Equipment changes have blown me away

[littlejohn]

I learnt to solder from God's Great Air Farce, via a two week school called 'hi reliability soldering and connectrions' usually known as 'NASA Soldering'. It was a priceless two weeks. Among other things we were taught how to cut to the break inside a multilayer board - which we probably wouldn't today due to the width of the runs - and how to solder properly.. a skill a lot of oldtimers don't have. When you do it correctly, it even looks pretty.

The best I've seen were the guys in my cable shop who were old AT&T crafts folks from the inside plant shop. They would lay a 50 pair on a 'christmas tree' block and solder it up with an AMerican Beauty iron and then lace it out with lacing thread. And, do it faster than I can lay 50 pairs onto a 66 block and punch them properly.

We're losing the art that was inherent in our profession.

 

[Tom Wells]

As an installer and troubleshooter of multi-million dollar printing presses, I too deal with techonlogy's perverse advances.

The pre-computer presses would only hiccup on a power glitch, but the new ones more likely go into spasms of confusion and must
be turned off and restarted.

The dean of Valpo Tech during the first semester orientation related as how we'd have to see if we all had soldering skills or
we'd need to be taught. At 18, going into this school I couldn't imagine how anyone found themselves at Valpo Tech and
not already know how to heat the joint and flow solder properly around a mechanically sound connection.

We were expected to design make our own circuit boards. I'd never try to deal with repairing multi-layers, but would also never
want to give up the ability to flop a board top-to bottom and just read the circuit.

I expect many people don't know how to make a proper "Western Electric" splice anymore.
I troubleshoot and repair as a profession and as a hobby. I also rely on it heavily to keep costs down at home.
A blessing and curse, it is my life and job security. As long as things are made of stuff, they will break.
As long as there are connectors, there will be intermittants.
I tell people frequently that if they didn't want any such problems, there should have been a fan-out terminal strip instead of silly plugs.
No one will expend the space or labor to create such solid connections anymore, so we suffer the consequences.
Plug in replacements seem clever, but when your station is silent, ( or the 6 million dollar new printing press ), it seems a wee
bit shortsighted to take your fiscal efficiencies out on the CUSTOMER'S productivity or PUBLIC SAFETY obligations.

I did see wonderful NASA soldering. Harris (yes Harris) bought Radiation Inc. in Melbourne FL, to produce control desks for
remote ink key operation on Harris Web presses. Radiation Inc had developed and built up/downlink for NASA and military microwave.
The dress of wiring and soldering was flawless. Later production of the same equipment from Dover, NH was clearly
not by people with such a background. Numerous failures caused by poor wire dress and not routing wire to accommodate
mechanical motion properly.

Today in Baton Rouge I am fighting a high-speed analyzer of 6-opto-isolator pairs, where perfect wiring and new sensors is not registering
the IR reflecting back into the receiver. One input is deaf. I'm fighting with THE CONNECTOR, Deoxit D5 has helped, but tomorrow will be
adding an outboard DPST switch to select Left/Right sensing as I CAN'T GET a decent signal through the conn for the right side.
All wiring is less than 1 ohm no leakage between or to ground.
At least I can see what exactly I'm fighting with, not just changing boards and hoping something will get better.

Kudos to Stephanie for your using your brain instead of the telephone. Phooey on warranties
voided for such a simple repair. You should really call the mfr up on a number-blocked line and tell them about their QC.

As such skills seem to be a dying art, yet valuable, wy isn't "our" pay as field engineers escalating wildly?
Does anyone think the need for such skills can be "engineered away"?
Those who do live in a world of impossible perfection, and deserve to enjoy their crashing ride back into reality.

Sparks, you told the kid the right thing. No one should have to explain a voltage divider to a kid over the phone and hope he lives.

 

[amfmsw]

I've stuck with Console or Integrated amps & Tuners. Scottkit, Heathkit, McIntosh and Marantz. I have a Marantz 10B that's never been serviced. It's married to a Marantz 1030. A 1015 is used for my Computer. A 2015 is in the bedroom. And a 2230 is about to be pressed into service. The tuner is 1965. The amps date to 1972 and 74. Other than panel lamps, they have never been serviced, and I'll bet dollars to donuts they still meet factory specs. The quality brands of electronics of yesterday were/are bulletproof.

Or fireproof. Do you think a RCA Theatre In A Box could do this? http://us.marantz.com/68.asp

 

[LA_Guy]

I built a preamp that blows everything away!

This thing has been favorably compared to Mark Levinson , Audio Research and Conrad Johnson megabuck preamps. It's made up of a Broadcast Tools 4 position stereo switch and one of their headphone consoles. I put some of the new National super-fi opamps in it. It ROCKS! DC coupled (with servos) and balanced inputs.

 

[littlejohn]

I have out in the garage waiting to be installed in the new used house, the last of the American built Marantz components. Including the preamp, a pair of amps on a common front plate, and the last Sequerra designed tuner, with scope. They still sound good, nearly 40 years later.

 

[sparks794]

But what REALLY scares the hell out of me is stations that use "kids" to work on their transmitter. I was an advisor years ago for a school program (high school program) when I got a call one night from a 17 year old student. He was asking me questions about the 3000VDC screen supply in a 3.5KW FM transmitter. He had the back door open and was asking me how to read the supply with a VOM.

Hey now, how do you expect us new jacks to learn? Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with teaching a 17 year old how to work around high B+, but don't just throw him in there and expect him to sink or swim.

ESPECIALLY if they ask if he can measure 3,000 volts with a small multimeter!!

That is what the problem was. I had been working with him - teaching him what I could in the limited time allowed with projects at the school. He picked up a part time job with this class A and was doing some of their minor studio repairs also. The dumba#@ owner was too cheep to have his regular contract guy go to the transmitter site when there was a problem that night and figured what the heck.

I do anything I can to educate those willing to go into engineering (espcially since they are so few and far between anymore). I would like to find a way to generate the interest in the business like it used to be in the 70's. I was lucky - I was raised around the business.

 

[Studio1]

Being a youngster myself I was wondering, what's the point of fixing complex units these days. Shore it's a shame that people like me don't learn soldering at school, you can never learn enough. But this only comes in handy on older gear which we probably never encounter. And when we do encounter and we really have to get our hands dirty we could get far with the help of the internet or some "old school guy".
I'm not saying that the old schematics are simple but try to figure out a multiple layer motherboard in your computer ???. It's an art designing these boards, I shore don’t have the time to figure those out, and when you might figure one out it's old as hell and replaced by newer stuff even more complicated. It's far more cheaper to replace, time is money. There are so much more craftsmanship’s that just don't exist anymore. This might just be one of them.

I think the word you want is "sure". "Shore" is the part of the beach where the waves break.

The internet, from what I have seen, won't help you a great deal with some of the older gear. You might be able to find some specs, or even better, a schematic, but nothing takes the place of pure experience of working on this stuff.
Some "old school guy" won't be around forever - and I still haven't worked out exactly what school all these people went to - along with so much of the equipment that seems to have come from this school as well. It must have been one heck of a big school with an unlimited budget.

Soldering is still an important skill that is useful in many areas today - not just older gear. There are cables and connectors and switches and all manner of componentry that need to be soldered - certainly when they need replacement.

Old schematics don't present much of an issue - I have yet to see one that I don't understand or can't follow.

As for the modern stuff that can't be repaired - what's the point? Do we REALLY need it?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Damn Progress!

As for the modern stuff that can't be repaired - what's the point? Do we REALLY need it?

Only if you need computers, microprocessors, and everything that depends on them for reliability, function, and energy efficiency.

I guess we could all go back to tubes, plugs-and-points, and slide rules...

 

[The F Mister]

Being a youngster myself I was wondering, what's the point of fixing complex units these days. Shore it's a shame that people like me don't learn soldering at school, you can never learn enough. But this only comes in handy on older gear which we probably never encounter. And when we do encounter and we really have to get our hands dirty we could get far with the help of the internet or some "old school guy".
I'm not saying that the old schematics are simple but try to figure out a multiple layer motherboard in your computer ???. It's an art designing these boards, I shore don’t have the time to figure those out, and when you might figure one out it's old as hell and replaced by newer stuff even more complicated. It's far more cheaper to replace, time is money. There are so much more craftsmanship’s that just don't exist anymore. This might just be one of them.

I think the word you want is "sure". "Shore" is the part of the beach where the waves break.

The internet, from what I have seen, won't help you a great deal with some of the older gear. You might be able to find some specs, or even better, a schematic, but nothing takes the place of pure experience of working on this stuff.
Some "old school guy" won't be around forever - and I still haven't worked out exactly what school all these people went to - along with so much of the equipment that seems to have come from this school as well. It must have been one heck of a big school with an unlimited budget.

Soldering is still an important skill that is useful in many areas today - not just older gear. There are cables and connectors and switches and all manner of componentry that need to be soldered - certainly when they need replacement.

Old schematics don't present much of an issue - I have yet to see one that I don't understand or can't follow.

As for the modern stuff that can't be repaired - what's the point? Do we REALLY need it?

Sure you're right on shore that should be sure.

I think that with everything being digitalized you will not be soldering many cables in the future. And you can find a lot on the internet about any cable and how to solder it yourself. A lot is still going over cables but fiber is just around the corner. Try to solder those. More and more audio/video is going over IP in one way or another.
Having said that I share your point that "some old guy" will not be around forever so please pass along the knowledge to those who want to learn.

 

[littlejohn]

Where we need to a) find the kids; and b) show them how is in the RF planty end of things. Although a couple of the teransmitter manufacturers surface mount, and all of them buy CPUs - on - a - board and then write their softare for them, the power end of things will be with us for a while yet. After you got the bejesus knocked out of you on a Yard, you knew better than to solo the transmitter with the doors open. If you came up today fixing computers, and never putting the sides on, you may not have any respect for the anode lead in the transmitter. And, you only get to touch it once.
We need to remind some of the cheaper owners of the OSHA rules, which >do< apply to them. Minimum two warm bodies in the plant when dangerous voltage is exposed. It might help is the safety observer was CPR certified, too. I can't remember hearing of anyone beiong electrocuted in a transmitter when there was someone else present... but four or five come to mind who have assumed room temperature via the solo open box. We're gonna hurt somebody if we don't teach them to be careful...

 

[SirRoxalot]

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In my experience, most of them respect the hum of serious power...

 

[jboydingram]

Certainly you speak the truth...but the investigations, questions, and suits will be POST mortem...may the deceased rest in peace...such is the status , as I see it!
JBI

 

[littlejohn]

The aftermath helps only the living. Darwin is merciless and final.