Did he actually do any soldering on that Radio Shack Clock or did he just take it out of manufactured case and put it into the brief case pencil box?
My DH has an Electrical Engineering degree and a few years ago helped me out with a Girl Scout activity where the girls had to solder on a circuit board to make “Blinky the Robot” my soldering was the worst! - he is still poking fun at me several years later!
It doesn’t require “answering”. It was simply a comment. No need to overanalyze how he powered his clock, IMO.
Anytime someone posts a comment, it’s open to a response. And trying to be controlling of others’ responses to your posts is also arguably “rude” if you want to lecture others about it,.,
Really don’t have time, patience or interest in your games tonight, Cobrat. Attended the funeral of a good friend today. This other nonsense is… well just that. Feel free to “respond” all you want. Contrary to your accusations, no one is trying to “control” anything. Better to try reading more carefully. What I said (which if you’d have taken a second to read instead of jump) is that it didn’t require an “answer”. It wasn’t a “question”. So please stop with the off the mark accusations and insults already. Its beyond tiresome.
Considering it’s reported he was part of his middle school’s robotics club and has been well-known in middle school for tinkering with and building electronics for others, it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume he has basic soldering skills down to a fine art considering how complex and intricate the wiring/circuitry can be in such electronics.
Relatives who were involved in robotic clubs back in middle/HS and HS classmates would regard good soldering skills as an easily acquired skill one picks up in the course of participating in such activities or being passionate about electronic tinkering/being an aspiring engineer.
Well, with all due respect to @cobrat’s relatives, there are plenty reasons to use an external power source, depending on the nature of the explosive material, the energy needed to detonate it, and the intrinsic reliability of the electrical grid supply. I would not worry that the extra few watts drawn out before the explosion is going to alert the power usage security monitors of the school district.
Maybe most bombs are made without an external cord, I wouldn’t know, but I definitely wouldn’t assume that the presence of a cord means it is not a bomb component.
Guess my question isn’t if he had the ability, but rather, did he use that skill in this particular project? If so, did he use his soldering skills to functionally change the Radio Shack clock in any way?
3scoutsmom,
there is a picture of it in this article http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/16/440820557/high-school-student-shows-off-homemade-clock-gets-handcuffed
That’s possible, but highly unlikely due to the greater risk of detection, greater complications from an added potential failure point, more redundant work, and the great availability of explosives in construction/other activities which don’t require the level of power necessitating a power cord to an outlet.
This is also not a new development, but a decades-long progression of old technologies meant to increase reliable functionality and greater margins of safety for those who are using them for normal legitimate purposes(i.e. construction).
Requiring a power cord means the margin of safety and reliability is reduced. A short power cord means a lack of margin of safety for users using them for normal legitimate purposes.
An excessively long power cord needed to increase safety margins is less reliable as electric cords or transmission wires tend to lose effectiveness and reliability in transmission once they exceed a certain length.
It’s a reason why some electronic devices and machines specifically instruct users to avoid using excessively long electrical cords beyond a certain length and why for instance data transmission reliability and speed decreases if ethernet cables approaches or exceeds 328 feet.
This is going in circles. What lap are we on now?
As I said, I know nothing about what’s under the hood of an alarm clock. If I’ve soldered at all, the last time would have been in middle school shop class. However, I know enough to know that repeated references to one’s cousins or high school classmates is supremely boring.
The power cord substitutes for the cable to the battery, and the power outlet substitutes for the battery as a power source. It isn’t more complex. But good point that keeping cords or cables within a few hundred feet length is better.
Substituting the outlet for the battery is considered less optimal as the outlet is an external source which could be deliberately cut off or otherwise fail due to factors out of control of the device design control. If the student’s purpose was to build a bomb…the more optimal solution would be an internal self-contained power source of some kind.
Another thing to consider is that adding a power cord isn’t simply a matter of adding the cord. One must also add electronic components to create a power supply regulator to adequately regulate the incoming current from the outlet so it is suitable for the delicate electronics.
Failing to do so or doing so in a slipshod manner would result in fried components or in some cases…an unanticipated explosion/fire.
Got to experience the latter when using/testing out crappily designed low-end PC power supplies/laptop ac/adapters with inadequately designed power bricks. A few power supply companies and PC manufacturers(cough emachines cough) became notorious within the PC tech community for designing and selling poorly designed power supplies which didn’t have adequate electronic components suitable to regulate the incoming current well. When they failed, the power supplies not only died, but often killed other PC components with it such as motherboards, hard drives, RAM, etc.
I was in Belgium over the weekend and visited several art museums. Can you name any of the Flemish Primitives and/or recognize any of their major works without googling, Cobrat? I bet you can’t. That’s more important to me and more relevant to my life than taking apart alarm clocks.
Well maybe 50n40w will be comforted by the fact that you clearly have a complete education. But the important question remains: Did any of them have lint in their navel?
Not wanting or needing to know what the inside of a digital clock looks like is NOT “anti-intellectual.” GOOD GRIEF.
You can’t be interested in everything and I don’t believe for a second those two posters know a little bit about everything. They know a little bit about everything they find interesting. Period.
“Yeah, I think it’s reasonable to expect a college educated individual to recognize what’s under the hood of an alarm clock.”
Cool! I bet you can recognize a Jan Van Eyck compared to a Hieronymus Bosch, too. After all, you’d THINK it was just soooo evident to everybody. Uneducated people reveling in their ignorance these days.
@jym626 I’m not very savvy with electrical stuff, I see the picture but can’t figure out what he changed from what was part of the original clock and what he soldered. As far as I can tell the original clock that he used already had a battery back up and a power cord. Can you point out from that picture anything he changed other than the case?
Wouldn’t you see slides of The Arnolfini and at least one wild Bosch still life in a survey art history class? I confess I had to google the name of the famous Van Eyck portrait, but could picture it in my mind. I am not claiming to be more educated than a run-of-the-mill college graduate.
I don’t really see how this is either/or.
My scientist kids have a basic, college survey level, knowledge of western art, music, literature. Maybe a bit more in literature.
I have no idea, 3scoutsmom. I was just making the photo available. I must have one of those “incomplete educations” because my undergrad and grad school did not offer engineering.