I was so incensed to receive an unwarranted “Final Demand” out of the blue that I decided to lift the stone and expose what was crawling underneath to the light of day, and I’ve done this by opening a blog at talktalk.org.uk

Like you, I aim to charge TalkTalk for time, effort and postage involved and will see them in the Small Claims Court if necessary.

All best.
Stuart
http://talktalkblog.org.uk

Since it’s been a while, it might be pertinent to add a ‘final’ note to my impressions of the camera.

I found that after a couple of weeks of use, my early minor frustrations with it were gone. My belief is that the user interface is ‘quirky’ and just takes some getting used to. Like you, initially I felt like taking it back and demanding money back, but in all honesty, I’m pleased I didn’t. All of the photos I’ve taken with it, both in the workshop and out and around the north-east coast, I’m very pleased with.
Because of my early experience, I guessed that these were the reason that Tesco had sold off their remaining stock, but a few weeks later I discovered they had re-stocked, but the camera had been ‘bumped up’ to around £80, so I’m now not sure.

One further minor comment on the camera. On extreme close-ups (of which I do a few because of electronics development) I notice a pronounced pin-cushion distortion, and this is particularly obvious on shots of white fibreglass printed circuit boards, so high-levels of reflected light seem to distort close-up images. However, this is a very minor irritation, but worth mentioning.

I haven’t had your experience with the USB ‘power-surge’, with this camera. In fact I’m surprised, as one minor irritation might be the lack of ability of having the PC automatically power-up the camera.
The phenomenon you describe, I have had, several times, with other equipment, and in my case it was due to a combination of sloppy fit in a USB socket, and trying to put the USB plug in ‘blind’. (with the PC sockets facing back to the wall)
Because I’m plugging and unplugging USB plugs into my 3 workshop machines almost constantly, I now have each PC turned with it’s side to the wall and the LCD monitors in front, so that I have easy access to the socketry.

If asked now, I would still advise buying the camera – especially at a discount, but warn any prospective user about the hairy learning-curve with it’s user interface.

Let me know how you get on with the power-surge problem.

Regards from Joe.

Most photos I’ve taken outdoors with the Agfa can be viewed at http://cullercoats.joebrown.org.uk

Hi Joe,

A great webpage – tks for sharing. A few questions if I may……

Re your pickup – the initial wind (before you added a secound outer coil), you never said how many windings you made – any idea, (or do you have the DC resistance of the coil?)

re your second pickup , you decided to go balanced, so you simply wound two wires onto your bobbin at the same time – I’m after a very small humbucking low impedance pickup (which is how I found you webpages) …but I don’t want to wind two bobbins (ie the traditional way, becuase space is tight for the intended use), so I’m hoping your way cancels hum? Have I got the details of the winding correct……

wire 1 start…………………………..(both wire wound the same direction adjacent to each other) ……………………………………..wire 1 end
wire 2 start…………………………..(both wire wound the same direction adjacent to each other) ……………………………………..wire 2 end

….then, after finishing the wind, I then solder ‘wire 1 end’ to ‘wire 2 start’ – that ‘joint connection’ becomes the centre tap & the other remaining two wires are the +ve & negative?

Many thanks once again – a brilliant attitude.

rgds,
Rob (in London)

———————————————————————————————————
My reply:

Hi Rob,
Thanks for your email and the compliments.

When I made the first pickup, my criteria was to produce a working device using scrap materials, but ensuring that what resulted was reasonable in size, and sound. Because scrap hard disk magnets come in all shapes and sizes, I had only a rough idea what sort of inductance would result. I therefore measured the whole length of wire I had (around 5 metres) and after completing the winding measured what was left. I discovered that I’d used almost 2 metres exactly. (purely by chance) I measured the inductance of the resulting coil and this was 9uH – very much less than ‘normal’ guitar pickups. The DC resistance wasn’t measured, but would be very low – I would need to look check this. (I did, the total resistance was 2.75 ohms).

Because of the very low impedance, hum pickup is almost non-existent, but I wanted to see if I could get rid of the transformer, by dramatically increasing the gain of the amplifier, so decided to try the balanced version.

Winding 2 coils together (a Bifilar winding) has significant advantages – especially for home constructors. The 1st one being that because you are winding 2 wires at the same time, you are assured that the coil will be balanced, and can therefore ignore counting turns. The 2nd is that because each turn is closely coupled physically, the signal generated in each coil will be exactly the same – which would not be true of a 2-layered arrangement., as a 2-layered coil will have significant inductance and DC resistance differences due to the physical geometry and length of each winding.

Your discussion regarding the connections of such a Bifilar winding are entirely correct, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. The result is a coil that has twice as many turns as one single winding, and is centre tapped. When the centre-tap is grounded, signals originating from the coil itself are then anti-phase at each end. We use a balanced amplifier to correctly amplify the signal. Noise and hum not originating from the coil itself will be ‘in phase’ at the connection to the amplifier, and consequently will be cancelled out in the balanced amplifier.

BTW I was so impressed with the results using the scrap magnets, I purchased a dozen small neodymium rod magnets that will fit neatly into plastic electric sewing machine spools. With judicious reduction in diameter of the cheeks of these cheap spools, six can be accommodated in the same space as a ‘normal’ guitar pickup. These (and associated circuitry) will form the basis of another article, but I’ll take a few photos of what I’ve used, and done tomorrow (I’m writing this in bed!) and forward these to you.

Good luck with your project, further stuff will follow tomorrow.

Regards,
Joe Brown.

John Silver’s main blog page is: http://www.jonsilver.me.uk/jonsblog

John Silver’s main blog page is: http://www.jonsilver.me.uk/jonsblog

From: eHealth Forum [mailto:administration@ehealthforum.com]
Sent: 21 July 2009 13:17
To: connectable.org.uk
Subject: Please do not advertise on eHealth Forum

Greetings from eHealth Forum.

It seems that you posted a message containing advertising to our community health forum.

Although the message was probably posted in error, we`d like to remind you that advertising and solicitation are strictly prohibited. Advertising is defined as “messages that promote, advertise, offer, or ask for contact information in regard to (but not limited to), websites, personal webpages, links to pictures, businesses, freebies, surveys, polls, products or services”. In general, we publish links from non-commercial sites that carry known authority. Your post will be edited to remove any reference to external products and/or services. Please refer to the website`s advertising policy for further clarification about advertising.

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My posting on their forum:
There are some good comments here. My 1st symptoms appeared in 2001 and although we are told that the disease ‘progresses’ slowly, it hasn’t been slow enough for me. Also, barring one or two forums with useful comment such as above, there is little or no ‘help’ in coping with this debilitating condition. The worst aspect for me has been dysphagia – something that is only briefly mentioned, yet that can be life-threatening. I’ve just completed an essay on DISH-associated Dysphagia which has been posted at: http://www.joebrown.org/dysphagia and which I hope will both inform and benefit sufferers.

My reply to their rejection email: Sirs,

I posted the reference to my essay for the reason stated in my text – that there is very little in terms of sufferers experiences in overcoming the symptoms of DISH – your site is such an example. I’m selling nothing – but giving away insight and experience. I thought that this was helping the community, but you obviously don’t agree, So be it.

JWB

Keep up the good work,
H.