++++++++++++++++++ From: K4IA at aol.com Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 23:43:12 EST To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net Subject: [Elecraft] Dumb mistakes I have made Thought it might be interesting, humorous and educational to share a few of the bone head mistakes we have made building our K1/K2s. I'll go first if you promise not to laugh (too hard). The instructions say inventory the parts. So, when I got my K1, that is just what I did. First, I pulled all the resistors out of the tape and cleaned the residue off the leads. (Bonehead, just cut the leads.) Then I put all the resistors in order by value so they would be easy to find. Took forever, very frustrating and I couldn't figure out why they weren't in value order on the belt to begin with. (Much later, I discovered they were in the order as needed for assembly.) Can you top that? BTW K1 #470 works just fine in spite of my making it a lot harder than it needed to be. Radio K4IA Craig Buck Fredericksburg, Virginia USA QRP ARCI #2550 FISTS #6702 CC 788 Diamond #64 K1 #470 +++++++++++++++++ From: "James Giercyk" To: , Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Dumb mistakes I have made Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 00:51:02 -0500 I have had the misfortune of putting in caps with the values facing other components, making it impossible to find their value during a check of the circuit. 'When in doubt, face it out'. Oh, then there was the time I said 'I DO'.....but that's for another forum ;) Jim, N2SUB K2 #1998 +++++++++++++++++ From: "Gay Family" To: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 06:37:02 -0800 Subject: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Actually, since I intend to "test" almost all things Elecraft designs, maybe even more than one of some (if I can hide them from the XYL), I am offering my services to Elecraft as a beta tester in the area of mistake making. Testing by those with lots of experience and understanding shows them how bulletproof their design / instructions are under perfect circumstances. Testing by me will tell them how bulletproof by assemblers at the other end of the bell curve. I am getting somewhat more dyslexic and less keen of sense and thought, having passed AARP eligibility and now getting all those interesting promotions associated with preventing further body part failure and improving certain waning functions. Examples: When R16 was to be installed before R15, inadvertently installing R15 first but using R16's value. Force of habit of the years. Sticking the capacitor with value code 101 into C101. Yep, double checked every value under the magnifying light. Soldering T2 into T7 and then wondering why it was over there all by itself. Well, a "7 "looks like a "2" except for the missing little hook on the bottom. Interchanging "BLK" and "BRN". Those strings of capitals sort of blur into the same mass. Thank god e-mail is no longer all caps. No comment on the intermediate result with the green bargraph filter but the Elecraft supplied stuff looked like a nose picking in its demise. Had to find the "not installed" note for C76 on the schematic to realize where the missing capacitor was. So, Wayne and Eric, send a K2 PA100 kit to the usual address where you've sent all the K2 pieces (and the "missing" parts - my apologies as most of them weren't really missing, only misplaced). I'm a little slow so it will probably take me a few months to build it but I'll get back to you with the "problem" list. John, KD7OIU, K2 #1932, working almost perfectly and completely addicting! ++++++++++++++++++ rom: "Alan J. Price" To: "Gay Family" , Subject: RE: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:58:35 -0500 John: I thought I was dyslexic as well, but I saw a doctor and now I am KO! I think I take the award for stupid approaches to kits. Not on an Elecraft, but years ago I received my DX-100. Upon opening the box I pulled the wire harness out and removed all of the string! What a dumb way to ship wires I thought. I had to purchase a new harness from Heath. Guess I just disclosed my age. Oh well. 73 Alan W1HYV +++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:53:19 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Rattray To: Cc: Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Dumb mistakes I have made Nicely done Craig....hihi...I installed a 16 pin chip in backwards!... ...did a really good job of soldering too!.... ...on the upside, it lead to my discovering and learning about desoldering devices and with "a little help from my ham friends + Elecraft" I also learned how to not damage the pc board.... ..72/73 - Bruce (VE5RC+VE5QRP) QRP-C#1 QRP-L#886 ARCI#9683 Zombie#272 A-1 Operator Club - 10/10# 944 - QRP Borg#1 - Whiner#10 - - VE5QRP SOC#11 - VE5RC SOC#12 - oo#148 - K2#2032 - COG#15 - "QRP! How sweet it is!" "I am da man wit "DAH" paddle!" ++++++++++++++++++++ From: "Randy Moore" To: Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:58:28 -0600 I participate in an Internet forum for another hobby (Mustang car restoration), and we award each other "dufus" awards for these kinds of things :-) Happens many times a day!! My biggest dufus on my K2 was installing J1 on the wrong side of the board. I realized it about 5 seconds after I did it. Took me much longer to correct it! 73, Randy, KS4L K2 #337 +++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:58:33 -0600 From: Dave Sjolin Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made To: "Alan J. Price" , "elecraft at mailman.qth.net" "Alan J. Price" wrote: > think I take the award for stupid approaches to kits. Not on an Elecraft, > but years ago I received my DX-100. Upon opening the box I pulled the wire > harness out and removed all of the string! What a dumb way to ship wires I > thought. I had to purchase a new harness from Heath. Guess I just > disclosed my age. Oh well. I think we've all done our share of stupid things while buiding. I remember my first kit was an Allied Radio "Super Spanner" (I think) super regen short wave receiver. When I was finished, I was so proud I proceeded to take it downstairs to show it off to my parents. Well no one told me they left some things on the steps and I couldnt see them because of the radio, so I ended up triping and tossing the radio fifteen or so feet so I could save myself. Luckily nothing broke. Just dented the cabinet a little. 73 de Dave, N0IT ++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 09:35:59 -1000 From: John Buck To: Bruce Rattray Cc: Tom Hammond =?ISO-8859-1?Q?N=D8SS?= , "Alan J. Price" , elecraft at mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made My worst one was when building a new Heathkit oscilloscope. All went well. The construction was beautiful. The filament wire pairs were nicely twisted. Power ON. Blow fuse. The filament wires were shorted near most of the tube sockets. The wire insulation had melted during soldering due to too much heat and the tight twisting. John KH7T +++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:49:10 -0700 From: "John_Evans" Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Shoot, I never even got to the point to assemble the kit. I think I was 11 or 12 and just got bit by the electronics bug. Bought a small VOM from Radio Shack, took it home, put in a battery, and then proceeded to measure the resistance of the power outlet :) Pop - goodbye meter. 72 - john - n0hj +++++++++++++++++++++ From: "Alva Anderson W5VCJ" To: Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 14:56:59 -0600 I can top that one. I was in 3rd grade and fascinated by electricity. A next door friend and I decided to find out if there was any current flowing in a lamp socket with the switch turned off. As you have probably guessed, it was a "3-way" lamp, and we didn't have the power really off, just one of the lower settings where the bulb was not on (smaller filament blown). Well, the house key we were using for the "test" was soldered into the socket instantly, and of course the fuse went as did several other lights in the house. Scared the poo out of both of us, but fortunely neither of us was hurt. You know, a major in the Marine Corps can do an amazing job of warming your behind. Andy W5VCJ ++++++++++++++++++++++ Reply-To: "Don Wilhelm" From: "Don Wilhelm" To: "Alan J. Price" , , =?iso-8859-1?Q?Tom_Hammond_N=D8SS?= Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:29:49 -0500 The things mentioned in this thread are NOT mistakes - they are 'learning experiences. The only mistake I have ever made is once when I thought I did 73, Don +++++++++++++++++++++++ From: "Dave Benham" To: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 19:11:13 -0500 Subject: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made The dumbest thing I ever did (other than buying a Gotham V80), radio-wise (unwise?), happened when I was a novice at about 15 years old (in 1960). My first rig was a DX-40 transmitter that my dad had bought for me used from Duffy's in Detroit. I could never get it to work correctly. I didn't have an elmer -- my dad was an engineer, but not an EE and there were no local hams to help me with things like this. I screwed up my courage and grabbed our Heathkit VOM (the second kit that my dad and I had built together -- probably the first VOM that Heath ever sold) and started probing voltages. I had the DX-40 powered up, upside down on this behemoth workbench which you could probably pound with a sledge hammer and not budge it. This VOM had two probes, each with a point for a probe tip -- no alligator clip for ground. So, I had a probe in each hand as I judiciously went around the underside of the rig checking voltages against the Heath voltage chart. Well, somewhere along the way, I figure in retrospect that about 600 VDC went up one arm across my chest and out the other arm! All I felt was a big buzz! In a reflex action, both arms jerked backwards, in one swift motion dragging the rig onto my lap, hot tubes pointing down onto the tops of my thighs. The second reflex action, now that the voltage was gone, was tossing the upside down DX-40 onto the floor. Fortunately neither I nor the DX-40 were hurt. My arms looked like they had prickly heat for a while. The DX-40 was a little bent and twisted, but hammered out nicely on the old workbench. The serendipitous moment in all this was when I discovered that the crash landing had broken loose a cold solder joint to the chassis where about a dozen wires were supposed to be soldered to ground but weren't. After heating that joint up and applying some fresh solder, the rig worked fine. Later I learned that the VOM's impedance was about 1000 ohms/volt. I'm still not sure how the voltage got to me -- I probably was touching those pesky little set-screws in the probe handles that held the probe wires in position. Lessons learned: 1) Keep one hand behind my back when dealing with equipment with high voltage 2) Use a VTVM with high impedance 3) Don't use probes with set-screws 4) Have someone within earshot to help you in case of a problem Dave K8TRF ++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 21:45:20 -0500 To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net From: Benjy Cline AC4XO Subject: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made Thanks to all who shared their dumb mistakes. It's nice to have company. My claim to fame came about when I built a Wilderness Radio Sierra. It worked first time. Then I built the add-on frequency display/keyer/S-meter kit. I tested it, and it worked fine. Then I removed the protective film on the LCD display, installed it in the Sierra, and did another test. The displayed characters were almost invisible. I got the logic probe out and determined that the LCD display was bad. I assumed I had damaged some how and ordered another display. Then, the same thing happened again. The display was easy to read, but then when I removed the protective film, it was barely readable. Then, finally, I caught on and put the protective film back on. The display was easy to read again. I had removed the thicker polarizing film instead of the thin protective film. I did a dumb thing, but I finally figured it out. When I removed the protective film from the K2 display, I was very careful :-) 72 de Benjy --- Benjy Cline, AC4XO http://www.tuxcat.com/benjy +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:36:38 -0600 From: Lee Buller Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net I have always like building, but very little of what I have built has ever worked....except for the K2. I was building a homebrew 3-500Z (x2) linear amplifer. I had scrounged an old Heathkit Chippawa or Warrior or something like that...power suppyl Ran four 866B mercury vapor tubes. I had to flush out the bird crap and mouse dropping in the restoration process. OK....here is a fact...I love tubes....I love tubes that glow purple...and love tubes that get brite purple when they are under load. I love purple tunes that flash along with the CW. I had this amp done except for tweaking the pi-net output for maximum effciency when I got across the 3600 volt DC line. I woke up laying on the floor...could barely move...and there was a tremendous smell of burnt flesh. I had a 3rd degree burn on my hand. The fuses had blown and the amp was dead....but I was alive. I traded the amp the next week for a TH6DXX new in the box. I still have a TH6DXX I purchased a used SB220. That is long gone. End of building big amps. Lee - K0WA ++++++++++++++++++ Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:02:12 -0600 To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net From: Bill Steffey Subject: Re: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made in 8th grade i 'worked' at the local tv store changing a & b batteries in potables, then tubes in little all American 5 table radios. In high school I was promoted to the TV antenna installing truck, which supplied an infinite amount of 300 ohm twinlead for my bedroom/lab/science center & S38c. I used twinlead for speaker wire..... worked great.... I used twinlead for telephone wire ,,, worked great ( that's when the phone company owned it all) I used twinlead for antenna wire... worked great.... I USED TWINLEAD FOR EVERYTHING... AND I USED TO STRIP IT WITH MY TEETH.. ONE DAY I GRABBED WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A LOOSE TWINLEAD AND STARTED STRIPPING THE WIRE WITH MY TEETH.... IT WAS THE LINE WITH AC ON IT........ no longer did I use twinlead for everything actually no harm was done, phew.....one very lucky boy ++++++++++++++++++++ From: "Leo Starrenburg PA5LS" To: "Elecraft Reflector" Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:11:10 +0100 Subject: [Elecraft] RE: Dumb mistakes I have made L.S. while on army manoevres in Holland our repairtruck was stationed on a meadow. After changing watchduty in the middle of the night I had to go to "the little boysroom" aka the nearest tree. Little did I know that there was an electric fence running just beside it. Let me tell you, it hurts ! 73' Leo ++++++++++++++++++++ From: "Steve Carey" To: "Eelecraft Mail" Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 17:32:32 -0000 Subject: [Elecraft] (Elecraft) DUMB THINGS I'VE DONE Could have killed my Mother !!! When I was living at home with my parents . . . my Brother (G8HSI) and I built an outside Shack at the bottom of the garden. We run out of cash so had no money for a suitable power cable. What's the good of a new Ham Shack full of "Tube" gear and no AC ??? I joined up lots of scraps of old coax cable . . . twisted joints ( no solder ) and covered them in PVC tape. About 200ft of cable. About a dozen joints. Only temporary you understand. 240Volts at top end . . . and 180 volts in the Shack (and that was off-load!). One day about 5 years later, when I got home from work, my Mother said, "Oh . . you had better come outside, I've been gardening all day and I've moved your Aerial cable"! The cable had become "en-twined" between new growth of bushes and shrubs, so She one-by-one undid the joints, un-tangled the wire and re-did the joints. She even re-wrapped them with PVC tape She got from my Shack! God must have been with Her . . . the Power was definitely on all the time and the house fuse was still in-tact. Weird. She never got a Shock . . . I could have electrocuted my Mother! Thank goodness for Earth Leakage Trips and Circuit Breakers. Steve/G4MJW +++++++++++++++++++