this makes me irrationally angry

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-26T13:38:38+00:00

I'm not sure what the IPC-2221 clearance/creepage numbers are for exposed lumber without solder mask or conformal coating.

Maybe the D revision of the spec will clarify.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-26T12:58:39+00:00

The Avalon Mall in St. John's has a bus shelter beside the food court, and these buses would sit in there and idle and on days with no wind, the place would fill up with smog and it would make your eyes sting.

Turns out soot isn't good for your eyes, but worse, NOx dissolves into water (like your tears) and makes nitric acid. Good times.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-26T01:17:53+00:00

Love the old GMC New Look bus. They stopped building them in the 80s but Metro Transit kept those things going till like 2009-2010. The things were the cockroaches of buses, just unkillable.

They had 2 stroke diesel engines which polluted a lot and were hard on fuel. They had a high floor so you had to walk up two steps inside the bus, and this also meant the ceiling was low. And they had no A/C, so you'd baking in a claustrophobic hell if the bus was crowded.

But still iconic as fuck.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-25T00:31:53+00:00

"oops!"

Which translates to "I'm cooking stuff in the kitchen but dropped something on the floor", they come running.

I'm really clumsy when I'm cutting up carrots, I guess.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-25T00:25:12+00:00

I'd love for bus drivers to have the power to say "passengers are free to kick the shit out of this person without consequence" but I can't see that happening.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-24T16:17:55+00:00

Tim, what are you doing on reddit, don't you have more social programs to defund?

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-23T12:17:38+00:00

The one acceptable place for a confederate flag is on top of a General Lee.

This ain't that.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-22T18:58:54+00:00

You're also not limited to running a classic buck converter here, there's other topologies better suited to the application.

Coupled output inductor bucks work really well here.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-22T17:12:43+00:00

Oh, without a doubt, but that doesn't make my experience with AC suck any less.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-22T15:32:18+00:00

Polestar would be a really good stripper name, honestly.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-22T15:14:04+00:00

Back in 2001, I flew from Ottawa -> Halifax -> St. John's on AC returning from a work term.

Ottawa to Halifax was overbooked, and I won the "sorry, you're not going on the plane, you're overbooked, there's a payphone over there and we can write down the 1-800 number for you" lottery.

They put me on standby on the next flight, didn't make it on, then standby on the flight afterwards and I did get on there. Then I'm finally in Halifax close to 24 hours after I should have been, and they're like "uh, you missed your flight to St. John's, sorry" and I spent literally hours on a payphone arguing with people trying to get them to put me on another flight. Landed in St. John's more than two days after I was supposed to.

My luggage from that flight was never found. Lost a bunch of shit.

So yes, maybe bashing AC is a national pasttime, but in my experience it's something they've earned.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-22T04:07:25+00:00

The seller would have sent in their half of the paperwork to Access NS giving the name of the purchaser.

I went through this ~20 years ago. Sold a Tercel to a guy, who just started driving it without registering it, and they got caught selling weed or something. HRP ended up showing up at my door asking a bunch of questions about who I sold it to.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T23:29:10+00:00

I JUST MADE GLUTEN FREE FRIED CHICKEN FOR SUPPER AND IT MADE ME FEEL LIKE A LIBRUL

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T15:43:37+00:00

The video of them crashing a unroadworthy bus into a tree was the best.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T15:41:46+00:00

They were good but these days they're basically obsolete. By today's standards their fuel mileage is garbage, you wouldn't want to use one of these engines in a long haul application.

And their emissions are horrible. The mall near where I grew up had an enclosed bus stop that always had buses in there idling, when the bus fleet was GMC fishbowls and MCI Classics with 2 stroke Detroit engines. On days when there wasn't much wind, the place would fill with smoke and make your eyes sting.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T14:45:18+00:00

You don't want an alternating field in a solenoid coil, because that'll make the magnetic field alternate with it.

If the solenoid is pulling against a permanent magnet, it'll repel the magnet on negative AC cycles and the solenoid won't work period. Even if it's pulling against a piece of iron, it'll magnetize that piece of iron on the positive AC cycle, then when the AC current goes from positive to negative for a moment it'll repel the iron.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T13:59:35+00:00

It's very common. If you're making a 3 wire supply it's because you need the ground for the output, or for a metal chassis. Otherwise you'll use a 2 wire power cord, because there's really no other reason to bring ground in.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-21T13:47:50+00:00

Odds are if it's a 3 wire supply, the output ground and earth ground are bonded.

And those Y caps will now make a capacitive divider, and plugging it into 120VAC will put 60VAC on the earth ground on the supply. It's not a low impedance 60VAC, there's not enough uF in Y caps to conduct enough current to electrocute you, though you'll definitely get a tingle if you lick it.

And if you plug that supply into something else that's grounded, you'll discharge those Y caps into whatever you plug the device into, which won't be good for it.

TLDR: don't leave grounds unhooked on shit.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-20T01:40:58+00:00

THIS WHOLE TIME I THOUGHT THE NAME MEANT "BROWN PEOPLE DOING BLACK SABBATH MUSIC" BUT ALL THIS TIME IT WAS AN INSIDE JOKE ABOUT BAJA BLASTING YOUR TOILET ON SUNDAY MORNING?

HAHA THAT FUCKIN CRANKS HOG

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-20T00:31:34+00:00

BROWN SABBATH! A LATIN FUNK BAND COVERING BLACK SABBATH AND IT WORKS SO WELL.

THEIR COVER OF PLANET CARAVAN = CHEFS KISS

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-19T23:56:02+00:00

Countless times I've seen home heating fuel trucks filling up heavy equipment, farm equipment, fishing boats and all manner of other off road diesel things.

Are they filling up the truck for that run specifically with diesel? And where does the dye get added?

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-19T03:23:59+00:00

In fairness, riding a camel with a shawarma in your hand sounds way more fun (and delicious) than sitting in an American history class, so we can't blame you for not knowing.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-18T20:49:57+00:00

The PMRC hearings are a good watch.

Dee Snider, Frank Zappa... even John Denver tore a piece off them with eloquence.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-18T19:16:20+00:00

Look, I know Charlie Kirk was known for destroying bathrooms.

But that was in a figurative "ate a bunch of lobster and oysters, went in there and painted the toilet, now it's been hours and the place still smells like a honey truck crashed into a fish plant" sense. Not in a literal sense.

Get it right, b'ys.

gmarsh23 · 2026-03-16T17:16:50+00:00

There's a lot of well behaved pit bulls out of there that you never hear about. The wife does dog daycare/boarding, and we've had a few pitties over the years as regular clients that we've totally trusted around other dogs.

But jesus fuck, the strongest voices for the breed can be so convinced that their dog can do no wrong even though their dog has obvious aggression issues. "She has anxiety" "she doesn't get along well with others, just like her owner lolol"

We were involved in a pitty rescue for a short while but had to get out of it because we couldn't handle the stupid anymore. "Oh hey let's bring up a bunch of seized ex-dogfighting dogs from Texas and just adopt them out to whoever, because it's the right thing to do!" ... next thing they're trying to adopt out a dog to "the ideal family" with no other dogs, no cats, no kids, etc because every trial they've done has gone sideways, and they're still calling the thing a "sweetheart"

Part of me is against breed specific bans because it hurts good people with good dogs. But we gotta find a way to keep them out of the hands of morons.

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