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Old 11th Sep 2020, 3:30 pm   #161
MrBungle
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Default Re: Bodges

A failed bodge I found in a second hand Fluke 25 a couple of weeks back. It appears whatever this was done for was done immediately again because the bottom switch wafer was melted as well as the fuse.

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A member from another forum sent me an entire new set of guts for it from one with a knackered display and it's now doing service as my main DMM. Happy story in the end at least.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 4:40 pm   #162
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lancs Lad View Post
I am speechless looking at this photo!

What strange planet must the person who wired that plug have come from? Electricity isn't the same as water, just flowing through the cable like it's a pipe!

Oh, honestly, I despair sometimes!

Sorry!
I had to look at the 100W travel step-down transformer I have. I bought it at a charity shop. It appears to be brand-new with a rewire able BS1363 plug. It can't be that old, as it has shrouded live and neutral prongs. At this time, it's the only example I have.
As I understand, the fuse is only there to protect the flex and not the load. The plug is equipped with a 13amp fuse. The flex appears to be .75mm2, which is only rated at around 5 amps. It should have a 3amp fuse max?
Just wondering.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 5:34 pm   #163
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Default Re: Bodges

Hi Dave,

I have never experienced one myself, but when US hot chassis sets got imported into the UK, they were sometimes fitted with resistive line cords. In fact, in the context of vintage radio, the very expression "line cord" means a mains cord that shouldn't be shortened.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 5:49 pm   #164
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Default Re: Bodges

I suppose you could argue that the “horrid and dangerous” line cord was a bodge, perpetuated on a large scale in bygone days when electrical product safety was not considered as vital as it is now.

In fact, much ‘live chassis’ equipment was inherently unsafe despite the principle being used in a large proportion of UK radio and TV sets for decades.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 6:36 pm   #165
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Default Re: Bodges

The Eddystone 840A receiver I currently have as my 'bedside radio' had a number of bodges when I bought it.

Previous Owner hadn't been able to find the right 2-pin line-socket for the mains lead, so had soldered wires to the pins of the chassis-mounted plug and fitted lengths of clear polythene wine-syphoning-tube over the resultant mess. I stripped this out, along with the original chassis-mount plug, fitting in its place a captive 2-core lead retained with a screw-up cable-gland.

Inside, the P.O. had removed the smoothing-choke and replaced it with a 'totem-pole' of two green cement-coated dropper-resistors - each had an open-circuit segment, hence the totem-pole.

To compensate for the HT voltage-loss in this mess they'd then added a BY127 semiconductor-diode across the UY41.

Worst of all - and possibly the thing that led to all this - "that capacitor" feeding the UL41 had been replaced by a component with a 63-volt rating....

I removed the BY127, fitted a 400V-rated 'mustard' as That Capacitor, and mounted a small 40mA choke [it doesn't carry the UK41's anode-current] below the chassis in place of the totem-pole dropper-monstrosity.

De-bodged, "Steady Eddy" has since clocked-up quite a few hundred hours of nocturnal listening-duty without problems.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 6:55 pm   #166
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lancs Lad View Post
I am speechless looking at this photo!

What strange planet must the person who wired that plug have come from? Electricity isn't the same as water, just flowing through the cable like it's a pipe!

Oh, honestly, I despair sometimes!

Sorry!
That looks like the identical plug that nigelr2000 pointed us to (see below).

Quote:
Originally Posted by nigelr2000 View Post
I came across an "interesting" plug when servicing a customers amplifier today, lucky the cord grip was cranked up tight or a bang would have ensued if pulled

******************************oPbq1YsmJvH7M2pr5
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 7:10 pm   #167
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Default Re: Bodges

In my datacomms-days I've also seen the old 'thinwire Ethernet' extended using 75-Ohm TV coax, Belling-Lee connectors and a total disregard for termination-resistors. It worked, though not-very-well.

Move on a decade or two and I had to 'fix' someone who'd used choc-block connectors to connect 8-core burglar-alarm cable between the local- and remote-ends of a chopped RJ45 patchlead - to try and extend a Cat.5 Ethernet circuit 250 yards down their garden to their garden-office/summer-house.

That one really didn't work!
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 7:20 pm   #168
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Default Re: Bodges

My day job is repair engineer at a calibration lab. Electricians come up with several novel ways of bodging their equipment. A bit of solid copper wire across the fuse on (expensive) multifunction testers is a favourite which inevitably leads to a trail of mass destruction of lots of components which are usually SMT. Still, I’ve learned the usual paths of failure and can get them back working most of the time but if the fuse blows there’s a reason for it...

And these are “qualified” tradespeople working in people’s houses who should know better so who knows the quality of their work?
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 7:54 pm   #169
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
In my datacomms-days I've also seen the old 'thinwire Ethernet' extended using 75-Ohm TV coax, Belling-Lee connectors and a total disregard for termination-resistors. It worked, though not-very-well.

Move on a decade or two and I had to 'fix' someone who'd used choc-block connectors to connect 8-core burglar-alarm cable between the local- and remote-ends of a chopped RJ45 patchlead - to try and extend a Cat.5 Ethernet circuit 250 yards down their garden to their garden-office/summer-house.

That one really didn't work!
I've seen two analogue telephone extensions wired to a PABX using 4 core alarm wire. It's not twisted pair so the crosstalk was bad.

Oh, and the electrician tasked with wiring a new data point to a switch who wired a new RJ45 socket in parallel with the nearest existing one.
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 9:07 pm   #170
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
That looks like the identical plug that nigelr2000 pointed us to (see below).
It's a specially calibrated surge protection spark gap
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Old 11th Sep 2020, 9:42 pm   #171
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Default Re: Bodges

Worst wiring bodge I have ever seen was in a holiday apartment I was renting in Spain. One day the aircon went off, repair man duly arrived and declared the power had tripped. (It hadnt) I eventually persuaded him to check each spur with a known working table lamp (he didn't posess a meter or test plug and I later found out that he was the kitchen porter) to find which line it was on. It was only when I went into the bedroom and discovered smoke and sparks coming out from behind a metal plate in the wall. This was a wiring junction that had been made using choc block of insufficient current rating. The fix? twist the remaining charred wires together, wrap with insulation tape and stuff the whole lot back inside the junction box !
At least the air con now worked.
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 8:41 pm   #172
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Default Re: Bodges

Sort of Bodge.

In the 80's our company would all types of musical instruments to mail order companies.

One day, a very expensive DSP guitar processor was returned as "faulty" The culprit had removed the electronics and glued some knobs onto the front panel, then returned the cabinet to the mail order company as faulty for refund.

When I reported the facts to the mail order company, I was told it is quite common, but they would not prosecute as it is bad for customer relations.
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 9:45 pm   #173
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When I reported the facts to the mail order company, I was told it is quite common, but they would not prosecute as it is bad for customer relations.
But I hope they didn’t issue the refund!

It makes you realise how intelligent humans are as a species when you consider the incredible range of scams, thefts, fiddles and bodges we can dream up, not to mention the numerous devious ways we have devised for killing and/or inflicting pain and suffering on our fellow beings.
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 9:47 pm   #174
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by AD360 Rob View Post
Worst wiring bodge I have ever seen was in a holiday apartment I was renting in Spain. One day the aircon went off, repair man duly arrived and declared the power had tripped. (It hadnt) I eventually persuaded him to check each spur with a known working table lamp (he didn't posess a meter or test plug and I later found out that he was the kitchen porter) to find which line it was on. It was only when I went into the bedroom and discovered smoke and sparks coming out from behind a metal plate in the wall. This was a wiring junction that had been made using choc block of insufficient current rating. The fix? twist the remaining charred wires together, wrap with insulation tape and stuff the whole lot back inside the junction box !
At least the air con now worked.
On my first holiday abroad at the age of 10 I was swimming in the hotel's outdoor pool in La Escala, when I approached one of the submerged lighting fixtures, I had the unmistakable feeling of electricity flowing through my body.
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 10:25 pm   #175
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Default Re: Bodges

I remember someone at college in the 1990s claimed they bought a new personal stereo, put their old personal stereo in the box, then took it back to the shop claiming it was there when they unpacked it & asked for a refund, which they got.
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 11:10 pm   #176
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Default Re: Bodges

When I was at Wharfedale, we acquired a NZ company called Lynx. Excellent product - but we had one unit returned from Thailand or somewhere similar points East. The report was that it had burst into flames.

The immediate problem was found in the strong smell of petrol still lingering. They had blown it up, set it on fire and tried to claim a refund.

I remember a Swedish company I worked for as a consultant. The chap I was working for, over dinner, was talking about someone describing a competitor company as the enemy. My customer said he set this guy right - the competitor was colleagues in competition. They understood the problems in design and manufacture. The enemy, as he described it, was the customers.

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Old 13th Sep 2020, 11:25 pm   #177
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Default Re: Bodges

Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinaston1 View Post
Sort of Bodge.
Sort of fraud more like, cuddly word for theft and just as illegal.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 7:42 am   #178
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Default Re: Bodges

Back to badly wired plugs.
I bought a rather nice vintage toaster at the car boot, it came complete with a modern mains lead someone had wired up to get it working.
The toaster only uses a 2 core cable - no earth and exposed filaments - The modern cable was made up using 3 core cable, in the plug the redundant Earth wire is in danger of touching the line connector and at the other end the cut off Earth wire was poking out of the connector and could easily be touched.

All in all a lethal piece of kit.

Peter
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 9:56 am   #179
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Default Re: Bodges

I have a reel of these to attach to equipment like that - just to remind me not to allow mains near them:
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 3:47 pm   #180
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Default Re: Bodges

What a beautiful toaster , I would love to make my breakfast toast on one of those , get rid of that nasty modern flex and fit some nice twisted cotton covered flex connected to a clix plug inserted into a lamp adapter ...
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