Unusual finds in record player cabinets

[dave walsh]

I've just noticed Alan's post [20] so his uncle gets a coconut for the maximum amount of cash found so far! The £5 "reward" is more than my friend got in the end [post 16] but that was a situation directly related to the family donor

In Alan's example there was a more distant third party involved. In similar circumstances I think my friend and I would have operated "findus et keeperus" if only to avoid any ethical brain strain.


I do feel very sorry for the engineer who boxed up his glasses in a TV set [39]. I bet he's still looking for them! It's one of these brain fades were the answer is obvious once you know it and in the meantime you think you must be going crackers

Dave W

[Herald1360]

I suspect they're just cheap off the shelf reading glasses like the pound shop ones I'm using to see my screen right now. What self respecting Nerd would care what they looked like as long as they cost next to nothing?

rather flamboyant design of those glasses

My eyes are fine except for the near focussing, I buy cheap 'reading glasses', the cheapest are in lurid colours. So I buy the cheapest, I don't do style!

[Okto1984]

I had an HMV record player some years ago, which I quite liked. One day while playing a disc it made a bang like a balloon popping, and bad smelling smoke came out. Back then I knew very little about electronics, but I was curious so I opened it up and found an exceptionally big, charred spider inside. This one was a monster, one of the biggest I've ever seen. I did remove it and try again, but the record player was still broken. I suppose now that maybe a capacitor had failed. These days I'd try to fix it, but back then I didn't know what to do so it went in the wheelie bin Back in the 90s when I was a teenager I bought a lot of actually quite nice 70s era things cheap at the car boot, used them until they failed and bought another. Pity really, some of that stuff was worth saving, but it just seemed to be everywhere and super cheap at the time.

[julie_m]

If the spider was across the HT, the rectifier might have blown, increasing the noxious fumes.

Not that a diagnoisis is much use now

[Peter.N.]

Did you try artificial respiration?

Peter

[Okto1984]

Hi julie_m, my theory at the time was that it was a variety of magic smoke made entirely out of spiders. In hindsight, that probably wasn't true however.

Hi Peter.N., the unlucky spider was completely finished.

I wonder how many appliances do get broken by insects wandering in and shorting stuff out? Also, now I think about it, people who vacuum up spiders should know the spider might get revenge next time they turn the vacuum cleaner on!

[ms660]

I seem to remember that the word "Bug" in electronics was derived from certain incidents involving insects.

Don't hoover spiders up in the house they can keep some nasty insect pests in check.

Lawrence.

[G6Tanuki]

In the very-late-1970s when fixing-up an early-1960s RGD 'lowline'-style radiogram (mono, B7G/B9A valves) for a student friend's first house I discovered a faded set of 1950s vintage playing-cards which depicted (in that strange restricted-range colour printing popular in comics of the era) a range of erotic performances which remained distinctly illegal even after passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967.

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by pwdrive

I seem to remember that the word "Bug" in electronics was derived from certain incidents involving insects.

As I understand it, the term 'bug' for a problem dates back at least as far as Edison. Probably earlier

There is the well known story that one time when the Harvard Mk 1 (relay) computer malfunctioned the problem was traced to a dead moth in one of the contacts. The moth was taped into the logbook with the comment 'First case of a bug actually being found' (I believe written by Grace Hopper). The way the comment is worded suggests that the term 'bug' was well established but that this was an actual insect bug, the wordplay being totally intentional.

[ms660]

""There is the well known story that one time when the Harvard Mk 1 (relay) computer malfunctioned the problem was traced to a dead moth in one of the contacts. The moth was taped into the logbook with the comment 'First case of a bug actually being found' (I believe written by Grace Hopper)""

Yes, that's the one I was thinking about, thanks.

Lawrence.

Also happened at the Cambridge radio telescope array, they went funny at night. A poor student was posted to monitor one of the dishes (in the middle of nowhere, at night) it turned out to be the optical paper tape reader light attracting moths (each dish had it's own reader). A simple cover sorted it.

Learnt this in a visit organised by the local radio club in 1974. Also had the great pleasure of walking under the array that Jocelyn Bell Burnell found the first pulsar with.

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by Okto1984

I wonder how many appliances do get broken by insects?

I once was called to an electrical fault, the electrical supply to the rooms in a house served by a sub-main had failed, the fuse feeding the sub-main had blown. The cause was a slug that had crawled into the sub fuse box and shorted L & N through its body. The slug died before the fuse perished.

[SteveCG]

Re post no 52.

Yes, I also heard that one from some of the people at the Radio Astronomy site.

[stevehertz]

Going on the number of cash finds, I'm thinking there's probably hundreds if not thousands of such finds out there, but people are obviously loathe to tell the world about the time they found a grand in next door's radiogram just in case word gets around and a long lost relative comes a knocking on the door for their missing inheritance!