You're kidding. Well that sounds like just about every other 'standard' I've dealt with.

Fascinating. Thank you, Tangent. I started building these, wow, maybe seven years ago? I did carefully consider all my parts, that's part of my art thing. It's weird, but part of my process. EVERY component I use is obsessively considered. I spent a fortune on MELF resistors from Germany for...

No worries, invade away. Actually, my left cheek caught a couple of bits as well - too small to dig out and produced pimples. Dudes, It was no fun at all. But I chose the tants on purpose, for both aesthetic and practical reasons. If they are good enough for military satellites, why not for me...

It is indeed an LM317. I'll do that, just for fun. The powerup testing went well, I ended up with 17 units that performed as expected (although I don't have my test procedure and results sheets handy) with all the test point voltages as expected. I have 2 incomplete boards, one of then I think...

Hi, Tomb! Thank you. Please don't feel you are intruding. I can use all the ideas and perspectives I can get.

It is indeed an LM317. I'll do that, just for fun. The powerup testing went well, I ended up with 17 units that performed as expected (although I don't have my test procedure and results sheets handy) with all the test point voltages as expected. I have 2 incomplete boards, one of them I think...

Yeah. I've seen cans dome and smoked a few resistors and diodes, that's where I came up with the lineup test. It's easy to see a backwards orientation or suspiciously small resistor that way, like five cheerleaders, only one is missing shoes... It jumps out at you. But I hated wondering what I...

Apologies....I was unclear, the firecracker wasn't in the LNMP, mercifully. It was in one of the units the LNMP was built to examine. I have a test procedure to help catch things like polarity errors. Care to poke holes in it for me? Since I usually build multiples; Step 1: Line 'em all up...

I am eager to finish but haven't. Just a day or two after my last post was when we got the ah, surprise baby news. It was quite a shock and derailed all sorts of things for a while. Again, my apologies for leaving you hanging. I tried picking it up last summer, spent a day performing initial...

Here's the product of my distraction.

Hi! Back from the dead. Actually I got pregnant and I don't work on projects with a passenger on board. But he's weaned now so I'm anxious to go back and familiarize myself with everything and let you know... I've been going crazy missing the work. Apologies for the disappearance, but...

And here's my LNMP!   Many, many thanks to Tangent for everything!    

Final PICS!!! I have a feeling I'll be searching for or starting a new thread on.... how to use it!    

What scares me is that this is what I get out of the output:

Oops. Bad math. Always the factors of ten, they are getting me. Well I have the divider correct (if ugly), and the input signal is just right:     Measuring at the output with SW1 jumped and unjumped, I get a difference that is a factor of ten.   So far, so good. This is what...