exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

stephen_usher wrote: 21 Jun 2022 11:55 Hmm... Looks like I may be picking up a Faclon030 in a little over 3 weeks time.

Very nice :D

stephen_usher wrote: 21 Jun 2022 12:13 I'll keep it as stock as possible I think.

It'll need the clock chip looking at. I'll probably just grind the top off the case and solder a CR2032 holder to it. It'll probably also need the clock patch.

I'll be interested to hear how the RTC mod goes, tempted to try something similar on my Falcon.

Good luck & lots of photos please!

I've done it a couple of times on the Dallas chips on Sun workstations.

e.g.

stephen_usher wrote: 21 Jun 2022 11:55 Hmm... Looks like I may be picking up a Faclon030 in a little over 3 weeks time.

Wow! Great find! :D

Did you have to pay dearly for the privilege? (I wouldn't dare guess what these go for nowadays).

I'll post more once it's in the bag, as it were... I don't want to jinx things. :-)

mrbombermillzy wrote: 21 Jun 2022 22:31

stephen_usher wrote: 21 Jun 2022 11:55 Hmm... Looks like I may be picking up a Faclon030 in a little over 3 weeks time.

Wow! Great find! :D

Did you have to pay dearly for the privilege? (I wouldnt dare guess what these go for nowadays).

There were a couple under $2k last night on Ebay. :ugeek:

I had a heating "engineer" contracted by British Gas Homecare come today to replace the 3-way valve and main PCB in the boiler.

Well, he left in a hurry after an hour and a half and now the system ignores the timer, with the pump running continuously. Thankfully it's taking note of the wall thermostat.

The problem is that I can't report another fault as it's still showing that the engineer is due to visit!

This is the third time I've had to take time off work, the first for the "annual boiler service" where the "engineer" arrived, took the front off the boiler and rested a gas probe on top of the fan unit and then declared that everything was working well, without actually turning on the boiler. If he had tried turning on the boiler he would have noticed that the lock-out light was flashing. I had to point this out, after he'd ticked all the boxes. He then scribbled that I needed a new PCB for the boiler and 3-way valve, before he asked to use my loo and left.

A week ago Wednesday another "engineer" (the same one as today) came. I'd booked another day off work. He arrived at 8:45am, declared that it can't be the PCB because the boiler wasn't totally dead, then quickly ran through the diagnostic path, which led to... bad PCB. At which point he ordered the parts and left, by 8:55am.

Anyway, I can see why this is happening. Last year British Gas fired all of their engineers and forced them to become contractors. From what I understand they get a fixed sum of money per call. So, for the first "engineer", stuffing as many "annual service" calls into a day makes it more profitable (or just enough money to live upon I imagine). Similarly, doing a bad job, meaning that you have to come back to fix the problem that you created in the first place, or just having an extra visit to order the parts, means that you get extra money. I'm guessing that the reason that the "engineer" ran away before doing proper tests is that he ran out of time and had to go on to another call so as to make enough money to break even.

Anyway, it seems that British Gas Homecare is structurally broken.

British Gas as a whole is failing.

We have both gas and electricity from them, but despite having smart meters for both, the gas one doesn't work so we have to do manual readings, and although the electric meter does work and they automatically get the readings, we are still not getting any statements for electricity, and the gas statement isn't itemised as its supposed to be.

Trying to call to sort out anything is just a nightmare, then you get told its sorted on the system, and later it turns out that nothing has changed.

All together a total shambles.

Sounds like mears https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.mearsgroup.co.uk

I've probably ranted about all sorts of tradesmen relating to them. Though they lost the contracts now thankfully. So next month we will see if things start getting any better. Can't get any worse.

I managed to get another "emergency" visit on Wednesday afternoon. Thankfully I didn't lose any more vacation time as I'd booked the afternoon of for a structural engineer visit to discuss my outbuilding project.

He checked all the electrical connections, he was puzzled until he found that it was being caused by the timer. Purely by coincidence one of the relays in the timer had jammed whilst he was doing the other job. So he's going to come back with a replacement on Friday. Again, I won't lose vacation time as I'd booked off the day as in the afternoon/evening I'm off to Lavecon with a whole lot of machines to display (if I'm feeling well enough, more of that later).

Anyway, after he left I pulled the timer off the wall, opened it up and pulled the top off of the relay. Yep, the contact had welded itself in the "on" position. A quick lever with an electrical screw driver and it was free again, so I sprayed it with contact cleaner and then put it back together. All working now.

Anyway, back to some more Sod's Law stuff... My Crohn's has flared up again, just in time for Lavecon! :-(

I attended an internal IT support staff conference a week ago Tuesday and the caterers hadn't been informed about dietary needs. For lunch it was "OK" as they had an egg sandwich available but for the evening BBQ it was a major issue. The caterer thought that the kebab was free of onion or garlic, and that was the only food they thought was OK, so I had that. A day or so later and the symptoms started. It's quite normal for there to be a delay of a couple of days after eating something for things to start. Usually things die back down to just a few cramps for a couple of months but this time I'm getting the full running to the loo experience, feeling slightly sick and pains. I'm going to have to call the IBD "hotline" at the hospital on Monday. :-(