Electrical Engineering V3 - Developers

[QUOTE=false prophet;49405654]This may be a bit macabre, but I've been dying to ask. What is the worse electric shock any of you guys have had? I licked a battery once. That's about it for me.[/QUOTE] 50V DC from a telephone cable. That was a surprise.

Those nasty little fucks they call disposable film camera flashes... evil little capacitors (330V @ 120uF)

[QUOTE=nuttyboffin;49412698]Those nasty little fucks they call disposable film camera flashes... evil little capacitors (330V @ 120uF)[/QUOTE] Oh yeah, I had forgotten, I've done that before too. Fuck that.

[QUOTE=Goz3rr;49411387]Do you not have ground fault circuit interrupters?[/QUOTE] GFCI / RCD doesn't protect you at all against live to neutral contact, I was working on a series string tube radio which are pretty dangerous to begin with (no transformer, neutral chassis) I accidently made contact with the live with my finger while holding it. :v:

I once fell onto an electric fence...

[QUOTE=nutcake;49413174]I once fell onto an electric fence...[/QUOTE] Was it on?

Definitely.

Getting shocked by electric fence is same as getting kicked into a butt.

It's a rite of passage for rednecks and country kids

[QUOTE=paindoc;49414967]It's a rite of passage for rednecks and country kids[/QUOTE] I though that was getting shocked while pissing on electric fence.

[QUOTE=Van-man;49415018]I though that was getting shocked while pissing on electric fence.[/QUOTE] Just making sure to tell people NOT TO DO THIS. I did, it SUCKS.:ohno:

[QUOTE=Nightrazr;49415179]Just making sure to tell people NOT TO DO THIS. I did, it SUCKS.:ohno:[/QUOTE] Let me tell you this, being close to blacked-out drunk does numb the worst of the pain, but that also makes you do stupid shit like pissing right up a fence.

[QUOTE=Fourier;49414793]Getting shocked by electric fence is same as getting kicked into a butt.[/QUOTE] I did a circle with 12 other people and then we touched an electric fence. It felt like I got kicked in both my hands.

hey so i dont know how to ask google this what would happen if you put a current limiting resistor on a tube's heater? let's say reduce 2.8A to 2 or so would it just take longer to warm up? would it be unable to warm up?

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;49422156]hey so i dont know how to ask google this what would happen if you put a current limiting resistor on a tube's heater? let's say reduce 2.8A to 2 or so would it just take longer to warm up? would it be unable to warm up?[/QUOTE] It would not get as hot so the emission (zero bias anode current) would be lower, this can extend the tube life. 2.8A is a little high for a more modern tube like the 12AX7, some of the tubes for battery sets went down to 40mA heater current.

I just bid on a broken 'RC' firetruck which actually has a wired controller... planning on redoing it with an arduino and an actual water tank / pump, maybe even an aiming system. :) I really need to do more of these 'silly little projects' also brought a palm sized RC hovercraft, going to try connect it to my PC for remote control, then maybe buy a number of them and make some sort of fancy drone group of them that will roam around the house... could have some good fun here.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;49422308] 2.8A is a little high for a more modern tube like the 12AX7, some of the tubes for battery sets went down to 40mA heater current.[/QUOTE] 2.8A is ridiculously high. That Westinghouse TV I rebuilt last year barely broke 1.7A under full load with almost a dozen tubes.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;49422308]It would not get as hot so the emission (zero bias anode current) would be lower, this can extend the tube life. 2.8A is a little high for a more modern tube like the 12AX7, some of the tubes for battery sets went down to 40mA heater current.[/QUOTE] I have 6KD6's and yeah it's 2.85A, I think a little power resistor wouldn't hurt.

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;49426269]I have 6KD6's and yeah it's 2.85A, I think a little power resistor wouldn't hurt.[/QUOTE] Those are best used as output tubes, so for an audio amp you only need one for either a single-ended or push-pull output, they're not really designed to operate well at lower plate currents, for example an audio pre-amp you will generally only need a few mA of plate current (which they are designed for) to maximize the stage voltage gain. 6AT6 is a good general purpose tube for use in pre-amps and other LF / VHF signal applications.

Tubes are shit at everything, that's why we invented transistors. The only benefit is the distortion you get from them, and I'm not a fan of that sort of stuff, but if that's what you're going for, then it's fine.

[QUOTE=nikomo;49427996]Tubes are shit at everything, that's why we invented transistors. The only benefit is the distortion you get from them, and I'm not a fan of that sort of stuff, but if that's what you're going for, then it's fine.[/QUOTE] IIRC, most transistor types have the benefit over tubes because of distortion/non-linearity. It helps when it comes to oscillators and most specifically square-law modulators.

[QUOTE=nikomo;49427996]Tubes are shit at everything, that's why we invented transistors. The only benefit is the distortion you get from them, and I'm not a fan of that sort of stuff, but if that's what you're going for, then it's fine.[/QUOTE] except it looks cool as fuck breh

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;49428622]IIRC, most transistor types have the benefit over tubes because of distortion/non-linearity. It helps when it comes to oscillators and most specifically square-law modulators.[/QUOTE] It depends how you bias them, you're going to get loads of distortion if you bias them close to saturation or cutoff, as harmonic oscillators are. The only real advantage of tubes over transistors is the fact they are very electrically robust, they can take all kinds of abuse that would fry a modern transistor, certain tubes like the pentode can be very handy as simple mixers, although dual gate FETs are available which do much the same. There is something very nice about tubes that you just don't get with transistors, you can take a look at a tube and see how all the bits function, with a transistor you just have a boring blob of silicon. Also good tubes can actually be made by hand if you have the equipment, can't really make transistors in your garage (technically you could but not good performance).

Tubes produce even-order harmonic distortion which is really lovely but can cause high-end rolloff and a bit of general saturation in the lows. Running them lightly for a general saturation effect is overall lovely, and cranking the distortion can be fun. If I make a tube amp design someday, I'd probably add in a way to adjust the distortion ratio or amount independent of gain. There are quite a few plugins nowadays that can very nearly approximate the tube sound though, so they're falling even more out of use in the audio industry. iZotope has some really good stuff, and so do softube.

That's why I love audiophiles who claim that tubes have superior quality to semiconductors, and that you can never get the same "level of detail" with IC's as you can with tubes.

[QUOTE=papkee;49429113]That's why I love audiophiles who claim that tubes have superior quality to semiconductors, and that you can never get the same "level of detail" with IC's as you can with tubes.[/QUOTE] Ironically the problem with semiconductors is that they amplify the music too cleanly in some cases, whereas a tube-amp built for specific music genre in mind tends to dampen the bad part, and/or amplify/enhance the good part.

Solid-State may cause a problem with music produced before solid-state was an option, as those were produced when the reference audio was all tube-driven and thus the mixing and mastering choices were made with those systems. Running them on transparent IC's can cause harshness to stand out, especially highs that are overdriven. If you listen to a lot of samples that are torn from vinyl records, they're really missing a lot of that "crispness" that comes from good high-end characteristics since the transients of your hats and overheads+percussion are cut, and the harmonics of the snare and kick can be lost too. Different tube amps have different characteristics too, slightly different harmonic weightings. One may have the 2,6,10 harmonics heavily emphasized whereas another may emphasize the 8+2n harmonics instead. I run the majority of my recorded synths through saturation plugins, since it really thickens up the sound with those even order harmonics. That's why everyone thinks older stuff and older gear sounds warmer and richer, since those even order harmonics are usually heavily weighted towards the mids and they do help "thicken" the sound by adding more to it. The most vocal individuals, especially when it comes to musicians, producers, and synthheads like to take one side or the other. Analog is the best! No, DIGITAL IS THE TRUE MASTER! etc. I like ot use both, and so do most people. Sometimes I want the clean digital sound without any distortion since it's super easy to EQ and layer, but letting my lead synth or main instruments take up the whole spectrum with piles of saturation through analog gear or analog-emulating software is a choice too. It gets even worse for analog v digital synths oh good god. People love to bitch about how thin and tinny digital can sound, especially the older analog emulation synths but I think they do [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42FRPHw3X6Q"][I]mighty fine[/I][/URL]. That's why the idea for my synthbox I'm designing with halofreak (the guy keeps actually doing shit and here I am ranting pointlessly and studying music theory) was to combine the best of both and go for max modularity. The synth core was a bed of plugs that allowed you to control the various modules you could plug in from your computer, and record through USB, but still had analog outs. Onboard FX were a thought too, and I had sorta wondered about making a tube amp module (hence my interest in that tiny tube amp design I posted). I'm still vaguely bumbling through digital synths design, I do have a fair amount of info and ideas written down in my notebook for this project but I've just been going really hard in the music theory and music composition paint over this break. [editline]31st December 2015[/editline] I know actually fuckall about EE work but I've been studying music composition, mastering, and mixing in a way that can only be described as "vaguely autistic" since I got out of my whole depressive winter last March. Its exhilarating being able to actually actively work and study and do stuff, and I've wanted to produce music for aaaages. EE work was one of my few hobbies that I vaguely kept to and learned about before I got medication and shit, so I'm sure I'll return to it during a music break but it just hasn't come up yet.

[QUOTE=Van-man;49429338]Ironically the problem with semiconductors is that they amplify the music too cleanly in some cases, whereas a tube-amp built for specific music genre in mind tends to dampen the bad part, and/or amplify/enhance the good part.[/QUOTE] IS that why so many audiophiles listen to shit organ/classical music?

[QUOTE=pentium;49436203]IS that why so many audiophiles listen to shit organ/classical music?[/QUOTE] For organ and classical music you want transparency since they have so much going on and so many of the instruments are really harmonically dense. more of an opinion, I guess, but I wouldn't imagine listening to classical on retro systems to be nice. strings are warm enough as is

I actually read an article somewhere that said they were looking into bringing back vacuum tube-like assemblies using fabrication techniques not too dissimilar to those we use for microchips today. They say they wouldn't even need that good of a vacuum because the gap would be so small that there'd be next to no room for air to get in and cause enough of a problem anyway. [url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/06/nasa-melds-vacuum-tube-tech-with-silicon-to-fill-the-terahertz-gap/[/url]