How stuff works

[blastoff99]

There's a gap below the bathroom door unless you installed some kind of seal to the floor. That's the kind of magic a construction knuckle dragger like me can understand.

Yeah but a 1/4" gap is as good as having the door open?

 

[Bob_Ross]

So an eBow is a pickup, which is hooked up to an amp. The output of the amp is hooked up a coil with a magnet (basically, another pickup), but it's driven by the amp. The vibration of the string is picked up by the pickup, amplified, and then that output goes through the other coil, which induces a magnetic field, which excites the string. It's basically feedback.

So it's a pair of transducers, a passive string pickup and an active string driver? That makes sense. Kinda amazing that it took thirty-something years before I found someone who could explain that so succinctly. Thanks!

 

[Jrussblues]

I build jeeps and 4wds, do motor swaps, change vehicles from carb to fuel injection, reverse engineer 30 years of backyard mechanic bandaids, do complete restorations on vehicles, rewire vehicles, fix motor swaps, drive and wheel vehicles and play music because it's the exact same never ending journey. Mechanics and theory I get, if I don't get it then I can step back and take a minute to digest it, correct what I am doing and the. I get it.
Here is what I don't understand...god...I believe in god but the magnitude is so incredibly huge that I can't wrap my brain around it. What or who is god and what does he or she want. That's all I have to add.

 

[blastoff99]

^^^^^ srsly, you're trying to get THIS thread closed by taking it to religion, which any discussion of G/god will surely reach at warp speed? Come on.

 

[fhm555]

...everything you never wanted to know about vents and waste lines. And you thought plumbing was all about wise cracks and overcharging customers.

Back when i was a teenager i got a chance to work with some friends of my folks who had a house at the beach. They were doing some major remodeling themselves and needed a helper for some plumbing work and asked if i'd be interested in going to the beach with them for a week to help with the plumbing work. My folks signed off on the deal but i was worried i might not be much help as i knew basically what plumbing did and what it looked like but outside that i was not sure and i expressed this to Mr. Jackson. What he told me cleared up any doubt.

He said "All you need to know about plumbing is cold on the right and hot on the left, $#!+ runs downhill and payday comes on friday."

 

[slobake]

A friend is now sober for just over a year. She says she's all clumsy all of a sudden. Apparently your nervous system goes through stages of recovery, and she's in a stage where motor skills are all wonky. She says she could have another six months before her coordination is reliable again. I don't know if that's all true, but it just goes to show how powerful a drug alcohol really is when you get addicted to it.

It's true, I totaled my car when I was about 6 months sober. Then there were my emotions that I had anesesthesized since I was a teenager. It was a scary time but also an amazing time.

 

[slobake]

Back when i was a teenager i got a chance to work with some friends of my folks who had a house at the beach. They were doing some major remodeling themselves and needed a helper for some plumbing work and asked if i'd be interested in going to the beach with them for a week to help with the plumbing work. My folks signed off on the deal but i was worried i might not be much help as i knew basically what plumbing did and what it looked like but outside that i was not sure and i expressed this to Mr. Jackson. What he told me cleared up any doubt.

He said "All you need to know about plumbing is cold on the right and hot on the left, $#!+ runs downhill and payday comes on friday."

He forgot to add "and don't bite your nails."

 

[fhm555]

It's true, I totaled my car when I was about 6 months sober. Then there were my emotions that I had anesesthesized since I was a teenager. It was a scary time but also an amazing time.

True dat. As long as i live i'll never forget the day i realized for the first time my body was completely clear of alcohol. A feeling i had not experienced since i was 13~14 years old. No more sweating unless i was doing something to merit sweating, no more mild vertigo when i closed my eyes, no more nervous arms and legs. My body was at peace with itself for the first time in a very long time and the knowledge of that was almost as intoxicating as a big swallow of brown liquor. Mildly euphoric, but absent the negative physical aspects i had grown to simply ignore.

As for emotions, sufice it to say it was an interesting few years and has remained a work in progress for most of the last 19 years. A situation i suspect will end only when my spark finally escapes me.

 

[slobake]

True dat. As long as i live i'll never forget the day i realized for the first time my body was completely clear of alcohol. A feeling i had not experienced since i was 13~14 years old. No more sweating unless i was doing something to merit sweating, no more mild vertigo when i closed my eyes, no more nervous arms and legs. My body was at peace with itself for the first time in a very long time and the knowledge of that was almost as intoxicating as a big swallow of brown liquor. Mildly euphoric, but absent the negative physical aspects i had grown to simply ignore.

As for emotions, sufice it to say it was an interesting few years and has remained a work in progress for most of the last 19 years. A situation i suspect will end only when my spark finally escapes me.

I forgot to ask, when you helped with the plumbing in that house did you learn how tight is tight enough?

Spoiler

Just tight enough is tight enough

 

[Gaolee]

Yeah but a 1/4" gap is as good as having the door open?

It depends on how many cfm the fan pushes. If the gap at the bottom of the door allows enough air through, then, yes, it's as good as having the door opening. It's like sizing and exhaust louver. You have to have a certain amount of free area. Anything bigger is irrelevant.

 

[Gaolee]

I never want to just know that things DO work, I want to know HOW they work.

Maybe that's why I get my hands into auto mechanics, electronics, plumbing, carpentry and I even sew a bit (primitive style.)

That urge got me into all kinds of things when I was a kid. Some of them were kinda hard to explain when I couldn't put whatever it was back together. I still do all kinds of things, just to do them and see how they work. It drives my wife crazy, because it means I have endless projects. Two guitars in assembly stages, another guitar that needs fret leveling and some other work. A car with the engine mostly installed, lacking a few parts and time. A drum kit that will be assembled from salvaged shells and random parts. Recording projects, microphone assemblies and wiring, furniture, you name it.

I have learned to avoid doing things that are critical, like replacing the hot water heater, that I probably can't get done in a day. It took a while.

 

[fhm555]

It depends on how many cfm the fan pushes. If the gap at the bottom of the door allows enough air through, then, yes, it's as good as having the door opening. It's like sizing and exhaust louver. You have to have a certain amount of free area. Anything bigger is irrelevant.

Yeppers, no different that calculating the area of your in and out flow on an air cooled aircraft engine. Get it right and your engine stays happy, otherwise it gets too hot and bad things happen. I'm sure we've all seen the "flaps" on the rear of an engine cowling. They actually control the size of the exit vents to slow air flow when warming up an engine or keeping it warm when flying at high altitudes.

 

[fhm555]

That urge got me into all kinds of things when I was a kid. Some of them were kinda hard to explain when I couldn't put whatever it was back together. I still do all kinds of things, just to do them and see how they work. It drives my wife crazy, because it means I have endless projects. Two guitars in assembly stages, another guitar that needs fret leveling and some other work. A car with the engine mostly installed, lacking a few parts and time. A drum kit that will be assembled from salvaged shells and random parts. Recording projects, microphone assemblies and wiring, furniture, you name it.

I have learned to avoid doing things that are critical, like replacing the hot water heater, that I probably can't get done in a day. It took a while.

I've pretty much learned to live with my tinkeritus. I've been told it is risky behavior with a high potential for being fatal if one continues to respond to the near primal desire to know how $#!+ works. In spite of my best efforts to ignore the call to see what's inside a recently deceased mechanical device, i am weak and a slave to my curiosity. Wifey says it will be my undoing and she's rarely wrong in her assessments of my behavior.

 

[slobake]

Yeppers, no different that calculating the area of your in and out flow on an air cooled aircraft engine. Get it right and your engine stays happy, otherwise it gets too hot and bad things happen. I'm sure we've all seen the "flaps" on the rear of an engine cowling. They actually control the size of the exit vents to slow air flow when warming up an engine or keeping it warm when flying at high altitudes.

I have wondered what those were for. Now I know, thanks.

 

[slobake]

I've pretty much learned to live with my tinkeritus. I've been told it is risky behavior with a high potential for being fatal if one continues to respond to the near primal desire to know how $#!+ works. In spite of my best efforts to ignore the call to see what's inside a recently deceased mechanical device, i am weak and a slave to my curiosity. Wifey says it will be my undoing and she's rarely wrong in her assessments of my behavior.

Knowledge and caution are crucial when working on guitar/bass amps. Ignorance can lead to death. A friend lost her 18-year-old son who was tinkering with a guitar amp and received a fatal shock.

 

[ZenG]

So I got insulation installed this week, and part of the deal was a whole-house fan, which is in the bathroom ceiling. The dude said "This will come on every hour for a few minutes, and will keep air moving in the entire house. Doesn't matter if bathroom door is open or closed."

Doesn't matter if bathroom door is open or closed? What kind of sorcery is this?

It may or may not be good for "moving air in the entire house". If your house is two or three storey..or you have a basement as well, then warmer air automatically rises to the top of the house and cold air descends.

Depending on where this bathroom and fan is located is a factor on how much air it will "move"...or "exhaust" in reality.

 

[slobake]

It may or may not be good for "moving air in the entire house". If your house is two or three storey..or you have a basement as well, then warmer air automatically rises to the top of the house and cold air descends.

Depending on where this bathroom and fan is located is a factor on how much air it will "move"...or "exhaust" in reality.

Here in S.F. we have a lot of drafty old Victorian houses with high ceilings. To heat those houses effectively you really need a ceiling fan to move the warm air away from the top of the room.

 

[Gaolee]

Knowledge and caution are crucial when working on guitar/bass amps. Ignorance can lead to death. A friend lost her 18-year-old son who was tinkering with a guitar amp and received a fatal shock.

Not liking the fatality, liking the fact that caution is required. I have a couple small amps that I mess with, and discharging everything before getting into them is part of the routine.

 

[farace]

I'm as bad as the rest of you when it comes to tinkering and repair. Telling me that something can't be fixed is a sure-fire way to get me to try to prove you wrong.

I've finally started trying not to keep taking on projects that accumulate in the cellar, garage, and office. It all starts looking like it will take more time than I have left.

 

[slobake]

I'm as bad as the rest of you when it comes to tinkering and repair. Telling me that something can't be fixed is a sure-fire way to get me to try to prove you wrong.

I've finally started trying not to keep taking on projects that accumulate in the cellar, garage, and office. It all starts looking like it will take more time than I have left.

I have a bass in my office that with broken pickups. That one has been hanging on the wall for a while.