Quicke: First timers trouble shooting

[Wormwood]

I have just finished my first soldering kit and I have to say it was fun. I chose the Quickie for that fact - never soldered nor used a volt meter etc. so I thought it would be a more than better learning exp. for the SEX.

I have just preformed the Final Voltage Check and have found that my T2 is reading 7 while my T4 isn't reading anything. The visual inspection looks fine - as much as I can tell. Every wire/joint is soldered and I believe that they are reasonable good soldering.

At that point I pulled the plug on it to give it another visual which means that I really didn't give the tube sockets a solid reading (was a tad worried why one side was getting all the juice).


Any ideas?


Stephen

[Paul Birkeland]

T4 isn't reading anything
 

What specifically are you getting for a reading?

Which voltage range are you using on your meter?  7 volts is pretty high for T2, so I'm wondering if this is just a meter issue.

What is the voltage at the center pin of the 9 lug switch where the 4K resistors are connected?  What are the voltages on the other sides of those 4K resistors?  (If these are consistent, then the T2/T4 issue is most likely a measuring problem)

-PB

[earwaxxer]

IMO, its 10x more difficult to figure out what is wrong, than getting it right from the start. I have chucked a project that did not work. Unless you are an electrical engineer that knows the circuit, your screwed. With the Quickie its not a hard thing to just start over.

[Paul Birkeland]

Unless you are an electrical engineer that knows the circuit, your screwed. With the Quickie its not a hard thing to just start over.

That's some pretty unusual advice, isn't getting advice on troubleshooting what we are here for?

The o/p may have a simple measuring issue, and certainly there are only a few different mistakes that are even possible with the Quickie.

Also, you don't learn anything by starting over.

[Paul Joppa]

Back in the day, I wrote a lot of code (yes, FORTRAN - back when computers wrote only capital letters). There was a theory that all routines should be short - 10 liens of core or less - and if it didn't work the first time, you should start over.

I think the reasoning was, it's hard to see a mistake you have already made. If starting over is easy enough, that can be a faster method. In my humble opinion, the problem is it cuts you off from a chance to learn, so you are still subject to making the same error another time.

Of course, there were a lot of theories back then. There probably still are, but I don't write code any more ...  :^)

[Wormwood]

I haven't gotten back to checking this over though since then I have completed building my S.E.X ... which I also haven't done the final checks yet. I went back to work for the year last week so I will get around to running the final checks this weekend.

Eric - I don't think I need to start over, it could be a metre thing or it could be Carbon Based Error. Either way I will work it out. I do have to say that the real trouble I had with the project was reading the measurements - imperial just doesn't sink it and on my second step the formatting of the page too the fraction of the inch measure to the next line which I didn't see and cut short. The manual for the S.E.X was so much nicer with the metric labeled after the fact.


Again the aim it to have these up both up and running this weekend.


Regards,
Stephen

[earwaxxer]

Back in the day, I wrote a lot of code (yes, FORTRAN - back when computers wrote only capital letters). There was a theory that all routines should be short - 10 liens of core or less - and if it didn't work the first time, you should start over.

I think the reasoning was, it's hard to see a mistake you have already made. If starting over is easy enough, that can be a faster method. In my humble opinion, the problem is it cuts you off from a chance to learn, so you are still subject to making the same error another time.

Of course, there were a lot of theories back then. There probably still are, but I don't write code any more ...  :^)

I was also a coder back in the day as well - fun memories (FORTRAN on IBM punch cards was the first exposure). Sloppy code is a nightmare to debug, especially, like you say, one that did not have neat, short subroutines. Debugging code, for me, is more fun than figuring out what is wrong with a circuit. At least with code, you can get it to do something so you can figure out why it isnt doing what you want it to do. When a circuit doesnt work at all its a bit more to bite off.

[Gerry E.]

earwaxxer wrote: "I was also a coder back in the day as well... "

Not to take this thread too far off topic but I'm another old-time coder.  The sad thing is that I still am!  

One of my first computer language classes was FORTRAN.  The instructor started a competition to see who could perform a relatively simple task with the fewest amount of FORTRAN statements.  A couple of us worked on it together and we got it down to about 10.  However, another student discovered that if you didn't clear out the memory, the previously submitted program would run.  Using that, his program FLDA = FLDA would generate the correct result.  Of course his one statement "program" did not count for the competition.

Even though this was the 1970s, we were running on an old IBM 1130 with punch cards (of course).

Gerry        

[Paul Joppa]

Can't pass it up - I started on an Alwac IIIE using teletype gear with paper tape, writing in a form of Algol. Fortran came later, on an IBM 709 with ferrite donuts - a true core memory! - and thousands of vacuum tubes. The transistorized 7094 came much later. I actually remember when Fortran II first came out - a big improvement.

[Grainger49]

I started on an RCA Spectra 70/45, with punch cards and had to step up to an IBM 6 years later.  Of course still with punch cards

[4krow]

The only code I ever knew was 1 finger means number one, and 2 fingers means number two. I always stuck up two fingers, cuz I knew that a 1 always beat a 2.
 I could talk color code for huge cables, but i won't

   Now, about Quickie trouble shooting. When I had trouble with mine, I had to get away from it for awhile. It seemed to work. The schematics helped, but since I was doing some weird ass variation, it was hard to keep my mind straight.

[earwaxxer]

The only code I ever knew was 1 finger means number one, and 2 fingers means number two. I always stuck up two fingers, cuz I knew that a 1 always beat a 2.
 I could talk color code for huge cables, but i won't

   Now, about Quickie trouble shooting. When I had trouble with mine, I had to get away from it for awhile. It seemed to work. The schematics helped, but since I was doing some weird ass variation, it was hard to keep my mind straight.

Hey Greg I remember that one and two finger stuff - its called assembly language. The most primitive of binary. Thats one thing I learned from codeing. Start simple - make it work - then flesh it out. If it gets too complex from the get go you will loose your mind trying to 'fix it'. Yes, the definition of a control freak, thank you.

[earwaxxer]

I should also add, that I am not AT ALL surprised that senior Bottleheaders were former coders. Of course, being that I'm 'only' 55 I have to bow to those who were there during the pioneering days of digital. Tubes and all!

[Jim R.]

Well, ok, I guess I came to the game a bit later -- at the tender age of 12 I started programming in machie languege using the front panel switches and buss monitor lights (not even LEDs) on an early DEC PDP-8e.  Teletype and paper tape and edusystem 20 basic and focal-8 came later as did an upgrade to 8 k of core, a dectape dual drive, a card reader, and a high speed (30 cps) decwriter la-36 dot matrix printing terminal.  Oh, and then edusystem 30 basic with more than 26 variables, labels and subroutiines and a few other programming luxuries. :-)

My iPod Touch has about a gazillion times the proocessing power and I don't even want to know what the power consumption of that old pdp-8 was.

-- Jim

[4krow]

Eric, I was in 1st grade....1 was for pee, 2 was for pooh....binary? well in an organic sort of way