348293
submission
JWSmythe writes:
I'm sure many of you have found yourselves in the same situation that I am in. You start at a new company, and every problem is thrust upon you with the upmost urgency. Many times, we find ourselves on a new network with substandard connectivity.
I recently started with a company who's connectivity was slow. At first it was a "we'll fix it later" problem. A few days later, the connection went down. Not only was the data line down, but so was the voice. 2 hours later, it was resolved.
Two weeks later, the provider had a significant outage of between 12 to 14 hours (depending on who you ask). I was then informed that this wasn't the first time this happened. This was the 4th major event in 2 months. "minor" events have included bad latency and packet loss, and phone numbers that simply don't ring to the office. It was already established policy for staff to call the office phones on their cell phones every hour or so, just to make sure all the numbers would ring.
We were gentle with our phone call and letter, simply reminding them that it is unacceptable for us to have long periods of downtime during our business day. We didn't ask for reimbursement, just termination of the services. Their response was that we could cancel our contract for payment of one full year of service.
15087
submission
JWSmythe writes:
Ok, here's a question for all you nuts. :)
I want to generate a high voltage DC pulse, and be able to control it from a computer (Windows or Linux, it doesn't matter).
Ideally, I want to control an ignition coil from a car, to make a nice high voltage pulse. I'm playing with the idea of supplementing the fuel intake for a car with hydrogen gas. I know putting a DC current through water makes it (electrolysis), and I've played with straight voltages from 1vdc to 110vdc.
There's lots of theory floating around the net, and a few folks who have some wild ideas that generally cannot be reproduced. I want to try out some of them from the comfort of a script. :)
Several people talk about putting say 2vdc pulsed at some magic frequency, which will make the water fall apart, rather than the electrical current breaking the bonds of the atoms.
I'd kinda like to give that a shot, but either they show in their diagrams some mysterious box that generates the current, or some virtually unreproducable electronics that I have to solder together. I'm not a great electronics person. I have a pretty diagram that uses a 555 timer chip to do it, but when I put it together as drawn it didn't do anything. I fiddled with it a little bit and made it pass some sort of dc current out, but in a matter of seconds, the 555 chip started to smoke.
My current load is a bit high, so it tends to be hard on more delicate parts. :(
I'd like to drive the ignition coil from a car, but be able to vary the frequency at will, and be able to have a script (or something) adjust it for me, so I can sit back and observe the results. Like I said, I'm not the best electronics person, but I can put together something basic, if I have a schematic of something that will work.
Working the car ignition coil seems fairly easy, if I can control it from the PC. Transformers work on AC current, but aparently if I pulse a DC current at it, when the current drops, it makes the voltage come out the other side. Don't ask me why, I'm no expert. :)
Anyways, anyone with interfacing a PC to a real world device, and working with high voltages and/or current loads, if you'd reply or email me, I'd appreciate it.
