OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Except for one thing.....
My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

So I take apart the three-heat controller, and lo and behold, the goddamm
thing looks like the motherboard of a small PC.... holy ****.... for a
$25 blankeypoo????

Tryna sleuth out the ""circuitry"" of this electric blanket reminds me of
the two days I spent tryna fix a $2.00 flashlight.... unsuccessfully....
holy ****....
The blanket has three wires between it and the controller, but only two of
the wires register continuity!! From which I surmised, via advanced Ohm's
Law, that there is only one element in the blanket, and the controller
actually does control voltage/current, ie, no switching among elements, cuz,
well, there's only one element.
..
AND, the resistance is in fact the "right" resistance, cuz the wattage is 60
W (1/2 amp), and the ohms measure 230.

So now I got an extree wire that I don't know wtf it does, amidst my awe of
all this goddamm gratuitous complexity.

Now, I do have an inkling surrounding this latest Conspiracy of Gratuitous
Complexity -- whose fundamental purpose is, of course, to ass**** the entire
Global Population up to their collective ileocecal valves, so that Orwell
looks like summer fukn camp.
It appears that this particular example (this blue electric blanket) of
Gratuitous Complexity has to do with..... shudder shudder SAFETY!!!!!
And of course the li'l CHILDREN.......

Btw, a brief digression:
You DO know that they now make crawling helmets for toddlers??? Yes
indeedy, google helmets for babies crawling , and pick your link.
Better yet, ORDER yours, right away, so's when you take the li'l future Wall
Street predator-to-be to Montessori for his (first) pre-school interview,
you'll be showing up correck.
You yourself and the spouse should also wear matching bicycle helmets, as
well, just to show Montessori that the whole Beaver family is indeed
correck.....

Back to this g-d blanket bidniss....
This **** blanket, for safety (it is UL listed btw), SHUTS OFF
automatically EVERY GODDAMM HOUR!!!!WTF?????

I mean, look, the g-d blanket is a *whole 60 effingW*!!!! My goddamm BODY
puts out more heat than that....
fyi, Your BMR of about 1 cal/min is actually nearly exactly 70 W of heat....
which is why 10 blustering assholes in a meeting room make the place so
goddamm hot.

So some dumb QA engineering ****head sed, Oh, OH, 60 W -- spread over **24
sq ft of g-d blanket**, no less -- is MUCH too dangerous!!!!
Sheeit, in that case, my 70 W of body heat puts me at risk for
self-immolation, right???

Fuuuuuuuck, they couldn't have timed it for 8 hours?? 6 hours???? 4
hours????? WTF???????

So now, some while after the blanket shuts off, I'll freeze my goddamm ass
off, have furtive nightmares, wake up, and flail around for the controller,
just to reset it.
So now I can't even g-d SLEEP worth a goddamm, in my fetal position -- and
if you knew how long it takes me to get in that fetal position (in m'truck),
you'd realize this is really a significant issue.

OK.... so NOW ahm gettin it:
SAFETY, and our precious li'l bratty g-d CHILDREN, require a solidstate
automatic safety controller. ****ty li'l dropping resistors, or a xsformer,
or split heating elements, just won't do it anymore.
Now, they got a g-d controller in a $25 electric blanket that could have
gotten Neil Armstrong to the g-d moon.

Well, let me tell you, no one, but NO ONE messes with Angst's fetal
position/sleep....

So I took that controller off (via the detachable connector) and
hard-wire-crimped a **** 18 ga wire with a **** 99c-store two-in-a-pack
unpolarized plug, so now's I got *60 uninterrupted W* of blazing power,
blasting thru my li'l blue blankeypoo. What a fukn triumph.....

My gripe against Gratuitous Complexity harks back to my erstwhile 1971
Datsun 510, which got better gas mileage than almost every effing car out
here today, ceptin Volts'n'Prius'n'****, and mebbe that VW TDI motor....
AND, I could fix it my goddamm self.
And I think I drove around Hawaii about 25 g-d times in a Datsun B-210, on a
gallon of gas.

Now, cars are so fukn complicated.....

HOW COMPLICATED ARE THEY???????

Cars are so fukn complicated, that factory Toyoter mechanics make more money
than asshole college puhfessuhs..... AS THEY RIGHTLY SHOULD, cuz college
professors are just absolutely fukn useless. goodgawd..... What a sham
the college credit is, and a bankrupting sham at that.

Cars now weigh 50% more than in the 70s.... and you can't even adjust the
g-d IDLE!!!!
Well, you can, I spose, with a laptop and about $1,000 worth of g-d
programming.....

Part of the Conspiracy behind Gratuitous Complexity is, imo, the desire to
shut out the small entreepreeneer, bidnissman. A good fraction of the
people on these ng's could *make their own perfectly navigable electric
car*, with a welder, lathe, milling machine, some fukn batteries and a
motor. Or mebbe just a welder, drill press, and an angle grinder....
But fukn Chevrolet and Nisan barely got *their* electric cars out, the
regulatory ante is so goddamm high. Near $40K for a g-d electric motor and
a bunch of g-d batteries....

So, inyway, Angst finally has his new blue blankeypoo blazing away, and I'll
be fellatingly positioning myself in peaceful bliss tonite, in m'truck, with
my 400# marine battery/1500W inverter right behind my blissful head.

Oh ****, did I say "fellatingly"??? That would be "fetally", "fetally
positioning myself in peaceful bliss".....
--
EA

On 10/11/2012 11:01 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Except for one thing.....
My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

So I take apart the three-heat controller, and lo and behold, the goddamm
thing looks like the motherboard of a small PC.... holy ****.... for a
$25 blankeypoo????

It's probably a triac style dimmer circuit - likely the cheapest way of
making a three-heat electric blanket these days. It would indeed fail to
work with a modified sine-wave.

Sylvia.

Sylvia Else fired this volley in
:

It would indeed fail to
work with a modified sine-wave.


You'd have to explain that in a lot of detail for me to believe it.

Please do.

LLoyd

On 10/11/2012 11:23 AM, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
Sylvia Else fired this volley in
:

It would indeed fail to
work with a modified sine-wave.


You'd have to explain that in a lot of detail for me to believe it.

Please do.

LLoyd


Such circuits typically prevent current from flowing at all within a
half cycle, until a point is reached where the remainder of the half
cycle would deliver an amount of energy that would, if delivered over
the entire half cycle, represent the desired power. Once triggered, the
triac conducts until current drops below some smallish threshold.

A circuit designed to do that with a sine-wave is going to be somewhat
thrown by an input that is a modified sine-wave.

Sylvia.

Sylvia Else fired this volley in
:

Such circuits typically prevent current from flowing at all within a
half cycle, until a point is reached where the remainder of the half
cycle would deliver an amount of energy that would, if delivered over
the entire half cycle, represent the desired power. Once triggered, the
triac conducts until current drops below some smallish threshold.

A circuit designed to do that with a sine-wave is going to be somewhat
thrown by an input that is a modified sine-wave.


I'm fully aware of how SCR and Triac (or generically, Thyristor)
"dimmers" function, and how to build them (from scratch, without any
supplied schematic).

I'm also aware that a "modified sine wave" or "simulated sine wave" would
satisfy the needs of most of that type of circuit, with the exception
that the initial triggering and the the subsequent "near zero"-crossing
cutoff might occur late and early, respectively, from where they ought.

Such circuits don't work nicely on square waves, primarily because they
don't have time to properly turn off. There's usually some capacitance
in the gate circuit (sometimes driven by a diac) that prevents a very
rapid change from full voltage through zero to the opposite polarity
from lasting long enough below the quench voltage for the device to turn
off.

Such _can_ be the case with a simulated sine wave, where the voltage
might go from (say) +10V-0--10V on a square edge. But most inverter
companies realized a long (long) time ago that doing it that way causes
problems, so they switched (pun) to a waveform that stays at zero long
enough for such devices to turn off properly.

Only a really old, or really cheap Chinese inverter would not have that
feature. For all I know, he has both AND a cheap Chinese blanket that
didn't take into consideration the problems it might see on old Chinese
inverters.

But it's not the case that simulated sine wave inverters universally
cause problems with thyristor switches.

LLoyd

On Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:01:00 -0600, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:

Sylvia Else fired this volley in
:

Such circuits typically prevent current from flowing at all within a
half cycle, until a point is reached where the remainder of the half
cycle would deliver an amount of energy that would, if delivered over
the entire half cycle, represent the desired power. Once triggered, the
triac conducts until current drops below some smallish threshold.

A circuit designed to do that with a sine-wave is going to be somewhat
thrown by an input that is a modified sine-wave.


I'm fully aware of how SCR and Triac (or generically, Thyristor)
"dimmers" function, and how to build them (from scratch, without any
supplied schematic).

I'm also aware that a "modified sine wave" or "simulated sine wave" would
satisfy the needs of most of that type of circuit, with the exception
that the initial triggering and the the subsequent "near zero"-crossing
cutoff might occur late and early, respectively, from where they ought.

Such circuits don't work nicely on square waves, primarily because they
don't have time to properly turn off. There's usually some capacitance
in the gate circuit (sometimes driven by a diac) that prevents a very
rapid change from full voltage through zero to the opposite polarity
from lasting long enough below the quench voltage for the device to turn
off.

Such _can_ be the case with a simulated sine wave, where the voltage
might go from (say) +10V-0--10V on a square edge. But most inverter
companies realized a long (long) time ago that doing it that way causes
problems, so they switched (pun) to a waveform that stays at zero long
enough for such devices to turn off properly.

Only a really old, or really cheap Chinese inverter would not have that
feature. For all I know, he has both AND a cheap Chinese blanket that
didn't take into consideration the problems it might see on old Chinese
inverters.

But it's not the case that simulated sine wave inverters universally
cause problems with thyristor switches.

LLoyd
What he NEEDS is a 12 volt blankie. My baby brother has been a long
distance trucker across north america, from Alaska to Florida - and
has 12 volt mattress warmer and 12 volt electric blanket for YEARS.

Lost 'em both when he rolled the truck last year. Bust his neck too,
but he's back on the road - doing mostly short haul flatland driving
hauling crude - less than 2 years after the crash.

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 11:19:15 +1100, Sylvia Else
wrote:

On 10/11/2012 11:01 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
OK.....

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

So I take apart the three-heat controller, and lo and behold, the goddamm
thing looks like the motherboard of a small PC.... holy ****.... for a
$25 blankeypoo????

It's probably a triac style dimmer circuit - likely the cheapest way of
making a three-heat electric blanket these days. It would indeed fail to
work with a modified sine-wave.

Sylvia.

Maybe he can find a "vintage" electric blanket. on ebay or a thrift
store, pr criaigs list, or an "estate sale" (which iiuc is a big yard
sale when the parents or grandparents die. Mine certainly has no
electronics in it, just a thermostat that reads the air temperature,
not the blanket temp. I don't use mine every year -- probably only 5
or 10 --, but it's over 30 years old and working fine. I think his
modern style might be only 10 years old, or less.

I don't know what the new ones look like but my non-electronic
controller has a clear plastic dial with numbers from 1 to 10, and a
light underneath the dial that illuminates the number. If I try to
use over 1.5 it's too hot in a bedroom that is 65^F. . Iff I take
the metal back off the plastic case, it's clear how little is inside
of it. No circuit board.

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation. I'm not sure if that was ever decided to be dangerous
(causing cancer iirc after many years?) , but they changed the wiring
arrangement anyhow so that for every wiire going one direction,
there's a nearby wire going the other direction, to neutalize the
raidation. AFAIK that works. and it's probably present in any
blanket less than 20 or 15 years old.

micky wrote:

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation.


Very doubtful, considering that one cycle is 5000000 meters long.
That's 5,000 Kilometers or about 3106 miles. How big is that blanket?

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

micky wrote:

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation.


Very doubtful, considering that one cycle is 5000000 meters long.
That's 5,000 Kilometers or about 3106 miles. How big is that blanket?

Well, if it has a poorly designed triac controller, it may radiate RFI.

"tm" fired this volley in news:k7khim$at3$1
@dont-email.me:

Well, if it has a poorly designed triac controller, it may radiate RFI.

Even well-designed ones do on the turn-on. Only a lot of down-line
choking and shielding will get it down to reasonable levels.

But it's not likely that the RFI emitted from a 1/2-amp controller would
emit enough to be harmful to tissue. Could screw up your pacemaker, I
guess...

Lloyd

tm wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

micky wrote:

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation.


Very doubtful, considering that one cycle is 5000000 meters long.
That's 5,000 Kilometers or about 3106 miles. How big is that blanket?

Well, if it has a poorly designed triac controller, it may radiate RFI.


Which wouldn't be low frequency.

On Fri, 09 Nov 2012 22:18:39 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


micky wrote:

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation.


Very doubtful, considering that one cycle is 5000000 meters long.
That's 5,000 Kilometers or about 3106 miles. How big is that blanket?

Are you saying unless something is 3000 miles ong, it can't radiate
low frequency?. I don't think so. And if that were the case, then a
radio transmitter broadcasting at 600 KHz would require an antenna
that was a third of a mile long.

The question is not whether it can radiate, but whether the low
frequency is harmful. This was the controversy that also centered
around power lines, often just past the backyard of people's homes.
But you do remind me that most of the opinion, or maybe the consensus
arfter a few years, was that that was not harmful. By then electric
blankets had already been rediesigned, since they were much easier to
redesign than power lines. . But yes, they're no longer thought to
be a risk, I think. I'd forgotten.

micky wrote:

On Fri, 09 Nov 2012 22:18:39 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


micky wrote:

Really older blankets might have a problem with low frequency
radiation.


Very doubtful, considering that one cycle is 5000000 meters long.
That's 5,000 Kilometers or about 3106 miles. How big is that blanket?

Are you saying unless something is 3000 miles long, it can't radiate
low frequency?.


No, but has to be an appreciable fraction of a wavelength, or we
would be forced to use DC power for everything.

I don't think so. And if that were the case, then a
radio transmitter broadcasting at 600 KHz would require an antenna
that was a third of a mile long.


No, it doesn't. AM BC band broadcast antennas are not a full
wavelength, and the aren't resonant at the transmit frequency. They all
use use L/C networks to make the tower work at the allocated frequency.
Some ATU are as large as the AM transmitter when the tower is difficult
to configure. It gets even worse with multiple tower arrays, and
different day/night patterns and transmit power authorizations. You
should have seen the ATUs at the VOA station in Bethany, Ohio. They
could put up to 500,000 watts of RF at any frequency from 2 to 30 MHz.
They had multiple antennas, and more than one a 50,000 transmitter was
switched to full power before the antenna was properly tuned, and wet
the wood support poles on fire.


I was a broadcast engineer at a number of radio & TV stations over the
decades.


The question is not whether it can radiate, but whether the low
frequency is harmful.


This was the controversy that also centered
around power lines, often just past the backyard of people's homes.


Very long power lines can radiate. That's wy there are regional
power grids across the US, and they are interconnected with HV DC.

But you do remind me that most of the opinion, or maybe the consensus
after a few years, was that that was not harmful. By then electric
blankets had already been redesigned, since they were much easier to
redesign than power lines. But yes, they're no longer thought to
be a risk, I think. I'd forgotten.

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:


And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.

Well-known inverter - and cheap generator - gotcha.
I mentioned it in one of these "inverter" posts regarding furnace
control boards. Too bad you missed that.
Only way to avoid the gotcha is to pay up for pure sine wave.

Vic Smith wrote:

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:


And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.


Well-known inverter - and cheap generator - gotcha.
I mentioned it in one of these "inverter" posts regarding furnace
control boards. Too bad you missed that.
Only way to avoid the gotcha is to pay up for pure sine wave.

Or, just put a small transformer on the affected device.

Jamie

Jamie wrote:
Vic Smith wrote:

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:


And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.

Well-known inverter - and cheap generator - gotcha.
I mentioned it in one of these "inverter" posts regarding furnace
control boards. Too bad you missed that.
Only way to avoid the gotcha is to pay up for pure sine wave.

Or, just put a small transformer on the affected device.

Jamie


OR stick a small battery back-up like you use on a computer. They smooth
the AC and filter it as well.

--
Steve W.

On Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:22:06 -0500, "Steve W."
wrote:

Jamie wrote:
Vic Smith wrote:

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:


And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.

Well-known inverter - and cheap generator - gotcha.
I mentioned it in one of these "inverter" posts regarding furnace
control boards. Too bad you missed that.
Only way to avoid the gotcha is to pay up for pure sine wave.

Or, just put a small transformer on the affected device.

Jamie


OR stick a small battery back-up like you use on a computer. They smooth
the AC and filter it as well.
The small standby UPS does no wave shaping when allowing the load to
run on "line " voltage - and most are, at best, modified sine wave
output.

wrote in message
news
...
The small standby UPS does no wave shaping when allowing the load to
run on "line " voltage - and most are, at best, modified sine wave
output.

A UPS "modified sine wave" is a sequence of positive and negative
square pulses at 160 to 170V, with enough off time between them to
reduce the average (RMS?) voltage to 120V. I've seen the pulse width
increase at higher loads that pulled down the peak voltage.

An APC Smart-Ups has a pure sine output on battery.
https://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=165

Some of them can run off large external batteries without overheating.
Check the surplus stores for used ones. The downloadable manual shows
the simple but not obvious way to remove the old batteries.

I just discovered that the sensor-logging feature of HWiNFO32 v4.06
freeware can record the run time of an unattended laptop on its
battery, It captures the battery voltage, the power drain and the
estimated percent of remaining capacity, which will show a sudden drop
to empty if the battery's microcontroller IC needs to recalibrate
itself with a full discharge cycle.
http://www.hwinfo.com/

I use recording TV and displaying Internet weather radar as
representative high and moderate power applications to check UPS run
time. During an outage I wouldn't let it run idle on precious battery
power though that's the easiest measurement to make. The Event Log
will capture shutdown time.

I haven't tried yet, but it should also show when the UPS or inverter
powering the laptop plus your test load shuts off and the laptop
switches to internal battery.

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Know why a guy gets excited by a woman dressed in leather?

Because it makes her smell like a new truck.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom laser drivers and controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation

* *My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: *some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.

I noticed the same thing during the recent power failure..

The electronically controlled electric blanket will not run on my
modified sine inverter.

I think the third wire might be connected to a thermistor or
temperature sensor in the blanket that the controller uses.

If you don't mind wrecking the controller, you could wire the heater
directly to the plug and use it on high... or wire in a switch with a
diode and have full and 1/2. That would also defeat the timer
function. Also beware this also might disable the overheat safety
feature. I'd include a thermal fuse if I was going to do that. It's
no fun waking up on fire.

I'm thinking about designing a filter that will round off the modified
sine enough so that the blanket can work with the inverter.

Mark

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 17:53:22 -0800 (PST), Mark
wrote:



If you don't mind wrecking the controller, you could wire the heater
directly to the plug and use it on high...

As I say above, in my experience high would be intolerably hot and
even half temp, 5 out of 10 would be too hot to take, I've never
used more than 2, but even in a truck cab with no other heat, I doubt
anything more than 3 would be tolerable. He could test that in
advance by using an extension cord from the house and sleeping in the
truck with the blanket at half-temp.

or wire in a switch with a
diode and have full and 1/2. That would also defeat the timer
function. Also beware this also might disable the overheat safety
feature. I'd include a thermal fuse if I was going to do that. It's
no fun waking up on fire.

Really?

JK

On 2012-11-10, Mark wrote:

Â* Â*My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: Â*some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.

I noticed the same thing during the recent power failure..

The electronically controlled electric blanket will not run on my
modified sine inverter.

I think the third wire might be connected to a thermistor or
temperature sensor in the blanket that the controller uses.

it could just be a shield, an scr-controlled electric blanket would
otherwise radiate EMI something fierce.

If you don't mind wrecking the controller, you could wire the heater
directly to the plug and use it on high... or wire in a switch with a
diode and have full and 1/2. That would also defeat the timer
function. Also beware this also might disable the overheat safety
feature.

it would probably be bad for the inverter too.

I'm thinking about designing a filter that will round off the modified
sine enough so that the blanket can work with the inverter.

an off-the-shelf line filter might do that.



--
š‚šƒ 100% natural

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 11/9/2012 4:01 PM, Existential Angst wrote:
OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Except for one thing.....
My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

So I take apart the three-heat controller, and lo and behold, the goddamm
thing looks like the motherboard of a small PC.... holy ****.... for a
$25 blankeypoo????

Tryna sleuth out the ""circuitry"" of this electric blanket reminds me of
the two days I spent tryna fix a $2.00 flashlight.... unsuccessfully....
holy ****....
The blanket has three wires between it and the controller, but only two of
the wires register continuity!! From which I surmised, via advanced Ohm's
Law, that there is only one element in the blanket, and the controller
actually does control voltage/current, ie, no switching among elements, cuz,
well, there's only one element.
.
AND, the resistance is in fact the "right" resistance, cuz the wattage is 60
W (1/2 amp), and the ohms measure 230.

So now I got an extree wire that I don't know wtf it does, amidst my awe of
all this goddamm gratuitous complexity.

Now, I do have an inkling surrounding this latest Conspiracy of Gratuitous
Complexity -- whose fundamental purpose is, of course, to ass**** the entire
Global Population up to their collective ileocecal valves, so that Orwell
looks like summer fukn camp.
It appears that this particular example (this blue electric blanket) of
Gratuitous Complexity has to do with.....shudder shudder SAFETY!!!!!
And of course the li'l CHILDREN.......

Btw, a brief digression:
You DO know that they now make crawling helmets for toddlers??? Yes
indeedy, google helmets for babies crawling , and pick your link.
Better yet, ORDER yours, right away, so's when you take the li'l future Wall
Street predator-to-be to Montessori for his (first) pre-school interview,
you'll be showing up correck.
You yourself and the spouse should also wear matching bicycle helmets, as
well, just to show Montessori that the whole Beaver family is indeed
correck.....

Back to this g-d blanket bidniss....
This **** blanket, for safety (it is UL listed btw), SHUTS OFF
automatically EVERY GODDAMM HOUR!!!!WTF?????

I mean, look, the g-d blanket is a *whole 60 effingW*!!!! My goddamm BODY
puts out more heat than that....
fyi, Your BMR of about 1 cal/min is actually nearly exactly 70 W of heat....
which is why 10 blustering assholes in a meeting room make the place so
goddamm hot.

So some dumb QA engineering ****head sed, Oh, OH, 60 W -- spread over **24
sq ft of g-d blanket**, no less -- is MUCH too dangerous!!!!
Sheeit, in that case, my 70 W of body heat puts me at risk for
self-immolation, right???

Fuuuuuuuck, they couldn't have timed it for 8 hours?? 6 hours???? 4
hours????? WTF???????

So now, some while after the blanket shuts off, I'll freeze my goddamm ass
off, have furtive nightmares, wake up, and flail around for the controller,
just to reset it.
So now I can't even g-d SLEEP worth a goddamm, in my fetal position -- and
if you knew how long it takes me to get in that fetal position (in m'truck),
you'd realize this is really a significant issue.

OK.... so NOW ahm gettin it:
SAFETY, and our precious li'l bratty g-d CHILDREN, require a solidstate
automatic safety controller. ****ty li'l dropping resistors, or a xsformer,
or split heating elements, just won't do it anymore.
Now, they got a g-d controller in a $25 electric blanket that could have
gotten Neil Armstrong to the g-d moon.

Well, let me tell you, no one, but NO ONE messes with Angst's fetal
position/sleep....

So I took that controller off (via the detachable connector) and
hard-wire-crimped a **** 18 ga wire with a **** 99c-store two-in-a-pack
unpolarized plug, so now's I got *60 uninterrupted W* of blazing power,
blasting thru my li'l blue blankeypoo. What a fukn triumph.....

My gripe against Gratuitous Complexity harks back to my erstwhile 1971
Datsun 510, which got better gas mileage than almost every effing car out
here today, ceptin Volts'n'Prius'n'****, and mebbe that VW TDI motor....
AND, I could fix it my goddamm self.
And I think I drove around Hawaii about 25 g-d times in a Datsun B-210, on a
gallon of gas.

Now, cars are so fukn complicated.....

HOW COMPLICATED ARE THEY???????

Cars are so fukn complicated, that factory Toyoter mechanics make more money
than asshole college puhfessuhs..... AS THEY RIGHTLY SHOULD, cuz college
professors are just absolutely fukn useless. goodgawd..... What a sham
the college credit is, and a bankrupting sham at that.

Cars now weigh 50% more than in the 70s.... and you can't even adjust the
g-d IDLE!!!!
Well, you can, I spose, with a laptop and about $1,000 worth of g-d
programming.....

Part of the Conspiracy behind Gratuitous Complexity is, imo, the desire to
shut out the small entreepreeneer, bidnissman. A good fraction of the
people on these ng's could *make their own perfectly navigable electric
car*, with a welder, lathe, milling machine, some fukn batteries and a
motor. Or mebbe just a welder, drill press, and an angle grinder....
But fukn Chevrolet and Nisan barely got *their* electric cars out, the
regulatory ante is so goddamm high. Near $40K for a g-d electric motor and
a bunch of g-d batteries....

So, inyway, Angst finally has his new blue blankeypoo blazing away, and I'll
be fellatingly positioning myself in peaceful bliss tonite, in m'truck, with
my 400# marine battery/1500W inverter right behind my blissful head.

Oh ****, did I say "fellatingly"??? That would be "fetally", "fetally
positioning myself in peaceful bliss".....
Our old electric blanket died several years ago. It had the bimetalic
strip type control with the 0-10 dial. We loved it because we could turn
it on an hour before going to bed and the bed would be toasty warm when
we went to bed.

It died and we got a new one and it would not preheat the bed. We
returned it to the manufacturer and they said it was working fine, but
sent a new blanked anyway. New worked the same way.

I am convinced the thing knows when there is a body in the bed and when
there is not. It can be on for hours and the bed is still cold when we
go to bed. About 1/2 hour later, the blanket is warm, but we freeze
until then. Real POS design.

Paul

On Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:39:10 -0800, Paul Drahn
wrote:

On 11/9/2012 4:01 PM, Existential Angst wrote:
OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Except for one thing.....
My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

So I take apart the three-heat controller, and lo and behold, the goddamm
thing looks like the motherboard of a small PC.... holy ****.... for a
$25 blankeypoo????

Tryna sleuth out the ""circuitry"" of this electric blanket reminds me of
the two days I spent tryna fix a $2.00 flashlight.... unsuccessfully....
holy ****....
The blanket has three wires between it and the controller, but only two of
the wires register continuity!! From which I surmised, via advanced Ohm's
Law, that there is only one element in the blanket, and the controller
actually does control voltage/current, ie, no switching among elements, cuz,
well, there's only one element.
.
AND, the resistance is in fact the "right" resistance, cuz the wattage is 60
W (1/2 amp), and the ohms measure 230.

So now I got an extree wire that I don't know wtf it does, amidst my awe of
all this goddamm gratuitous complexity.

Now, I do have an inkling surrounding this latest Conspiracy of Gratuitous
Complexity -- whose fundamental purpose is, of course, to ass**** the entire
Global Population up to their collective ileocecal valves, so that Orwell
looks like summer fukn camp.
It appears that this particular example (this blue electric blanket) of
Gratuitous Complexity has to do with.....shudder shudder SAFETY!!!!!
And of course the li'l CHILDREN.......

Btw, a brief digression:
You DO know that they now make crawling helmets for toddlers??? Yes
indeedy, google helmets for babies crawling , and pick your link.
Better yet, ORDER yours, right away, so's when you take the li'l future Wall
Street predator-to-be to Montessori for his (first) pre-school interview,
you'll be showing up correck.
You yourself and the spouse should also wear matching bicycle helmets, as
well, just to show Montessori that the whole Beaver family is indeed
correck.....

Back to this g-d blanket bidniss....
This **** blanket, for safety (it is UL listed btw), SHUTS OFF
automatically EVERY GODDAMM HOUR!!!!WTF?????

I mean, look, the g-d blanket is a *whole 60 effingW*!!!! My goddamm BODY
puts out more heat than that....
fyi, Your BMR of about 1 cal/min is actually nearly exactly 70 W of heat....
which is why 10 blustering assholes in a meeting room make the place so
goddamm hot.

So some dumb QA engineering ****head sed, Oh, OH, 60 W -- spread over **24
sq ft of g-d blanket**, no less -- is MUCH too dangerous!!!!
Sheeit, in that case, my 70 W of body heat puts me at risk for
self-immolation, right???

Fuuuuuuuck, they couldn't have timed it for 8 hours?? 6 hours???? 4
hours????? WTF???????

So now, some while after the blanket shuts off, I'll freeze my goddamm ass
off, have furtive nightmares, wake up, and flail around for the controller,
just to reset it.
So now I can't even g-d SLEEP worth a goddamm, in my fetal position -- and
if you knew how long it takes me to get in that fetal position (in m'truck),
you'd realize this is really a significant issue.

OK.... so NOW ahm gettin it:
SAFETY, and our precious li'l bratty g-d CHILDREN, require a solidstate
automatic safety controller. ****ty li'l dropping resistors, or a xsformer,
or split heating elements, just won't do it anymore.
Now, they got a g-d controller in a $25 electric blanket that could have
gotten Neil Armstrong to the g-d moon.

Well, let me tell you, no one, but NO ONE messes with Angst's fetal
position/sleep....

So I took that controller off (via the detachable connector) and
hard-wire-crimped a **** 18 ga wire with a **** 99c-store two-in-a-pack
unpolarized plug, so now's I got *60 uninterrupted W* of blazing power,
blasting thru my li'l blue blankeypoo. What a fukn triumph.....

My gripe against Gratuitous Complexity harks back to my erstwhile 1971
Datsun 510, which got better gas mileage than almost every effing car out
here today, ceptin Volts'n'Prius'n'****, and mebbe that VW TDI motor....
AND, I could fix it my goddamm self.
And I think I drove around Hawaii about 25 g-d times in a Datsun B-210, on a
gallon of gas.

Now, cars are so fukn complicated.....

HOW COMPLICATED ARE THEY???????

Cars are so fukn complicated, that factory Toyoter mechanics make more money
than asshole college puhfessuhs..... AS THEY RIGHTLY SHOULD, cuz college
professors are just absolutely fukn useless. goodgawd..... What a sham
the college credit is, and a bankrupting sham at that.

Cars now weigh 50% more than in the 70s.... and you can't even adjust the
g-d IDLE!!!!
Well, you can, I spose, with a laptop and about $1,000 worth of g-d
programming.....

Part of the Conspiracy behind Gratuitous Complexity is, imo, the desire to
shut out the small entreepreeneer, bidnissman. A good fraction of the
people on these ng's could *make their own perfectly navigable electric
car*, with a welder, lathe, milling machine, some fukn batteries and a
motor. Or mebbe just a welder, drill press, and an angle grinder....
But fukn Chevrolet and Nisan barely got *their* electric cars out, the
regulatory ante is so goddamm high. Near $40K for a g-d electric motor and
a bunch of g-d batteries....

So, inyway, Angst finally has his new blue blankeypoo blazing away, and I'll
be fellatingly positioning myself in peaceful bliss tonite, in m'truck, with
my 400# marine battery/1500W inverter right behind my blissful head.

Oh ****, did I say "fellatingly"??? That would be "fetally", "fetally
positioning myself in peaceful bliss".....
Our old electric blanket died several years ago. It had the bimetalic
strip type control with the 0-10 dial. We loved it because we could turn
it on an hour before going to bed and the bed would be toasty warm when
we went to bed.

It died and we got a new one and it would not preheat the bed. We
returned it to the manufacturer and they said it was working fine, but
sent a new blanked anyway. New worked the same way.

I am convinced the thing knows when there is a body in the bed and when
there is not. It can be on for hours and the bed is still cold when we
go to bed. About 1/2 hour later, the blanket is warm, but we freeze
until then. Real POS design.

Paul


I was told that that last is indeed true. Something about internal
sensing of warmth. They now use carbon fiber strands to heat rather
than wires. I had one actually start burning over my feet, which woke
me up rather suddenly. And I had to put out the burning fur of one fo
the dogs who evidently had shorted out the wiring in his sleep. It was
a close thing. The replacement wouldnt get warm..preheat at all and
only would warm up like yours..after we were in bed. When I called the
manufacture..they gave me info (pre stroke) on how it works..and I
cant remember the details..but yeah...most of them dont preheat
anymore.

Gunner

--
""The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have
to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I
became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you
have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to
use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.

Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats don’t have
a clue as to political reality.
What amazes me is that you could take a group of people who are hard
workers and convince them that they should support social programs
that were the exact opposite of their own personal convictions. Put a
little fear here and there and you can get people to vote any way you
want.

The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic
operative instead of a Republican was because there were more
Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans."
James Carvell, DNC operative

snipped righteous rants etc...

Products are designed to produce the best perceived value by the most
customers...mitigated by applicable safety regulations.

People who like to sleep in their truck are not the target demographic
and never will be.
If you expect to sleep "outside the box", you need to pick your
electric blankets more carefully. Ranting won't help.

On 11/09/2012 06:01 PM, Existential Angst wrote:

[snip]

My g-d electric blankeypoo dudn't WORK with my 1500 W fukn inverter!!!!!
WTF??????

And the reason quickly became clear: some electronics don't work with
modified (read: ****) sine wave power.
But, what electronics are in a g-d electric blanket???

I sometimes use a heating pad, for a heated seat. Many of those won't
work with an inverter.

[snip]

--
45 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2012 12:00:00 AM).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"...your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid
and cruel life." [Krishnamurti]

On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 19:01:11 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

OK.....

So ahm happier'n'a alcoholic workin the night shift in a Jack Daniels
distillery.... with my 400# deep cycle battery, 1500 W inverter (sitting
in the back seat of m'truck), and my brand new blue electric
blankey-poo.....
Now I can curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck -- in compleat toasty
comfort.....

Now, don't ax me WHY I gotta curl up in a fetal position -- in m'truck.
Just suffice it to say, if you had my yob, you'd be curling up in a fetal
position in YOUR truck, too.

Your job? Your truck? Your blanket?

Luxury.

RL

It's no wonder males are becoming extinct.......just crochet a wool
afghan, throw a nylon comforter over it, and you're good to 20 below. )

My wool blanket was ten bucks at harbor Freight. Works nicely.

That, and a couple other blankets. Allows me to turn the heat down over
night. I would not say down to 20 below, but it does OK at 63F.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Norminn" wrote in message
...
It's no wonder males are becoming extinct.......just crochet a wool
afghan, throw a nylon comforter over it, and you're good to 20 below. )

On 1/14/2013 4:06 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
My wool blanket was ten bucks at harbor Freight. Works nicely.

That, and a couple other blankets. Allows me to turn the heat down over
night. I would not say down to 20 below, but it does OK at 63F.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"Norminn" wrote in message
...
It's no wonder males are becoming extinct.......just crochet a wool
afghan, throw a nylon comforter over it, and you're good to 20 below. )


Please be assured....it wasn't intended to be anything but fun; the
easily riled will be on my case, demanding citations. My personal
experience is limited to temps of 30o coldest )

Well, in that case, I need to mention that I got the blanket on sale at HF,
and saved 33% plus the coupon.

I'm sure a few people on this list wish I was extinct. With flu season, they
may get their wish.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Norminn" wrote in message
m...


It's no wonder males are becoming extinct.......just crochet a wool
afghan, throw a nylon comforter over it, and you're good to 20 below. )


Please be assured....it wasn't intended to be anything but fun; the
easily riled will be on my case, demanding citations. My personal
experience is limited to temps of 30o coldest )