- 2025
- Apr
- 7
I’m not going to “just ground it!” because the Internet says so.
Recently, I had someone on a forum quite emphatically indicate to me that I was doing it wrong, and that I should ground (earth) everything - also indicating that I should just use IEC connectors and cut holes in irreplaceable chassis units and simply “Make some paint.” I then got the reddit response of “Gulp!” and “Who told you that?” when I said I just use isolation and let things float, and that no holes shall be cut.
Well, thank you - but I’m not going to do that. One, I don’t want to destroy equipment. If you want to after I’m dead, that’s your decision.
But also, I’m not going to ground everything. You don’t ground everything because you can. This was in relation to the Heathkit AF-1 that’s I’m currently rebuilding. It has some quirks that don’t really allow that to happen. And, I learned a different way. Just because the internet tells you that every capacitor is bad, and that every device has to be earthed, doesn’t mean you do it.
Who told me that you don’t ground everything? Two people, actually.
The first gentleman was a rusty crusty old military man that spent his second career working for Rockwell before they shut his shop down in the 90s. Mr. Lehman was the maintenance guy for electronic controls, and had seen it all - everything from tubes to modern (for the time) DCS. I got involved with him because he was a friends father, and I had an amplifier that was floating 70VAC above ground. You’re probably familiar with this, it’s either because the grounding is improper or something is leaking. When I took this amp to him in the early 80s, he poked at it for a moment and said “This stuff wasn’t necessarily built well. There were rules, but they didn’t always follow them because they didn’t have to. You’ve either got something in here leaking or it’s just built that way. The stuff it was supposed to be connected to didn’t care, that’s why it’s all painted with plastic knobs.” We went over the device, he related how to check things to make sure that you COULD properly earth this device - in ths case, the transformer wasn’t leaking, it had a transformer, and you weren’t going to cause ground loops because earth and input were at differing potentials. He taught me about making sure that nothing in there is going to leak a lot of current if you ground it, and in this case it was just that the grounding in the device was crap. He said that in this case you can and should ground it, but you always need to make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons - not just because you have an earth/safety ground.
Second, was my first electronics instructor. Mr. Norman had been around in electronics almost as long as there was electronics to be in. He too was a military guy that did his WWII term and went back into consumer electronics when he was discharged, having been in that same field beforehand. He was the local guy that RCA, GE, and the others gave the warranty projects to. He saw the peak of radio and the rise of television, and had more interesting stories than you could remember. One of the first things we did in his class was build an AA5 from one of those kits you used to be able to buy. Of course, they had been used and abused over the years, so we had to be careful - and this was before you had an Intenet source for tubes so all of the 35W4 had been replaced by diodes and a big honkin’ stack of resistors. (He said don’t do this because you strip cathodes, but for this we don’t care - you’re the last class that’s going to use these.) But those could be hot chassis sets, and they didn’t have polarized cords. I didn’t understand that at first, but it was because he was teaching us good practices. He showed us what happened if you accidentally touched or grounded a chassis that could be hot, and said you’ll not always have the ability to replace cords on customer devices with polarized cords. (This was when we still repaired TVs and stuff.) Best practice would be to put a polarized cord on that, but you don’t always have that option. (All of the stuff I get has a polarized cord replacement, even if the old one is still good.) He showed us what happened if you got differing potentials on things, and the damage you can cause if you’re trying to talk to something that doesn’t like being earthed. He taught us that you should ground things when you know you need it, and in some cases you’ll need to lift the ground. Again, he (in much more colorful terms because it was all guys) told us that you should always make sure you know WHY you’re grounding, not just because you can.
I learned about lifted grounds the first time I burnt out a very expensive isolated transceiver loop in a device I’d acquired.
That brings us to this chassis. Let’s say I ground it to earth.
In the manual, Heath warns us that the signal return is actually chassis. This is specifically called out as a note. It doesn’t say why, but it’s important. You’re expected to know why at this point, because this was considered to be an advanced kit and didn’t even include assembly instructions, just some guidelines. Why did they warn us? Because you could potentially see AC on the chassis. You could see high voltage DC on the chassis. Not from this device itself, but from the UUT. This device is transformer isolated.
DC return is also chassis. That doesn’t really matter for this case.
If I chassis ground this device (and no, it does not have the ground hole in the back and should not be grounded) then I run the risk of shunting something that doesn’t like to be grounded directly to ground because signal return is chassis. That’s the takeaway here. This device was not designed to be operated like this, and could be dangerous doing so.
The isolation transformer I use for all my testing is there so you don’t leak back to line.
I understand that some are not comfortable working with ungrounded equipment, and that’s ok. We all have the methods we use. My methods were taught to me in a world where you are absolutely going to run across things that leak, have hot chassis, or worse, and you may not be able to do anything about them. I was taught how to mitigate that, and I’d rather have all of my work floating hot on an isolated line than run the risk of accidentally connecting signal to ground and destroying things because I grounded something that wasn’t designed to be grounded.
That’s where I get my methods.
But also, some of the equipment I have could be grounded, if needed. Look on the back of a IG-72 signal generator. See that little hole by the cord, how it looks just the size of a Heathkit screw? That’s for a ground - IF YOU NEED IT, not just because you can - and you have to understand that it’s also using chassis for signal return. That’s the takeaway here. Don’t do it just because you can, make sure you’re doing it for necessary reasons.
The long and short here is this chassis is a good example of why you don’t just do the one-size-fits-all thing. In this case, grounding a chassis signal return could provide you with some sparks. Always be aware of WHAT you’re doing, and WHY you’re doing it.
- 2025
- Apr
- 4
High tariffs - high cost electronics parts - what’s this going to do to the hobbyist?
One of the concerns about high tariffs is this will destroy the hobbyist electronics crowd.
Up to about the 1960s, it (hobby electronics) was big because we made parts here and you could literally go to the corner store, and they might have had some small selections of parts - big parts houses were everywhere and cities tended to have a dealer or two for components and equipment where you could walk in the door and buy stuff.
The 60s-2000s were a dry spell as things started to move offshore and it became harder to get parts easily. Less exposure to the common man means less latent interest in the thing.
The last time I was able to walk in the door and get non-generic parts was in the very early 1990s when JW Electronics in Coshocton and the RCA SK dealer in Zanesville, Thompson Radio, closed their doors. Of course, there was always Radio Shack, but their parts selection dwindled over the years until vanishing completely - at best being a “I need it now and can make this work” stop.
All of those were kept alive until the bitter end by the inertia of their past sales, their commercial customers that used to buy components to fix things having long since faded away.
The 2000s started a boom. It’s cheap and easy to get those parts again - the “maker” movement is proof of that. But, with high tariffs on things, it’s going to potentially stop that dead in it’s tracks. You want a $5 pack of LEDs and resistors and a couple of ESP-32 boards? If each item has a 30% or $50 charge on it, no hobbyist is going to buy it.
Personally, I’ve made probably my last orders of sensors and other devices for the near future. I hope I can squeak them in before these tariffs hit, because there will be a lot of things I simply take a loss on otherwise.
Those few places that still fix electronics - the odd CB shop on the interstate - may find themselves priced out of business with parts being taxed at higher rates than the cost of the part.
There’s no perfect solution to this. This seems to be a bit heavier handed than it needs to be, and there’s going to be a lot of pain - and probably some jobs lost here as companies that sprung up to do last mile delivery start stumble and fail. This may even affect big carriers as less import means less traffic.
Who knows what’s going to happen. But, as the great Red Green said: I’m pulling for you, we’re all in this together.
(this was also posted on my LinkedIn profile, both as a comment and a post.)
- 2025
- Mar
- 25
Some thought on nostr after a few months.
A while back, I discovered a completely decentralized social network that fixed the centralized blocklist problem that a lot of federated social networks seem to have. After all, it doesn’t matter to me if you don’t like it, maybe I’d like to make that decision for myself.
You can read that post here: https://wereboar.com … etworking-via-nostr/
And, the nostr outlet I’m using is located here: https://satellite.ea … 0s9sn9xgulwfqsy6uf4w
Anyone is free to post, I’ll see that in my mod queue and approve it if it’s in the spirit of the community.
So what are my thoughts on this service? Well…
- It’s for techies, by techies.
This service isn’t well geared towards people who “simply want to use a social network.” It’s not friendly in the sense that URLs are long keys, and not something you could easily type in and go to. That is how the system works, however, and that’s not going to change unless some abstraction layer is placed on top of the service.
- It doesn’t have reach.
In part, that’s probably because of the daunting URL scheme, but it’s also because the market is so saturated with services that another one isn’t really needed or accepted, except by the aforementioned techies. It’s never going to have the reach - people say that they want to move to a new service every time their little bird does something to make them angry, but they always flood back. It’s going to take an extended outage for something to make that change.
- Spam. Lots of spam.
The service literally has no way to control spam. Anyone can submit things to a community you own or moderate - that’s the idea. But if it’s spam, there’s no way to shunt it off to the side. It simply sits in your modqueue forever, waiting for you to approve it. Anyone else can see it, and if you don’t keep up you’ll find there are hundreds of messages just sitting there. Some method of identifying and pushing this into a spam queue needs to be implemented, otherwise you’re just going to have abandoned communities full of spam waiting to be approved.
So…the long and short of it is that it’s not ready for primetime, even though it’s an interesting idea. Will it ever be ready for primetime? Who knows…but I’ll make the random post on the /oldtech community for you, and I invite you to do the same.
See you there!
- 2025
- Mar
- 25
What’s inside one of those can capacitors?
Pretty much exactly what you’d expect. Nothing really exciting…
I decided to take the top off the capacitor removed from the Heathkit AF-1 that I’m working with, since it’s completely dead and as light as can be. There’s probably no wet electrolyte left in this thing at all.
My pipe cutter made short work of the aluminum can, and it separated into two pieces.
As expected, this thing was dry as a bone. It looks to have used some sort of tar or other dark potting material, which was also dry and hard.
The material itself was just paper and foil, wrapped with old tape. I assume that somewhere in there are dividers for for the different sections.
There’s not much else to be said about this device. I’m going to pull the old material out and keep the base for other things, but the device itself gets replaced on the AF-1’s chassis.
Stay tuned for the power supply rebuild.
- 2025
- Feb
- 27
A new documents library home here at wereboar.
I’ve wanted to create an on-site documents library for some time, but just never dug into a simple web-facing file browser. Well, I just found Directory Lister, and it does exactly what I need. it presents all of the files with no fuss, no uploads, and no login needed - just pick what you want and download.
In order to save a little space, and prevent your browser from trying to open the file instead of downloading it, I’ve zipped up everything. If I can, schematics and documents of what I work on are all posted within this library. Check it out here: https://wereboar.com … r=wereboar-documents.
If you want a copy of everything in the archive, you can get that here: https://app.box.com/ … ide0trkeb0wi4j6nta20. This URL will change as I upload more documents and archive them, but I’ll try to keep at least two older versions available. I’ll post any new updates to the collected archive when they’re available.
More documents will be uploaded as I obtain them.
- 2025
- Jan
- 28
This is a test of the gallery plugin for Flatpress.
This is a test - does the gallery plugin here allow for multiple galleries on one page? If this page is broken, then no - it does not. If you see two galleries, then it worked. For 2025’s hamfest wrapup, I’m planning on putting all galleries on one page…thus the test.
SCARF 2025
. <--- this is here because the gallery plugin doesn't seem to terminate properly.
Fort Wayne 2024
.
Test succeeded.
This was a test, we now return to your regularly scheduled helping of old test equipment.
- 2025
- Jan
- 20
I’ve done a little maintenance on things here at wereboar.
I had to do a little low-level maintenance on things, and that involves doing some regeneration on stuff deep inside the system.
Everything should be back to normal save I’ve removed the last posts sidebar item. The main page shows 10 posts, so I didn’t see a need to re-show those same 10 posts in a widget. That probably saves you 0.01s per reload…
Regardless, if you see something broken, please let me know on LinkedIn or Mastodon.
- 2025
- Jan
- 7
Federated but disassociated social networking via nostr.
There are some federated, but disassociated services out there if you’re technically inclined to use them.
Federated means that there’s a multitude of sites all speaking the same protocol, but none of them are under a central banner (i.e. reddit, twitter, etc.) Disassociated means that it goes one step further and breaks you off into a mini-site. Why? This removes the ability of a mod of a site being able to chose who can follow users of their site, or who the site’s users can follow. Censorship resistant to a degree.
I’ve joined one such system called nostr, via a web client called Satellite Earth. It’s relatively easy to join, you get a private/public keypair to remember and that’s it.
I’ve created a community called oldtech:
https://satellite.ea … 0s9sn9xgulwfqsy6uf4w
and you’re free to join and post your old tech goodies. See you there!
- 2024
- Dec
- 28
It’s that time of year - get your Dayton Hamvention tickets early!
Tickets for the Dayton Hamvention are currently on sale at the early boar price of $26 - this is good until March 1st, at which point they’ll go to the normal $30.
You can order online for convenience, and doing so now allows plenty of time for the postal service to deliver them to you - especially if you’re not in the USA.
See you there!
Tickets: https://hamvention.org/purchase-tickets/
- 2024
- Dec
- 26
Selling something and you’ve asked AI to write the description? Good luck!
Do you buy any vintage equipment online, especially from a certain auction site? While this is probably a foolish thing to do because of the prices - sometimes you can find a very unique piece or a great deal on something you’ve wanted. Sometimes, very rarely sometimes.
However…one of the things I’ve noticed is the descriptions of the items have changed. Most used to be “I don’t know exactly what this is or how to test it. Assuming it’s non-working” or something along those lines. A fair assessment for a non-tech person.
But now, AI is writing things for people and it’s hilarious, but annoying because it’s now more valuable because it’s always “widely used in industry,” “well know for their stability,” or some nonsense. No, it’s a hobbyist piece or something made by a company that went out of business in 1974 because they no longer competed on the market.
There’s some serious SNAD material here, and if a dishonest person wanted to get stuff it would be easy enough to do as eBay seems to prefer the buyer’s word over the seller.
But when an unsuspecting buyer thinks they’re getting a device that does digital QAM/Digital Video because the seller just AI wrote some garbage and all they receive is an ancient Leader audio generator that wasn’t great when new - someone isn’t going to like the results.
If you’re selling something and you have no idea what it is, ask a friend. If you don’t have a friend, do 5 minutes of research and find out what it is. Copy the manufacturer’s boilerplate if you need to.
Just don’t tell AI “Write me a description of a Doo-More Signal Generator so I can sell it.” You’re going to get trash, and possibly a strike on your sales.
Just sayin.