totm nov 2023 Thread to discuss negative things in a very general way, just see where it goes y'know?

[qzgy]

23 hours ago, XB-70A said:

Well, double post, but today I broke my snare pad for the second time in 10 months... 

That seems fast. Dumb question, but would putting a thing (patch? strip?) of ductape over the broken part extend the life a bit longer? Cause the rest of it seems pretty ok...

[XB-70A]

1 hour ago, qzgy said:

That seems fast. Dumb question, but would putting a thing (patch? strip?) of ductape over the broken part extend the life a bit longer? Cause the rest of it seems pretty ok...

It is fast, but those models are cheap (about 40.00 USD). That’s the reason why they come with a net rather than a solid synthetic cover. I already dismantled one to put a new net, and will give it a try. To put Duc tape on it wouldn’t work, as the pad’s microphone is right under the net.

However, I’ll be interested to give it a try with the second pad... just for the experiment. Maybe the sound will even be better 

[tater]

Cat figured out dog door ages ago. We've taken to calling her in the afternoon with treats, then locking the dog door. Dog needs the door in the daytime to go to the bathroom if no one to let her out.

Last night she didn't come back. There's like 1 house between us and 38,000 acres of national forest. We have rattlesnakes, eagles, hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. Maybe she's roaming around eating lizards, rats, rabbits and birds (all things she has been seen with), but I fear the worst.

Pretty sad day around here.

 

[Lewie]

I’m really sorry about that man. Cats are really lovable creatures, and it’s horrible when they go missing

[TheSaint]

On 5/5/2020 at 1:35 PM, tater said:

Cat figured out dog door ages ago. We've taken to calling her in the afternoon with treats, then locking the dog door. Dog needs the door in the daytime to go to the bathroom if no one to let her out.

Last night she didn't come back. There's like 1 house between us and 38,000 acres of national forest. We have rattlesnakes, eagles, hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. Maybe she's roaming around eating lizards, rats, rabbits and birds (all things she has been seen with), but I fear the worst.

Pretty sad day around here.

That sucks. But I wouldn't give up hope just yet. When ours was younger she would go out gallivanting for three or four days at a time. Just when I was ready to declare her lost, she'd show up again.

[tater]

On 5/6/2020 at 3:09 PM, TheSaint said:

That sucks. But I wouldn't give up hope just yet. When ours was younger she would go out gallivanting for three or four days at a time. Just when I was ready to declare her lost, she'd show up again.

So we're all asleep (it's midnight here), and I hear this noise like a tree branch on glass, barely audible. I'm a light sleeper for certain sorts of noises. One other thing sounds like that—the cat has a tiny, tiny voice, has never more than squeaked. Listen... again...

She's at the dog door. Let her in, locked dog door. Woke the kids up. They're happy. Stupid cat.

So I guess this is entirely off topic for this thread.

[StrandedonEarth]

9 hours ago, tater said:

So we're all asleep (it's midnight here), and I hear this noise like a tree branch on glass, barely audible. I'm a light sleeper for certain sorts of noises. One other thing sounds like that—the cat has a tiny, tiny voice, has never more than squeaked. Listen... again...

She's at the dog door. Let her in, locked dog door. Woke the kids up. They're happy. Stupid cat.

So I guess this is entirely off topic for this thread.

Glad to hear it! My brother’s cat twice went missing for a week. Once she was in a neighbour’s shed, the other time in the seldom-opened garage next door. That guy did not want to open his garage, thinking we made it up to have a look inside. Both times I heard her meowing away while walking the dog down the alley. I realize you don’t have many neighbours, but....

Cats and curiosity... I think there could be a meme there, an image of a cat that got run over by the Curiosity rover...

Edited May 8, 2020 by StrandedonEarth

[tater]

22 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Glad to hear it! My brother’s cat twice went missing for a week. Once she was in a neighbour’s shed, the other time in the seldom-opened garage next door. That guy did not want to open his garage, thinking we made it up to have a look inside. Both times I heard her meowing away while walking the dog down the alley. I realize you don’t have many neighbours, but....

Cats and curiosity... I think there could be a meme there, an image of a cat that got run over by the Curiosity rover...

Yeah, that is certainly a possibility.

[TheSaint]

9 hours ago, tater said:

So we're all asleep (it's midnight here), and I hear this noise like a tree branch on glass, barely audible. I'm a light sleeper for certain sorts of noises. One other thing sounds like that—the cat has a tiny, tiny voice, has never more than squeaked. Listen... again...

She's at the dog door. Let her in, locked dog door. Woke the kids up. They're happy. Stupid cat.

So I guess this is entirely off topic for this thread.

Glad to hear it as well. We gave up trying to tell ours what to do. Can't even keep a collar on her. If she goes missing or winds up as coyote poop, well, we tried. Thankfully she's settled down as she's grown older. She rarely ventures out of the yard these days, and she's in the house every night. She has apparently discovered the miracle of sleeping in a warm bed.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

Glad to hear it as well. We gave up trying to tell ours what to do. Can't even keep a collar on her. If she goes missing or winds up as coyote poop, well, we tried. Thankfully she's settled down as she's grown older. She rarely ventures out of the yard these days, and she's in the house every night. She has apparently discovered the miracle of sleeping in a warm bed.

Yeah, ours is just about 1 YO right now, so she hasn't settled down. The dog has always had a dog door, so she goes in and out a lot, and if no one is home, the dog door has to be open. I suppose we could lock the cat in some part of the house, but then we have to worry about her bolting when the door opens. With kids, and kid' friends around, she's going to get outside, so we figured it's better if she thinks in and out is normal vs "making a break for it" then not wanting to come back in (if that makes any sense).

 

[Selective Genius]

Due to the current pandemic situation, my temporary gig (and chances of being made a permanent staff) at the material science lab I have been working for the past year has been nullified 'until further notice'. I have been informed by my mentor that 'until further notice' may be like an year, since Government has been freezing all research funds and a significant percentage of the salary of the permanent staff for the fight against Covid. The research fund is what provides me my stipend. I will have to pursue alternate routes for employment.

Also, my roomie won't get her salary (she works as a school teacher) till September, since her school has no money left anymore. The main source of her school's income are tuition fees, sales of books and new admissions. Since this pandemic hit before the new academic session could start, there's no cash from new admissions or book sales. As no classes are going on, parents refuse to pay the tuition fees. My roomie spends 6 hours a day on an average, in front of her laptop, preparing study materials and taking online classes. And the parents still refuse to pay the tuition fees.

And the absolute icing on the cake: Whatever cash the school had left with it was spent by the new PR - hungry, attention seeking Principal on 'Charity events' like distributing food packets in poor areas and medical supplies to policemen. And, after announcing that there will be no salary till September, and that even after September, staff will not get their complete salary which the school owes them, the Principal has the NERVE to ask for 'Monetary Contribution' from her staff members to help the poor and needy.

TL;DR : Me and my proto-wife are now broke. We had planned so much for the future, its all dust now... And the best part? The worst of the pandemic has just started in my country!

[richfiles]

On 5/11/2020 at 3:12 AM, Selective Genius said:

...after announcing that there will be no salary till September, and that even after September, staff will not get their complete salary which the school owes them, the Principal has the NERVE to ask for 'Monetary Contribution' from her staff members to help the poor and needy.

I'd be asking her if you'll be finally getting support from her only after she's made you into the poor and needy first...
She has an obligation to support those she employs first, before making some big attention grabbing showing of spending what remains of your earnings on charity, especially when it's obviously being done for clout.

 

As for myself, I helped my brother again, wiring lights for another tractor. This time, he was installing a factory optional cab onto a vintage tractor. All his tractors, till now, have been open seated cabless models. In the late 50s and through the 60s, cabs were becoming an option on more and more tractor models, and living in Minnesota means cold winters. He did not want to have to plow the driveway of snow in an open tractor again, so he tracked down a cab that would fit that model, and installed it. It still needs some work. Gonna have to completely rebuild the heater and the air circulator. I need to connect a single wire to make the windshield wipers work, but the important thing was the lights. Can't use it at night if you can't see.

Just like the last time I wired a tractor for him... I forgot my multimeter at home...
...
...

...
...
I can't belive I've done that TWICE now... Well, like last time, he had a simple automotive light probe. All it is, is a probe with a light bulb, a pointy metal tip, and a long ground lead with a clip. His little boy got a hold of it... And broke it. So now I had NOTHING to test with. I checked it out, and determined that the ground wire had been broken, but I couldn't tell where, so I pulled out my soldering iron, cut a new lead from the ONE spool of new wire he actually had, and made a new lead. Now it worked perfectly fine. I asked him to clip it to the negative of the battery, and I started probing the light switch on the dash panel... And nothing looked right. Things were on when they should have been off. Some things didn't turn on at all... Nothing made sense. I got some connections that were working made, and I got the first lights to light up on one side, but not the other. By this point, I'm 3 hours in, after chasing nothing but problems and confusing faults. I thought, maybe the lights aren't properly grounded. Cab was repainted, so it could be the bolt isn't touching metal, so I decided to connect a direct jumper from the light's ground to the battery ground where the probe was clipped to...
...
Folks... Did you know, tractor engines are big... Big enough that they need a little extra juice to crank...
When I touched the wire to the negative terminal of the battery, the wire seared the pattern of the wire strands into my finger tip, along with firing off a huge spark...

I asked my brother... "Does this tractor have a second battery?", to which he replied, "Yeah, why?"
I immediately knew what had happened. "And what's the configuration?", to which he replied, "It's a 12 volt system with two 6 volt batteries in series. It that important?"
"Yeah... You clipped the probe's ground lead to the center negative... And the new brand seared into my fingertip tells me I just touched a 6 volt, high amp battery directly to ground."
This explains all the erroneous readings I was getting. My probe wasn't attached to ground. It was attached to +6 volts. It meant that none of the measurements I'd made were done properly. Once I also had the probe properly grounded, I was able to test power going out to the lights... and confirm that literally 4 of the 10 lights on the cab were already burned out. Did we have replacements? Nope! We had random tractor lights strewn about the workbench and on old fenders and in boxes of old tractor wire harnesses, and salvaged from an old planter... Nothing was new. It was scavenge this and test to see if that's good, and will this scrap of wire reach... That was how the entire night went. I hope this wire is a heavy enough gauge for that light's current draw. I think this wire will reach. Does this part even work? Install it and find out.

There was one singular moment that just... infuriated me... The cab had a segment of wire harness that passed from the inside to the rear outside, where the rear lights are mounted. The ends of the wire were old, brittle, and unusable, but years of grease had protected the wire closer to the grommet the wire fed out through. The wire need only about 2-3 inches trimmed off, and I could splice in new wire. The wire inside the cab was in perfect condition, and even fed to where I needed to splice it in with the harness leading to the flashers. It was literally perfect... It had gotten late, and my brother doesn't usually stay up that late. He said the wires were shot. I had tested and confirmed they were fine, and I only needed to trim out the portion with the rotted out insulation. He... He wasn't gonna be wrong, for anything... He stubbornly cut the wires off, flush with the grommet, the moment I tried to argue they were perfectly fine, making them entirely unusable. 

I. Was. Livid.

Unfortunately, it added an hour to my work, and forced me to settle with a TERRIBLE, and VERY SHODDY solution of feeding the wires out through a seam in the grommet around the bottom rear window. He thought I would just  feed new whirled hole... He never even looked at where they came through. The wires were internally fed through two sharp bends, and the only way to access it  was to fully disassemble the cab, and access it from underneath, hence the shoddy through the seam of the window's rubber seal. An extra hour, it added! All cause he was stubborn, and was absolutely right, and not this guy he brought in to do the wiring, cause he don't know wiring himself... I really wanted to chew him out. It took every bit of my willpower to not just explode at him... I repressed my rage, cause all I knew was I didn't want to start an argument over something that can't be changed anymore, not that late... UGH!  I just wanted to finish... I DID make it very clear his actions had added an extra hour to my work though, and I did force him to look where the wire came out, and that I couldn't "just run a new wire through", not unless he was willing to unbolt the entire side panel of the cab (he was not willing). I didn't argue with him, but I made sure he knew it was his fault for tacking another hour past his bedtime! 

Oh, and there were two other fundamental issues that just made the day absolutely drag, that simply couldn't be fixed, due to circumstances... First, was the very nature of the cab itself. The cab was a factory option. It bolted on in place of the traditional seat, and had a wiring harness that plugged into a socket inside the dash board panel. Unfortunately, the tractor had been rebuilt at some point, and the original wire harness was replaced with one with different connections. The cab had itself also been stripped, sandblasted, and repainted, and no longer even had it's wire harness. I had to figure out how to make it all come together, but what also made the day a literal pain, was the fact that the cab design was an add on to a machine that originally did not come with a cab. The position of the ladders, the doors, the wheels... It was all awkward at best, and straining at worst. Imagine an overweight, middle aged dude swinging around, climbing up and down a set of monkey bars for 10 hours, and you get a VERY good idea of what I was doing in and around that cab. To say I was suffering bodily pain for the next three days, would have been an understatement. On a  bright note, it was probably great exercise, and it made me notice my burned fingertip much less!

The second major inconvenience was the lugs and fast-on connectors... Some of them were perfectly fine. I have a very good crimping tool... Unfortunately, the local shop carries a brand of crimps that are abominably BAD... You insert the correct gauge wire, you crimp it using the correct position on the crimper... And the crimp just pulls right off the wire with the slightest tug. Now, this post is quite a bit later than the actual day all this happened... It was the evening before Easter when I actually did all this work, so literally a month ago. The thing is, all the shops were closed earlier than normal, either because of the craziness with shutdowns going on, or just because it was the evening before Easter... I had a limited number of crimps to use, and they kept failing. I was forced to cut "filler strands"... Extra bits of wire to take up additional space in the crimp. For whatever reason, the wires all had to have a tight fit BEFORE crimping, or the crimp would fail, and the wire would simply pull out. GOOD crimp connectors DON'T FAIL like these did! This was TEDIOUS, METICULOUS work! Feeding multiple wires, plus filler strands, into a crimp, while holding the crimp in a crimper... This took time... FAR MORE TIME than ever should have been. If I had all my tools, good crimps, and nothing went wrong, and basics such as "are all the parts I'm putting in even good in the first place?" dealt with, this would have been a 2-3 hour job, maybe 4 tops. Instead, it took me from 5 pm (17:00) till 3 in the morning, a full 10 hours!

That's right... I didn't finish till 3 in the morning. I literally only had ONE WIRE to crimp, and plug into a socket, to get the wipers going too, but I was just too tired to even realize how simple wiring it up would have been, and it just... never clicked in my head to do it. I had nothing left in me, and still had to drive home, and STILL had to wash up before going to bed... My brother kept asking me if I was cold. I was not. I was too busy climbing up and down the cab and bending in odd ways to reach wires. When packing up my tools at the end of the day, I noticed the window of his shed was open... Apparently that's just open. always. glass is gone. I exited... to a snowstorm! I had NO IDEA a snowstorm had blown in! I guess that's why my brother kept asking if I was cold. It was literally freezing outside the shed, and not much better inside. I just didn't notice cause I was working. Ultimately, I had to drive home at about 30 MPH (48 km/h) (or 13.2 m/s, in kerbal preferred units ). I had to carry my tools in (I don't trust leaving tools in my car), wash up, and eat something, as I'd gotten into "the zone" and did that 10 hours of work straight, without stopping for anything. 

So why then, with all that hassle and fuss, did I wait a month to post this?

Honestly, i've been busy, and the time when it was fresh on my mind, I also spent just lying nigh motionless in bed till the afternoon, cause, you know... the monkey bars cab climb thing and the 3 am thing. I had circuit boards I needed to make for work too, so once I was able to move again, I worked on soldering those.

What made me come back this this and think about it again? While I was soldering boards, a dry, crusty flap of something peeled off my finger tip. It bore the unmistakable imprint of copper wire strands... It was the dead skin from my burned fingertip, finally peeling off and landing on my workbench... It all came rushing back to me. Battery cooked my fingertip pretty good! 

Edited May 12, 2020 by richfiles

[Delay]

Schools reopened on Monday! Much better than having tasks sent to me to do them at home, that's something I could get used to even after three weeks!
However, students and teacher alike have to wash their hands before each lesson. Now, I'm absolutely fine with that... OR AT LEAST I WOULD BE.

On all three days, I've managed to get shocked by faucets and water alike more than three times per day. Sometimes I just hear the crackle, other times it actually hurts. I still occasionally feel a bit of tingling on the fingertip from one of yesterday's shocks.
I've spoken with my teacher about how I cannot use the faucets like this. I'm in no danger, but it's really unpleasant and leaves me overly careful when touching any metallic (or even non-metallic) surface. Turns out I'm not the only one to get these shocks, but from what others said I may be a bit more sensitive than them.

The long term solution is that I won't use water anymore. Disinfectants will have to do instead. I only had school in school for these three days, next time I enter the building again will be in a few weeks (equipped with a multimeter!), so I have plenty of time.

[EchoLima]

...

Edited May 15, 2020 by EchoLima

[Shpaget]

Spent two days designing two PCBs for a project, completely done with one, started on the other when I had a deja vu. Went into my electronics folder and deja vu indeed. I've already done those things two months ago and the fully functional and tested boards have been sitting on my desk the whole time. 

Should I be worried?

[RealKerbal3x]

35 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Spent two days designing two PCBs for a project, completely done with one, started on the other when I had a deja vu. Went into my electronics folder and deja vu indeed. I've already done those things two months ago and the fully functional and tested boards have been sitting on my desk the whole time. 

Should I be worried?

It's probably the craft duplication bug, usually restarting the game fixes it.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Spent two days designing two PCBs for a project, completely done with one, started on the other when I had a deja vu. Went into my electronics folder and deja vu indeed. I've already done those things two months ago and the fully functional and tested boards have been sitting on my desk the whole time. 

Should I be worried?

No, it's normal, just a temporal standing wave causing temporal superposition of several object instances.

Just from now on have a backup copy of the project on the necklace, and be ready to copy it to your computer when you appear at the two-months-ago time point.
(Just to defend the wave function consistency. Otherwise who knows what else can disappear or double if the time loop gets broken.)

[richfiles]

My cat is sick. It was very sudden. Belly rubs and ear scritches one day... Yesterday, I could tell she was sick. She's very lethargic. Problem is, she's in the back room, and is laying against the door, and won't move from that spot. Sometimes she moves enough I can squeeze my hand or arm through. Earlier on, she sat with her head by the door crack, and let me scratch her chin and top of her head, but she's since moved so I can't really even reach her. She's a senior cat, so I strongly suspect it's some age related illness, but I just have no idea how to even handle this. My best image of what she's doing is by literally sliding my phone through the door crack and using it to see what he's doing... She is moving around, shifting her weight, getting up and getting comfortable in a  new position now and then... But she won't move away from the door... She won't let me in to help... She understands moving out of the way of a swinging door, so I can only assume she's choosing to block herself off. I kinda feel like this is her indoor cat way of walking off into the woods and not coming back... 

The reason all her stuff is in the back room, is that it's kind her "safe space". When she was spayed, the first time she was out of her kennel, during her recovery period, she knocked something over, startled herself, and ran across my bed and tried to jump over an end table. She didn't make it over, and landed directly on her surgical incision... The pain of that incident left her completely feral from the pain. She absolutely tore me up. It took her 12 hours to calm down... Since that incident, she's had severe PTSD that is triggered when she's startled. I've learned to live with it, learned to recognize the signs of an episode. There's been years of pheromones and prescriptions from the vet to deal with her problems. The thing that seemed to work best for her, was actually to give her her own space. My back room is basically a store room, but I've made it into her personal space. Her Litter, food, water, toys, scratching post... It's all in there. Pillows sit in random shelves and in front of the window, birdseed is spread in front of the window (for her entertainment). There's all sorts of things she can climb, spots she can crawl into and hide... Any time she's ever had an incident, she's learned she can run into her room, if she's not there already, and I'll just close the door behind her and let her calm down. It's her territory... A kind of decompression space for her to calm down and regain control of herself. I also close the door at night, because nothing is as terrifying as waking up to a violent, yowling cat, cause your upstairs neighbor dropped a plate on the floor...

I've come to terms with the idea that she's had a hard life... She's a sweetie, but whenever she has one of her episodes, I feel so bad for her... No creature, human or animal, deserves the horror of PTSD, but it still happens to people and yes, even animals. I'd long come to terms with the idea that when her old age caught up to her, that it would possibly be kinder to let her have peace, rather than try to prolong her life. It hurts to think about, but I feel like it's more cruel to keep dragging her along... but this... I don't even know how to deal with this... I can't even reach her right now, and I have no idea how to handle it. I don't want her to suffer, and she's choosing to suffer alone right now... I talk to her through the door, tell her she's a good girl and I love her... Then I give her some space and try again later. If I can get the door open... I'm taking her straight to the vet... But as much as it hurts, I think the more responsible thing is to let her finally have peace. I just hate that I don't have a way to get to her... 

Edited May 15, 2020 by richfiles

[richfiles]

I finally got her out... I took her straight to the vet...
She's at peace now. She'll never suffer again. 

God, I'm shaking right now... I feel like I nearly waterboarded myself at the vet, soaking my face mask... So, I figured I could slide a plastic panel under the door, and slide her backwards. That actually worked. God, she was so weak... I put down a towel and laid her in a carrier and went straight to the vet. I knew going that it was her time though... Her and my mother's cat are the only two remaining cats of that litter. My mother had always kept in touch with the family we got them from. The first of the litter passed half a decade ago already. The mother, and the last one that they had kept were gone 2 years ago. My beautiful little sweetie girl was only 12, yet her and my mother's cat were the longest lasting of the entire bunch. Now it's just my mother's cat left. I'm worrying about her now...

I'm now faced with an empty room... Just a storage room... No longer a safe space for my sweetie... I should clean up... But I don't have it in me to do it right now. Looking at the aftermath, trying to figure out what happened... I honestly don't know. I can see that she was on her blanket in her cubbyhole near her food. She threw up and voided herself while still on the blanket. She seemed perfectly fine just the other day! I'd just bought her fresh litter and made up everything fresh for her. Whatever it was, it hit her very rapidly... In the time I was away at work. She went to lay by the door afterwards. She never left the door. I'm grateful that she put her head by the crack of the door and let me pet her, while she still had energy. I just wish I could have figured a way into her room faster... I was up till 6am, trying to find a way to coax her to move. I literally crashed, woke 4 hours later, and went back to trying. I finally made that hard call to my mother, to let her know what was going on.

I went ahead and paid the extra for cremation. My mother hasn't made one for a while, but she used to make beautiful carved and decorated "faberge" style eggs... She's going to make something to hold her ashes.

Edited May 15, 2020 by richfiles

[Delay]

1 hour ago, richfiles said:

She's at peace now. She'll never suffer again

I'm very sorry for you. It sucks to lose a much-loved pet, especially so quickly and suddenly. I was "lucky" my rabbits gave fairly early signs that they are about to pass. It gave me time to mentally prepare for it and accept it.

As for cleaning your now void storage room: if it is too much right now, then don't. You have time, come to terms with it first, then figure out what to do.

[tater]

Cat had another adventure. Grrr.

Thinking of putting a GPS collar on her. That or buying a cheap smart watch with cellular, and making a collar out of that.

Not necessarily to find her, at this point I'm more curious than anything else.

[kerbiloid]

If chain a GPS receiver to the cat's collar, you'll be always aware of her position.

Spoiler

Somewhere next to the GPS.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by kerbiloid

[richfiles]

Power went out, literally as I was getting ready to sit down and finish soldering circuit boards for work...

Oh well, I'll listen to my phone play some youtube talk channels and fall asleep to that. Stream ends 3 hours later, I feel myself drifting off...

CLICK!!!  WhiiiiiirrrrRRR!!! *BEEP!* hummmmmmmmm
Lights come on...

Gah! I'm AWAKE!!! 

I'm awake... 

I need a NAS for my over half dozen hard drives... A NAS backed far away and in some closet, away from where I sleep.
I need to either re-cap my speakers, or replace them, as the hum is enough to drill into one's mind when you haven't heard it long enough to mentally block it out.
Dang, my printer is LOUD when it starts up!

WHY DOES MY CLOCK MAKE THOSE NOISES!!! It's a CLOCK! It beeped louder than the PRINTER! 

Back to bed... to get up early to do some last hour soldering.

[Shpaget]

On 5/15/2020 at 11:56 AM, Shpaget said:

Spent two days designing two PCBs for a project, completely done with one, started on the other when I had a deja vu. Went into my electronics folder and deja vu indeed. I've already done those things two months ago and the fully functional and tested boards have been sitting on my desk the whole time. 

Should I be worried?

So I got around to installing these boards and realized that instead of four inputs I designed the board around, I need five. Back to the drawing board, right? Well, not quite, but let me make the short story long.

The project in question uses 4 hall sensors (they sense magnetic fields) to toggle two bistable relays. Not much to it, really, but hall sensor has inverted logic compared to what I need, namely, when there is no magnet close to the sensor it outputs 5V, when a magnet comes close, the output is 0V. I need it to behave the other way around, so before the signal gets to the MOFSET which powers the relay coil it needs to be inverted. A simple 7404 (NOT gate/inverter) did the job in my second go at it. Perfectly fine choice of IC, right? Well, not if you need to have 5 inputs control 4 outputs.

But as I mentioned earlier, that was the second time I was making this PCB. The first time around I was not able to find the 7404 in my parts drawers, so I opted for the next best thing - a 7400 NAND gate, and just short one of the inputs on each gate to 5V. That makes the NAND gate effectively an inverter. And here comes my accidental genius. With a NAND gate, I can actually use two hall sensors on input to trigger one output, thus the PCB is still usable, and needs to have only one short trace Dremelled out and one additional resistor. Of course, this works because of the specific topography and desired function, but still, it meant that the fix took 5 minutes instead of several of hours to a day to redesign the PCB, etch it, drill it, and solder all the components.

HA! In your face Mr. Alzheimer!

[kerbiloid]

At least, you haven't found the boards already installed.