What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[barefoot]

On 12/12/2019 at 10:55 AM, barefoot said:

I was first customer into the Loughborough branch of Nat West this morning....

Just finished an ADW and realised that I'd forgotten to tell you about the reason for my visit to the branch. I realised that my 'savings' ac was paying 0.0001% so rang up to close it & open something better, but apparently you can't do it over the phone, nor can you do it on line, you have to do it in branch. Katie apparently wasn't qualified to assist me - I'd have let her have a bloody good try - so I was sent to Natalie who clearly didn't like the look of me from the start. Admittedly, I'm a bit scruffy, unshod & yesterday I was carrying five unmarked poly bags of veg from the market. She actually told me to put 'my belongings' down over there! Turned out she wasn't qualified either and gave me a look of pure hatred whan I asked her to open an account, 'execution only'. Apparently you now need to be trained how to complete an application form for a product when someone specifically asks for that product. Suddenly the senior advisor who'd been too busy to see me was free & he sorted things out. Although when he told me that a standing order & a direct debit were exactly the same & I queried it with him, he too sped up massively.

Don't judge a book by the cover you fuckers.

Incidentally Katie, although very attractive, is young enough to be my daughter and I'd just like to emphasise that anything that I may have said was in blokey style jest, I really don't need to find my way to the sex offender's register via a complaint about humerous comments on a motoring forum.

[Amishtat]

Organ donor Lily Allen has made me grin today. First time for everything. 

[paulplom]

Was it really that long ago?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[SiC]

Admittedly I triggered it deliberately by yanking out the throttle body connector. 

[eddyramrod]

I was on the radio this afternoon, singing live!

I went in to do a little publicity for our Writers' Group event that's happening tomorrow (at the Dock Museum in Barrow, if you're around...) and was having a lovely chat with the presenter on-air.  Between segments she asked if I had a sample I could read her, so I explained what I'd brought, which is (I think) a humorous take on a carol: "I Saw Three Ships."  I read out the first verse, not wanting to give the ending away, and when you have a piece like that, you just can't help singing it...

If anyone wants to check out the podcast, it's Mai Harrison's show on CanDo FM which is a very local station.

 

 

Earlier today, at Carers' Group, I was given a set of PG Wodehouse books.  Now I love Jeeves and Wooster, it's a world I could happily inhabit, so these might be just the thing to restart my reading and (hopefully) in turn restart my writing.  I actually have a project in mind that includes these characters!  I just haven't written any of it yet.

[richardmorris]

[myglaren]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

Admittedly I triggered it deliberately by yanking out the throttle body connector. 

My R11 used to go on a five minute rant at the slightest provocation, all bad news.

Driving home with a scooter in the back and the tailgate open was - entertaining.

[Wack]

Just read this

 

 

[Alan_Green]

Watch to the end.  (P.S.  He used an Insta 360 one Stick). 

 

[PhilA]

Working on tidying up the workshop that's adjoined to the garage. Some reclaimed cypress tongue and groove flooring to complete the back wall, some random plywood and some really tatty reclaimed wood paneling (think seventies car dealership trailer office) for the roof. Need to get some more paneling to finish up then batten around the edges to seal it all in.

 

It smells exactly like it looks too

 

Phil

[scdan4]

10 hours ago, Alan_Green said:

Watch to the end.  (P.S.  He used an Insta 360 one Stick). 

 

Have a seat son, you’ve just experienced learning.

[LightBulbFun]

6 hours ago, PhilA said:

Working on tidying up the workshop that's adjoined to the garage. Some reclaimed cypress tongue and groove flooring to complete the back wall, some random plywood and some really tatty reclaimed wood paneling (think seventies car dealership trailer office) for the roof. Need to get some more paneling to finish up then batten around the edges to seal it all in.

 

It smells exactly like it looks too

 

Phil

i'm more concerned by that cheap god awful residential shop light installed there!

I highly recommend replacing it with something that actually contains half decent somewhat full power ballasts!

(preferably from the 1970's to match the rest of it ) 

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

i'm more concerned by that cheap god awful residential shop light installed there!

There is GE bulbs fitted though. 

[brownnova]

[LightBulbFun]

16 minutes ago, SiC said:

There is GE bulbs fitted though. 

which will sadly get murdered by the cheap ballasts,

looking at the end I THINK this might be one that's electronically ballasted, which is a tiny bit better then their previous attempts, which contained an anemic Magnetic ballast, which was an undersized choke, a shunt capacitor, and an electronic "starter" that was more at home as a HID ignitor then as a fluorescent tube starter, all of this while driving the tube at something miserable like 270Ma, (compared to the 430Ma an F40T12 is supposed to be run at

and not even providing cathode heating, so the tubes die an early death due to being under run so much (let alone from the brutal starting of the sidac based electronic starter)

for the land of big powerful V8s etc, its always amusing just difficult/hard it can be in the US to find a fluorescent ballast that actually drives a tube at full power, at least most are rapid start, so the heating transformer keeps the cathodes up to temperature regardless of the low arc current, but the tubes still will be much dimmer then they should be!

(although to be fair because they are rapid start with continuous cathode heating is what let the ballast/light manufacturers cheap out and under run the tubes)

but it got so bad especially in the residential side of things, that tube makers were forced to released 25W F40T12's with undersized cathodes, that would actually be driven properly on the residential ballasts

and to finish this rant post off the amusing thing is the above shop light is made by a company called "lights of america", they are anything but LOL

[hairnet]

ordered xmas pressie to meself thursday evening

got email saying monday delivery

had email this morning saying itll be today between 1130 1230

turned up 10 mins ago

 

[myglaren]

Lots of stuff turning up early.

Two packages that should have come today were delivered Monday and Tuesday respectively.

P.O. for one, Hermes the other.  Neither broken (both glass) nor chucked over a wall.

[PhilA]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

i'm more concerned by that cheap god awful residential shop light installed there!

I highly recommend replacing it with something that actually contains half decent somewhat full power ballasts!

(preferably from the 1970's to match the rest of it ) 

 

Incredibly hard to find. Modern stuff is all LED but I agree, it's a horrible fixture.

Phil

[LightBulbFun]

13 minutes ago, PhilA said:

 

Incredibly hard to find. Modern stuff is all LED but I agree, it's a horrible fixture.

Phil

but indeed sadly finding something decent new is very hard these days,

but (sadly because of LEDs) a lot of very decent stuff can be found on craigslist/ebay/local salvage shops and what have you

nothing screams overkill like an 8ft 2 lamp industrial turret F96T12/VHO fixture, 215W per tube FTW!, bonus points if you get some power groove tubes to go with it   

[Sir Chocolate Teapot]

Is it just me but i do enjoy stumbling upon a LightBulbFun post every few weeks and feeling i have entered another dimension i know nothing about. I still read them and then think "no, no idea! "

A bit like reading Alice in wonderland for the 1st time.

More please.

 

[wuvvum]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

nothing screams overkill like an 8ft 2 lamp industrial turret F96T12/VHO fixture, 215W per tube FTW!, bonus points if you get some power groove tubes to go with it   

You won't actually be able to do any work in there as your retinas will be fried to a crisp within 10 nanoseconds of turning the thing on, but that's a minor detail...

[LightBulbFun]

25 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

You won't actually be able to do any work in there as your retinas will be fried to a crisp within 10 nanoseconds of turning the thing on, but that's a minor detail...

hah apt, given what I just posted in the "LightBulbFun" thread that resides in the open forum  (and more for @Sir Chocolate Teapot ) on a more serious note although it would be VERY bright in there, it would not be that hard on the eyes, because especially if you use Power groove tubes, which use large T17 tubing, the surface brightness won't be so bad, so relatively easy to look at

id love to get some power groove tubes in the collection but they are very rare in the UK, I am fortunate enough to have 3 Westinghouse F48T12/SHO tubes in the collection (SHO standing for super high output, being westinghouse's equivalent of the VHO tube) these are only 4fters so "only" 110W a pop, still impressive compared to the 40W a 4ft T12 normally is!, note the funky orange end caps, as opposed to the black end caps Westinghouse normally used

in the US outside of normal bipin fluorescent tubes, in the late 1950s/1960s they made a push to "standardise" things across tube lengths, so the current stays the same across the different tube length, this allows their constant current ballasts to drive a large size range of tubes, one ballast for example could then drive a tube from 2ft to 8ft

as such in the US there's generally 3 classes of fluorescent tube, the 460Ma class, generally known as "slimline" tubes (even tho they are still T12s!), an 8ft slimline tube is 75W these are also known as single pin tubes, as they only have 1 pin on each end, then you have the HO high output class, these run at 800ma, an 8ft HO tube is 110W, then finally you have the VHO class, very high output these run at 1.5A (1500Ma) and an 8ft one is 215W, the HO and VHO tubes use the same R17d end caps (recessed double contact 17 mm pin spacing) Power Groove tubes are part of the 1.5A VHO family, and you can read about PG tubes here  http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D FL Halo Ar GE F96PG17-CW.htm

these standardised tubes, have ordering codes that dictate their length, where as bipin tubes have ordering codes that dictate their wattage

so a 4ft slimline/HO/VHO tube would be F48T12 F48T12/HO F48T12/VHO respectively, where as a normal 4ft bipin tube would be F40T12, because a normal 4ft T12 is 40W

here in the UK fluorescent tube sizes work a bit differently, and each tube length is generally its "own thing" without a common current rating across sizes, (although there are some exceptions) which is less of an issue thanks to our much simpler choke ballasts, and also due to each size in the UK having its own origins etc, rather then all being introduced at the same time

 

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

 

More big ass lightbulb time! 

a good year ago or so, I came across a seller in the US, selling lots of 2, 700W General electric mercury vapour lamps, 

now the 700W mercury lamp size is pretty rare in england, but in the US its very rare, so I very much wanted to buy a lot of 2 to add to my collection (especially as they were clear, Clear mercury vapour lamps are very rare in england)

however I just couldn't afford the expense, but I stuck it on the watch list to keep an eye on them, until a couple weeks ago, out of the blue the SELLER sent me a best offer on them?!

iv never been sent a best offer by a seller before!

and as you can probably tell by this point, the offer was a good offer, and I figured oh what the hell its almost christmas, so I took the seller up on the offer

and thankfully they arrived a couple days ago intact  (despite the relatively poor packaging job by the seller, there was at least some scrunched up paper on the other side, but I think their fairly light weight is what saved them from getting broken)

 

 

to add to the fun, the US 700W Mercury vapour lamp has very different electrical specifications to the British 700W mercury vapour lamp

a British 700W mercury vapour lamp runs at 135V 5.4A, where as a US 700W mercury vapour lamp runs at 265V 2.8A

this means in the UK there's no off the shelf way to run one (and even in the US due to the scarcity of 700W MV lamps, matching control gear is even rarer)

so with these 2 arriving, I got out my Westinghouse 700W Mercury lamp that I already had in my collection

and hooked it up to my special British ballasts for driving US 1Kw Mercury/metal halide lamps which run at 265V 4.2A (this ballast alone is very special and rare! I was very fortunate to pick up 2 on ebay about a year ago)

and then I used my variac to see if by dropping the input voltage to the ballast if I could drop the lamp current down enough to run a 700W MV lamp properly

I was a bit worried that by the time I dropped the voltage down enough to hit the desired current that the lamp would go out because the open circuit voltage was too low (a general rule of thumb is the open circuit voltage of a ballast has to be about twice that of the lamps running voltage or the lamp will extinguish)

but thankfully that was not to be an issue and indeed I was able to drop the current down enough, as seen in this picture  (red meter is measuring lamp current, yellow one is measuring lamp voltage)

I ended up feeding about 200-210V into the 240V ballast, I was very happy as this meant I have fairly simple way of running US 700W Mercury lamps, (I had managed to run up my westinghouse one pictured, in the past, but it involved a very complicated setup, which involved rewiring my variac to use it as center tapped autotransformer)

this setup did not require me to rewire anything 

so with this success, I then of course fired up one of the General electric 700W lamps  

Ignition! note the outer bulb glowing a lovely blue colour from all the UV coming out of the arc tube

same shot but with the exposure turned down to see more details of the arc itself 

and then fully warmed at full power  until now my biggest clear mercury lamp was 175W, so this 700W beast was a fun experience 

 

and then one of my favorite shots, a close up of the arc tube at full power  

 

and then finally shut off, check out the glowing electrodes!

funnily enough despite knowing quite a few US collectors who have 700W mercury vapour lamps I think im the first one to actually figure out/have the setup to light them! and im in the UK!

 

[PhilA]

Power Grooves are really hard to come by here, simply because cost when new.

 

I just need a halfway decent fixture.

[LightBulbFun]

18 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Power Grooves are really hard to come by here, simply because cost when new.

 

I just need a halfway decent fixture.

Yeah, (sadly I dont think GE makes them any more...), on the subject of US tubes id also love a F90T17 or 2 the original 1940s "high output" fluorescent tube  (well that would be the F100T17 but those are INCREDIBLY rare)  a 5ft long T17 90W big bardstard of a tube

but yeah a decent 2 lamp F40T12 shoplight with a decent full power (0.76A or 0.80A line current) ballast should work quite nicely  

could always make something yourself!  (and even find a preheat ballast if you want to feel like your in the UK again #blink-blink)

[PhilA]

Well, once things get settled here I may grab a replacement fixture. This one is falling apart- I wizzed the top over with a wire wheel and gave it a coat of paint (navy blue) but the tubes always need a wiggle to get them going because the end cap is falling apart.

 

Preheat blink would be nice.

 

I also want to get a nice 18W LPS for outside.

 

Phil

[Wack]

16 hours ago, Alan_Green said:

Watch to the end.  (P.S.  He used an Insta 360 one Stick). 

 

What a twat, he could've killed somebody at that speed on the pavement ,I hope the dislocated shoulder was worth it , these videos always end at the best bit

[Wack]

[taxi paul]

I shouldn't laugh but. Mum at school stopped me last week to show me a scratch on her bumper, 05 focus. Scratch is very tiny and not worth bothering with. She then tells me the tale of how another parent had done it but said nothing. So loads of detective work secured her a witness to said little bump. Driver of car approached and agreed to pay for the damage . She then tells me that dent master have said around £150.00 to spray bumper etc. Dont get me wrong the bumper does have a scratch and mark on it. But not that bad. This was on Tuesday she was telling me all this . Other lady going to pay , so she should , look at the damage and other drama. So jump to friday and we are all going out of car park when said mum runs into the back of an 05 fiesta and proper smashes the bumper in. Cant wait for monday to see if fiesta driver is getting some proper prices for spraying and fitting a new bumper. Karma at it's best. 

[Wack]

47 minutes ago, taxi paul said:

I shouldn't laugh but. Mum at school stopped me last week to show me a scratch on her bumper, 05 focus. Scratch is very tiny and not worth bothering with. She then tells me the tale of how another parent had done it but said nothing. So loads of detective work secured her a witness to said little bump. Driver of car approached and agreed to pay for the damage . She then tells me that dent master have said around £150.00 to spray bumper etc. Dont get me wrong the bumper does have a scratch and mark on it. But not that bad. This was on Tuesday she was telling me all this . Other lady going to pay , so she should , look at the damage and other drama. So jump to friday and we are all going out of car park when said mum runs into the back of an 05 fiesta and proper smashes the bumper in. Cant wait for monday to see if fiesta driver is getting some proper prices for spraying and fitting a new bumper. Karma at it's best. 

I parked an old focus in the street , one of the neighbours kids who hadn't been driving long backed into it in the dark , a knock on the door and a sheepish looking kid , I've just backed into your car, is it bad , no but I've scratched the bumper, is the bumper hanging off, no , OK cart on , forget about it

 

One of the joys of owning an old car is you"re not worried about little marks , this woman sounds like a right cow who got what she deserved

[PhilA]

I now have a nice little workshop.

I'm gonna get some lights to put up over the benches and finish up along the edges a bit with some battening.

But, overall, good.

 

Phil