Major Clanger (Chartered Electrical Engineer) strikes again

[major_clanger]

Today I discovered that the shaving light in my bathroom has two microswitches set up so that if the translucent cover is not perfectly in place the power to the light tube is isolated.

This of course took me two days, a new light tube and increasingly confused investigation with a multimeter to work out.

Oh well, at least I now have a spare 12" strip light should the current one actually blow.

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

"Dear Major Clanger

Please help me. The light in my fridge seems to be permanently turned on. This can't be right, surely?

Yours

Me"

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

If you unscrew the plug and look inside you will see a small coloured cylinder with metal end-caps, about 5mm wide and 20mm long. Remove it, put the plug back together and plug in and you will never be troubled by your fridge light again.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

"Dear MC

Thank you so much. Not only does that work, but it seems to have stopped that intrusive humming noise it also makes.

Again, my gratitude

Me"

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

My fridge had a energy saving setting, which meant that the light was always on by design! It was basically giving anything stored nearby a long slow cooking. After going through the removal of the bulb and a long search on the internet, I just switched it off.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

You are kidding us, aren't you?

No?

(I mean, seriously - whoever designed that deserves to be shot.)

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

I am absolutely not kidding. One of the major problems in fixing it was getting over the disbelief.

It's a Liebherr, fine in all other regards, but it's designed so that if the temperature outside drops below 18oC, it switches the interior light on. This then heats the inside of the fridge (yes, it's a desgn feature) to fool the thermostat into activating the motor to cool it down. The fridge and light then fight for supremacy... or until someone with any common sense realises and switches the er... 'feature' off.

Oh, oh, just read further down the article I found just now to write my reply here: the feature was created to give the model a better energy efficiency rating.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I see a fanzine article in the future...

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Also, what's this "20mm x 5mm" crap? As ane fule kno, BS 1362 says that these cylinders are 25.4mm long with 6.3mm diameter end caps (or to put in more convenient terms, 1" x 1/4")

Call yourself an electrical engineer? Tch.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I shall strangle myself in shame with my own multimeter leads forthwith.

(At least it's a more dignified end than using my soldering iron to emulate the fate of Edward II.)

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

No, no. He was a true engineer and said "about". Only physicists use decimals...

[nmg.livejournal.com]

No, physicists use orders of magnitude; the fuse is in the order of 10^-2m in length and 10^-3m in diameter.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well that explains a lot about the Large Hadron Collider's teething troubles.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Physicists do occasionally find even orders of magnitude to be too .... restrictive.

(I refer to the case where there appears to be a discrepancy of 120 orders of magnitude.)