OT: Value of THINGS

In 10 years the truck will still have value. It might even have higher value if it turns out to be one of the "desirable" year/models.

The Micro SD card will be worthless having been replaced with ZB micro dots.

In 10 years the truck will still have value. It might even have higher value if it turns out to be one of the "desirable" year/models.

The Micro SD card will be worthless having been replaced with ZB micro dots.

--------------------------------------------- Some of my backup hard drives cost <$25 per Terabyte on sale. New solar panels cost $0.70 to $1.00 per Watt, and LiFePO4 batteries are below $2.50 per Watt-hour, finally making off-grid living economical if they live up to their promised lifespan, my "45W" HF panels didn't. $250 for 5000 discharges of 1 KW each is $0.05 per KWH, lead-acid storage is at best over $0.20/KWH like grid power.

For many decades before mandates and electronics a car cost around $1-$2 per pound, essentially the cost of raw material plus profit because mass production was so efficient. A fighter jet cost $1000 per pound, which amounts to transmuting aluminum into gold. Oil averaged half an ounce of gold per barrel from 1950 to 1970.

This laptop model cost up to $1900 when new in 2010, In 2017 I paid $15 for it plus the cost of a new hard drive, battery and more memory. My latest new-to-me laptop from 2019(?) with Win 11 cost $70, and was over ten times that new.

I'm glad I found my lathe in the early 90's for $1200, look at them now:

That's a lot for a machine tool that has been economically obsolete for many decades. I saw an older Haas go for $10,000 at the auction where I got my plasma cutter for $300.

A 1TB micro SD card weighs about 0.5 grams and costs about $100. That is $2834 dollars per ounce.

------------------------------------

The raw material is sand, the manufacturing cost is all processing, testing and handling. Writing one test pattern to all 10^12 memory locations takes ~2 hours at 140 MB/s, checking it nearly an hour and a half. The tests I run on new multi Terabyte spinning hard drives run for nearly a day.

I used to build the machines that performed production line IC testing. Typical memory data patterns (vectors) are 55 (01010101) and AA (10101010) to check for adjacent bits shorted together or dead ones. Others are specific to what's likely to go wrong and were customers' secrets.

To some extent spare cells can be substituted for bad locations (CHKDSK) but they are a warning of future problems. The S.M.A.R.T. data for a drive gives the count of reallocated spares and other issues. I save it when the drive is new and occasionally check if the repairable error count has increased.

I learned enough at that job to design, build and program my own computer.

... LiFePO4 batteries are below $2.50 per Watt-hour, ...

-------------------------- $2.50 per Amp-hour, $0.20 per Watt-hour.

Max continuous discharge current = 100A.

Now watch them go downhill because I mentioned them.

like that in Junior high when I was about 12 in the mid 1970s. Do they still allow kids to do that these days or are they too worried about them injuring themselves, I still have all my thumbs and fingers and none have needed to be reattached.

That brings back memories, I started machining on a South Bend lathe like that in Junior high when I was about 12 in the mid 1970s. Do they still allow kids to do that these days or are they too worried about them injuring themselves, I still have all my thumbs and fingers and none have needed to be reattached.

----------------------------

AFAIK most/all of the school machine shops have been auctioned off and the space repurposed for 'more relevant' training. I went to some of the auctions and my lathe is from a trade school. There are still hands-on courses in auto mechanics, welding and woodworking that I know of or have attended in adult night classes. We learned how to use big sharp knives in cooking class, and I surprised my sister last Thanksgiving by knowing how to mince an onion to her satisfaction.

The Jr High I attended had only a wood shop where the instructor's preference was to teach us to maintain and use hand tools to power tool precision. A friend's father was building a wooden sailboat and mine was restoring our old house so we had good reason to learn. I use it for on-site timber framing without electricity other than a solar-charged drill. A 400 Lb beam won't go to the saw, the saw must come to it, sometimes on a ladder.

At a different Senior High the auto shop was the dumping ground for delinquents and I avoided it, instead I learned vehicle maintenance in the Army, the motor pool and the crafts shop garage, since I was on call for repairs to critical digital communications equipment and had to be able to drop whatever else I was doing.

None of my fingers have been sewn back on, but I do have three teeth screwed to the jaw. The jaw bone was originally too thin so the oral surgeon grafted on ground bone from cadavers, hopefully fresh. It merges in the way a break repairs itself. They wouldn't grant my request for a square jaw like Superman. I can now deny responsibility for anything that comes out of my zombie mouth, or that I write here.

When my son was in high school there was only welding and auto mechanics. He setup and maintained their CNC plasma table while he was there, and for a year after he graduated he would go back and help out.

The local community college sold off all their machine tools and bought more welding equipment many years ago. but a few years ago a buddy of mine got them back into machining, and they have some equipment again including an old industrial size lathe I'd love to own. The Community college shares some lab space with the university, and they own one of the three HAAS CNC Super Mini mills in the room. The University owns the other two and a TL1 CNC lathe along with a couple benches full of HAAS CNC simulators.

When my buddy was setting things up there he felt me out about teaching CNC machining, but it just didn't pay enough. I probably couldn't teach it cold, but if motivated I can still learn fast enough to keep ahead of the students who can't teach themselves.

Back in 1972 when I started teaching it seamed the attitude was "we'll never make a plumber or electrician or machinist or (whatever) of him, so lets send him to the auto shop"

Then "I" had to teach them electrical theory and electronics, hydraulics, plumbing, machining, welding, physics, chemistry, and all the basics required to make a decent mechanic out of them.

People REALLY underestimate what is required to be a REAL mechanic!!!!

Then I took on the REAL challenge - Teaching auto mechanics to guys who had NO real life experience with things mechanical (or electrical)

- fresh out of "the bush" in central Africa. I was a young guy with lbarely a year of teaching experience and little formal teacher training in a strange culture with little support - and I LOVED it. Their desire to learn absolutely spoiled me for teaching on my return home - I felt I was wasting my time trying to convince spoiled brats who had everything handed to them on a platter that it was worth buckling down and actually LEARNING something.

Working with apprentices in the work environment was much more satisfying than teaching school.

People REALLY underestimate what is required to be a REAL mechanic!!!!

-------------------------------------------

The owner and chief mechanic of a Mr Goodwrench franchise in Concord NH was the expert pianist for the community theatre group and a very good carpenter who helped me build sets. He showed me how to turn rotors on the vehicle. The last time I saw him he was the computer expert at the Ford dealership.

This is the Ford engine control manual I bought to diagnose the electrical problem on my 1991 Ranger. It's 4 inches thick and running the tests required the electronic skills I used on computers and military communications gear.

The code indicated the ignition module but the problem was intermittent and apparently resistive so first I disassembled and cleaned all the electrical connectors and grounding points of their road salt corrosion. Water had leaked onto the computer and corroded its connector too. Removing the red plug freed the connector contacts and Autozone had a kit of replacements. There's a type of pipe cleaner with stiffer bristles that scrubs inside female contacts. After ensuring good electrical connections a scope showed the computer-controlled ignition coil drive pulse almost or did run out of time (dwell angle), replacing the cracked coils didn't help. I had added a disguised anti-theft fuel pump cutoff switch that allowed cranking without starting or flooding.

The problem may have been the corrosion that crept between the module and its mount on the aluminum intake manifold. One frozen mounting screw broke off and I had to machine a drill guide to accurately drill through the remnant without drifting into and wrecking the softer tapped aluminum. A new module on a cleaned mount with good wiring solved the problem.

I'm glad I didn't have to pay for what all that labor time and probably a replaced manifold would have cost.

Back in 1972 when I started teaching it seamed the attitude was "we'll never make a plumber or electrician or machinist or (whatever) of him, so lets send him to the auto shop"

Then "I" had to teach them electrical theory and electronics, hydraulics, plumbing, machining, welding, physics, chemistry, and all the basics required to make a decent mechanic out of them.

People REALLY underestimate what is required to be a REAL mechanic!!!!

--------------------------------------

In 1972 cars didn't have electronics beyond the radio which was from an outside supplier; braking, ignition and voltage regulation were from the

1920's or earlier. The wave of emissions, fuel economy and safety mandates that soon followed could only be met with electronic controls so the Big 3 quickly hired electrical engineers who had no experience with the hot, dirty and for us salty conditions in an engine compartment. Some of the new equipment included sensors borrowed from chem lab instruments. I knew them but had to learn automotive engineering fast to keep up and build test equipment for the factories. I had learned only the 1930's tech of my VW Beetle. Antilock braking involves knowledge of Physics and perhaps Calculus, luckily for me part of the Chemistry curriculum.

WW2 fighter planes had complex mechanical engine controls and the highly trained pilots to operate and techs to frequently adjust and repair them. Airliner versions of those piston engines achieved fuel economy that's still difficult today, at high maintenance cost. It was clear that consumers wouldn't tolerate the same.

    Now that I'm back in the UK I've seen much the same happen, when I came back I signed up for machining evening classes to use the  machines not to learn how to, that was much the same for all the other attendees.  Over a few years funding was reduced and those classes eventually stopped prompting me to start buying my own machinery. With the demise of local industry like Stothert & Pitt and others the machine shops at the local tech college I attended closed and were auctioned off being converted into a library and media centre. I went to the auction which was a bit sad but have a few mementos of the place in my workshop now.     The junior high was in Manchester Ct and I attended the high school as well for part of the year but ended up moving due to dads job in aerospace. The high school had quite a few well equipped workshops for metalsmithing, machining, sheet metal and others which could be chosen as elective subject. I did the machining as well as the metalsmithing and the test piece in machining at the end of the year was an impact driver including heat treatment and testing but I moved so didn't complete the year. I presume the facilities were due to the industry in the area past such as Cheney Manufacturing and present like P&W. I don't know what they have now, I looked for metalsmithing about 15-20 years ago and it was still listed but last year I couldn't even find a listing for the 3Rs online at the high school.

"David Billington" wrote in message news:104r6mp$1fv64$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me...

Now that I'm back in the UK I've seen much the same happen, when I came back I signed up for machining evening classes to use the machines not to learn how to, that was much the same for all the other attendees. Over a few years funding was reduced and those classes eventually stopped prompting me to start buying my own machinery. With the demise of local industry like Stothert & Pitt and others the machine shops at the local tech college I attended closed and were auctioned off being converted into a library and media centre. I went to the auction which was a bit sad but have a few mementos of the place in my workshop now.

The junior high was in Manchester Ct and I attended the high school as well for part of the year but ended up moving due to dads job in aerospace. The high school had quite a few well equipped workshops for metalsmithing, machining, sheet metal and others which could be chosen as elective subject. I did the machining as well as the metalsmithing and the test piece in machining at the end of the year was an impact driver including heat treatment and testing but I moved so didn't complete the year. I presume the facilities were due to the industry in the area past such as Cheney Manufacturing and present like P&W. I don't know what they have now, I looked for metalsmithing about 15-20 years ago and it was still listed but last year I couldn't even find a listing for the 3Rs online at the high school.

-------------------------------------

US Industrial growth ran up the Connecticut River through Springfield MA as far north as Windsor VT, the Robbins & Lawrence factory that is now the American Precision Museum. The Merrimack in NH and MA was also the site of considerable early industrial development that made use of its water power, and the remaining mill buildings have become a center of high tech.

Under British rule American industry had been stifled, the colonies were to provide raw materials and buy finished good, but the Crown's control didn't extend much beyond the major coastal cities. As soon as possible we tried to catch up, helped by skilled immigrants disgusted with Europe's continual wars and labor problems. The lure of land on the frontier drew away many of the ambitious and capable and pushed us to find ways to speed and automate production that were unacceptable to workmen in Europe, enough that by the

1850's we were Europe's technical equal.

The USA had an advantage in being too far away for Watt's dislike of high pressure steam's accident potential to hinder engine development here.