Stub Mandrel

I've just completed a tiny High Pass Filter, very simple schematic and board here:

Ok, I've finally got round to etching the PCB, populating its and then testing the high pass filter. The 50mm square enclosure was challenging - even fitting the two jack sockets was tricky, spacers on the outside. The tall caps and voltage doubler IC (for +/- 9v) fit at bottom right. All caps are either 10u or 100n for simplicity! The PCB had to be carefully hacksawed(!) right to the edges of the tracks, I used soft faced vice jaws as a guide for the saw. Note one corner was too tight so I had to 'divert' the track: Power LED just hard wired to the power connector and switched -ve via the ring of the input jack, so not on PCB. Need to put on a proper decoration - and the right way up! First stick in a bottom B from my home-made frequency generator: 4V P-P, (actually no visible difference between in and out signals up to 6KHz - I didn't bother going higher): As hoped, gain rapidly drops off below 31Hz. This is 0.4V at 22Hz: 4.0 top 0.4 is gain of 0.1 that's exactly 20dB cut at 22Hz, which is pretty much excatly what the modelling software predicted. Kudos to Analog Devices! The nay-sayers will say I should have made the cutoff higher, but it's (supposedly) 'infrasonic' signals below about 16Hz that are the main problem.

Boss of Ryan Air, the airline that charges you extra for everything. In case of an emergency a mask drops down and a sign lights up saying 'Insert 1 euro in slot for 5 minutes oxygen'.

Probably more profit than labour, with an automated cable stripper it's less than a minute to hand assemble those cables if you have the knack and no doubt at Chinese labour rates.

I'd make my own using physical switches 🙂 But I'm just joshing with you, I suspect if I said I was thinking of a new microwave you'd recommend the BOSS CUK-1 🙂

Greedy....

THing is tehy are using base-level Neutrik and Van Damme components, which are probably little different from ordinary non-crap components. The NP2x jack plugs are £2.04 each plus VAT if you order 50 from RS. NP2Rx is £2.52. Van Damme 'pro grade' XKE cable is 1.28 per metre in 100m reels. So to make 3m cables in bulk leave about £1.60 to cover other costs. But Designa will probably buy direct from Neutrik and Van Damme in much larger quantities so I think we can assume the £1.60 easily covers the assembly cost, leaving a similar profit on the parts to whatever markup RS are putting on.

'Other brands of switching poedal are available' 🤣🤯🙂🤣

Paul $tanley is the Michael Ryan of Rock and Roll 🙂

Someone just posted a link that made me think 'which albums have given me the greatest pleasure?' Not the one that are the best, or my favourites, or that impress, or are the most technical. More like a 'Desert Island Discs' list but albums. This is my list of ten albums, in a rough chronological order of when I came across them. A New World Record, ELO - I started collecting ELO singles and I love(d) everything before Discovery (which was a huge disappointment). NWR probably just edges Out of the Blue, but I listened to these over and over again reconstructing each track listening to just the bass, the keyboards etc. I can recognise Jeff Lynne's production at 100 paces... Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd - was I the only angst-ridden teenager who found solace in this album's melancholy? Live Rust, Neil Young - this and Rust Never Sleeps introduced me to a new type of music, raw, passionate with a huge range of emotion and delivery. On Stage, Rainbow - already a Rainbow fan, this just captured such a huge sound and almost makes up for the fact that I never saw Rainbow live. Woodstock - I have this on two cassette tapes, recorded off a reel to reel version of the album in a cottage in the Welsh countryside where we used to go just to be. Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention - this is the album that opened my ears to British folk rock and made me realise you don't have to put your finger in your ear and sing through your nose. Ironically Ashley Hutchins' bass driving it along, as Dave Pegg is probably my greatest 'bass hero'. Watt, 10 Years After - this was one of the albums, with SHHH, that I played along to over and again during the years when I was in bands. 10, Pearl Jam - I heard this, and Nevermind, and decided that perhaps music hadn't died after all. 13, Black Sabbath - I am a massive fan of Black Sabbath's music, especially the earlier stuff where there was more light and shade. Then 13 a came along and the whole album is like a puzzle box full of every little Ozzy-era signature while still feeling fresh and new, managaing (just) to steer clear of being a pastiche of earlier albums. It starts with the words 'Is This the End of the Beginning, or the Beginning of the End', and ends with a reflection of the very start of 'Black Sabbath' which I still find emotional. The Machine Stops, Hawkwind - I 'found' this after hearing Synchronised Blue on Phil Alexander's programme. For me it just rekindled my passion for Hawkind's music and was on almost endless repeat for weeks.

Not enough like buttons, near the top of my top ten albums of all time.

They are very 'sticky out'. I like a 90-degree really. But I have some pretty leads for use at home, like a cheap but lovely looking fabric covered Stagg one to go with my pseudo vintage and much modded Ibanez '335'

Funnily enough I drove past a pub in Fazely who claim to have Ed Sheeran on at the weekend.

I precsribe taking in your ghetto blaster and treating them to Soft Machine's Third.

I have a lovely surf green one I use for my practice amp. I've just discovered it's impossible to unscrew it to check the quality of connections/strain relief without damaging the connector.

Hope it's OK, I suffered for years with sore throats before being diagnosed with gastric reflux. Messed around with gaviscon for more years until someone told me to demand a proton pump inhibitor from the doctor, now on lansprazole, which works well for me.

I always wind a cable just as I was told how to hank a rope, giving each loop a satisfying half-twist. Also, my speaker cables are just plain 13A twin flex - but BRIGHT ORANGE with heatshrink over the connector body and strain relief as a precaution against shorts if plugged into anything that isn't ring=earth.

Sorry....

My dad has more... and he's 84!

Definitely not the space! Upper part ahd two jack sockets and a power socket in it, one corner kept for the taller 10uF caps!

Not just the hair...

Fairport Convention - only Simon Nichol from the original lineup, but he hasn't been there the whole time. But it's a band that evolves with people coming and going, I don't see why a and like that shouldn't go on forever as longs as (a) there's some genuine continuity (Viz. some of the Iommi on his own 'Sabbath' albums) and (b) they keep producing new material that builds on the original corpus rather than becoming a 'tribute' to themselves.

I enjoyed it. I saw it as a movie based on Queen's story and a tribute to Freddy, not a documentary. I think it balanced a lot of potentially difficult content with making it a movie for a wide audience well without bowdlerising anything.

A very good point; for an electric instrument quality plywood should be better. Not for soundboards though!

I've got the bits and assembled a power plug and jacks into a tiny case. I need to make the board, it's designed, but I suspect I'm trying to fit it into too tiny a case (50x50).