Till all the old stock is gone..

Read my post again, NO LONGER MANUFACTURED...

Sure Newegg et-all will sell ya "new old stock" till it's depleted... but
they ain't making em any more.. case closed...

Trust me "SeeCrate" and "EasternAnalog" closed the PATA lines a year ago...

--.- Dave


"Terry Coombs" wrote in message
.. .
Dave August wrote:
Karl,

UMMM look back 20 or 30 years, when was the last time you saw a 8080
CP/M computer....

I'd seriously think about this statment you made...

(Note: I don't think I need to do hard and floppy drives yet -
still a lot of these around)

I haven't seen a *NEW* 3.5 floopy drive in several years though
someone *might* make them

PATA hard disks (you know connected by the wide flat cable) are NO
LONGER MANUFACTURED... It's all SATA now (that skinny red cable)

IDE HDD's are still readily available , checked Newegg recently ?

--
Snag
every answer
leads to another
question

Karl Townsend wrote:

Mach3 has come a long way, but still not up to control of industrial size
commercial machines,IMHO. No closed loop servo control, can't handle large
amounts of I/O, PLC interface is still poor, custom M&Gcodes not there.
Oh, well, in THAT case, have you looked at EMC2?
We have a large aerospace shop in Wichita that is
converting their machines over to EMC2. Right
now, that user is adding full N-axis error
mapping, to compensate for any non-straightness or
orthogonality error in the ways. He is already
running a Cincinnatti 5-axis machine with it, and
a Giddings & Lewis with dual feedback (shaft
encoders plus linear encoders). EMC2 has a
built-in ladder-logic program (Classic Ladder).
The advantage is you can bring up diagnostic
screens any time there is some jam-up in the tool
changer, for instance, to find which sensor is not
getting the right signal.

Custom codes are easily added.

True closed loop positioning feedback to the CPU
since at least 1997 when it was ported to PCs.

Jon

Karl Townsend wrote:

I need rigid tapping on my mill. I've not seen this done under Mach. Again
how it was done and pics would be nice.

Well, then you really NEED to see EMC2. I have
been doing rigid tapping on my minimill (too hard
to fit a spindle encoder to a Bridgeport 1J head)
for over a year now. I used to use a
spring-loaded tap holder, but now I just put it in
a Jacobs chuck and it works fine.
my lathes do Fanuc G76 multiple pass threading with definable infeed angle,
rough passes, finish passes, taper threads, ID or OD threads, number of
leads to pull out at end of thread, more. Again, I've not seen a successful
Mach machine doing this let alone going at high speed to hypercritical
specs.

We have Hardinge CHNC users and a few other lathes
doing threading. I also have done threading in my
minimill, primarily for testing purposes. We
don't have all of the above in one canned cycle at
the present, but have a G-code program that does
it all with some loops and variables.
For that matter, I think keyboard control sucks. It must be doable but I've
not seen a Mach control using a standard operator panel that you see on any
commercial machine.
Check out MachMotion, but their stuff is plenty
expensive. As for EMC2, once you have a decent
amount of I/O, adding a nice jog pendant is pretty
easy.

(If you don't know where to find EMC2, see
http://www.linuxcnc.org )

Jon

Capacitor failures have been mentioned as very likely faults, even on
motherboards that are only a couple of years old.

FWIW, there are a number of reasons why present designs of capacitors fail
prematurely.
The number one reason is stress, whih can result in high ESR equivalent
series resistance, or excessive leakage.
High ESR and excessive leakage aren't conditions that a typical DMM (even
ones with a capacitance range) can test for, either in or out of circuit.
A dedicated ESR meter, and/or a capacitor analyzer are required to test for
these values.

Forgetting about the counterfeit capacitor electrolyte for a moment (or
forever now), SMPS switch mode power supplies and motherbord DC-DC voltage
converter circuits apply a lot of stress to today's miniaturized
electrolytic capacitors.

Older linear power supplies would typically apply 60 or 120Hz to the filter
capacitors.

Newer SMPS apply frequencies of tens of kilohertz, often at high peak
currents. These conditions stress the electrolyte and foil coatings in
capacitors.

We can see what a similar high frequency stress does to thin aluminum foil
when it's placed in an ultrasonic cleaner.
Likewise, surface changes take place on lead/acid battery plates when high
frequency, high peak currents are applied by desulfator circuits.

Newer, low ESR capacitors are very compact due to the miniaturization of
most equipment, and bare space on motherboards is becoming almost
non-existent.

Most higher grade capacitors are rated at 105 C degrees to be more tolerant
of heat, but poor circuit layout practices often place them where ambient
heat is problem. With a nearby heat source and high peak currents, many
capacitors are operating close to their breakdown specifications.

It's been mentioned that circuit/motherboards that are shelved when new, may
have faults in a couple of years, just from storage.
I've seen numerous "new" low ESR capacitors fail testing (badly, not just
borderline/questionable), when they're old stock of only a couple of years.
That was what started me to test new stock before installing them as repair
parts.

It seems that old stock is liquidated to sellers/brokers that package them
individually for retail sale and offer them to parts distributors, or just
sell them in bulk to surplus sellers. Much of the stock available from the
second or third transaction sources would no longer pass new specification
testing. They may function in a hobby circuit, but their reliability is
likely to be very low.

For important applications, fresh stock should be sourced from a distributor
with high volume stock turnover to ensure that the stock has been recently
replenished from the manufacturer. There probably isn't any added value in
buying a hundred pieces if they'll just sit in a drawer for a year or two.

Many quality electrolytic capacitors have 4 digit date codes on them which
are fairly easy to interpret, as week/year or year/week.

One of the best ESR testers by reputation and cost is the Bob Parker/Dick
Smith ESR Meter in circuit tester.
Other models costing many times more, are no more effective at measuring ESR
both in and out of circuit.
More costly capacitor and inductor analyzers generally offer more test
parameters for more thorough evaluations.

Desoldering thru-hole leads of electrolytic capacitors can be a bit
challenging on multi-layer motherboards, but easy enough to do with quality
desoldering equipment designed for the task.
Random replacement of electrolytics on motherboards may correct or prevent
some problems from failed capacitors (and replacement of all the voltage
converter and CPU voltage supply capacitors is wise), but I'm convinced that
testing capacitors before replacement is a requirement.

Similar to recent comments regarding rechargeable batteries, electrolytic
capacitors are also availble in various grades with particular
characteristics. The voltage rating and capacitance value shouldn't be the
only considerations for important applications requiring any degree of
reliability.

--
WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


Pete C." wrote in message
ter.com...

Karl Townsend wrote:

I now have four metal mangling machines that need the venerable ISA slot
to
operate... These computers are not available new anymore and the new
parts
route is about gone too.

I'm settling around one motherboard, CPU, memory, video card combination.
Makes it much easier to maintain. I can do an entire computer swap in
minutes if trouble happens. Or test one component at a time in a spare
test
computer.

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares
am
I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I
need
to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

Karl

I'd suggest you take a closer look at Mach3 as well as the couple
external pulse generator modules that work with it which eliminate the
need for parallel ports as well. As you see you're already having
difficulty maintaining a system that requires ISA slots, better to
prepare for a newer setup that will work with more modern components.
Remember that Mach3 is free in code limited trial mode (~1000 lines
IIRC) so you can very easily try it out. It is also very reasonably
priced in full mode (~$150/unlimited for non commercial and
~$150/machine for commercial).

"Jon Elson" wrote in message
...
Karl Townsend wrote:

I need rigid tapping on my mill. I've not seen this done under Mach.
Again how it was done and pics would be nice.

Well, then you really NEED to see EMC2. I have been doing rigid tapping
on my minimill (too hard to fit a spindle encoder to a Bridgeport 1J head)
for over a year now. I used to use a spring-loaded tap holder, but now I
just put it in a Jacobs chuck and it works fine.

Jacobs chuck? GACK Use a collet. I have a set of spring loaded tap holders
I should just sell - maybe to a Mach user.

I can see discussing best control is kinda like talking religion. (If you
aren't a Lutheran, you're doomed)

I started with AHHA, a nice DOS control for its time. I switched to Mach1/2
and it was a small step down, not where I wanted to go. I looked at EMC at
that time and concluded it was for C++ bit heads. Its much better now in
this respect. But now I've got years experience with galil/camsoft,
everything bought, paid for, and running. No interest in switching, just
want to maintain what I got.

Karl

Karl Townsend wrote:
I now have four metal mangling machines that need the venerable ISA slot to
operate... These computers are not available new anymore and the new parts
route is about gone too.

I'm settling around one motherboard, CPU, memory, video card combination.
Makes it much easier to maintain. I can do an entire computer swap in
minutes if trouble happens. Or test one component at a time in a spare test
computer.

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares am
I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I need
to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

I got curious when I should have been doing some productive work and
found some USB to ISA adapters out there. It presumably requires some
really oddball drivers, but they seemed to feel it would even work in
DOS, as long as you were running it out of Windows.

Per other suggestions, it may be better to find another way to drive the
machines, even if it means doing a ton of work on software.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

Wes wrote:

cavelamb wrote:

One of the long term storage problems you'll face is that electrolytic
capacitors will eventually dry out and fail.

A few episodes back, Steve Gibson was talking about his collection of PDP's. One of the
issues with firing them up was the capacitors. Some caps can be reformed.

http://www.vmars.org.uk/capacitor_reforming.htm


Those are different than the low ESR capacitors used in switchmode
power supplies. They use different construction, and some are four
separate electrolytics in parallel to reduce the ESL, as well. The
higher frequency used in switchmode power supplies puts a lot of ripple
current through the electrolytics. When they start to fail, they heat up
and can vent. That is why the tops of the aluminum cans are scored. If
they can't vent, they explode.

You need a higher than operating voltage to reform an electrolytic,
so if you suspect they are failing on a motherboard it is better to
replace them. The average cost is 10 to 20 per motherboard if you buy
in small quantities.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

wrote:

On Apr 29, 9:56 am, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:
Tim wrote:

"Karl Townsend" wrote in message
tanews.com...
I now have four metal mangling machines that need the venerable ISA slot to
operate... These computers are not available new anymore and the new parts
route is about gone too.

I'm settling around one motherboard, CPU, memory, video card combination.
Makes it much easier to maintain. I can do an entire computer swap in
minutes if trouble happens. Or test one component at a time in a spare
test computer.

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares
am I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I
need to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

Karl

It's nothing more than a wag, but I would say new stuff every three years,
providing you keep the machines cool, clean, and turned on. Nothing seems to
hurt electronics more than heating and cooling cycles from turning them on
and off.

Look up the specs on the electrolytics used on the boards. Most have
a 2000 hour life rating at the specified temperature. After that, the
ESR starts to rise, causing the boards to fail.

BTW, my background is in mission critical electronics.

It also assumes a good power system to avoid low and spike voltage
conditions.

Around machine tools?-

Not quite what the Nichicon spec sheet here says:
http://products.nichicon.co.jp/en/pdf/XJA043/e-hm.pdf

After 2000 hours at the specified conditions, leakage and ripple are
still under initial specs.


That is all that most are warranted for, and rarely ar the run at
full temperature, so you extend the useful life. Motherboards use 105 C
rated electrolytics, but the boards are never run at that temperature,
the 85 degree rated electrolytics drop like flies.


That said, the cheap electrolytics on consumer motherboards are what
usually goes bad the quickest, given otherwise good power and
environmental conditions. I just had to pull one and stick in a
spare, it'd been in service pretty much continuously for 5-6 years.
The big caps all had bulgy ends. I'll try reviving it with some new
caps, they're cheap and it's a fairly quick fix, if it works.


Use a grounded vacuum desoldering iron to remove the bad caps, and
make sure to clean off any electrolyte that leaked. Inspect the traces
near the bad caps for erosion of the copper before soldering in the new
caps.


So for the O.P., I'd figure on a max lifetime of NEW boards at about 5
years. Used ones are a crapshoot. You might improve things with
better-quality caps, assuming you have the facilities and ability for
changing same.


If the motherboard was built with cheap electrolytics, you may not
get a year out of it. A lot of Chinese capacitors were made with a low
grade electrolyte that causes the foil to be destroyed. It wasn't much
better than the salt water used in early homemade electrolytic caps in
the early days of radio. There were dire warnings not to use any
electrolytics back then, because they would develop high leakage
currents and burn up the power transformer.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

Tim wrote:

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

Tim wrote:

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


Look up the specs on the electrolytics used on the boards. Most have
a 2000 hour life rating at the specified temperature. After that, the
ESR starts to rise, causing the boards to fail.

83 days?????????


Study it, learn from it, or pay the consequences. Leaving some
modern electronics on 24/7 destroys it in short order. Long gone are
the tube days when you could put a couple fingers between components

I've seen a BUNCH of file servers consistantly run 4 to 5 years without
failure. The PC I'm on now has been on for some 3 year now, and another in
the office more than 5. I also had my first Accurite II on a digital mill go
better than 25 years.

I have had new computers die in less than a year, due to bad
electrolytics. One started randomly rebooting, and the other refused to
turn on. Not all systems are the same, used the same, or built with the
same grade of parts. Look at the motherboard and power supply in one of
those servers and compare it to a cheaper desktop computer. You'll find
a better grade of capacitors, and more attention to air flow in the
design. You're comparing apples to crab apples.

The original XT motherboards are damn near impossible to kill but
there isn't much there to generate heat, either.


I will grant you your expertise, but I can assure you, my actual experiences
have shown quite different.


Good for you. Now try running those servers in a 120 degree room
with no air circulating and see how long they last. Have you never
heard of derating components to extend the operating life, or the term
MTBF? There is a reason most server rooms are cold. A/C is a lot
cheaper than new servers. The same goes for a radio or TV control
room. They aren't 60 to 68 degrees to make the operator comfortable.


Around machine tools?

Sure, why not?


Dream on. Better yet, rent a power analyzer and look at the AC line
for a few weeks. You will never see a pure sine wave. Some days you'll
barely recognize that it is supposed to be a sine wave.

Everyone knows computers and electric motors are anything but partners on
the shop grid. If you can about your computers, battery back up power
supplies make good low cost filters. Not perfect, but many times better than
nothing at all.


Try that near a large industrial park sometime, in a building with
over 300 SMPS power pieces of equipment. The harmonics and noise on the
neutral will cause it to overheat. Decades ago, it was common to use
two gauges smaller for the neutral on three phase. When they started
having electrical fires n office buildings, they discovered that the
harmonics was the cause, and require new systems to have the neutral
larger than the three phases.

The whole industrial park and a small subdivion was on the same small
substation. The spikes and surges caused the hundreds of UPS to
complain constantly.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

Wild_Bill wrote:

Capacitor failures have been mentioned as very likely faults, even on
motherboards that are only a couple of years old.

FWIW, there are a number of reasons why present designs of capacitors fail
prematurely.
The number one reason is stress, whih can result in high ESR equivalent
series resistance, or excessive leakage.
High ESR and excessive leakage aren't conditions that a typical DMM (even
ones with a capacitance range) can test for, either in or out of circuit.
A dedicated ESR meter, and/or a capacitor analyzer are required to test for
these values.

Forgetting about the counterfeit capacitor electrolyte for a moment (or
forever now), SMPS switch mode power supplies and motherbord DC-DC voltage
converter circuits apply a lot of stress to today's miniaturized
electrolytic capacitors.

Older linear power supplies would typically apply 60 or 120Hz to the filter
capacitors.

Newer SMPS apply frequencies of tens of kilohertz, often at high peak
currents. These conditions stress the electrolyte and foil coatings in
capacitors.

We can see what a similar high frequency stress does to thin aluminum foil
when it's placed in an ultrasonic cleaner.
Likewise, surface changes take place on lead/acid battery plates when high
frequency, high peak currents are applied by desulfator circuits.

Newer, low ESR capacitors are very compact due to the miniaturization of
most equipment, and bare space on motherboards is becoming almost
non-existent.

Most higher grade capacitors are rated at 105 C degrees to be more tolerant
of heat, but poor circuit layout practices often place them where ambient
heat is problem. With a nearby heat source and high peak currents, many
capacitors are operating close to their breakdown specifications.


Unfortunately, at the current required by the CPU, they have no other
choice than to put the caps next to the CPU. if they were even two or
three inches away, the voltage drop would be excessive. The CPU can
consume over 100 watts at 1.8 volts. That is over 50 amps, so the I/R
losses have to be kept to a minimum. The older Pentium chips consume 50
watts at 2.8 - 3.3 volts. which is still a lot of current to push
through 1 oz. foil on an interior layer.



It's been mentioned that circuit/motherboards that are shelved when new, may
have faults in a couple of years, just from storage.
I've seen numerous "new" low ESR capacitors fail testing (badly, not just
borderline/questionable), when they're old stock of only a couple of years.
That was what started me to test new stock before installing them as repair
parts.

It seems that old stock is liquidated to sellers/brokers that package them
individually for retail sale and offer them to parts distributors, or just
sell them in bulk to surplus sellers. Much of the stock available from the
second or third transaction sources would no longer pass new specification
testing. They may function in a hobby circuit, but their reliability is
likely to be very low.

For important applications, fresh stock should be sourced from a distributor
with high volume stock turnover to ensure that the stock has been recently
replenished from the manufacturer. There probably isn't any added value in
buying a hundred pieces if they'll just sit in a drawer for a year or two.

Many quality electrolytic capacitors have 4 digit date codes on them which
are fairly easy to interpret, as week/year or year/week.

One of the best ESR testers by reputation and cost is the Bob Parker/Dick
Smith ESR Meter in circuit tester.
Other models costing many times more, are no more effective at measuring ESR
both in and out of circuit.
More costly capacitor and inductor analyzers generally offer more test
parameters for more thorough evaluations.

Desoldering thru-hole leads of electrolytic capacitors can be a bit
challenging on multi-layer motherboards, but easy enough to do with quality
desoldering equipment designed for the task.
Random replacement of electrolytics on motherboards may correct or prevent
some problems from failed capacitors (and replacement of all the voltage
converter and CPU voltage supply capacitors is wise), but I'm convinced that
testing capacitors before replacement is a requirement.

Similar to recent comments regarding rechargeable batteries, electrolytic
capacitors are also availble in various grades with particular
characteristics. The voltage rating and capacitance value shouldn't be the
only considerations for important applications requiring any degree of
reliability.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

Karl Townsend wrote:

They aren't that hard to replace, if you know how. I've replaced
thousands of them on PTH boards. SMD boards are easy. The hard part is
buying good low ESR capacitors. Newer motherboards are starting to use
organic electrolytics that are supposed to last longer & work better. I
can desolder the six to ten electrolytics on most motherboards in under
an hour without damaging the PTHs or traces. Soldering them back is
easier, but you do have to take ESD precautions.

Good to know, I should be able to hire somebody to help when the time comes.
Is there a way to know caps are failing? Or, wait till it broke and try this
fix?


An ESR meter will let you test them on the board. I use the original
Dick Smith Electronics. A newer version is out. This website has the
details on both versions:

http://www.flippers.com/esrktmtr.html


Depending on the board, sometimes you just shotgun them when they
start to act up, and replace all of the critical capacitors. The ones
near the CPU socket are part of the switchmode power supply for the CPU,
and are the most likely to fail. That supply drops the 5 volt or 3.3
volt supply to the voltage needed by the CPU and is critical to the
motherboard's operation. Erratic operation of some daughterboards and
servo controllers may be from the same cause. The top two failures in
modern electronics is bad caps, and cracked solder joints. My solder
work is in orbit, aboard the ISS where I tested and calibrated boards
hot a communications system, and I spent four years doing Surface mount
rework, most of it under a stereo microscope.


http://www.badcaps.net/ is a website dedicated to the bad electrolytic
problem.


If I can finish the repairs to my shop building I would be able to do
the work for the people on the group.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

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

I have had new computers die in less than a year, due to bad
electrolytics. One started randomly rebooting, and the other refused to
turn on. Not all systems are the same, used the same, or built with the
same grade of parts. Look at the motherboard and power supply in one of
those servers and compare it to a cheaper desktop computer. You'll find
a better grade of capacitors, and more attention to air flow in the
design. You're comparing apples to crab apples.

The original XT motherboards are damn near impossible to kill but
there isn't much there to generate heat, either.

Yeah, I used to have the same problems when I was turning mine off and on
daily.





Good for you. Now try running those servers in a 120 degree room
with no air circulating and see how long they last. Have you never
heard of derating components to extend the operating life, or the term
MTBF? There is a reason most server rooms are cold. A/C is a lot
cheaper than new servers. The same goes for a radio or TV control
room. They aren't 60 to 68 degrees to make the operator comfortable.

Why, if you are not going to provide adaquate cooling, you deserve what ever
you get.



Try that near a large industrial park sometime, in a building with
over 300 SMPS power pieces of equipment. The harmonics and noise on the
neutral will cause it to overheat. Decades ago, it was common to use
two gauges smaller for the neutral on three phase. When they started
having electrical fires n office buildings, they discovered that the
harmonics was the cause, and require new systems to have the neutral
larger than the three phases.

The whole industrial park and a small subdivion was on the same small
substation. The spikes and surges caused the hundreds of UPS to
complain constantly.

You're not listening. Again, if you don't isolate the computers from the
electric motors, you deserve what ever you get.

I'm printing this out and putting inside the computers. Would you mind
emailing me (karltownsendATembarqmail.com) your contact information to put
in there? It looks like I should wait for trouble, may be a while till I
need your help.

Karl


"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
news

Karl Townsend wrote:

They aren't that hard to replace, if you know how. I've replaced
thousands of them on PTH boards. SMD boards are easy. The hard part
is
buying good low ESR capacitors. Newer motherboards are starting to use
organic electrolytics that are supposed to last longer & work better. I
can desolder the six to ten electrolytics on most motherboards in under
an hour without damaging the PTHs or traces. Soldering them back is
easier, but you do have to take ESD precautions.

Good to know, I should be able to hire somebody to help when the time
comes.
Is there a way to know caps are failing? Or, wait till it broke and try
this
fix?


An ESR meter will let you test them on the board. I use the original
Dick Smith Electronics. A newer version is out. This website has the
details on both versions:

http://www.flippers.com/esrktmtr.html


Depending on the board, sometimes you just shotgun them when they
start to act up, and replace all of the critical capacitors. The ones
near the CPU socket are part of the switchmode power supply for the CPU,
and are the most likely to fail. That supply drops the 5 volt or 3.3
volt supply to the voltage needed by the CPU and is critical to the
motherboard's operation. Erratic operation of some daughterboards and
servo controllers may be from the same cause. The top two failures in
modern electronics is bad caps, and cracked solder joints. My solder
work is in orbit, aboard the ISS where I tested and calibrated boards
hot a communications system, and I spent four years doing Surface mount
rework, most of it under a stereo microscope.


http://www.badcaps.net/ is a website dedicated to the bad electrolytic
problem.


If I can finish the repairs to my shop building I would be able to do
the work for the people on the group.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

Tim wrote:

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

I have had new computers die in less than a year, due to bad
electrolytics. One started randomly rebooting, and the other refused to
turn on. Not all systems are the same, used the same, or built with the
same grade of parts. Look at the motherboard and power supply in one of
those servers and compare it to a cheaper desktop computer. You'll find
a better grade of capacitors, and more attention to air flow in the
design. You're comparing apples to crab apples.

The original XT motherboards are damn near impossible to kill but
there isn't much there to generate heat, either.

Yeah, I used to have the same problems when I was turning mine off and on
daily.


I have only seen clone XT motherboards go bad, and I rebuild lots of
old XTs when Ihad a used computer business. Even the IBM AT mother
boards had a higer failure rate than the clone XT boards whe tey went
to the first custom chips, to eliminate the 'glue logic'.


Good for you. Now try running those servers in a 120 degree room
with no air circulating and see how long they last. Have you never
heard of derating components to extend the operating life, or the term
MTBF? There is a reason most server rooms are cold. A/C is a lot
cheaper than new servers. The same goes for a radio or TV control
room. They aren't 60 to 68 degrees to make the operator comfortable.

Why, if you are not going to provide adaquate cooling, you deserve what ever
you get.


Yawn. Always have to play the dumbass, don't you?

They weren't air conditioned back in the vacuum tube days, but the
equipment was designed to work in higher temperatures. It was no fun
sitting in a control room with the transmitter a few feet from your side
in a room that was well over 100 degrees. Some of them had no herat,
either.

One military radio & TV station I worked at had a steam plant on the
other end of the building, but all the station got was whatever heat was
left in the return lines, and that went to the offices. Some days it
was below zero, and you sat next to the transmitter whenever you could,
becasue it was closer to 32 degrees.


Try that near a large industrial park sometime, in a building with
over 300 SMPS power pieces of equipment. The harmonics and noise on the
neutral will cause it to overheat. Decades ago, it was common to use
two gauges smaller for the neutral on three phase. When they started
having electrical fires n office buildings, they discovered that the
harmonics was the cause, and require new systems to have the neutral
larger than the three phases.

The whole industrial park and a small subdivion was on the same small
substation. The spikes and surges caused the hundreds of UPS to
complain constantly.

You're not listening. Again, if you don't isolate the computers from the
electric motors, you deserve what ever you get.


You have no reading comprehension. "the hundreds of UPS" weren't
there for people to trip over.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

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

Tim wrote:

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

I have had new computers die in less than a year, due to bad
electrolytics. One started randomly rebooting, and the other refused to
turn on. Not all systems are the same, used the same, or built with
the
same grade of parts. Look at the motherboard and power supply in one
of
those servers and compare it to a cheaper desktop computer. You'll
find
a better grade of capacitors, and more attention to air flow in the
design. You're comparing apples to crab apples.

The original XT motherboards are damn near impossible to kill but
there isn't much there to generate heat, either.

Yeah, I used to have the same problems when I was turning mine off and on
daily.


I have only seen clone XT motherboards go bad, and I rebuild lots of
old XTs when Ihad a used computer business. Even the IBM AT mother
boards had a higer failure rate than the clone XT boards whe tey went
to the first custom chips, to eliminate the 'glue logic'.


Good for you. Now try running those servers in a 120 degree room
with no air circulating and see how long they last. Have you never
heard of derating components to extend the operating life, or the term
MTBF? There is a reason most server rooms are cold. A/C is a lot
cheaper than new servers. The same goes for a radio or TV control
room. They aren't 60 to 68 degrees to make the operator comfortable.

Why, if you are not going to provide adaquate cooling, you deserve what
ever
you get.


Yawn. Always have to play the dumbass, don't you?

They weren't air conditioned back in the vacuum tube days, but the
equipment was designed to work in higher temperatures. It was no fun
sitting in a control room with the transmitter a few feet from your side
in a room that was well over 100 degrees. Some of them had no herat,
either.

One military radio & TV station I worked at had a steam plant on the
other end of the building, but all the station got was whatever heat was
left in the return lines, and that went to the offices. Some days it
was below zero, and you sat next to the transmitter whenever you could,
becasue it was closer to 32 degrees.


Try that near a large industrial park sometime, in a building with
over 300 SMPS power pieces of equipment. The harmonics and noise on
the
neutral will cause it to overheat. Decades ago, it was common to use
two gauges smaller for the neutral on three phase. When they started
having electrical fires n office buildings, they discovered that the
harmonics was the cause, and require new systems to have the neutral
larger than the three phases.

The whole industrial park and a small subdivion was on the same small
substation. The spikes and surges caused the hundreds of UPS to
complain constantly.

You're not listening. Again, if you don't isolate the computers from the
electric motors, you deserve what ever you get.


You have no reading comprehension. "the hundreds of UPS" weren't
there for people to trip over.


You're the one with the comprehension problem. This branch of the thread was
clearly about leaving computers on 24-7, as opposed to switching them off
daily.
Who cares if you didn't have UPSs 30 years ago, or didn't properly cool your
computer equipment. Try to keep up or abstain from calling someone a dumb
ass, while you drift from one topic to the next.

I've had one 40MHZ ISA dos box running almost continuously since about
1994. Hard drive too. The PSU doesn't even get warm. It just plods
through it's Dos programs.
JR
Dweller in the cellar


Karl Townsend wrote:
I now have four metal mangling machines that need the venerable ISA slot to
operate... These computers are not available new anymore and the new parts
route is about gone too.

I'm settling around one motherboard, CPU, memory, video card combination.
Makes it much easier to maintain. I can do an entire computer swap in
minutes if trouble happens. Or test one component at a time in a spare test
computer.

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares am
I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I need
to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

Karl



--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes
Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive
The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me
No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dependence is Vulnerability:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

Karl Townsend wrote:

I'm printing this out and putting inside the computers. Would you mind
emailing me (karltownsendATembarqmail.com) your contact information to put
in there? It looks like I should wait for trouble, may be a while till I
need your help.

Sent.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:17:06 -0500, Pete C. wrote:
....
You can expect the spares to last until the consumer grade components
like electrolytic caps die of old age, tin whiskers short connections,
internal chemical residue corrodes connections in chips, etc. Even
sealed in a static bag on a shelf the boards are aging and may not be
functional in 5 years when you try to use them.

Besides the above items and the disk, power supply, and fan issues
others have mentioned, on-board batteries may be an issue. For
long-term storage, I suggest removing batteries from the
motherboard, and using new batteries when bringing up a stored
system. Write down bios settings before taking out the
batteries, and perhaps use a save-and-restore-settings program.
If the bios itself is in flash memory, make sure you have copies
of the bios and bios-loader on durable storage media.

--
jiw

FWIW, reforming is a technique that's performed to aged electrolytic
capacitors to help reduce the amount of leakage caused by age (leakage in
terms of internal current leakage, as related to insulation breakdown).

Reforming doesn't improve or change any other electrolytic capacitor test
parmeters other than internal leakage.

A lot of folks that restore vintage electronic equipment will slowly bring
up the line input voltage with a variac, the first time they power up the
equipment, to reduce the possibility of damage caused by excess leakage in
the capacitors.
High current leakage paths in capacitors will often destroy other ciruit
components, compounding the restoration costs and effort.

The capacitors in vintage gear are often the size of the paper tubes in the
center of a roll of toilet paper, not typically anything to be found in
modern low voltage circuits today.

The reforming process for (aged old stock) out of circuit electrolytic
capacitors is to apply a very low voltage from a low current source while
monitoring the current with a meter.
It's very important that the current is limited to a low value, even a
current limited power supply of only 10mA will be adequate.

The current limited applied voltage is gradually increased when it's
determined that the current has decreased to near zero mA from the previous
voltage setting.
No electrolytic capacitors have zero leakage at their working voltage, but
nearly zero current should be seen at low applied voltages (uA if the
display is sensitive enough to indicate below mA current levels).

When a capacitor's current leakage doesn't achieve near zero current before
reaching the rated working voltage, it's discarded because reforming won't
correct the excessive current leakge condition present in the capacitor.

The applied voltage is only increased to the capacitor's rated working
voltage. If the level of internal leakage is determined to be within
acceptable limits, the capacitor can be considered safe to be installed for
use in a circuit application appropriate for the capacitor's rated working
voltage.

Reforming can take up lots of time, and it's not a practical procedure for
most repair technicians.

All of Sencore's test equipment that will test components for leakage are
clearly labeled: Do not hold the capacitor (device being tested) in your
hand while testing.

--
WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html


"Wes" wrote in message
...
cavelamb wrote:

One of the long term storage problems you'll face is that electrolytic
capacitors will eventually dry out and fail.

A few episodes back, Steve Gibson was talking about his collection of
PDP's. One of the
issues with firing them up was the capacitors. Some caps can be reformed.

http://www.vmars.org.uk/capacitor_reforming.htm


Wes

On Fri, 1 May 2009 06:05:25 -0400, "Wild_Bill"
wrote:

Reforming can take up lots of time, and it's not a practical procedure for
most repair technicians.

Who can find a repair technician? 99% of consumer grade crud it's
cheaper to toss than to repair - unfortunately.

By the time the machine is out of production, technology has moved
on to the next level (three times) and you have to repair it to
archive the materials, you can't get the parts. Or the schematics and
manuals.

Example: NASA with all the high-resolution video of the 1960's and
70's Space Program and Moon Landings on 2" tape that was digitized
with an ancient analog method, and no working machines to play it back
on, let alone the processors to decode it.

All of Sencore's test equipment that will test components for leakage are
clearly labeled: Do not hold the capacitor (device being tested) in your
hand while testing.

Is that anything like "Do not look direcly into the laser with your
one remaining eye..." (Pictogram: White cane, red tip.)

Needs a nice gruesome two part pictogram of an explosion, and a
stump with a spurting artery, hand laying on table...

-- Bruce --

Karl Townsend wrote:

You and Michael raise good points on the computers and ISA bus. Looks like
this route is out of business in 5 years or so. Right now Galil PCI cards
are $1000s each while the ISA units go for cheap on eBay. Maybe I'd best
start saving.

My hesitation with Mach is based on the frustration I see with folks trying
to install commercial scale needs. I worked with a guy on a hardinge CHNC
like mine. He's done three previous refits and is having a terrible time
with tool changer.

maybe you can change my mind. The devil is in the details:

My machines all home on startup. Not just a home switch but encoder index
pulse after making the home switch. pretty standard commercial stuff. Do you
know a Mach user doing this and how he done it? I'd love to see a video.

I need rigid tapping on my mill. I've not seen this done under Mach. Again
how it was done and pics would be nice.

my lathes do Fanuc G76 multiple pass threading with definable infeed angle,
rough passes, finish passes, taper threads, ID or OD threads, number of
leads to pull out at end of thread, more. Again, I've not seen a successful
Mach machine doing this let alone going at high speed to hypercritical
specs.

For that matter, I think keyboard control sucks. It must be doable but I've
not seen a Mach control using a standard operator panel that you see on any
commercial machine.

Karl


BTW, I have several hundred spare keyboards, most are AT or PS/2


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

Dave August wrote:

Till all the old stock is gone..

Read my post again, NO LONGER MANUFACTURED...

Sure Newegg et-all will sell ya "new old stock" till it's depleted... but
they ain't making em any more.. case closed...

Trust me "SeeCrate" and "EasternAnalog" closed the PATA lines a year ago...


Solid state hard drive prices are dropping rapidly. They are plug in
replacements for mechanical hard drives. Standard power connectors &
EIDE cables.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-04-29, Karl Townsend wrote:
I now have four metal mangling machines that need the venerable ISA slot to
operate... These computers are not available new anymore and the new parts
route is about gone too.

I'm settling around one motherboard, CPU, memory, video card combination.
Makes it much easier to maintain. I can do an entire computer swap in
minutes if trouble happens. Or test one component at a time in a spare test
computer.

That makes sense.

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares am
I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I need
to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

Floppy drives are becoming quite rare already. I'm amazed that
my Sun Blade 2000 still has one -- not all of them do.


I have 360 K, & 1.2 M 5.25", and some 1.44 drives, along with older
CD-ROM drives to install your software. I have at least a half dozen 100
MB ZIP drives, and some oddball streaming tape drives.


Hard drives keep getting bigger, and older BIOS chips and
motherboards have limits on the largest disk drive which they can boot
from and use in their entirity. I would suggest stocking drives of the
maximum size that the motherboard is happy with *now*.


You can always partition a larger hard drive, within reason.


If the power supply used by the motherboards is the ATX style,
you may be able to get them for a while yet. If the older style used by
the PC, XT and AT -- get them *now* at hamfests and flea markets -- or
be prepared to troubleshoot switching mode power supplies *without*
schematics. (I have yet to find a set of schematics for a PC power
supply.)


http://www.pavouk.org/hw/en_atxps.html

http://www.smpspowersupply.com/ATX_p..._schematic.pdf

http://techlabs.nm.ru/Delta-DPS-260EP.ZIP

http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/TND313-D.PDF from On
semiconductor goes into the theory of ATX power supply design. It has a
typical circuit & B.O.M.


There are plenty of them online, but all I've seen bad were fans,
shorted semiconductors & bad electrolytics. The datasheet of the
switching regulator usually gives enough data to figure out the
individual design.


I have a pile of working XT, AT & mini tower power sullies.



Get at least two CPU fan/heat-sinks for each system board. The
fans in those tend to fail sooner than most other parts. (And they
*can* take out the CPU too, if you don't spot it in time.)

Make sure that you use the same size memory in all systems, and
you should be able to mix and match to keep enough working sets from a
full set for each working motherboard and spare motherboard.

You can probably use current production graphics cards for a
while at least. Probably you can stock up from discarded cards as the
gamers keep upgrading to faster and hotter cards.

But you know, of course, that the thing most likely to fail will
be the special cards which are forcing you to need the ISA bus to start
with. And those are the most expensive parts too, I'll bet.

For power supplies, and motherboards, you might be able to keep
things running with spare capacitors. (Remember that for a period a lot
of things were made using capacitors with an electrolyte built from a
stolen (and bad) formula, so the filter caps may be the most likely
non-mechanical part to fail.) If you can replace filter caps on the
motherboards and the power supplies, you might be able to keep them
going longer.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On Sat, 09 May 2009 21:27:38 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Karl Townsend wrote:

You and Michael raise good points on the computers and ISA bus. Looks like
this route is out of business in 5 years or so. Right now Galil PCI cards
are $1000s each while the ISA units go for cheap on eBay. Maybe I'd best
start saving.

My hesitation with Mach is based on the frustration I see with folks trying
to install commercial scale needs. I worked with a guy on a hardinge CHNC
like mine. He's done three previous refits and is having a terrible time
with tool changer.

maybe you can change my mind. The devil is in the details:

My machines all home on startup. Not just a home switch but encoder index
pulse after making the home switch. pretty standard commercial stuff. Do you
know a Mach user doing this and how he done it? I'd love to see a video.

I need rigid tapping on my mill. I've not seen this done under Mach. Again
how it was done and pics would be nice.

my lathes do Fanuc G76 multiple pass threading with definable infeed angle,
rough passes, finish passes, taper threads, ID or OD threads, number of
leads to pull out at end of thread, more. Again, I've not seen a successful
Mach machine doing this let alone going at high speed to hypercritical
specs.

For that matter, I think keyboard control sucks. It must be doable but I've
not seen a Mach control using a standard operator panel that you see on any
commercial machine.

Karl


BTW, I have several hundred spare keyboards, most are AT or PS/2


I need a couple USB keyboards if you have any. The wireless keyboard
that went to my Viao flatscreen got screwed by the grandkids and I am
using a waterproof industrial keyboard....that might be great for a
machine tool....but sucks for an 80 words per minute typist.

Gunner

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with
minimum food or water,in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing
clean on him is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to do---
his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him.
The True Believer doesn't care 'how hard it is'; he knows he either wins or he dies.
He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the 'Cause.' Now, who wants to quit?"

NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates

On 2009-05-10, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-04-29, Karl Townsend wrote:

[ ... ]

lets say I'd like to run these machines another 20 years. How many spares am
I likely to need? I'd like to buy them up now. (Note: I don't think I need
to do hard and floppy drives yet - still a lot of these around)

Floppy drives are becoming quite rare already. I'm amazed that
my Sun Blade 2000 still has one -- not all of them do.


I have 360 K, & 1.2 M 5.25", and some 1.44 drives, along with older
CD-ROM drives to install your software. I have at least a half dozen 100
MB ZIP drives, and some oddball streaming tape drives.

O.K. A stock of drives helps.

Hard drives keep getting bigger, and older BIOS chips and
motherboards have limits on the largest disk drive which they can boot
from and use in their entirity. I would suggest stocking drives of the
maximum size that the motherboard is happy with *now*.


You can always partition a larger hard drive, within reason.

As long as the BIOS can *see* the whole drive. You might wind
up with a 1TB drive and a BIOS (and perhaps controller chips) limiting
you to the first 32 MB of the drive -- nothing else. (What is the max
that the BIOS of the machines which you want to use will see in its
entirity?


If the power supply used by the motherboards is the ATX style,
you may be able to get them for a while yet. If the older style used by
the PC, XT and AT -- get them *now* at hamfests and flea markets -- or
be prepared to troubleshoot switching mode power supplies *without*
schematics. (I have yet to find a set of schematics for a PC power
supply.)


http://www.pavouk.org/hw/en_atxps.html

http://www.smpspowersupply.com/ATX_p..._schematic.pdf

http://techlabs.nm.ru/Delta-DPS-260EP.ZIP

http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/TND313-D.PDF from On
semiconductor goes into the theory of ATX power supply design. It has a
typical circuit & B.O.M.

Great! I wish that similar schematics had been available for
other switching mode power supplies which I had die. They were treated
as proprietary -- if the maker were even still in business. :-)

I note that all of these are for the ATX style power supplies.
Is that what your systems use? I wasn't sure from what you had posted.

And the only switching mode power supply which I actually
succeeded in repairing was one in a dot matrix printer some decades ago.
That one was simple enough so I was able to trace it all out (lots of
unsoldering transformers to be able to measure resistances and such,
those very few turn transformer windings really make tracing things
difficult. It turned out to be a power resistor which was feeding
forward enough voltage to get the switcher started. I packed my traced
schematic in the printer when I closed it up. :-)

There are plenty of them online, but all I've seen bad were fans,
shorted semiconductors & bad electrolytics. The datasheet of the
switching regulator usually gives enough data to figure out the
individual design.


I have a pile of working XT, AT & mini tower power sullies.

O.K. So *not* all ATX then.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2009-05-10, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Dave August wrote:

Till all the old stock is gone..

Read my post again, NO LONGER MANUFACTURED...

Sure Newegg et-all will sell ya "new old stock" till it's depleted... but
they ain't making em any more.. case closed...

Trust me "SeeCrate" and "EasternAnalog" closed the PATA lines a year ago...


Solid state hard drive prices are dropping rapidly. They are plug in
replacements for mechanical hard drives. Standard power connectors &
EIDE cables.

Hmm ... *that* should have better reliability. Assuming that
they don't have the problem that some CF (Compact Flash) cards have when
used for computer boot drives instead of camera media. They have a
limited number of write cycles, so if you are booting from them and
running a lot of things which write all the time, you will eventually
run out of write cycles and it will get to be unreliable. If the solid
state drives have gotten around that, they sound great. What kind of
speeds do they offer?

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Apr 30, 11:28 am, Tim Wescott wrote:

I got curious when I should have been doing some productive work and
found some USB to ISA adapters out there. It presumably requires some
really oddball drivers, but they seemed to feel it would even work in
DOS, as long as you were running it out of Windows.

Very unlikely to work for machine control purposes. USB has a very
high latency delay, so even if you manage to successfully fake out the
software and tunnel everything over the USB to the ISA emulator, it
will be extremely slow, way too slow for any kind of bus-in-the-loop
or realtime application.

You see the same problem even with USB-serial adapters - send blocks
of characters and everything is fine, but try to have two devices
interact character-by-character and the latency kills you.

Gunner Asch wrote:

I need a couple USB keyboards if you have any. The wireless keyboard
that went to my Viao flatscreen got screwed by the grandkids and I am
using a waterproof industrial keyboard....that might be great for a
machine tool....but sucks for an 80 words per minute typist.


I know I have a couple. Let me make sure they don't go to something,
and that they are good and I'll email you. They are the small footprint
Dell USB style


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

http://www.flickr.com/photos/materrell/

On Mon, 11 May 2009 01:41:19 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

I need a couple USB keyboards if you have any. The wireless keyboard
that went to my Viao flatscreen got screwed by the grandkids and I am
using a waterproof industrial keyboard....that might be great for a
machine tool....but sucks for an 80 words per minute typist.


I know I have a couple. Let me make sure they don't go to something,
and that they are good and I'll email you. They are the small footprint
Dell USB style


Much obliged!

Gunner

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with
minimum food or water,in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing
clean on him is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to do---
his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him.
The True Believer doesn't care 'how hard it is'; he knows he either wins or he dies.
He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the 'Cause.' Now, who wants to quit?"

NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-10, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Dave August wrote:

Till all the old stock is gone..

Read my post again, NO LONGER MANUFACTURED...

Sure Newegg et-all will sell ya "new old stock" till it's depleted... but
they ain't making em any more.. case closed...

Trust me "SeeCrate" and "EasternAnalog" closed the PATA lines a year ago...


Solid state hard drive prices are dropping rapidly. They are plug in
replacements for mechanical hard drives. Standard power connectors &
EIDE cables.

Hmm ... *that* should have better reliability. Assuming that
they don't have the problem that some CF (Compact Flash) cards have when
used for computer boot drives instead of camera media. They have a
limited number of write cycles, so if you are booting from them and
running a lot of things which write all the time, you will eventually
run out of write cycles and it will get to be unreliable. If the solid
state drives have gotten around that, they sound great. What kind of
speeds do they offer?


http://www.crucial.com/pdf/productFl...tFlyer_ssd.pdf

32GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
60MB/s (write)
64GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
35MB/s (write)

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On 2009-05-17, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-10, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

[ ... ]

Solid state hard drive prices are dropping rapidly. They are plug in
replacements for mechanical hard drives. Standard power connectors &
EIDE cables.

Hmm ... *that* should have better reliability. Assuming that
they don't have the problem that some CF (Compact Flash) cards have when
used for computer boot drives instead of camera media. They have a
limited number of write cycles, so if you are booting from them and
running a lot of things which write all the time, you will eventually
run out of write cycles and it will get to be unreliable. If the solid
state drives have gotten around that, they sound great. What kind of
speeds do they offer?


http://www.crucial.com/pdf/productFl...tFlyer_ssd.pdf

32GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
60MB/s (write)
64GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
35MB/s (write)

Hmm ... according to that, it is not EIDE but rather SATA.
Which means that I could not use it in my old Tadpole SPARC based
laptop. (That wants SCSI anyway, so I am still SOL with that. :-) But
for other things, it would suffice.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-17, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-10, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

[ ... ]

Solid state hard drive prices are dropping rapidly. They are plug in
replacements for mechanical hard drives. Standard power connectors &
EIDE cables.

Hmm ... *that* should have better reliability. Assuming that
they don't have the problem that some CF (Compact Flash) cards have when
used for computer boot drives instead of camera media. They have a
limited number of write cycles, so if you are booting from them and
running a lot of things which write all the time, you will eventually
run out of write cycles and it will get to be unreliable. If the solid
state drives have gotten around that, they sound great. What kind of
speeds do they offer?


http://www.crucial.com/pdf/productFl...tFlyer_ssd.pdf

32GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
60MB/s (write)
64GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
35MB/s (write)

Hmm ... according to that, it is not EIDE but rather SATA.
Which means that I could not use it in my old Tadpole SPARC based
laptop. (That wants SCSI anyway, so I am still SOL with that. :-) But
for other things, it would suffice.


There are PATA to SATA interfaces for $20 to $30 that plug directly
into the solid state drives, and use the standard 4 pin molex & 80
conductor EIDE cables. There also 5.25" bays to slide the SATA drive
into, so a drive could be pulled out of one computer and stuffed into
the backup machine to get right back to work. The solid state drives
are less susceptible to vibration, use less power, and have a five year
warranty.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On 2009-05-18, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-17, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

[ ... ]

http://www.crucial.com/pdf/productFl...tFlyer_ssd.pdf

32GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
60MB/s (write)
64GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
35MB/s (write)

Hmm ... according to that, it is not EIDE but rather SATA.
Which means that I could not use it in my old Tadpole SPARC based
laptop. (That wants SCSI anyway, so I am still SOL with that. :-) But
for other things, it would suffice.


There are PATA to SATA interfaces for $20 to $30 that plug directly
into the solid state drives, and use the standard 4 pin molex & 80
conductor EIDE cables.

Yes -- but this still does not deal with my need for a larger
SCSI interface drive -- in a SPARC based Tadpole laptop. There is not
room for one bridge card in the drive caddy (the SATA to PATA) let alone
a second one to convert it to SCSI.

There also 5.25" bays to slide the SATA drive
into, so a drive could be pulled out of one computer and stuffed into
the backup machine to get right back to work. The solid state drives
are less susceptible to vibration, use less power, and have a five year
warranty.

Certainly good for systems which use SATA, or even PATA with
the appropriate bridge card. I didn't notice prices on the drives,
however -- and that might be the killer for me. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-18, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-17, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

[ ... ]

http://www.crucial.com/pdf/productFl...tFlyer_ssd.pdf

32GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
60MB/s (write)
64GB: up to 100MB/s (read)
35MB/s (write)

Hmm ... according to that, it is not EIDE but rather SATA.
Which means that I could not use it in my old Tadpole SPARC based
laptop. (That wants SCSI anyway, so I am still SOL with that. :-) But
for other things, it would suffice.


There are PATA to SATA interfaces for $20 to $30 that plug directly
into the solid state drives, and use the standard 4 pin molex & 80
conductor EIDE cables.

Yes -- but this still does not deal with my need for a larger
SCSI interface drive -- in a SPARC based Tadpole laptop. There is not
room for one bridge card in the drive caddy (the SATA to PATA) let alone
a second one to convert it to SCSI.

There also 5.25" bays to slide the SATA drive
into, so a drive could be pulled out of one computer and stuffed into
the backup machine to get right back to work. The solid state drives
are less susceptible to vibration, use less power, and have a five year
warranty.

Certainly good for systems which use SATA, or even PATA with
the appropriate bridge card. I didn't notice prices on the drives,
however -- and that might be the killer for me. :-)


They are under $100. Not out of the question for a machine tool
repair.


Do you need some SCSI drives? I may have a few left.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On 2009-05-19, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-18, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

[ ... ]

There are PATA to SATA interfaces for $20 to $30 that plug directly
into the solid state drives, and use the standard 4 pin molex & 80
conductor EIDE cables.

Yes -- but this still does not deal with my need for a larger
SCSI interface drive -- in a SPARC based Tadpole laptop. There is not
room for one bridge card in the drive caddy (the SATA to PATA) let alone
a second one to convert it to SCSI.

There also 5.25" bays to slide the SATA drive
into, so a drive could be pulled out of one computer and stuffed into
the backup machine to get right back to work. The solid state drives
are less susceptible to vibration, use less power, and have a five year
warranty.

Certainly good for systems which use SATA, or even PATA with
the appropriate bridge card. I didn't notice prices on the drives,
however -- and that might be the killer for me. :-)


They are under $100. Not out of the question for a machine tool
repair.

Agreed.

Do you need some SCSI drives? I may have a few left.

Thanks, but I've got plenty of SCSI drives (2 GB up through
about 50 GB) in the more common 3-1/2" and some still in the 5-1/4"
sizes.

What I need for the Tadpole is something like 2-1/2" SCSI drives
(which of course means that the connector is non-standard for SCSI
drives, because a full 50-pin IDC SCSI drive connector is longer than
the width of the drives. The only maker I have found still in
production is one with IDE drives with a converter module which all fits
where the drive would normally go.

And these days, I'm using quite a few FC-AL (Fibre Channel
Arbitrated Loop) drives.

Thanks,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-19, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Do you need some SCSI drives? I may have a few left.

Thanks, but I've got plenty of SCSI drives (2 GB up through
about 50 GB) in the more common 3-1/2" and some still in the 5-1/4"
sizes.

What I need for the Tadpole is something like 2-1/2" SCSI drives
(which of course means that the connector is non-standard for SCSI
drives, because a full 50-pin IDC SCSI drive connector is longer than
the width of the drives. The only maker I have found still in
production is one with IDE drives with a converter module which all fits
where the drive would normally go.

And these days, I'm using quite a few FC-AL (Fibre Channel
Arbitrated Loop) drives.

Thanks,
DoN.


No problem. I don't have anything that uses SCSI these days. I did
find an old Plextor PX--W124TSe external CDROM/burner while looking for
the other drives. I did find a Quantum Viking 9.1 GB drive, PX09L011
that I got from a computer store that was closed a couple years ago. It
uses the smaller 68 pin connector. I have a similar drive I pulled from
a dying HP XP system with a bad motherboard. It was a secondary drive,
with a PCI controller card. I don't know if I should hang on to them,
or give them away.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On 2009-05-20, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-19, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Do you need some SCSI drives? I may have a few left.

Thanks, but I've got plenty of SCSI drives (2 GB up through
about 50 GB) in the more common 3-1/2" and some still in the 5-1/4"
sizes.

[ ... ]

No problem. I don't have anything that uses SCSI these days. I did
find an old Plextor PX--W124TSe external CDROM/burner while looking for
the other drives. I did find a Quantum Viking 9.1 GB drive, PX09L011
that I got from a computer store that was closed a couple years ago. It
uses the smaller 68 pin connector. I have a similar drive I pulled from
a dying HP XP system with a bad motherboard. It was a secondary drive,
with a PCI controller card. I don't know if I should hang on to them,
or give them away.

O.K. That does not sound like anything which would fit the
Tadpole, which is the only one which is a problem for me.

Thanks much,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-20, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-19, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Do you need some SCSI drives? I may have a few left.

Thanks, but I've got plenty of SCSI drives (2 GB up through
about 50 GB) in the more common 3-1/2" and some still in the 5-1/4"
sizes.

[ ... ]

No problem. I don't have anything that uses SCSI these days. I did
find an old Plextor PX--W124TSe external CDROM/burner while looking for
the other drives. I did find a Quantum Viking 9.1 GB drive, PX09L011
that I got from a computer store that was closed a couple years ago. It
uses the smaller 68 pin connector. I have a similar drive I pulled from
a dying HP XP system with a bad motherboard. It was a secondary drive,
with a PCI controller card. I don't know if I should hang on to them,
or give them away.

O.K. That does not sound like anything which would fit the
Tadpole, which is the only one which is a problem for me.


I think the Ultra 10 I have has an IDE controller card, and I don't
plan to fix the dead motherboard.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

On 2009-05-22, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2009-05-20, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

[ ... ]

O.K. That does not sound like anything which would fit the
Tadpole, which is the only one which is a problem for me.


I think the Ultra 10 I have has an IDE controller card, and I don't
plan to fix the dead motherboard.

The Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 were unusual ones in that they were
aimed at the low budget end of the SPARC machine spectrum. Thus the IDE
drives.

The Tadpole was made during the SCSI-only period -- and
unfortunately the drives which I have are rather small -- with the
largest being either 2 GB or 4 GB -- a bit of a squeeze for Solaris 2.6,
even before I start putting in my suite of programs. :-)

The connector for external drives is one which was apparently
used on some earlier Mac laptops -- an angular square 'D' with a grid of
pins. Luckily, I was able to find cables from this to standard SCSI
connectors -- but a laptop which *needs* an external disk box is a bit
awkward. :-)

Some later SPARC systems may use SAS (SATA) drives, but the
period which I am using (except for a couple of U-10s and one U-5) are
either SCSI or FC-AL (Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop). The FC-AL drives
will let you hook up to 125 drives on a single interface -- though they
must slow down if you are trying to use many of them fast at once. But
14 drives spread between two RAID-5 arrays, two hot spares and two just
sitting there waiting for a specific need.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---