200 volts DC leccy in the Meadows.


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Someone mentioned listening on a short wave radio. Bought one of these from the Army and Navy Store on Carrington Street. My Dad helped me rig up a power supply and an aerial. This is what got me hooked on 'leccie stuff, and still playing nearly sixty years later. Did get to play with lots of aeroplanes in between - Avionics LAME and then Com Pilot. Much of that thanks to Aunty Betty's flying circus (RAF).

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Phew what........i should cocoa..............

Hi mick2me I'll get my dad to reply to that one he should be getting up around now I think they are about 8 hrs behind us in Vancouver

Ah yes Miss Slack, she taught me to read in one year, I couldn't read up till then because of my disrupted schooling with all the moving around I did. I got a prize for progress at the end of the year

Nice radio there. I lost my Murphy U130 in a house move, I remembered I'd left it at the old house, I asked them if I could have it back but they'd binned it, I wanted to cry. I enjoyed listening to the short waves, I've got a transistor radio with short wave on it but last time I fired it up the interference drowned out the weaker stations so I gave up.

Cedarboy, I remember some of those damp victorian houses, they had a distinctive smell. I was at a friends house in one of the terraces off Bunbury st when the shilling went & it went dark, I could hear sumat moving on the floor, when the light came back on cockroaches scuttled off in all directions, I screamed like a girl, lol. :)

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Nice radio there. I lost my Murphy U130 in a house move, I remembered I'd left it at the old house, I asked them if I could have it back but they'd binned it, I wanted to cry. I enjoyed listening to the short waves, I've got a transistor radio with short wave on it but last time I fired it up the interference drowned out the weaker stations so I gave up.

Cedarboy, I remember some of those damp victorian houses, they had a distinctive smell. I was at a friends house in one of the terraces off Bunbury st when the shilling went & it went dark, I could hear sumat moving on the floor, when the light came back on cockroaches scuttled off in all directions, I screamed like a girl, lol. :)

"When the Shilling went". Brings back all sorts of memories. How long did the shilling last??

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All SM components now days (surface mount) Cedarboy, my hands aren't steady enough to replace those components and I need a magnifying glass too, although I have replaced an sm chip, took me ages and had to clean off solder bridges afterwards.

All modules now, cheaper in the long run.

My Visio got zapped by a freak lightning strike, few months back, took out the main board, just over $100 for a new board, switching power supply tested OK, so didn't bother with that.

Some years back our old CRT type TV went out, all plug in modules, tracked it down to one of then and replaced that one, TV lasted for a few more years.

How times have changed!!

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I can remember the electric and gas meters taking pennies in the 50's, I can't put the exact years in though, just too far back, I recall shillings in the 60's, last house I rented was monthly reader and pay by cheque, that was late 70's..Since living overseas haven't seen any prepaid meters.

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Not many power points in them days, most things plugged into the light socket with a 2 way adaptor.

Remember the radios, TV's, irons, fairy lights & hoovers running off light fittings, live chassis radio & TV's at that, on a 5 amp fuse, oh the horror, how we didn't all end up frazzled I don't know, lol...Remember watching a sit-com yonks ago where they had about 4 adaptors plugged in to each other in a daisy chain, it got a good laugh. :)

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Yes the live chassis were deadly Steve, DC clamps your muscles, so it's almost impossible to let go, at least AC has the ability to "throw you off" Add that to damp stone or concrete walls and it is very surprising more folks didn't get killed.

The fellers on the "Boat Anchor" sites who restore all sorts of radios add transformers to isolate the radio from the mains, might not be true restoration, but adds safety to any radio restored.

We did have a couple of 15 amp outlets, not sure if Dad wired them..(God forbid, he was no electrician) or a mate of his added them.

I remember, before I started work, Dad trying to figure out how to wire two way switches using a battery, bulb and scrap wire, he never did "crack it" and it's so easy....... Mind you I say easy, but then I have over 40 years experience in the trade..

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I once was Steve, came pretty close to being blinded at the same time, never realized the starting current of an attraction repulsion motor was until I held the test leads with just hand pressure, instead of making a good mechanical connection on the leads of a motor I was testing in the early 70's.

The leads just vaporized at contact, coating my fingers in copper and black carbon...LOL

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I once was Steve, came pretty close to being blinded at the same time, never realized the starting current of an attraction repulsion motor was until I held the test leads with just hand pressure, instead of making a good mechanical connection on the leads of a motor I was testing in the early 70's.

The leads just vaporized at contact, coating my fingers in copper and black carbon...LOL

Ooh nasty. BTW I think Dad said that "pit shearers, trepaners, belt motors ect were direct on line starting with no star/delta or rheostat gubbins" is that right John? or did I dream it..

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All direct on line....Even conveyor belt motors were direct on line with a fluid coupling to allow load to be taken up gradually, but that's gone to what we call "soft starters" now Where electronics does the starting.

Face voltages have gone up from 1100 volts to 3.3Kv now to reduce load and cable sizes, one face down under has the AFC motor at 11Kv....Now that's scary!!

I worked with 11Kv as the main underground retriculation system, transformed down to the main working voltages.

NOW, that MAKE'S you check, double check and be bloody careful!!!!! As leading hand I ALWAYS took one of my electricians with me if I had to work on an 11Kv circuit, we'd double check everything each other did....You're dead if you make one mistake on those voltages.

DC made a comeback in motor speed control, Boulby's winding engines are DC, as were our battery powered personnel carriers and electric locos underground.

AC variable frequency equipment is also being used a lot in industry these days too.

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They must have taken a massive starting current, that'll be why some transformers humming noise would suddenly get louder, it'd be when sumat started up. I remember on a tour round Hinkley Point nuclear power station we stood near (not too near) the 400KV switch-gear & grid feeder lines, they were humming & crackling with corona discharge.

Read somewhere that the Notts tram converts 750 volts DC to variable frequency AC using insulated gate bipolar transistors to drive synchronous motors (I think) all very clever stuff. When I think of transistors I imagine those fiddly things that came with my radio constructor kit when I was a kid (BC 107's I think.) I wanted to be an electronics bod when I left school but colour blindness put the kybosh on that..

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Steve, an old mate of mine who served his apprenticeship same time as myself, same class at tech, he was at Cotgrave, was colour blind. The NCB didn't pick it up until late in our first year, and was going to transfer him to fitting, he fought them on the grounds he wasn't totally colour blind, took some tests they threw at him and he showed he was confident in isolating red white/yellow and blue.

Solid state variable speed controls use thyristors, they have evolved from low current low voltage devices to high current very high voltage devices.

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I went to Ericsons, Radio rentals, NCB & Army, they all picked up on my colour vision deficiency, I thought of memorising the charts to pass, but then thought "if I killed someone because I'd mixed the wires up I could be on a Manslaughter charge" so scrapped that idea. If I wire owt up I always check it with my AVO meter (Dad borrowed it from NCB Bestwood workshops, the workshops are not there anymore so I can't give it back) just to make sure I've not connected live to earth or something..

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They made three phase easy, three browns, and the international colour codes for single phase circuits had colour blindness as the guidelines. Blue, Brown and yellow striped green.

Most of the control circuit wiring these days is white with numbers attached.

Even multi pair telephone cables we used underground I doubt you'd have problems with.

Electronics would be a pig, you wouldn't be able to decipher resistor ohmic values, or old mica capacitor values as both are colour coded.

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I can remember the electric and gas meters taking pennies in the 50's, I can't put the exact years in though, just too far back, I recall shillings in the 60's, last house I rented was monthly reader and pay by cheque, that was late 70's..Since living overseas haven't seen any prepaid meters.

when I was a child we had two electric meters, one took pennies and the other shillings, I think the first was for lights and the second for power, big 15amp round pin plugs & sockets. The meter reader came with his leather bag and counted the money on the kitchen table. There was always a rebate which Mother put back in the meter.

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I remember us finding an old invoice from when the old house we lived in first had electricity installed.

It was before the second world war and was from the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Electric Power Company.

There weren't many sockets and loose wires trailing upstairs, no cable trunking in those days!

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I've got an interesting story of the AC/DC mixed supply in Nottingham.

At home we were on 240 AC I think. My gal friend came round, as I was changing an on/off switch on Dad's bedroom wall that has been fitted upside down and it was bothering him.

I shouted down the stairs for someone to turn of the power, and proceeded to get thrown across the room as I got the shock, due to their turning of the wrong switch. (We had two, one for lighting and one for power points)

Tsk!

I took Suzie home on me motorbike to Lenton. When she told her mum of the happening, it reminder her that she needed the light bulb holder under the stairs moving, and I set to, to impress her with me skills and willingness to help.

They were still on DC, and as I got the shock, it took ages to free meself.

Tsk!

I've always thought that not many people have had an AC and DC shock on the same day... Double Tsk!

Hey-ho.

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AC doesn't always throw you off either, as a young electrical apprentice I was feeding a bare wire to behind a live leg of a 440 volt 3 phase board, it caught a phase and I was unable to let go...It was only my weight as I was passing out that freed me..

I've had DC too on a contactor circuit when I was doing something illegal, fault finding underground, that was about 250 volts and very painful..

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