Snake oil

[Kilrah]

Are you really trying to misinterpret the intent of the post that much so you can feel you're right? Explain how the nail polish would help with that... yep it's completely unrelated.

[CJay]

An Ethernet cable either works or doesn't, there's no middle ground.

Proof that you are wrong:
Plug a straight through cable between two computers. If Auto-MDIX is implemented and enabled, it will work. Otherwise, it won't.

Oh please, you have to be joking?

The Ethernet cable works, that's a switch/port configuration issue, nothing to do with the ethernet cable having dirty connections or needing some magic snake oil contact preparation.

And, FWIW, I've not found a single PC with gigabit ethernet that doesn't do auto MDIX

[bd139]

Indeed. We've got about 5 miles of ethernet cable in our DC and offices and thousands of terminations. I can't actually recall a single problem with any of those cables in the decade I've been working there apart from one time when someone cut through the inter-building pipe with a digger and no amount of contact snake oil will fix that. Rarely we get a dicky switch port and that's the actual switch, not the cable.

[vk6zgo]

Came across this beauty:

7mm Black Silicone with Synthetic Jacketing resists heat, oil, and abrasion. A combination Kevlar Helically Spiral Wound Core at 350 ohm per foot resistance delivers greater spark energy, while improving power, idle, and fuel efficiency.

That's higher than typical nichrome wire used in heating elements, so it must be more efficient.
Then again, a certain maximum power transfer theorem may have something to do with this.

8mm Black Silicone and Synthetic Jacketing resist heat, oil and abrasion. 500 ohm per foot resistance delivering spark energy, while improving power, idle and fuel efficiency. A combination Kevlar Helically Spiral Wound Core conductor for greater strength and durability that suppresses Electro Magnetic (EMI) and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).

Even more resistance, so much higher efficiency! And magic EMI/RFI suppression spiral, so no need for any pesky shielding or ferrite beads. Ride around those high-power TV/radio transmitter towers without Fox News interfering with your ignition timing!

All wires fire intermittantly no matter what coil or ignition you may have. That is why you see carbon on your plugs. ThunderVolts have a solid stream of fire power resulting in more horsepower and more mileage. Your bike will start and run better than ever before!

PACK SOME HEAT with our new 9MM Firepower spark plug wires. Black wires feature Silver 9MM Gun Boots. These are the hottest wires on the market today.
All wires fire intermittently no matter what coil or ignition you may have. That is why you see carbon on your plugs. Our 9MM Firepower wires provide a solid stream of fire power eliminating the carbon on your plugs. This results in more horsepower, more torque and better mileage. Your bike will start and run better than ever before! They are compatible with all Harley ignition systems. You have a choice of Custom Fit Sets for your Harley model or Universal Sets where you terminate to your desired length. All Taylor/Sumax wires are 100% made in U.S.A.

I thought it was the spark plug which was meant to "fire" and not the HT wires.

From memory, normal suppressor type spark plug leads were in the region of 10 to 15kOhms, so "350 Ohms/foot" sounds insignificant in comparison.
The ones manufacturers fitted were made of some woven carbon crud.
(It looked like they used string then burnt it.)

The horrible stuff would fail if over flexed, or even " if you breathed on it".
Faulty leads ranged from 50k to 500k.

The fault process seemed to involve small sections of the cable going open circuit, so there were a series of "mini sparks" along the lead, which seemed to "semi-repair" the opens, at least as far as testing at the low voltages produced on a multimeter Ohms range was concerned.

The very high resistance leads did cause misfiring, & a symptom of this fault was burning of the spark plug
connection where the lead plugged onto it.


One place sold "inductive" leads.
From,what I could determine,they were still made of "burnt string", but the individual strands were sheathed in some kind of brittle plastic.
The whole lot was then wound into a helix.

I tried them,but they didn't seem much better.

Please excuse any grammatical errors, but I am still experiencing the delights of editing on an iPad!

[McBryce]

Spark plug cables (in cars at least) are by design meant to have a resistance in the wire, usually between 1K and 9K and many also have a fixed inductor in the connector too depending on the type of ignition system.

McBryce.

[Cyberdragon]

Came across this beauty:

7mm Black Silicone with Synthetic Jacketing resists heat, oil, and abrasion. A combination Kevlar Helically Spiral Wound Core at 350 ohm per foot resistance delivers greater spark energy, while improving power, idle, and fuel efficiency.

That's higher than typical nichrome wire used in heating elements, so it must be more efficient.
Then again, a certain maximum power transfer theorem may have something to do with this.

8mm Black Silicone and Synthetic Jacketing resist heat, oil and abrasion. 500 ohm per foot resistance delivering spark energy, while improving power, idle and fuel efficiency. A combination Kevlar Helically Spiral Wound Core conductor for greater strength and durability that suppresses Electro Magnetic (EMI) and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).

Even more resistance, so much higher efficiency! And magic EMI/RFI suppression spiral, so no need for any pesky shielding or ferrite beads. Ride around those high-power TV/radio transmitter towers without Fox News interfering with your ignition timing!

All wires fire intermittantly no matter what coil or ignition you may have. That is why you see carbon on your plugs. ThunderVolts have a solid stream of fire power resulting in more horsepower and more mileage. Your bike will start and run better than ever before!

PACK SOME HEAT with our new 9MM Firepower spark plug wires. Black wires feature Silver 9MM Gun Boots. These are the hottest wires on the market today.
All wires fire intermittently no matter what coil or ignition you may have. That is why you see carbon on your plugs. Our 9MM Firepower wires provide a solid stream of fire power eliminating the carbon on your plugs. This results in more horsepower, more torque and better mileage. Your bike will start and run better than ever before! They are compatible with all Harley ignition systems. You have a choice of Custom Fit Sets for your Harley model or Universal Sets where you terminate to your desired length. All Taylor/Sumax wires are 100% made in U.S.A.

I thought it was the spark plug which was meant to "fire" and not the HT wires.

From memory, normal suppressor type spark plug leads were in the region of 10 to 15kOhms, so "350 Ohms/foot" sounds insignificant in comparison.
The ones manufacturers fitted were made of some woven carbon crud.
(It looked like they used string then burnt it.)

The horrible stuff would fail if over flexed, or even " if you breathed on it".
Faulty leads ranged from 50k to 500k.

The fault process seemed to involve small sections of the cable going open circuit, so there were a series of "mini sparks" along the lead, which seemed to "semi-repair" the opens, at least as far as testing at the low voltages produced on a multimeter Ohms range was concerned.

The very high resistance leads did cause misfiring, & a symptom of this fault was burning of the spark plug
connection where the lead plugged onto it.


One place sold "inductive" leads.
From,what I could determine,they were still made of "burnt string", but the individual strands were sheathed in some kind of brittle plastic.
The whole lot was then wound into a helix.

I tried them,but they didn't seem much better.

Please excuse any grammatical errors, but I am still experiencing the delights of editing on an iPad!

LOL, the carbon stuff is not the main conductor! The conductor is a steel or copper-nickel wire and is on one of the middle layers. Some apparently do use carbonized fiberglass as a "secondary conductor", but I assume that is only if the main wire breaks, which is why the faulty leads read very high resistance.

[vk6zgo]

LOL, yourself!

I've pulled more of the old type suppressor leads apart than you have  had hot breakfasts, & they are exactly as I described.
The whole idea of suppressor leads is to add some loss at RF.
15k is a common figure, which has virtually no effect on the spark.
When it increases to around 50k, it is on the way out, & 500k is "throwout territory".

Before suppressor leads, people used an inline suppressor, which connected in series with the lead from the coil to the distributor centre connection.
It was--- you guessed it ! 15k Ohm.

Anything with metal conductors isn't a resistive suppressor.
Inductive, maybe  if it is in a helix form, but straight metal conductors do not suppress anything.

[Cyberdragon]

LOL, yourself!

I've pulled more of the old type suppressor leads apart than you have  had hot breakfasts, & they are exactly as I described.
The whole idea of suppressor leads is to add some loss at RF.
15k is a common figure, which has virtually no effect on the spark.
When it increases to around 50k, it is on the way out, & 500k is "throwout territory".

Before suppressor leads, people used an inline suppressor, which connected in series with the lead from the coil to the distributor centre connection.
It was--- you guessed it ! 15k Ohm.

Anything with metal conductors isn't a resistive suppressor.
Inductive, maybe  if it is in a helix form, but straight metal conductors do not suppress anything.

Straight? I never said anything about the conductors being straight, they are coils, but they are certainly metal resistance wire, not carbon. I also meant to say they fail at highER resistance, not that they gain resistance only when failed. I don't know if the ones you saw actually had only carbon conductors, but they were either really old or super cheap crap. This is what a simple one should be like inside. The expensive ones actually do have kevlar and stuff inside.

 

[McBryce]

I don't know if the ones you saw actually had only carbon conductors, but they were either really old or super cheap crap.

NGK, Denso and Bosch all currently manufacture spark cables that use a carbon/fibre glass core as the primary conductor.

McBryce.

[G7PSK]

Ignition leads made of carburised cotton were on sale in the late 70's supposed to give better suppression of spark noise, never sure if it worked though as all the engines I came across also had suppresed plug connectors as well. I do know that it did not work very well with magnetos, they produced a much better spark with a metal cored wire.

[CJay]

AFAIK the OEM ignition leads, where fitted as they're becoming rare these days with coil on plug technologies, used a semiconducting plastic/latex over a core of carbon fibre to carry the ignition pulse, that resistance is essential for some engine management systems too, some can measure quality of ignition and get very confused if you use a low resistance cable (which is a really bad idea for EMI reasons too)

All these 'high energy' 'solid core' 'race technology' are just so much smoke and mirrors marketing designed to fool carphools into 'fixing' a problem that doesn't exist in the vast majority of cases.

[StillTrying]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

[Fungus]

Contact protectants are not a phool's errand. They are very widely used on electrical contacts, especially those that will be used outdoors or in harsh environments, or subject to repeated connection cycles.

In the environment of a living room and probably one single mating cycle it is.

An Ethernet cable either works or doesn't, there's no middle ground.

It certainly won't give you warmer bass, more air, or make your music "more danceable".

[skarecrow]

Contact protectants are not a phool's errand. They are very widely used on electrical contacts, especially those that will be used outdoors or in harsh environments, or subject to repeated connection cycles.

In the environment of a living room and probably one single mating cycle it is.

An Ethernet cable either works or doesn't, there's no middle ground.

It certainly won't give you warmer bass, more air, or make your music "more danceable".

Damn! That was actually my last hope. My doctor keeps telling me I'm too white to dance. :-D

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[G7PSK]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

Enough RF power to charge a car will probably fry any pedestrians.

[skarecrow]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

Enough RF power to charge a car will probably fry any pedestrians.

At least it'll keep them from wandering out into traffic. :-D

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[Cubdriver]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

Enough RF power to charge a car will probably fry any pedestrians.

At least it'll keep them from wandering out into traffic. :-D

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

Good way to reduce jaywalking...

-Pat

[skarecrow]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

Enough RF power to charge a car will probably fry any pedestrians.

At least it'll keep them from wandering out into traffic. :-D

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

Good way to reduce jaywalking...

-Pat

I'd honestly feel much worse for any pets that got fried than people who SHOULD know better.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[Cubdriver]

Good way to reduce jaywalking...

-Pat

I'd honestly feel much worse for any pets that got fried than people who SHOULD know better.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

A very good point that hadn't occurred to me.  It could be bad for innocent critters.  And I have to laugh at 'should know better', given the research some places have been doing (I believe I saw it somewhere on this site) with regard to putting in illuminated curbs that light red and green at crossing points to protect the morons who're so engrossed in their phones and oblivious to the world around them that they walk straight into traffic.  THAT'S something that people should know better than to do, yet many fail to grasp it. Imagine how they'd ignore invisible energy fields!

-Pat

[Richard Crowley]

... putting in illuminated curbs that light red and green at crossing points to protect the morons who're so engrossed in their phones and oblivious to the world around them that they walk straight into traffic.

Maybe it would be more effective to play the Wilhelm Scream as a warning of what could happen if the blindly step out into traffic.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream

[Cubdriver]

... putting in illuminated curbs that light red and green at crossing points to protect the morons who're so engrossed in their phones and oblivious to the world around them that they walk straight into traffic.

Maybe it would be more effective to play the Wilhelm Scream as a warning of what could happen if the blindly step out into traffic.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream

I actually think we should do nothing and just let Darwin accomplish his work.  And perhaps record a few alternatives to the Wilhelm Scream in the process.   

-Pat

[Cyberdragon]

Transferring 1mW at 10% efficiency means they'll soon be able to charge electric cars - while they're moving.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/

look at those pitiful fools and their stupid, puny magnetic coils. Nikola Tesla could do better in the 19th century! Don't they know microwave beams are the way to go? *loud sizzling and smoke emits from pedestrian*

[LordNobady]

As a cyclist this worry's me. I have to go shopping for shielding underwear for this. For a E bike it is good, no need for battery's the power that leaks form the cars is enoch for a bike.

[BSD]

Here is another apparatus from the Golder Ear set:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/stein-music-harmonizer-system/

It's so good, not even the inventor could explain how it works. Nevertheless, the reviewer found it impressive.


Then there's the "Golden Ear Awards 2016" named so, without a squat of irony. I found that amusing in itself.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/golden-ear-awards-2016-jonathan-valin/

In here there is a $129998.00 turn table and tone arm. Phew, I'm glad it wasn't $130000.00, that would have been an outrageous ripoff.
To use the turntable you can invest in a $153000 pair of speakers and an $80000 amplifier.

All of this expense so you can play a crappy piece of plastic with 45min long mark pressed into it. How impressive is that.

It never ceases to amaze me how the "Audiophile" industry gets away with this BS and gives credence to the idea that if you tell a big enough lie, it's easier to sell it.

[Mr. Scram]

Those last sites are great. I can't tell whether it's satire or dead serious.