8498 - Buddhist monks, when threatened, will form a protective circle. (Just like musk oxen!)

[scottobear]

Ken Nordine has a website, where he regularly journals and does audio broadcast. Who knew? I was a huge fan of his voice work back in the 90s.

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I can't say as I've ever seen Frog eye/Goat eye contact lenses. Split, rounded pupils would have a fun freak-out value.

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Do any toys use clip-in 9 volt batteries these days? It seems like almost everything is rechargeable, AAA or AA, with a few ancient or greedy things that run on C or D cells. I have always thought the little square batteries were more fun to look at and play with. I have a rechargable 9 volt for my TENS unit, but that's about it... back in the 80s/90s, It seemed like all my walkie talkies and portable radios used 9Vs.

Apparently there are no A or B size batteries.

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Nothing is more fun on a lazy Saturday evening than watching a Cheesy Martial Arts Movie on the Spanish channel. I've been mildly wanting to see this for about a decade or so. Watching it dubbed in Spanish just made it the much more surreal.

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The amount of savings on my electircal bill from closing my shades rather than leaving them open was a whopping $2. I'll continue through August, just to see if it was a fluke.

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1 year ago - Mona moves on from work, Lisa is a good name on lj, NASA pics, walkies phone post

2 years ago - Thinking Wolfsonian, CEJ, Skeletor, bro, bandwidth crooks, awesome search phrase, cat poop coffee, silly ad, Where do they make balloons... (hey, synchronicity)

3 years ago - miniature oranges, orisinal games, tv in my head, first/last meme, newt on a windowsill, daler mehndi

4 years ago - Newt Wakies, Croc bite brings beer, scotto-man, overtired, funions

5 years ago - vcr tape, gaming, militate, warren, scientific independence for researchers, Frontier Psychiatrist, evil SUV

6 years ago - many folks join my Friendy-list (probably due to interests) , grover, graves museum

Comments

[dcl.livejournal.com]

< ahref=http://www.wildcontacts.com/lenses_wild.htm> The cat eye and jaguar eye come close.

The freak in me has always wanted a few pairs of these....especially since you can get them in "most prescriptions."

Heh

[peradouro.livejournal.com]

These are cool! Kinda pricey but worth it if you were really into them.

[dcl.livejournal.com]

Indeed.....maybe one day when I've got that sort of cash to burn....aka never, heh.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

pretty spiffy.. I like the knockout Xs.

[dcl.livejournal.com]

My wife thinks they're creepy.....H

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

ok, then smiley faces! :D

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

When I was working out on Superior, the guys from WHOI (Woods-Hole Oceanographic Institute or something) used F-cell batteries in their data loggers. Same diameter as D-cells, but 1.5-2x longer. They had a contract directly with the manufacturer in order to keep getting them - I believe they were the only ones using them. Since they were special order, and not commercial products, there were no labels on the batteries. Just the plain metal casing.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very nifty! I wonder if there was a way of fudging a fix with other sized batteries, in case that size got phased out?

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

I believe the pack they used was pretty easily modifiable to convert to D-cells, but it would mean that rather than checking the tripods (25' tall, covered in various sediment, temperature, current, etc. sensors & wires) once a month (perhaps 3, I can remember), it would have to be done more frequently. The D-cells, no matter how many of them were used (within reason, anyhow), just wouldn't last as long. Effectively, the batteries had already been phased out - it was a fairly fancy deal they had going with the manufacturer.

I believe the deal included every battery they used being sent back to the manufacturer to be 'repacked' - reused the same casing, but put new guts into it, sort of thing.

Wonder if I could find a picture of the tripods... Hmm.

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

Photo goodness:

On board

Ready to launch

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very keen! I wonder if a solar collector would help charge and manitain?

[keethrax.livejournal.com]

Well in theory D Cells should work in the existing case with minimal modification as they have the same theoretical diameter.

In practice, they don't, and here's why:

Back when the sizes were being made into standards machines that manufactured them were pretty sloppy. So the size specs had a pretty large tolerance of sizes that would actually be acceptable.

Fast forward a bit. The machines have gotten much more accurate. Bigger Batteries = more capacity = longer life. So if we make our battery right at the extreme large end of the allowable range we can advertise ours as lasting longer than the other company's (by pretending that they manufacture to the standard).

Now the battery compartments they use were built back when manufacturers actually aimed for the middle of the standard. Because of the requirements for underwater use, the case does not have enough play to accept batteries right at the outside edge of the size range. When it was produced, most were not in that range, so it was no problem. Now 100% (or close to it) of the batteries that by the specs *should* fit do not.

They have tried (and failed) to replace the whole setup a few times. I don't know exactly what went wrong. I suspect by now they've actually replaced it as it was in the process of being worked on again when all of this was being explained to me by the tripod guys.

As to A and B batteries, they once existed. As far as I know they were never used outside of the military, where both were used in radios (one was capable of generating enough current to warm up the tubes, one had a longer life and was sufficient to keep it running once started), but I bet someone used them in other applications, I'm just not aware of who or for what purpose.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very keen info! thank you so much!

[peradouro.livejournal.com]

Lately all the battery driven toys I've bought use AA or AAA batteries. My clocks use one AA which makes sense. What I don't get is that the toys use 2-8 of them. Why do that instead of just a C, D or 9V? The only thing we have that uses 9V are our smoke detectors. Then our flashlight has that giant cube battery, I forget the size of it.

I guess they figure people will buy a couple of packs of large-count small batteries so they don't have to remember to get different sizes? Or maybe it's how the power is delivered from the smaller batteries versus the larger ones. *shrug*

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I think the multiple AA's over a single C is probably for space considerations, mostly. the big cube is a 12v, which is certainly the battery of choice with science fair students. :)

[keethrax.livejournal.com]

Also note that a C battery is 1.5 volts just like an AA. If they are wired in series, the votlage of mulitple AA's is more than a sinlge C/D. Usually the multiple AA's are some combination of series and parallel giving you 3 or 6 volts. Not an option with a single C or D.

Plus there's the already mentioned packaging.

Now the amount of energy stored in the bigger batteries is large, so given the same load they'll run longer. But putting your AA's in parellel (instead of series) nets you the same gains (but loses you the voltage increase of wiring them in series).

So with 4 AA's you could have:

6 volts (all in series)
3 volts (two pairs in series themsleves wired in parallel)
1.5 volts (all 4 in parallel)

Of these, only the third option is really duplicatable by a single C or D cell. And as (at least according to the chart linked to) 4 AA's have 2700mAh each (for a total of 10,800 + in a perfect world) they still beat out the C/D cell (at 8,000 mAh).

I was suprised that the MiCD and NiMH AA's were rated at 1.2 volts.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I was wondering why they're 1.2 rather than 1.5, m'self.

[missv.livejournal.com]

The only things we have around here that take 9 volt batteries are the smoke detectors and the garage door opener remotes. But, yeah, I think most of the battery-operated toys I had as a kid took 9V. Now everything takes AA's. I buy them in bulk and we still can't seem to keep enough of them around.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

durecell and everready both make pretty quality rechargable AA batteries.. almost all of my gadget doodads now get swapped into that way... I think I've saved a pretty considerable amount of money, especially in the camera department.

[phillykat.livejournal.com]

i wonder if there was ever an A or B battery

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

keethrax mentioned that As and Bs were used by the military, but not generally by civillians.

[phillykat.livejournal.com]

ooh. hmm i wonder what they use it for.. i'll think up something. lol