HP-3476B Cleanup

[@Derpy1969]

This channel is highly underrated!

[@ricande]

Understatement of the century.

[@DrBagPhD]

It truly is

[@UpLateGeek]

Always wise to remove old batteries, even if they're rechargeable. The NiMH pack in my PowerBook 1400c was definitely not working anymore, so I cracked it open to find it had been visited by the crystalline entity, as there were some nice white crystals forming on the end of one of the cells. I've been meaning to build a new pack so I can use the laptop portably without the power supply, but it uses these weird weird double 4/3A cells which are slightly shorter than normal, so I'd have zero clearance to solder to the ends of the cells or the tabs. EDIT: Actually, you inspired me to take another look, and I've found a very slightly smaller cell called L-A. It's 67mm long instead of 67.5mm, so that should give me 1mm of clearance for soldering the tabs. The only downside is they're over $15 Aussie dollary doos each, so 8 cells will be more than $120, assuming the digital lock opener -based supplier will ship them from the US America to Australia.

[@TeslaTales59]

That's a very cool vintage meter! I think Usagi Electric uses one often. Great channel by the way. We like the detail oriented approach.

[@lwilton]

Back when HP was *THE* manufacturer of high quality LEDs and LED displays.

[@atkelar]

I love odd display solutions 😸 Old school LEDs with lenses are neat!

[@agranero6]

@@atkelar I think they had a lot of spare bubble LED displays from they calculator business.

[@whizatit]

Never thought i would see the day furies and electronics mixed together O_0!

[@atkelar]

There is quite an overlap; though I might be one of few channels...

[@UpLateGeek]

Fun fact, all cats could learn electronics if they wanted, but few have the opposable thumbs necessary to practice it.

[@nigefoxx]

I used NiCd batteries- just watch the beige resistor top left, the charge current goes through it and it gets quite toasty. 3000mAh should give you about 10 hours of runtime on one charge. Plenty! Nice restoration!

[@tomcren59]

Great work! ALWAYS ENJOY YOUR VIDEOS!

[@brianwood5220]

Nice blast from the past there. Very cool to own one. Thanks for sharing.

[@PapasDino]

After the Tek curve tracer this was a nice easy rehab! Look forward to the next project!

[@icatcyningproductions]

The design of this device looks really good, nice video :p

[@JimmytheCow2000]

I missed the premier! Great video as always. Thank you!

[@atkelar]

No worries! It's fun to chat with people during the video, but I'm happy for anybody who enjoys them; live of later!

[@zyeborm]

Tiny pronunciation tip it's nickel metal hydride not hybrid. As always lovely video and well shot. Great work, hopefully one day soon you get the popularity on here you deserve. A full time KZbin atkelar, what joy that would bring 😂 (to us lol)

[@atkelar]

English can be weird; It's not my first language, and while I learned the basics in early school, I only truly learned it as an adult. I was flipping between the two versions and settled on what I thought was the proper one. Oh well, flip of a coin chance agian landing on the wrong side 😅 - I'll look into it a bit, as I've heard both versions so now I'm curious if there's a regional difference or just many people also being non-native speakers getting it wrong... EDIT: Also, thanks for the kind words; it would take quite a lot to make a full time KZbin career a viable option... cost of living is rather steep these days, and one needs a bit of a reserve, especially in such positions. So roughly speaking, I'd say I need 50 times the income I have now (both Patreon and KZbin) to consider it a stable option; not impossible, but quite a hurdle (mind you, that estimation includes taxes, social security, and all too; can't forget about those)

[@zyeborm]

@@atkelar it's a chemical term, the metal hydride (mh in NiMH) is what the hydrogen that makes up the battery is stored in. I don't think there's any "hybrid" aspect to them? Hopefully the algorithm will shine on you one day and boom half a million subscribers overnight as they go through your back catalogue 🤣 A man can dream lol.

[@atkelar]

Ohhh.... TIL. I always kept seeing the abbreviation (NiMh) and in German, "hydrid" and "hybrid" sound awefully close. I was thinking there's some dual-state thing going on in the chemistry for the "hybrid" word... And since I'm not a chemist... 😊 I got to poke fun at that eventually. Got to be one of my "longest ever misheard terms" 🤣

[@jensschroder8214]

I have had the experience of never again assembling batteries with insulating tape. If there is a short circuit, it melts and there are more short circuits. Heat-resistant Kapton tape is suitable. Don't ask why I know this.

[@R.Daneel]

I like the music very much - except for one very odd thing. About once a minute, it has a sound that imitates Windows' USB-reconnect sound. Gets me again and again. (E.G. @4:39)

[@MonkeyUnit]

Ha! I never noticed until you mentioned it. I think it's just he piano player noodling away.

[@YuriyKrivosheyev]

Nice “space age” meter! Congrats!

[@cpm1003]

What a cool looking chip! Reminds me of CuriousMarc's HP 9825.

[@atkelar]

In the late 1970s, this probably was common

[@t1d100]

Tip = I am not fond of traditional black electrical tape. It ends up releasing and making a gooey mess. I discovered Self-Fusing Silicone Rubber Electrical Tape. No mess (ever) and it does not stick to your fingers, while applying it. A tip for using it = You have to stretch it, to activate its self-welding properties. It stretches an amazing amount, maybe as much as 33%. So, for a 10" wrap, I would unroll 6.67". And, to finish your wrap. hold the tail end against the wrapped part for a few moments, so that the end is well sealed, before letting go of it. Also, stick with the big brand OEM name products. There is some cheaper tape available, but its quality suffers significantly. If you are not familiar with it, take a look at some YT videos. It is a really great tool, to have in your bag of tricks. HTH.

[@atkelar]

I do have a roll of such a non-sticky tape around indeed. It's just that for this battery, I chose my regular go-to tape; mostly because the stickyness helps aligning the batteries. With the stretching and at the same time trying to get a nice flat arrangement of the cells it would probably end up in lots of bleeping 😅 - I can always revisit that pack, so no real harm done.

[@tehlaser]

Woohoo! Bubble LEDs!

[@socketwench]

You don't need one of those little arc welders for the battery tabs? I thought the heat from the iron can damage the cells. Maybe that's only LiPo/Li-ion?

[@atkelar]

These came with pre-welded tabs. I just solder to those. The issue is with the cell heating up beyond healthy temperatures for too long of a time. When either soldering to tabs or being very quick it's not an issue. Regular iron against battery is a no-no indeed, becuase it will take forever to heat up the battery to soldering temperatures and that heat will spread too. In my case, the cell itself didn't get hotter than "in a car on a sunny day".

[@socketwench]

@@atkelar Ahh. That makes sense. Thank you for explaining.

[@FluffyTheGryphon]

Yeah... That'll be a sub from me.

[@hhawawq1065]

Very nice vides ! - but Batteries are not Capacitors !

[@atkelar]

Thanks! While they are indeed not, In this particular context they serve the same function though. Quite difficult to phrase in a few words 😺

[@oblioi]

:o)❤

[@graealex]

You could cast a new lens from resin, if you really, really wanted.

[@atkelar]

I've cast some replacement knobs before; but I hesitate about optical qualities, i.e. even a very slight distortion in the result will be visible as "wonky" digits. In this case, the suggestion of cutting a piece of an acrylic bar and polishing the flat backside might be better. But I'm prbably not going to repalce it, if the crack isn't visible at all anyhow. Just keeping the option in case it does progress.

[@graealex]

@@atkelar A slow curing optically clear resin shouldn't show any wonkyness. The only major drawback with these would be reduced UV stability, i.e. they might turn yellow over the years, while the acrylic used by the manufacturer stays clear for decades. Cutting from an acrylic bar would usually require having a mill to get the overall shape right before polishing. I can't imagine being able to get a consistent shape just from manually working it. The magnification is pretty important because these bubble LEDs are so tiny.

[@bzuidgeest]

The music in the second halve sucked in my opinion, to slow a beat and depressing. But I get you wanting to switch things around to keep it fresh.

[@atkelar]

It's difficult to find free music that works; it's an ongoing process... the original song was on repeat as a sort of elevator music just to avoid silence, but now, with longer videos and more people binge watching them, I can totally see where it does get annoying.

[@bzuidgeest]

@@atkelar yes I understand. Have you ever watched handtoolrescue? He somehow manages without any music at all (outside the intro) and he doesn't voice his videos like you do. The work sounds are enough. Though with your more complex devices that might be rather hard to do. Just keep experimenting and me and others in the comments will no doubt mention what we like and don't like😃. The original repeating loop isn't that bad. Yes it's elevator music, but it fits the video speed very well. You have added other tunes as well over the last few videos I think, some were much more fitting than this last one. And I can even live with the last one. Just keep playing with it, you'll build up a library soon enough. Or if you grow enough you might earn enough to license some not free music that really fits your style and wishes.

[@marcwolf60]

Originally I thought Atkelar was a wolf... so soothing wolf howls could be a background. However he is a feline, and cat screams just.... would not do :) :)

[@zyeborm]

Not a fan of the music at 9:18 or so, it's got a creepy scratching sound on top of the spooky depressing vibe that doesn't really fit the feel of your videos. I love your videos to relax before bed and that's not conducive to that application. No hate it anything, i know your experimenting with new music and just giving one point of feedback. (I'm a sucker for the old music, happy and fun 😂)

[@atkelar]

I'll just copy a comment from another post on that subject: It's difficult to find free music that works; it's an ongoing process... the original song was on repeat as a sort of elevator music just to avoid silence, but now, with longer videos and more people binge watching them, I can totally see where it does get annoying. Additionanlly: tastes are different and while I try to hit as many as I can within my format, changing things up to improve them will always be a lose-lose situation; I *will* keep reading and respecting feedback I get, but please bear with me until the dust of that change settles eventually... hopefully soon-ish.

[@zyeborm]

@@atkelar like I said man, I know what your doing and why you're doing it 😀. It's all good, nothing you do will please everyone. I was just laying in bed getting all comfy and the scratching bit started lol. I actually wound up stopping the video sitting up and looking around for the noise. Sounded like monsters under the bed 😁 (My brain is wired weirdly) I never felt the original was overly repetitive, like you said elevator music and you had plenty of interjections to keep it lively now I keep noticing the music lol. I think it's probably mostly because your background music is so different to the crowd in style and genre that it stands out more where with the repetition you would get used to it and not really notice it so much. Like if an oldies radio station plays some modern music all of a sudden. Like I said, not trying to change you or saying your doing anything bad at all. Just giving feedback for your experiments 😁. Without data we are all just guessing.

[@atkelar]

I'm just trying to keep the information current 😸 most people also don't read all the comments either. And I do love feedback, even if it's "negative". The only one I had to censor once was getting a bit, let's say, non-PC in their wording of not just me but my viewers too.