouch

OME

Now do me

Originally Posted by me_wantee

Now do me

What sort of slutty gigalo do you think I am?