Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /" 

You tell it what tradeoffs are important up front i.e. you don't want toll roads, don't like motorways etc. Then it remembers your preference. When you ask it to navigate to an address it gives you a shortest time and shortest distance option. When traffic changes it notifies you that it thinks it can save X minutes by rerouting and you can choose to accept it or decline it.

Life is about more than time and money.

My tradeoffs would include "having lunch at a viewpoint by a river or hill, before or after picking up some TEA", or "in order to reduce time stuck in a queue, should I deviate to pick up something at the DIY shop now or on the way back".

Both are easy to estimate with a paper map, and impossible on a satnav.

As for the voice recognition it doesn't allow you to do anything destructive by design i.e. you can't incur cost or delete things with it. That's a manual process. It's very well engineered in that respect.

Change that to "radio 4" "radio distortion"[1] "radio 4" "radio distortion" etc in different voices. Also very destructive

[1] I can only hear a pure tone for ~250ms. After that my "ML" device fades it out. Seriously!

I appreciate your cynical outlook on it. The ideas need testing. I am usually the first person to shred an idea that doesn't work or is stupid but these tools are significantly saving time, energy and cost or improving life in some way.

Importantly they enable me to have more time to enjoy what I want to do.

More accurately, what you already know you want to do, not things that you didn't even think of doing until you noticed them by chance

There are benefits to satnavs, along with disadvantages.

But we've all seen how people think X is the only way to do something, because they aren't aware of Y - or worse because they are falsely dismissive of Y.

[Vince]

TV REPAIR

I guess of course the most likely suspect is the MOSFET. So I could just remove it, should be easy, and stick it in my superb, very helpful 5 Euros Chinese component tester... I am so happy I bought this horrible thing, one of the best investments in the lab 

Stay tuned !!!   

Did you check those MOSFETs yet?

Nope, I only just woke up, the microwave oven just rang the bell to inform that my bowl of hot chocolate is warm.
Yes I know it's 12, but hey I can't go to bed so late and wake up at 5AM can I ! 
Being unemployed has some good sides to it.... I will miss that. 

I will have a look at that TV later today. I have other stuff that need my attention first. In the process of fitting plinths in the bedroom. I cut all the bits yesterday, now need to glue them to the wall, then acrylic to hide the gaps and misery, then two coats of paint... I need t have it all finished and presentable by Saturday, in time for a family visit on Sunday.
Will work on the TV while the glue will be setting.

Interesting to see that the two are from different batches/manufacturers, and also to note that the left-hand one appears to have far less heatsink compound between it and the heatsink.

Well it's chinese crap, I guess we should be happy there is heat sink to begin with, and compound is just luxury ! We got lucky to have some at all here, can't complain !

They are from the same manufacturer though , I guess ? I mean the "KF" prefix designates the manufacturer, it's  " KEC ". The 3 digits bottom right is the lot number according to the datasheet, and they there following one another, 837 and 838.
I agree that the font used is different though, between the two... could the manufacturer have allowed other manufacturers to use their "KF" prefix ?! Under license maybe, I don't know... maybe you are right and the different font is indicative of that...
But having two lot numbers that follow each other, if they were from a different manufacturer, would be really a hell of coincidence...
So I would guess they are from the same manufacturer, but they decided to change the font starting with batch 838 ! 

They are 500V 5A 1.4ohm, with a body diode inside. What I don't understand, had never seen before, it that there is more that just the body diode. Look at the datasheet attached below... the symbol they give shows what looks like a DIAC between the Gate and the Source pins ?! 
They don't talk about it in the text, strange... If I don't know what that do and how important it is, I might cause damage to teh board if I replace that MOSFET with another one that does not have this DIAC in it...

EDIT : somehow, my end at least, the forum shows a picture thumbnail below for the PDF datasheet I attached... strange. But I swear it's not a picture, just click on it and you will get the datasheet not a picture...

[bd139]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /" 

You tell it what tradeoffs are important up front i.e. you don't want toll roads, don't like motorways etc. Then it remembers your preference. When you ask it to navigate to an address it gives you a shortest time and shortest distance option. When traffic changes it notifies you that it thinks it can save X minutes by rerouting and you can choose to accept it or decline it.

Life is about more than time and money.

My tradeoffs would include "having lunch at a viewpoint by a river or hill, before or after picking up some TEA", or "in order to reduce time stuck in a queue, should I deviate to pick up something at the DIY shop now or on the way back".

Both are easy to estimate with a paper map, and impossible on a satnav.

It's not a satnav. It's a computer. It has access to lots of data about things of interest, restaurants, shops and can organise waypoints and detours quite happily. "Hey siri I need a toilet" works 

As for the voice recognition it doesn't allow you to do anything destructive by design i.e. you can't incur cost or delete things with it. That's a manual process. It's very well engineered in that respect.

Change that to "radio 4" "radio distortion"[1] "radio 4" "radio distortion" etc in different voices. Also very destructive

[1] I can only hear a pure tone for ~250ms. After that my "ML" device fades it out. Seriously!

I appreciate your cynical outlook on it. The ideas need testing. I am usually the first person to shred an idea that doesn't work or is stupid but these tools are significantly saving time, energy and cost or improving life in some way.

Importantly they enable me to have more time to enjoy what I want to do.

More accurately, what you already know you want to do, not things that you didn't even think of doing until you noticed them by chance

There are benefits to satnavs, along with disadvantages.

"Hey siri remind me to look up Kelveden Hatch Secret Bunker when I get home"

...

[Specmaster]

Just so.

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

You used to be able to get that just from a quiet stroll on Hampstead Heath. 

Where have all the flashers moved onto then? 

[PA0PBZ]

EDIT : somehow, my end at least, the forum shows a picture thumbnail below for the PDF datasheet I attached... strange. But I swear it's not a picture, just click on it and you will get the datasheet not a picture...

I clicked on the picture and it disappeared 

[Cerebus]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Even using a satnav unless it is built into the car can land you in trouble, clearly these new laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing. What harm are you doing if you are stationary (not in a traffic jam, but parked at road side), your not currently driving so no danger to others. I expect the next thing will be banning drivers from talking to passengers FFS.

Wrong, on many points.

You can't use a hand-held phone or other device while driving. You can use one when parked at the side of the road.

Exceptions
You can use a device held in your hand if:

• you need to call 999 or 112 in an emergency and it’s unsafe or impractical to stop
• you’re safely parked
• you’re making a contactless payment in a vehicle that is not moving, for example at a drive-through restaurant
• you’re using the device to park your vehicle remotely

Using devices hands-free

You can use devices with hands-free access, as long as you do not hold them at any time during usage. Hands-free access means using, for example:

• a Bluetooth headset
• voice command
• a dashboard holder or mat
• a windscreen mount
• a built-in sat nav

The device must not block your view of the road and traffic ahead.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

So it's simple. Hold it in your hand while driving and you're nicked, and should be. Pull over safely, to a situation where you don't need to concentrate on or react to other traffic and you're golden. Common sense, not "laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing.".

[AVGresponding]

TV REPAIR

I guess of course the most likely suspect is the MOSFET. So I could just remove it, should be easy, and stick it in my superb, very helpful 5 Euros Chinese component tester... I am so happy I bought this horrible thing, one of the best investments in the lab 

Stay tuned !!!   

Did you check those MOSFETs yet?

Nope, I only just woke up, the microwave oven just rang the bell to inform that my bowl of hot chocolate is warm.
Yes I know it's 12, but hey I can't go to bed so late and wake up at 5AM can I ! 
Being unemployed has some good sides to it.... I will miss that. 

I will have a look at that TV later today. I have other stuff that need my attention first. In the process of fitting plinths in the bedroom. I cut all the bits yesterday, now need to glue them to the wall, then acrylic to hide the gaps and misery, then two coats of paint... I need t have it all finished and presentable by Saturday, in time for a family visit on Sunday.
Will work on the TV while the glue will be setting.

Interesting to see that the two are from different batches/manufacturers, and also to note that the left-hand one appears to have far less heatsink compound between it and the heatsink.

Well it's chinese crap, I guess we should be happy there is heat sink to begin with, and compound is just luxury ! We got lucky to have some at all here, can't complain !

They are from the same manufacturer though , I guess ? I mean the "KF" prefix designates the manufacturer, it's  " KEC ". The 3 digits bottom right is the lot number according to the datasheet, and they there following one another, 837 and 838.
I agree that the font used is different though, between the two... could the manufacturer have allowed other manufacturers to use their "KF" prefix ?! Under license maybe, I don't know... maybe you are right and the different font is indicative of that...
But having two lot numbers that follow each other, if they were from a different manufacturer, would be really a hell of coincidence...
So I would guess they are from the same manufacturer, but they decided to change the font starting with batch 838 ! 

They are 500V 5A 1.4ohm, with a body diode inside. What I don't understand, had never seen before, it that there is more that just the body diode. Look at the datasheet attached below... the symbol they give shows what looks like a DIAC between the Gate and the Source pins ?! 
They don't talk about it in the text, strange... If I don't know what that do and how important it is, I might cause damage to teh board if I replace that MOSFET with another one that does not have this DIAC in it...

EDIT : somehow, my end at least, the forum shows a picture thumbnail below for the PDF datasheet I attached... strange. But I swear it's not a picture, just click on it and you will get the datasheet not a picture...

Not just the font; the casing plastic appears to be a slightly different colour. That and the observation about the heatsink compound infers there may be a thermal issue. TO-220P have a pretty horrible thermal resistance compared to regular TO-220.

[Vince]

EDIT : somehow, my end at least, the forum shows a picture thumbnail below for the PDF datasheet I attached... strange. But I swear it's not a picture, just click on it and you will get the datasheet not a picture...

I clicked on the picture and it disappeared 

How funky eh ! I think this forum software has a mind of its own... it must be haunted....

[bd139]

Just so.

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

You used to be able to get that just from a quiet stroll on Hampstead Heath. 

Where have all the flashers moved onto then? 

Urban Hounslow apparently. Big problem round here. Although the last one I heard about did it to some teenage girls and they told him he had a very tiny penis and laughed.

[Specmaster]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /" 

You tell it what tradeoffs are important up front i.e. you don't want toll roads, don't like motorways etc. Then it remembers your preference. When you ask it to navigate to an address it gives you a shortest time and shortest distance option. When traffic changes it notifies you that it thinks it can save X minutes by rerouting and you can choose to accept it or decline it.

As for the voice recognition it doesn't allow you to do anything destructive by design i.e. you can't incur cost or delete things with it. That's a manual process. It's very well engineered in that respect.

I appreciate your cynical outlook on it. The ideas need testing. I am usually the first person to shred an idea that doesn't work or is stupid but these tools are significantly saving time, energy and cost or improving life in some way.

Importantly they enable me to have more time to enjoy what I want to do.

My TomTom has built in voice control and will present you with alternative routes if it detects problems on your current route and you select it verbally if you want. While I love it over the cars built-in satnav, the voice control is extremely finicky, the ability to feed you live traffic info is very impressive when paired with my phone as it talks to other TomTom units so if there are others in front of you, your unit will be aware of any problems they are having on the roads, and it uses that info to help you avoid the delays. So much better than the built-in system which can only respond once it gets a radio TMC signal from the radio station that carries traffic information and that is always after someone has phoned in the with the problem, so you may get a warning or not, but it is always incurring a delay. More often than not, it alerts you to the problem after you have become stuck in it, so the TomTom wins hands down, plus of course, with my particular model, I have lifetime free map and speed camera updates which saves a mint each year.

[bd139]

Some TE content for a change. Checking out these 0.01% resistor pulls while waiting for a yum update run. So far so good!

[Specmaster]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Even using a satnav unless it is built into the car can land you in trouble, clearly these new laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing. What harm are you doing if you are stationary (not in a traffic jam, but parked at road side), your not currently driving so no danger to others. I expect the next thing will be banning drivers from talking to passengers FFS.

Wrong, on many points.

You can't use a hand-held phone or other device while driving. You can use one when parked at the side of the road.

Exceptions
You can use a device held in your hand if:

• you need to call 999 or 112 in an emergency and it’s unsafe or impractical to stop
• you’re safely parked
• you’re making a contactless payment in a vehicle that is not moving, for example at a drive-through restaurant
• you’re using the device to park your vehicle remotely

Using devices hands-free

You can use devices with hands-free access, as long as you do not hold them at any time during usage. Hands-free access means using, for example:

• a Bluetooth headset
• voice command
• a dashboard holder or mat
• a windscreen mount
• a built-in sat nav

The device must not block your view of the road and traffic ahead.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

So it's simple. Hold it in your hand while driving and you're nicked, and should be. Pull over safely, to a situation where you don't need to concentrate on or react to other traffic and you're golden. Common sense, not "laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing.".

I got that info from a link in a news report to the new rules, and it specifically stated that to use any handheld device, phone or satnav, tablet, you must be parked up and not have the ignition on, other words' engine off and in the case of sensible cars, ignition keys removed from the ignition switch. So how does that work in keyless cars when you have to do is press the start button and ignition is on?

I remember a few years back that I got pulled over, on an urban clearway mind you, by a police car that had been following me and he suspected me of holding a phone to my ear. Imagine how stupid the officer felt when he saw that I was indeed on the phone, hands free through the car stereo, phone on a dash mount and that I was scratching an itch on my ear at the time 

[Specmaster]

TV REPAIR

I guess of course the most likely suspect is the MOSFET. So I could just remove it, should be easy, and stick it in my superb, very helpful 5 Euros Chinese component tester... I am so happy I bought this horrible thing, one of the best investments in the lab 

Stay tuned !!!   

Did you check those MOSFETs yet?

Nope, I only just woke up, the microwave oven just rang the bell to inform that my bowl of hot chocolate is warm.
Yes I know it's 12, but hey I can't go to bed so late and wake up at 5AM can I ! 
Being unemployed has some good sides to it.... I will miss that. 

I will have a look at that TV later today. I have other stuff that need my attention first. In the process of fitting plinths in the bedroom. I cut all the bits yesterday, now need to glue them to the wall, then acrylic to hide the gaps and misery, then two coats of paint... I need t have it all finished and presentable by Saturday, in time for a family visit on Sunday.
Will work on the TV while the glue will be setting.

Interesting to see that the two are from different batches/manufacturers, and also to note that the left-hand one appears to have far less heatsink compound between it and the heatsink.

Well it's chinese crap, I guess we should be happy there is heat sink to begin with, and compound is just luxury ! We got lucky to have some at all here, can't complain !

They are from the same manufacturer though , I guess ? I mean the "KF" prefix designates the manufacturer, it's  " KEC ". The 3 digits bottom right is the lot number according to the datasheet, and they there following one another, 837 and 838.
I agree that the font used is different though, between the two... could the manufacturer have allowed other manufacturers to use their "KF" prefix ?! Under license maybe, I don't know... maybe you are right and the different font is indicative of that...
But having two lot numbers that follow each other, if they were from a different manufacturer, would be really a hell of coincidence...
So I would guess they are from the same manufacturer, but they decided to change the font starting with batch 838 ! 

They are 500V 5A 1.4ohm, with a body diode inside. What I don't understand, had never seen before, it that there is more that just the body diode. Look at the datasheet attached below... the symbol they give shows what looks like a DIAC between the Gate and the Source pins ?! 
They don't talk about it in the text, strange... If I don't know what that do and how important it is, I might cause damage to teh board if I replace that MOSFET with another one that does not have this DIAC in it...

EDIT : somehow, my end at least, the forum shows a picture thumbnail below for the PDF datasheet I attached... strange. But I swear it's not a picture, just click on it and you will get the datasheet not a picture...

I think that maybe you have forgotten the golden rule about when attaching anything, photo etc to a post, always ignore the first presented position and click on the more tab and use the second one, the first has a glitch that does this sort of thing from time to time.

[med6753]

Continuing from yesterday.

After changing Q122 and Q142 Channel 1 of this Type 1A1 required a complete calibration. Everything fell into place easily and there were no issues. On to Channel 2. At the 5mV vertical setting the 100kHZ signal applied as per the manual displayed peaking as shown in the first pix. It took considerable tweaking of trim caps to finally get it looking good as in pix 2. 

All the gremlins have been excised from this plug-in. Next on the project list is PSU re-cap of a 465B. The caps were supposed to arrive today but UPS dropped the ball and they will arrive tomorrow.

[bd139]

Oh don't. I'm probably going to have to do that 465B at some point. It's working fine though at the moment bar that popped IC so I'm not going to fix it until it breaks now.

BTW good job on the 1A1

[tggzzz]

Source: https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law

So it's simple. Hold it in your hand while driving and you're nicked, and should be. Pull over safely, to a situation where you don't need to concentrate on or react to other traffic and you're golden. Common sense, not "laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing.".

I believe that "parking" requires having the engine turned off, not merely having the parking handle/lock engaged. ISTR reading that even having your keys in the lock is sufficient to get you nicked.

EDIT: looks like specmaster beat me to it while I was lubricating my resistor.

Add that the police never ever over-reach their authority, oh no, and you have to be overly cautious in this respect. (Who muttered something about taking photos in a public city centre street? Troublemaker)

[bd139]

Police mostly have better things to do than checking stopped cars for phone activity. That comes from a police officer I know

He’s currently playing “which pikey nicked the motorbike”

[Vince]

TV REPAIR

They are 500V 5A 1.4ohm, with a body diode inside. What I don't understand, had never seen before, it that there is more that just the body diode. Look at the datasheet attached below... the symbol they give shows what looks like a DIAC between the Gate and the Source pins ?! 
They don't talk about it in the text, strange... If I don't know what that do and how important it is, I might cause damage to the board if I replace that MOSFET with another one that does not have this DIAC in it...

Not just the font; the casing plastic appears to be a slightly different colour. That and the observation about the heatsink compound infers there may be a thermal issue. TO-220P have a pretty horrible thermal resistance compared to regular TO-220.

Oh yes good point ! Sorry I failed to get that in your prior message, told you just woke up, need an hour to sharpen up ! 

OK, so did a quick test before I go working on my plinths. Powered up the TV and measured voltages at the test points conveniently provided on the board.
One reads 190V no ripple, good DC.
Other one reads only 133V, no ripple either, good DC.


So the MOSFET and the power stuff is good, it can generate HV... just not enough of it...

From working on the other TV last time, I know this is normal behaviour for a working board but failed LED strips...

The board at startup puts out 200V+ to get the LED's going, then lowers the voltage to a bit lower than 200V, as it regulates the current and lowers the voltage as necessary.
The driver chip monitors the current and if it senses a short or open-circuit condition, it lowers the voltage by a few tens of volts like it does here, as a precaution, to be below the voltage drop of the diodes.

Did another test : measured Vgs on both MOSFETs, thinking the AVG DMM value would reflect the duty cycle being applied to the gate, hence tell me what the driver chip is actually asking. That is, do I get a low voltage because the chip asks for it, hence it is sensing a fault, or does the chip want to give me proper voltage but it fails because of external reasons.

The one that puts out 190V, the working string, I get 11V AVG at the gate. The other one that puts out only 133V, I get only 8.5V, which seems consistent...

So looks like  the chip is working fine and just doing what's supposed to be doing when a string fails.

So that means my luck is out, didn't last long did it...


So yes, bad luck, we do have indeed two strings failed at the same time... so either the owner lied and it happened one string then later the other one (owners always lie to me...), or, it's a cascaded failure. One string failed and caused the other to follow suit.

I don't know. For example say the original fault was an LED going open circuit in one string. Instantly that doubles the current in the remaining string, because they are wired in  //, and that blows the LEDs in that string.... unless the driver chip can react fast enough to lower the voltage in time, but can it.... LEDs blow instantly, they don't wait for Mister driver chip to react...

OK so it's like the other TV then, need to take the LCD apart again to get to the LED strips inside, oh dear....... 

Before I do that I will ask permission from the owner... if I damage the LCD during disassembly/re-assembly, I don't want him to be mad at me. So either he is OK taking the risk, or I give him back and he can take it to a professional shop that will charge him 250 for the job... assuming he can even find such a shop, locally at that, as he is of course not going to package and ship such a monster TV, too much money and trouble.

So hopefully he will see it as a "nothing to lose, go for it, whatever happens happens ! " case... if not well I will get to reclaim the bench space sooner that I expected.... and I wouldn't be complaining... this thing just is way too big to be practical to repair. Way.. too... big. Makes my Tek boat anchors look like toys.

[Vince]

OK that was quick... got the green flag from the owner. " Nothing to lose go for it ! ".
Says it's out of warranty and he already replaced the TV with a new one anyway...

[bd139]

Worth a go. Sometimes you win. I paid £0.99 for my old 32" Samsung dumb TV on ebay because it wouldn't turn on. Turned out to be a PSU cap. Did me for a few years and cost me total £7 I think including the cheap replacement remote that was required.

[med6753]

Oh don't. I'm probably going to have to do that 465B at some point. It's working fine though at the moment bar that popped IC so I'm not going to fix it until it breaks now.

BTW good job on the 1A1

Don't fret. There will be plenty of pictures which you can save to your own files for reference when you get around to re-capping it. 

[tggzzz]

Police mostly have better things to do than checking stopped cars for phone activity. That comes from a police officer I know

He’s currently playing “which pikey nicked the motorbike”

While we were both stopped in a traffic jam in opposite directions, one copper opened the window and, IIRC, said something like "at least you aren't using it while moving".

If they pull you over for something else, they may add such an offence to the (possibly empty) set of things they are recording for the future.

[med6753]

One ex of mine managed to get two using cell while driving tickets. At $150 USD each plus court costs. Did it deter her? Not one bit. 

[vk6zgo]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

My daughter is into spoken directions on her phone, & "in a weak moment" on several occasions, I have tried to navigate by such directions (when she is in the car holding the phone).

It always freaks me out.
The thing doesn't know the difference between a huge roundabout & a tiny one, so it says things like "turn right at the second exit", when the roundabout is just a few metres in diameter, placed in the middle of a normal intersection.

It will also send you down some  40kmh "goat track", insisting it is a shorter distance, & hence "faster" than the multi-laned 100kmh controlled access highway alternative.

[GreyWoolfe]

Thankfully, I am not my pants either.  I have forgotten my phone, keys, wallet, BT headset and pen but I haven't YET left the house without my pants.  Yet.  I hope that day never comes.  

Why not? it's fun to go out without your pants. Ask any toddler. 

My memory seems to be slipping more and more.  Mrs GreyWoolfe thinks its the chemotherapy/fatigue from it that causes my memory issues.  I will not disabuse her of that notion.

You aren't losing your marbles yet, it is the chemo. A friend has been complaining about getting "chemo brain" after his treatments but he bounces back to normal after a couple of weeks.

Thanks for the encouraging word.  I am 13 months into an 18 month cycle.  The physical/mental exhaustion is wearing.  I also read that it can take from 4.5 to 6 months after treatment ends for testosterone levels to return to normal so basically I could potentially have another year of this bullsh!t to go through.  Mrs GreyWoolfe is also my primary care's medical assistant, she is a pretty smart cookie for not having a medical degree.  I do believe her but for me, the light at the end of the tunnel is but a pinprick that I have to squint at to make out.  By the way, only toddlers get away without pants and only Michael Jackson got away with grabbing his junk in public.  I fear I would end up in a rubber room in a very form fitting jacket.