[mythtv-users] Off topic - can someone identify this connector please, I think it's US standard.

[Simon Hobson]

>The problem was that a razor blade cutting on metal braiding doesn't 
>survive long, and that tool relied on exact sizing of the notches, 
>so it doesn't work so well after being resharpened.

There is (I suspect) a knack to that. I recall when I was an 
apprentice in the local shipyard, and someone had a load of ends to 
prepare. They'd been supplied with block with a hole for the cable 
and a slot for the razor blade. The block was machined so that the 
blade would cut to the right depth, and the right distance from the 
end of the cable, without much skill being required. Actually, 
thinking back it was probably on the same job I was on for a while - 
doing overmoulded in-line joints of a large number of small cables 
outside the hull of a submarine (about which I can't really say a 
lot).

Anyway, this chap had been repeatedly sharpening* the blade against 
some abrasive strip, but hadn't twigged that if you press down in the 
middle of the blade (as he was doing), then it wears the middle of 
the blade more than the rest and so the edge becomes curved. So the 
cutting edge didn't reach the depth it was supposed to, and he 
couldn't understand why this tool wasn't working.

SO (not having tried it) I assume the trick is to make sure you keep 
the edge straight - explicitly abrading the edge down on the unused 
sections if needed.

Eventually I learned that the job of the apprentice is to keep quiet 
when the supposedly qualified electricians demonstrated their 
ignorance. My favourite one being in the plant section when someone 
was testing a control board for some flood lighting. It had some 
large power factor correction caps on it, but not the lighting. This 
guy could not understand why the breakers were tripping, and when I 
pointed out it would be the PFC caps, he quite abruptly told me that 
"capacitors don't pass current". After measuring and finding that 
they were passing current, he concluded that they must be faulty. I 
decided he wasn't receptive to an explanation of AC and capacitors - 
so I just watched the fun from across the workshop :)

* For some reason, certain levels of management thought it made sense 
to save money on new blades - but don't think of the man hours it 
took sharpening the same one all the time :-/

Hmm, how off topic can you get !


Andre wrote:

>Those circular strippers are a reasonable solution I concede if you 
>are not used to such things and need 4 or 5 cables ending but for me 
>they go in the same category as Leatherman or similar multitools, 
>they are collectively the spaghetti visual basic of the electronics 
>world. :-P

They have their uses - as long as you understand a) how to use them, 
and b) what their limitations are.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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