[ai0tron]

Oh yeah, dude, be carefull with that solder smoke. I don't know about the rest of you but I go out of my way to get excellent ventilation when soldering. The slightest whiff of the stuff makes me so stimulated I can't sleep for hours. Very strange.

 

[eric343]

I solder only with lead-free solder, and I've got a fan sucking the fumes away from the area (*real* nice German-made metal thing-loud as heck but even more powerful), but unfortunately there's *no* direct ventilation to the outside. Hence the reason I don't use lead solder! (but I've got a pound of lead/silver/tin solder I got from Digi-Key to get my order up to $25...)

 

[chych]

Lol, your title eric...

And whenever I have a whiff of that solder (lead free) it doesn't seem to bother me at all... I don't try to smell it though. Maybe I'll get some ventilation the next time I try and burn something.

 

[eric343]

LOL, Jude, you certainly have a talent for picking out titles... This one kinda implies that I *do* steal o-scopes, tho

. Oh well, I'll live

By the way, does anyone else find that desoldering wick creates an interesting smell when you use it? What about using copper tips, I know that when I was tinning some copper tips I'd bought, they generated the most *acrid* smell, to the degree that I had to don a filter-mask that I keep around, and I had a headache for the rest of the day.

 

[thomas]

Hi,

most, if not all of the smell you get from the solder is from the rosin flux, rather than lead. So you can still get irritaing fumes with leadless solder... I ues a cheep HEPA air cleaner in my work area, i dunno how effective it is at removing fumes, but i feel more comfortable knowing its there...

i often use copper tips, and i never get any smell when tinning it... ITs probably just flux burning...

And since you have a scope, why don't you check you OPA228 amp on it? you'll easily see what's wrong with it, and you may be able to troubleshoot it until it will run stabily...

 

[Tides]

mission accomplished

Tides

 

[eric343]

You should have PM'ed me

Thomas: Well, I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing that. Besides, the scope works nicely in its current job of signal amplifier for the chart recorder. (for seismographic monitoring)

 

[eric343]

Edit: Aww [censored]. I hereby retract my reccommendation of Freeservers.

Tides: Virtue is a bit slow, but I guess it'll have to do. BTW, now I have had 3 titles too...

Jude: I just noticed my new title. ROFL...

 

[thomas]

Well, first you'll need a signal generator, they're kina expensive new, but you can probably find a cheep one at a surplus store, or even DIY one yourself...

Then, simply hook up the signal generator to the inputs of your amp, and set a voltage and frequency (and type of wave)

Then connect the 10X probe to one channel of your scope, and clip the ground clip to the ground, and touch the output with the probe.

Then, adjust the scope, set it to AC, and set the dials to the corresponding voltage and frequencies you set in your function generator...

If you see a nice cleen output, then the amp is stable, if you see it occillating (you'll see it), then there's a problem...

Lots of cool things to do with a scope, i'm sure there are online resources that will teach you how to use it... Its a really important tool for building, designing, and troubleshooting amps, too bad they're simply too expensive for most of us

 

[eric343]

Thomas, I suggest you walk the halls of your local university physics/EE department around the turn of the semester, preferably with a shopping cart

And the scope has a 1khz signal generator built in, and I've got a audio-range signal generator kit hanging around... I might actually use the scope for once then

 

[thomas]

lol

 

[eric343]

Seriously, if you can pass yourself off as a university student/anyone else who should be there, I highly reccommend it as a way to get free junk. Of course, standard disclaimers about asking for permission/checking local laws do apply. Fortunately, many universities are just happy to get rid of the stuff.

 

[Tides]

Cool Pics thanks !

Tides

 

[thomas]

Well, my high school electronics teacher really trusts me (i placed really well in electronics competion, bringing him lots of respect), and always lets me take home scopes whenever i want.... (and he told me he'd give me a scope if i place first in Canada this year

)

And next year i'm hopefully/probably going to enroll in an electrical engineering course at university, so i'll probably have plenty of access to that stuff soon...

Now do you want to elaberate on how you got your scope?

 

[neil]

I love the dot-matrix printer. Now that's old school. Is that a hard drive hanging on the wall? And What is that lie detector machine next to it?