[tech] Warning/Disturbing

Simon Fryer fryers at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
Thu Oct 28 13:59:26 WST 1999


Bingle

Had a quick looksee in the machine room. Yes, it is a mess but I
am not going to complain about that! :-) 

The drives on mola have been moved from a disk box I obtained ages ago
to the case that came with the next. The original box had a quirk that
could have melted some of the cabling. There is a set of headers on the
PSU and a matching socket with n+-1 pins for the power cables. If the 
header is not matched up correctly the +5V rail is sent down one of the
ground lines and if a drive is plugges in, then down the other ground 
line. Effectivly creating a short on the 5V line. This does not shut the 
PSU down (presumibly the short isn't quite good enough). As a resuly
the power cabling melts. The SCSI box is quite nice apart from that and 
I would not like to see it get junkied because someone with no hardware
clue could not make it work(that is how I got the box in the first place). 

If UCC does not want it I will gladly find a home for it. I just don't
know where the box has gone to.

See Ya
Simon

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to 
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is 
the utility of the final product."  
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh




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