> On 10/2/2012 5:21 PM, jim stone wrote:
>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got >> mobile
>> phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an
>> internet radio.
>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it >> to
>> play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and >> speakers.
>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering >> if
>> this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its >> working
>> life ?
> Using anything shortens it's working life.
I can vouch for the remark made but I can give you more details too:
I use smartphones, tablets and laptops to listen to internet radio all the time and I've only had one device that suffered because of that. What happened to that particular device is the WiFi quit working and it doesn't even work after a factory reset.
But out of all the other devices I've used they haven't demonstrated any problems at all.
>> Using anything shortens its working life.
> I can vouch for the remark made but I can give you more details too:
> I use smartphones, tablets and laptops to listen to internet radio all the
> time and I've only had one device that suffered because of that. What
> happened to that particular device is the WiFi quit working and it doesn't
> even work after a factory reset.
Who knows why the WiFi quit? The radio could have failed simply because the
chip went bad.
HP has had problems with the radios in some of its notebooks.
>> I can vouch for the remark made but I can give you more details too:
>> I use smartphones, tablets and laptops to listen to internet radio all >> the
>> time and I've only had one device that suffered because of that. What
>> happened to that particular device is the WiFi quit working and it >> doesn't
>> even work after a factory reset.
> Who knows why the WiFi quit? The radio could have failed simply because > the
> chip went bad.
> HP has had problems with the radios in some of its notebooks.
Yes, I've heard that and I've even seen one person that no longer has WiFi on their HP notebook but they claimed it was the switch itself that quit working so I try not to use the hardware WiFi switch on an HP notebook.
Me, I've had a power plug fail on an HP ZD7000 notebook and that was common for that particular notebook.
I've also had a DVD fail on an HP DV8000 notebook but when the second DVD failed too I went back to the first DVD and it has been working fine since then. I doubt if I'll ever figure that one out unless if it was a problem with the connector.
Other than that, I've seen a lot of videos on youtube with problematic HPs where if it isn't the WiFi that goes out it is the video. Case in point:
Oddly enough I skipped getting the HP ZD8000 because I went from an HP ZD7000 to the HP DV8000 where the ZD8000 looks more like the ZD7000 than the DV8000.
FYI the only device I had that lost the WiFi was a Pharos Traveler 137 that I got real cheap when a place was getting rid of them so I wasn't too upset when the WiFi quit on that.
On 10/03/2012 05:12 AM, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article
> <0ae7fdaf-9a45-4fd5-8800-9a6588a7f...@q4g2000vbg.googlegroups.com>,
> hr(bob) hofm...@att.net<hrhofm...@att.net> wrote:
>> He is right, the stresses involved in the turn-on of the bulb each
>> time is equal to several hours of continuous running. If you cycle a
>> bulb on and off every few seconds, the total on time before the bulb
>> fails will be only a few hundered hours for a 1000 hour rated bulb,
> It would be a strange way to rate the life of a lamp - on constantly,
> since this pretty well never happens.
> Do you find the 'flasher' lamps on your car failing more quickly than
> similar lamps which don't flash?
I don't know of any data that supports this common idea, but I'd be interested in reading about it if anybody's actually done the experiment carefully. Electromigration is a smaller effect in an AC bulb, since the leading order effect cancels.
I suspect that the notion that cycling is hard on bulbs comes from the way that the bulb often fails at turn-on, when the thinnest hot spot vapourizes before the rest of the filament has a chance to come up to temperature and reduce the inrush current.
The tungsten in the lamp is run within a few hundred kelvins of its melting point, so it's always in the fully annealed state, which ought to mean that there are no metal fatigue mechanisms operating, just material migration due to sublimation.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
On Tue, 2 Oct 2012 19:14:45 -0700 (PDT), "hr(bob) hofm...@att.net"
<hrhofm...@att.net> wrote:
>If you cycle a
>bulb on and off every few seconds, the total on time before the bulb
>fails will be only a few hundered hours for a 1000 hour rated bulb,
<TheBigrrr669yy...@TheBigrrrr6669yyyy.com> wrote:
>You shit for brains your ignorance is truly amazing. You are an >undercover racist idiot. Go to the Republican side, because you are not >fit to be a Democrat.
>After Obama wins, Zimmerman will be dealt with next.
Who opened the kennel doors and let the arseholes out?
On Wed, 3 Oct 2012 08:38:54 +0100, "Paul D Smith" <paul_d_sm...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>"jim stone" <tgh6h56...@mail.invalid> wrote in message >news:k4flsm$pbt$1@dont-email.me...
>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got >> mobile phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it >> as an internet radio.
>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it >> to play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and >> speakers.
>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering >> if this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its >> working life ?
>You'll have dropped it well before it wears out :-).
You'll wear out the batteries before you drop it and you'll want the new
iThingy before the batteries die. Full employment for the phone company.
>BTW, a cheap PC >speaker set might be handy if you want a little more volume. And you can >probably find a decent streaming client if you have your music sitting on a >PC somewhere.
> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got mobile
> phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an
> internet radio.
> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it to
> play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and speakers.
> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering if
> this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its working
> life ?
Does the mobile have a subscription plan; i.e. periodic payments?
>"Tom Biasi" <tombi...@optonline.net> wrote in message >news:506b5d4b$0$9802$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>> On 10/2/2012 5:21 PM, jim stone wrote:
>>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got >>> mobile
>>> phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an
>>> internet radio.
>>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it >>> to
>>> play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and >>> speakers.
>>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering >>> if
>>> this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its >>> working
>>> life ?
>> Using anything shortens it's working life.
>Seems to go against the whole ethos of exercising. Never get out of bed and >live forever ...
Blanket absolute statements are often wrong...
You have to match the logic to the device. Light bulbs? Off makes
them last longest. A car engine? You better exercise that sucker
once in awhile if it sits outside fully fueled. Many electronic
devices can tolerate 24/7 with few failures. Disk drives? Now that's
a question. The early ones (sealed ones - not the very early ones
where the platters were removable 12" disks) seemed to do better if
they ran 'til they croaked. The early drum recorders seemed to last
forever as long as they didn't stop running. (the heads rode on a
wave of silicon oil and never touched the belts unless they stopped)
tony sayer wrote:
> In article <k4fn6h$1o...@dont-email.me>, William Sommerwerck
> <grizzledgee...@comcast.net> scribeth thus
>> "Tom Biasi" <tombi...@optonline.net> wrote in message
>> news:506b5d4b$0$9802$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>>> On 10/2/2012 5:21 PM, jim stone wrote:
>>>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked,
>>>> we got a mobile phone with which we link with WiFi to a modem
>>>> router, and use it as an internet radio.
>>>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are
>>>> using it to play *all-day* background classical music through an
>>>> amplifier and speakers.
>>>> Since the phone has no "moving parts" unlike a computer, we are
>>>> wondering if this continuous playing all day of the phone is going
>>>> to shorten its working life ?
>>> Using anything shortens its working life.
>> Not so. There aren't any obvious failure mechanisms in solid-state devices
>> (other than dopant migration in high-power output transistors).
> Yes interesting that especially in high power RF transistors, 'tho I
> believe in such cases its paralled emitter connections that start going
> open circuit...
>> It's also true that most mechanical devices "like" moderate use. Letting
>> anything mechanical "sit" most of the time will probably cause it fail
>> sooner than if receives regular use.
>> It's now possible to build computers without moving parts (other than the
>> optical drives). My new computer has a solid-state "hard disk", and you
>> wouldn't believe how fast it boots up, or how fast programs start to run.
> Indeed they do just got one, not in this machine but very fast indeed.
> They still it seems fail though...
Boot times are largely a function of what gets loaded prior to showing a "desktop". Different OS'es have different boot times. Check out Haiku OS. I boot to a "desktop" in under a minute.
William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>> Using anything shortens its working life.
>> I can vouch for the remark made but I can give you more details too:
>> I use smartphones, tablets and laptops to listen to internet radio all the
>> time and I've only had one device that suffered because of that. What
>> happened to that particular device is the WiFi quit working and it doesn't
>> even work after a factory reset.
> Who knows why the WiFi quit? The radio could have failed simply because the
> chip went bad.
> HP has had problems with the radios in some of its notebooks.
This might be where a Knoppix disk can help arbitrate between a
software/configuration problem and a hardware failure. Any time
I have something fail, I do the "Remove Device"/"Add Device"
dance, then update drivers.
If that fails, out comes the Knoppix disk. If it *still* fails,
it's most likely hardware. I've been lucky so far and nothing
has needed a lot of scrounging for Linux device drivers.
> "Tom Biasi" <tombi...@optonline.net> wrote in message
> news:506b5d4b$0$9802$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>> On 10/2/2012 5:21 PM, jim stone wrote:
>>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got
>>> mobile
>>> phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an
>>> internet radio.
>>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it
>>> to
>>> play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and
>>> speakers.
>>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering
>>> if
>>> this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its
>>> working
>>> life ?
>> Using anything shortens it's working life.
> Seems to go against the whole ethos of exercising. Never get out of bed and
> live forever ...
Be sure to use all ten fingers on the tv remote, make them last longer.
> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got > mobile phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it > as an internet radio.
> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it > to play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and > speakers.
> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering > if this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its > working life ?
The bits that will fail [first] in a mobile phone are the battery and display. You can replace the battery and switch off the display.
I have two 40+ year old solid state radios that still work.
On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:48:40 -0500, amdx <a...@knology.net> wrote:
>On 10/3/2012 1:01 AM, MikeS wrote:
>> "Tom Biasi" <tombi...@optonline.net> wrote in message
>> news:506b5d4b$0$9802$607ed4bc@cv.net...
>>> On 10/2/2012 5:21 PM, jim stone wrote:
>>>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got
>>>> mobile
>>>> phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an
>>>> internet radio.
>>>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it
>>>> to
>>>> play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and
>>>> speakers.
>>>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering
>>>> if
>>>> this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its
>>>> working
>>>> life ?
>>> Using anything shortens it's working life.
>> Seems to go against the whole ethos of exercising. Never get out of bed and
>> live forever ...
> Be sure to use all ten fingers on the tv remote, make them last longer.
>"jim stone" <tgh6h56...@mail.invalid> wrote in message >news:k4flsm$pbt$1@dont-email.me...
>> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got >> mobile phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it >> as an internet radio.
>> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it >> to play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and >> speakers.
>> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering >> if this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its >> working life ?
>The bits that will fail [first] in a mobile phone are the battery and >display. You can replace the battery and switch off the display.
Except phones with hardwired batteries.
>I have two 40+ year old solid state radios that still work.
My 39YO HP45 still works but the power switch is too flaky to be usable.
<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>I don't know of any data that supports this common idea, but I'd be >interested in reading about it if anybody's actually done the experiment >carefully.
It's an accelerated life test. The deration curve of the incandescent
light bulb is well known and assumed to be (Vapplied/Vdesign)^-12 to ^-16 * Life at design voltage
<http://www.welchallyn.com/documents/Lighting/OEM_Halogen_Lighting/MC3...>
See Fig 5 on Pg 5 for the graph. Nobody wants to wait 1000 hours for
a bulb to blow. So, they increase the applied voltage, which
dramatically decreases the lifetime down to reasonable test times.
Using a rack of bulbs, they obtain an average (or median) lifetime at
the higher voltage. Then, they work backwards on the curve to
estimate what it would be at the design voltage.
When I was specifying lamps for a direction finder for the USCG, I had
to deal with minimum lifetime specs. I asked the vendor (Dialight)
how they tested their T-1 3/4 bulbs and was told that they did an
accelerated lifetime test on a few bulbs from each lot to insure
adequate lifetime along with the usual sampled 1.5% AQL failure test.
>Electromigration is a smaller effect in an AC bulb, since >the leading order effect cancels.
Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
middle, mostly from vibration flexing.
>I suspect that the notion that cycling is hard on bulbs comes from the >way that the bulb often fails at turn-on, when the thinnest hot spot >vapourizes before the rest of the filament has a chance to come up to >temperature and reduce the inrush current.
Yep. See my comments on the relatively high failure rate on the
40watt theater marquee lamps due to cycling. The same lamps in the
lobby and foyer were not cycled and seemed to last forever.
>The tungsten in the lamp is run within a few hundred kelvins of its >melting point, so it's always in the fully annealed state, which ought >to mean that there are no metal fatigue mechanisms operating, just >material migration due to sublimation.
Yep, but different failure mode. When the extremely thin layer of
tungsten plating evaporates, the light becomes dimmer. Below some
brightness level, it is considered to have failed. However, most such
tungsten coated filaments fail due to corrosion of the base steel
alloy wire which is exposed to the internal gases inside the bulb
after the tungsten evaporates. The gases (mostly nitrogen and some
argon) are inert, but there's a little water vapor outgassing from
heating the glass envelope, which eventually corrodes the filament.
Other failure modes are hot spots and notches caused by manufacturing
variations and tungsten evaporation.
On 2012-10-02, jim stone <tgh6h56...@mail.invalid> wrote:
> Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we got mobile > phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router, and use it as an > internet radio.
> Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are using it to > play *all-day* background classical music through an amplifier and speakers.
> Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are wondering if > this continuous playing all day of the phone is going to shorten its working > life ?
On 2012-10-03, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <g...@mendelson.com> wrote:
> My choices are to once a week clean out a jam, and clean the feed roller;
> print something everyday (a waste of paper)
load the paper tray with scrap paper, use the bypass when you want to
print something for real.
another option is to make a document with no ink and print that each day
at the end of the week collect the blank pages from the output tray
and put them back in the input tray.
>>> My new computer has a solid-state "hard disk", and you
>>> wouldn't believe how fast it boots up, or how fast programs
>>> start to run.
>> These, if flash memory, do have a definite wear out mechanism,
>> although they do try to avoid writing to the same spot, even if the
>> software does, to mitigate this.
> Correct. SSDs are an exception. They contain "leveling" software that makes
> sure the disk is written to evenly. The Crucial disk I use is spec'd at
> about 40TB of total writes.
For most usage scenarios the theoretical lifetimes of modern SSDs are longer than HDDs.
> On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:32:57 -0400, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>> I don't know of any data that supports this common idea, but I'd be
>> interested in reading about it if anybody's actually done the experiment
>> carefully.
> It's an accelerated life test. The deration curve of the incandescent
> light bulb is well known and assumed to be
> (Vapplied/Vdesign)^-12 to ^-16 * Life at design voltage
> <http://www.welchallyn.com/documents/Lighting/OEM_Halogen_Lighting/MC3...>
> See Fig 5 on Pg 5 for the graph. Nobody wants to wait 1000 hours for
> a bulb to blow. So, they increase the applied voltage, which
> dramatically decreases the lifetime down to reasonable test times.
> Using a rack of bulbs, they obtain an average (or median) lifetime at
> the higher voltage. Then, they work backwards on the curve to
> estimate what it would be at the design voltage.
You can't run an accelerated life test when the exponent isn't known more accurately than 12 to 16.
> When I was specifying lamps for a direction finder for the USCG, I had
> to deal with minimum lifetime specs. I asked the vendor (Dialight)
> how they tested their T-1 3/4 bulbs and was told that they did an
> accelerated lifetime test on a few bulbs from each lot to insure
> adequate lifetime along with the usual sampled 1.5% AQL failure test.
>> Electromigration is a smaller effect in an AC bulb, since
>> the leading order effect cancels.
> Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
> middle, mostly from vibration flexing.
I don't think so, because there's no mechanism for that, as I said. The wire is fully annealed at all times, so there's no possibility of progressive fatigue failure.
>> I suspect that the notion that cycling is hard on bulbs comes from the
>> way that the bulb often fails at turn-on, when the thinnest hot spot
>> vapourizes before the rest of the filament has a chance to come up to
>> temperature and reduce the inrush current.
> Yep. See my comments on the relatively high failure rate on the
> 40watt theater marquee lamps due to cycling. The same lamps in the
> lobby and foyer were not cycled and seemed to last forever.
I was actually disagreeing with you. There are lots of possible reasons for the marquee lights failing prematurely. I'm not a tungsten expert myself, so I'd be very interested in seeing actual data that shows a dramatic shortening of life due to cycling. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I haven't seen any such data.
>> The tungsten in the lamp is run within a few hundred kelvins of its
>> melting point, so it's always in the fully annealed state, which ought
>> to mean that there are no metal fatigue mechanisms operating, just
>> material migration due to sublimation.
> Yep, but different failure mode. When the extremely thin layer of
> tungsten plating evaporates, the light becomes dimmer. Below some
> brightness level, it is considered to have failed. However, most such
> tungsten coated filaments fail due to corrosion of the base steel
> alloy wire which is exposed to the internal gases inside the bulb
> after the tungsten evaporates. The gases (mostly nitrogen and some
> argon) are inert, but there's a little water vapor outgassing from
> heating the glass envelope, which eventually corrodes the filament.
> Other failure modes are hot spots and notches caused by manufacturing
> variations and tungsten evaporation.
The filament isn't tungsten-plated, it's pure tungsten or a low alloy. The brightness drop comes from tungsten condensing on the envelope.
<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>On 10/03/2012 09:41 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:32:57 -0400, Phil Hobbs
>> <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>> I don't know of any data that supports this common idea, but I'd be
>>> interested in reading about it if anybody's actually done the experiment
>>> carefully.
>> It's an accelerated life test. The deration curve of the incandescent
>> light bulb is well known and assumed to be
>> (Vapplied/Vdesign)^-12 to ^-16 * Life at design voltage
>> <http://www.welchallyn.com/documents/Lighting/OEM_Halogen_Lighting/MC3...>
>> See Fig 5 on Pg 5 for the graph. Nobody wants to wait 1000 hours for
>> a bulb to blow. So, they increase the applied voltage, which
>> dramatically decreases the lifetime down to reasonable test times.
>> Using a rack of bulbs, they obtain an average (or median) lifetime at
>> the higher voltage. Then, they work backwards on the curve to
>> estimate what it would be at the design voltage.
>You can't run an accelerated life test when the exponent isn't known >more accurately than 12 to 16.
True, but I believe that's the range expected from different types of
light bulbs (nitrogen filled, halogen, vaccuum), and not the range
expected for a given device. I suspect that more accurate exponent
value could be empirically determined for a given device, and later
used only for that device.
>> Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
>> middle, mostly from vibration flexing.
>I don't think so, because there's no mechanism for that, as I said. The >wire is fully annealed at all times, so there's no possibility of >progressive fatigue failure.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Reducing_filamen...>
One of the problems of the standard electric light bulb is
evaporation of the filament. Small variations in resistivity along the filament cause "hot spots" to form at points of higher resistivity; a variation of diameter of only 1% will cause a 25% reduction in service life. The hot spots evaporate
faster than the rest of the filament, increasing resistance at that point a positive feedback that ends in the familiar tiny gap in an otherwise healthy-looking filament.
Note the photo of the filament with a break in the middle. When I was
quite young, I would break burnt out AC light bulbs to see what was
inside. If the filament was intact, the break was always somewhere
near the middle. If a piece broke off, one end of the broken piece
was usually near the middle. In later years, I would look at the
remains of DC panel lights (usually type 47 for old Motorola radios)
and noted that the breaks were always near the supporting terminals,
probably due to metal migration.
>>> I suspect that the notion that cycling is hard on bulbs comes from the
>>> way that the bulb often fails at turn-on, when the thinnest hot spot
>>> vapourizes before the rest of the filament has a chance to come up to
>>> temperature and reduce the inrush current.
>> Yep. See my comments on the relatively high failure rate on the
>> 40watt theater marquee lamps due to cycling. The same lamps in the
>> lobby and foyer were not cycled and seemed to last forever.
>I was actually disagreeing with you. There are lots of possible reasons >for the marquee lights failing prematurely. I'm not a tungsten expert >myself, so I'd be very interested in seeing actual data that shows a >dramatic shortening of life due to cycling. I'm not saying it's >impossible, just that I haven't seen any such data.
So much for my anecdotal data. My theater marquee experience was in
about 1966. The theater actually did keep records so that they could
stock enough replacement bulbs, but I don't have copies of any of
that.
I tried Googling for similar repetative on-off tests and didn't find
anything. If I have time, I'll try again. I must admit that the lack
of test data does look suspicious. Perhaps sending the idea to
Mythbusters and have them runs a test?
>The filament isn't tungsten-plated, it's pure tungsten or a low alloy. >The brightness drop comes from tungsten condensing on the envelope.
>which is a 42% Ni steel with OFHC copper or nickel plating.
>You're making a lot of that up. I'd still like to see >carefully-collected data.
No, not fabricated. It's my reliance on my memory in an area that I'm
not familiar with. I tried Googling for the wire used, couldn't find
much, and made a bad guess. The plating came from somehow getting
thorium coated tungsten wire used in vacuum tubes mixed up with light
bulbs. Sorry for the errors and muddle.
On Wed, 3 Oct 2012 10:34:04 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
<g...@mendelson.com> wrote:
>Tom Biasi wrote:
>>> Not so. With mechanical devices, regular moderate use provides a longer
>>> useful lifetime than using the device only rarely.
>> I don't agree but will say no more.
>Laser printers. I have given away for parts several laser printers because
>they sat unused 99% of the time, and started to jam when I printed the >one or two pages a month I needed them for.
I've seen flat spots on laser printers. However, just running a few
pages through the printer usually returns them to normal. If not, use
some rubber roller restorer to soften the rubber.
<http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/specials/misc/all/S03>
In my experience, many printer jams are caused by paper slippage on
the rollers. Usually, it's the white paper dust that causes slippage,
but it can easily be household dust accumulated over the time the
printer was idle. Maybe hitting the printer with a compressed air
blast before operating might help.
Another slippage problem is when the rubber surface becomes glazed or
polished. The rubber roller restorer will take the surface gloss off
the rollers, and improve the traction, but if there's any rubber wear,
the roller(s) should be replaced.
>Not only did the rubber wheels dry out and lose their ability to grab paper,
>they flatten where they are pressed against something.
>I have a perfectly good Samsung laser printer in that condition now.
Ugh. I don't have much nice to say about Samsung printers. They're
cheap, function adequately, use overpriced toner carts, and don't last
very long. I've never really done an autopsy to isolate a culprit.
The usual end of life symptoms are either paper jams or flimsy broken
plastic parts.
>My choices are to once a week clean out a jam, and clean the feed roller;
>print something everyday (a waste of paper); spend $15 for a new roller
>(including postage) and an hour to install it; or wait for a sale >(every 2-3 months) and buy a newer faster, higher resolution model with a >2,000 page toner cartridge included for less than the cost of a full load toner.
Chuckle. Yeah, that's about it. Next purchase, I suggest HP LaserJet
printers. They have their own collection of problems, but parts and
refills are commonly available and cheap. The printer cannibals sell
used parts and assemblies fairly cheap on eBay. Also, expertise is
more easily found:
<http://www.fixyourownprinter.com>
My favorite printer of the week is the HP 2300DN or DTN at between $90
to $220 used depending on condition and options. Favorite feature is
double sided (duplex) printing.
On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:42:21 -0400, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:
>My 39YO HP45 still works but the power switch is too flaky to be usable.
I collect old HP LED type calculators. The HP 45 is well worth fixing
and using.
The switches tend to fail due to dirt accumulation and/or wearing a
grove into the PCB contact area from overuse. I've repaired both
problems.
<http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv018.cgi?read=13...>
This is the dirt problem:
<http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f96/geoff_q/gunk.jpg>
I couldn't find a photo of a grove worn in the contacts. I've been
quite successful with just cleaning the switch area. I've also
repaired missing gold problems with gold leaf. It was difficult,
required a microscope, a steady hand, no air movement, and
considerable patience.
> <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
> >On 10/03/2012 09:41 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> >> On Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:32:57 -0400, Phil Hobbs
> >> <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
> >>> I don't know of any data that supports this common idea, but I'd be
> >>> interested in reading about it if anybody's actually done the experiment
> >>> carefully.
> >> It's an accelerated life test. The deration curve of the incandescent
> >> light bulb is well known and assumed to be
> >> (Vapplied/Vdesign)^-12 to ^-16 * Life at design voltage
> >> <http://www.welchallyn.com/documents/Lighting/OEM_Halogen_Lighting/MC3...>
> >> See Fig 5 on Pg 5 for the graph. Nobody wants to wait 1000 hours for
> >> a bulb to blow. So, they increase the applied voltage, which
> >> dramatically decreases the lifetime down to reasonable test times.
> >> Using a rack of bulbs, they obtain an average (or median) lifetime at
> >> the higher voltage. Then, they work backwards on the curve to
> >> estimate what it would be at the design voltage.
> >You can't run an accelerated life test when the exponent isn't known
> >more accurately than 12 to 16.
> True, but I believe that's the range expected from different types of
> light bulbs (nitrogen filled, halogen, vaccuum), and not the range
> expected for a given device. I suspect that more accurate exponent
> value could be empirically determined for a given device, and later
> used only for that device.
> >> Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
> >> middle, mostly from vibration flexing.
> >I don't think so, because there's no mechanism for that, as I said. The
> >wire is fully annealed at all times, so there's no possibility of
> >progressive fatigue failure.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Reducing_filamen...>
> One of the problems of the standard electric light bulb is
> evaporation of the filament. Small variations in resistivity
> along the filament cause "hot spots" to form at points of
> higher resistivity; a variation of diameter of only 1% will
> cause a 25% reduction in service life. The hot spots evaporate
> faster than the rest of the filament, increasing resistance
> at that point a positive feedback that ends in the familiar
> tiny gap in an otherwise healthy-looking filament.
> Note the photo of the filament with a break in the middle. When I was
> quite young, I would break burnt out AC light bulbs to see what was
> inside. If the filament was intact, the break was always somewhere
> near the middle. If a piece broke off, one end of the broken piece
> was usually near the middle. In later years, I would look at the
> remains of DC panel lights (usually type 47 for old Motorola radios)
> and noted that the breaks were always near the supporting terminals,
> probably due to metal migration.
> >>> I suspect that the notion that cycling is hard on bulbs comes from the
> >>> way that the bulb often fails at turn-on, when the thinnest hot spot
> >>> vapourizes before the rest of the filament has a chance to come up to
> >>> temperature and reduce the inrush current.
> >> Yep. See my comments on the relatively high failure rate on the
> >> 40watt theater marquee lamps due to cycling. The same lamps in the
> >> lobby and foyer were not cycled and seemed to last forever.
> >I was actually disagreeing with you. There are lots of possible reasons
> >for the marquee lights failing prematurely. I'm not a tungsten expert
> >myself, so I'd be very interested in seeing actual data that shows a
> >dramatic shortening of life due to cycling. I'm not saying it's
> >impossible, just that I haven't seen any such data.
> So much for my anecdotal data. My theater marquee experience was in
> about 1966. The theater actually did keep records so that they could
> stock enough replacement bulbs, but I don't have copies of any of
> that.
> I tried Googling for similar repetative on-off tests and didn't find
> anything. If I have time, I'll try again. I must admit that the lack
> of test data does look suspicious. Perhaps sending the idea to
> Mythbusters and have them runs a test?
> >The filament isn't tungsten-plated, it's pure tungsten or a low alloy.
> >The brightness drop comes from tungsten condensing on the envelope.
> >which is a 42% Ni steel with OFHC copper or nickel plating.
> >You're making a lot of that up. I'd still like to see
> >carefully-collected data.
> No, not fabricated. It's my reliance on my memory in an area that I'm
> not familiar with. I tried Googling for the wire used, couldn't find
> much, and made a bad guess. The plating came from somehow getting
> thorium coated tungsten wire used in vacuum tubes mixed up with light
> bulbs. Sorry for the errors and muddle.
Hi Jeff, Phil. First I know nothing about incandescent bulbs.
But how about this as a model of why turning bulbs on and off might
cause them to fail sooner.
1.) I think we all observe that bulbs tend to blow when you turn them
on.
(unless you knock the lamp over or something.)
2.) I assume that the failure is mostly due to the thinner ‘hot spots’
on the filament. Thinner regions heat up faster (higher resistance
with equal current).
3.) Now even if the thinner region doesn’t blow, it still gets hotter
and loses a bit more tungsten than the rest of the filament. (For
that small amount of time that it’s turning on.) But still this means
that turning on the bulb causes the thin region to become a bit
thinner.
And that’s it. Repeated on and off means that the thin region has a
higher average temperature than the thick part of the filament. It
evaporates faster and fails sooner.
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> refills are commonly available and cheap. The printer cannibals sell
> used parts and assemblies fairly cheap on eBay. Also, expertise is
> more easily found:
><http://www.fixyourownprinter.com>
> My favorite printer of the week is the HP 2300DN or DTN at between $90
> to $220 used depending on condition and options. Favorite feature is
> double sided (duplex) printing.
Problem with that is my location. Shipping anything from anywhere except
China is too expensive to make it worth while. A $10 (postage included)
Samsung feed roller is worth buying, a part that does not fit in an envelope and has to go in a USPS box costs 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of a cheap Samsung printer. UPS/DHL/FDEDX double or tripple that price.
Also to be honest, the loss/theft rate from the US is too high to buy
from unless it is via PayPal and eBay.
Geoff.
-- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379
"Owning a smartphone: Technology's equivalent to learning to play
chopsticks on the piano as a child and thinking you're a musician."
(sent to me by a friend)
