Revengish URL

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue May 27 18:03:00 2003

> vassilip_at_dsl.cis.upenn.edu wrote:
> > So when the BBC + Torch arrived, the genious who was responsible for
> > assembling the kit, promptly added a mains plug to the power cable
> > and plugged it in, feeding 240V AC to the +5 and +12V rails.
>
> Same thing happened at my Uni when one of the Prime operators took
> home a BBC for the holidays. She had an external disk drive for it,
> that plugged into the BBC's power underneath the machine (not at
> all obvious). So, she went ahead and fitted a mains plug to the
> three-core cable that fed the drive. Usual release of magic smoke...

SOmewhat off-topic, but I once had to repair an IR spectrophotometer that
used a Bulgin 5A connector (conventionally a mains connector) for the
chart recorder signal output. Of course the obvious happened, somebody
plugged a mains lead in there.

Fortunately, the amplifier/control unit was almost entirely valved, and
the chart recorder signal came from a cathode follower. The only thing to
get cooked was the cathode resistor...

I am told that some Pye hi-fi amplifiers (mono, of course, and possibly
based on the Williamson design) used _identical_ Bulgin connectors for
the mains and speaker connections. Cross those over, and you blew fuses
and the output transformer...

-tony
Received on Tue May 27 2003 - 18:03:00 BST