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SERVICEMAN’S LOG
The accordion job
Dave Thompson
An unusual job turned up at the workshop the
other day. Well, it didn’t just walk in; the owner
brought it in after discovering it at an estate
sale. The inheritors were going to throw it away,
but my client saved it. It was a piano accordion,
probably at least 50 years old, and this guy
couldn’t bear to see it chucked into the bin.
This client had played the instrument in various bands over the years
and was always looking for a decent
model to replace his existing ones
because they eventually wear out with
all that squeezing.
Back in the ‘90s, when I was playing in a folk-rock band, the accordion player was always on the lookout for good working models, perusing second-hand shops in towns we
played because it was increasingly
difficult to find a good working instrument. Life on the road is very hard
on them.
When we did find one, it was
pressed into use, and as soon as the
bellows blew out or the reeds went
west, it would go in the skip because
repairing or restoring them was just
an exercise in frustration. There were
no spare parts to be found, so it was
just easier to get another one and put
it into service.
Now I know what you’re thinking:
“did he fire six shots or only five?”
Oops, sorry, wrong script. I meant to
say: there’s nothing very electronic
about a piano accordion. And usually
you’d be correct, but this one had a
unique feature.
At some stage, someone had
mounted a couple of microphones
on the outside near the grille (where
the treble sound comes out). These
feed via some not-so-neat cables into
a small Jiffy box, which I assume
housed a preamp of some description,
making it ready to be plugged in and
amplified.
Back when I played in the band, I
was forever struggling to mic up the
accordion properly. For one, the guy
siliconchip.com.au
who played it liked to move around a
bit, and two, the microphones we were
using (Shure SM57s) were very awkward to mount onto the instrument
itself, so we inevitably ended up just
gaffer-taping the mic in place.
Not very elegant, but it worked reasonably well for what we liked to call
“folk and roll”.
One of the main issues is that the
sound grille on an accordion is quite
long, typically the entire length of the
instrument and a single microphone
is naturally going to pick up sound
loudest from where it is placed on the
grille. The other notes at the extreme
ends of the scale will not be ‘heard’ as
well by the mic.
This created a headache for the
sound guy because it would be very
loud in the middle notes and buried
in noise for the rest of the reeds placed
farthest from the microphone. To work
around this, we tried adding shrouds
(usually made of folded and shaped
stiff card) in an attempt to even out the
audio, but with only partial success.
Eventually, we settled on using two
mics spaced out along the grille, and
when mixed together, this provided
the best solution. But it looked a right
mess with the mics taped to the body
and inconvenient cables dragging
everywhere, making it a bit of a nightmare to play for the accordionist.
Whoever modified this one had
crafted two small ‘stands’ for the
microphones, but they had ditched the
bulky mic bodies and used only the
dynamic capsule still mounted in its
housing. It was a bit rough around the
edges, but the mics were pretty sturdy
and solidly mounted to the body.
Australia's electronics magazine
Items Covered This Month
•
•
•
•
•
The accordion job
Brightening up a clock radio
Unorthodox Porsche parts
Mobility scooter repair
The misattraction of a nuclear
magnetic resonance machine
Dave Thompson runs PC Anytime in
Christchurch, NZ.
Website: www.pcanytime.co.nz
Email: dave<at>pcanytime.co.nz
We apologise for the lack of
cartoons in this issue. Our
cartoonist, Brendan Akhurst, is
currently trekking in the mountains
of Nepal searching for evidence of
past alien civilisations after their
presence was revealed to him in a
dream.
Each capsule was permanently
wired with shielded cables for the
short run to the Jiffy box, which was
taped onto one of the shoulder straps.
There was an XLR connector mounted
in the back end of the Jiffy box, and
a single standard microphone cable
would connect the whole shebang to
the snake and off to the mixing desk.
Apparently, this part of it was not
working, nor were several of the bass
buttons, which are mechanically operated by the player to open and close
bass reeds on that side of the instrument. So there was a lot going on, and
I decided to tackle the non-electronic
part first.
That was relatively easy; opening
a hatch on the bottom of the accordion revealed all the mechanics of the
bass buttons, a complicated system of
springs, levers, actuators and pushrods. It was ‘literally’ choked with
dust, grime, what looked like animal
hairs and other detritus picked up
over decades of being played in dingy
lounges and smoky bars.
A good going-over with a decent
brush, a bit of low-pressure compressed air and a good lube job with
February 2022 85
some light sewing machine oil soon had everything freely
moving and ready to go.
Now for the electronics
The Jiffy box had simply been taped to the strap, and
it had likely been there a long time. While the tape’s
fabric came away easily enough, most of the adhesive
stayed behind. Great, that was one more thing for me to
take care of.
The bottom of the box was held on by four screws that
were easy enough to remove. Inside was what appeared to
be a preamp built onto a piece of veroboard. Several small
trimmer-type pots were mounted on the board, along with
the usual arrays of transistors, capacitors and resistors.
I’ve made many preamps like this over the years, so I
wasn’t too fazed by it; I’d simply reverse-engineer it to see
what I was dealing with, and if I couldn’t get it working,
I’d just make another one using one of my existing circuits.
The interesting thing is that it had a 9V battery connector fitted, but no battery was present, so it might well be
phantom powered. I’d know more once I had it out and
under the light and magnifying glass.
Once on the bench, I could see there were two channels
involved – one for each mic presumably, and each one
was identical, with the signals being mixed at the final
stage. It was a relatively advanced preamp and appeared
to be set up for phantom power, where 48V is sent along
the XLR/microphone cable from the mixing desk to power
the circuit.
However, I thought I’d start things off by applying 9V
from my bench power supply to the battery connector to
see if there was any life in this thing at all. With power
on, nothing happened. I used a signal generator at the
mic input and listened to the output with my bench amp.
Nothing. Zip. Nada.
I drew up a circuit based on what I was seeing. The preamp used JFETs at the input stages, the classic MPF-102
types. With reasonably low noise figures and high input
impedances, they were the go-to JFET for quite a few years.
There was also a simple tone control circuit, which
appeared to be of the Baxandall type, controlled by the
trimpots. The output was buffered by a single transistor
stage fed by both ‘halves’ of the preamp where the signal
was mixed together; overall, it was a relatively straightforward preamp.
Its gain and impedance could probably be changed by
altering a few bias resistors here and there, but as it had
obviously worked in the past, I thought I’d stick with the
same values where possible.
I used a similar design in a preamp I made many, many
moons ago for my acoustic guitar. I’d modified the guitar for live use by including a so-called ‘thinline’ piezo
pickup mounted under the bridge.
Vibrations from the individual stings are detected by
the pickup, and after piping it through to a preamp, the
signal is fed to the outside world via a standard 6.3mm
stereo output jack that doubles as both an on/off switch
and the rear strap-fixing point.
On my acoustic, the rear strap holder was on the centreline at the back of the main part of the body. Simply
plugging a cable in switched on the electronics using one
of the two contacts in the stereo socket, with the inserted
plug shorting out the contacts like a switch.
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Silicon Chip
I mounted the preamp inside the guitar on the back
side, near a handy timber strip brace, using stick-on Velcro, making it solid but easy enough to remove if I had to.
I clipped a 9V battery into a holder using the same Velcro just under and inside the sound hole for easy access;
while space was tight, I could change the battery without
loosening any strings.
The current draw was so low that a battery lasted me at
least a year of regular live use. So I decided to use something similar here.
All goes accordion to plan
What I wouldn’t do is add the complexity of onboard
tone controls. Not only is it pointless with them being
inaccessible from the outside of the Jiffy box, but they are
also redundant because the tone could be controlled by
using the much more functional tone controls on the mixing desk itself. Someone can adjust these until the sound
is pleasing and then leave them, or they can be adjusted
in real-time if a sound engineer is present.
I would also stick with the existing XLR output connecter, which would allow me to balance the output signal, with the downside being I couldn’t use the connector as a switch. As I mentioned, it appeared that the old
preamp had been at least partly set up for using phantom
power, which again complicates the circuit and requires
extra components to step the supply voltage down from
48V to 9V.
Since the phantom power function is controlled by a
switch on the mixing desk, there would be no problem
omitting it entirely and simply using a battery, which
would last this client several years given the number of live
gigs he plays. Then, it would merely be a matter of opening the Jiffy box and replacing the battery when required.
The client was happy with all that, so I set about recreating the best parts of the original circuit. Finding components was not difficult, as I have plenty of new-oldstock transistors and FETs. I suppose I could have simply
upgraded everything to modern parts, but this job was
already eating into my time, and I didn’t want to have to
research new values for different transistor types.
The 2N3904 output transistor was modern enough, and
I had dozens of MPF-102s that I’d likely not use in years,
so I chose to use them.
I assembled it on a piece of veroboard – designing and
making a PCB for something this simple was beyond the
scope of the job, but I gave the usual clearances for signal
and power lines to minimise hum and RF pickup. Due to
the size of the Jiffy box, I had plenty of room to play with.
I could have used a new box with a battery compartment
and all the usual conveniences, but that would mean lots
of marking out and drilling holes and essentially redesigning the wheel, so I left it all that as-was. What I did
add was a low-profile toggle switch for turning the thing
on and off. I mounted it next to the XLR socket, where it
would be unlikely to be bumped but still handy to access.
He’d just have to turn it on manually if he wanted to
amplify the instrument through a PA system.
I won’t bore you with the build, other than to say it is
always the best part of the job for me, working out where
stuff goes and what tracks to cut on the veroboard. Once
it was done, I triple-checked it and powered it up on the
bench using my power supply and fed in a signal. I was
Australia's electronics magazine
siliconchip.com.au
greeted with a nice strong output signal in my ‘phones,
so it was obviously working.
The next step was to plug in the two mics and the output to my test amplifier and see what happened. I had a
very clear output from the mics, with quite low noise, so
I was pleased enough with that.
The wires coming from the mic capsules were shielded
but routed awkwardly over the accordion and simply held
in place with strips of tape. As this wasn’t very elegant, I
looked to see if I could improve on that somehow.
As usual, getting the old gaffer tape adhesive off was a
mission in itself, but some liberal use of isopropyl alcohol soon had it back to a natural finish. I wasn’t about to
start drilling holes in the instrument’s body, and the only
feasible way was along the edges of the moving parts and
off up the strap to the Jiffy box.
I’ve collected lots of those little square cable clips over
the years – they used to come with some motherboards
or computer cases, and I always ended up with way too
many. They have a very low profile, with a small slot for
a cable tie to pass through.
I have both black and white versions, so I put each one
on the bright red body to compare looks. I decided to go
with the black ones since the cables were also black. I
(literally) pressed them into service along the cable run,
about every 60mm, using double-sided tape applied to
the bottom of each holder.
Once in place, it was a simple matter of running the
smallest cable ties I could find in my drawer through the
slot, around the cable and pinching them down snugly
without the cut-off part of the tie being exposed. This
can rip skin if that part sticks out and one rubs against it
the wrong way.
I also used longer Velcro straps to mount the Jiffy box
to the accordion strap, in the position it was before, making it easier to remove to change the battery.
I was pretty pleased with the result. It was not ideal,
but a lot tidier than before and likely more robust as well.
The only thing left to do was unclip the bellow straps and
have a play through a proper amp.
I’m no keyboard or piano player, so this test would just
involve a lot of noise. Due to a few years of piano lessons,
which ended about 50 years ago, I know a few scales, but
that’s about it. And hefting accordions around, squeezing
and pulling and hitting buttons and keys all at the same
time is more complicated than drumming!
While I couldn’t do it justice, it sounded pretty decent
through the mic input on my guitar amp, and tone control was also broad and workable. I called the client, and
he came around and put me to shame playing it but was
very happy with the result. I hope he gets many good
years of use out of it now.
Brightening up a digital clock radio display
B. P., of Dundathu, Qld is one of our most prolific contributors, and he hasn’t stopped yet. He doesn’t want a
repairable device to be thrown away if he can help it...
We have had this digital clock radio in our lounge room
for longer than I can remember. I’m not even sure where
we obtained it, but I think we bought it second-hand from
one of the local op shops around the time we moved into
our new home, in 1992.
The clock has worked well over the years but lately, the
siliconchip.com.au
Australia's electronics magazine
February 2022 87
time would start flashing even though
it was still correct. I fixed this by incrementing the hours until I got it back to
the right time. At first, I suspected it
was caused by a power supply glitch,
but it kept happening.
After a while, the clock started going
haywire and showing all sorts of random times. I ignored it for a few days,
but then when I tried to reset the time,
it was stuck flashing 12:00.
I decided to replace the clock initially and have a look at it later. However, the replacement clock had a dull
red display which was harder to see
and is more suitable for a bedroom,
whereas the original clock has a bright
yellow display that was much better
with the bright light in the lounge
room. So it was time to have a look
at the original clock to see what the
problem was.
I already had an idea what was causing the problem, as some years ago I’d
encountered weird behaviour from a
digital clock. I was unable to diagnose
the problem until I built an ESR meter.
I was then able to determine that the
filter capacitor was faulty. Replacing
it fixed that clock, and it’s still working well now.
Suspecting that this clock had the
same problem, I proceeded to dismantle it. This was quite tricky as,
being a clock radio, it has the cable for
the front radio display needle under
the circuit board. That meant that I
couldn’t take the circuit board out of
the clock to work on it without making reassembly very difficult.
After removing the three screws
securing the board, I managed to lift
one side of the board high enough to
test the filter capacitor with my ESR
meter, but I couldn’t get any reading
from it. So the capacitor was basically
open-circuit. I then managed to get my
25W soldering iron under the board
and removed the capacitor.
I re-tested the capacitor with the
ESR meter while it was still warm from
desoldering, and I got a reading of 88W.
I tested it again later after it was cold
and once again, I got no reading.
This is one of the worst capacitors
I have ever encountered that hadn’t
blown its top; it looked like it was still
good. This ESR meter has helped me
greatly over the years to identify seemingly good capacitors as bad.
It was marked as 470μF 16V, but
a compact size. I hunted through
my container of salvaged capacitors
and I found a few around the same
size. After testing them with my ESR
meter, I selected the one with the lowest reading and installed it. This was
quite tricky, trying to solder under the
board with minimal room, but I managed to do it.
Before reassembling the clock, I
tested it to make sure that the repair
had been successful. I set the clock
up safely so that I was able to see the
display and access the buttons on top
of the top case.
After plugging the clock in, it
flashed 12:00, so I changed it to the
correct time. This was successful, so
I had obviously solved the problem.
I unplugged the clock and then
reassembled it carefully, ensuring
that the power cable correctly looped
around the post that acted as a cable
restraint. I then returned it to its place
in the entertainment unit, and it’s now
working perfectly again with its usual
nice bright display. This was another
win for the environment and also my
pocket.
Classically unorthodox car parts
D. T., of Sylvania, NSW ran into
the bane of the classic car collector,
non-standard parts that are hard to find
(and often expensive). Thankfully, this
one could be disassembled and fixed
at a component level...
This digital clock/radio had a few problem capacitors.
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Silicon Chip
Australia's electronics magazine
During my spare time in COVID-19
lockdown, I’ve been restoring a 1982
Porsche 928. This is a nearly 40-yearold car, and parts are becoming scarce
(read: expensive). I’ve been working
my way through the car and came to
the rear demister. Having resoldered
the terminal to the back window (not
as hard as it sounds), I connected the
battery and switched it on, only to find
no warmth at all.
A quick check of the fuse box found
the relay missing.
The 928 is a complicated car by
1980 standards (not today’s, though!).
The rear demister provides two power
levels. A high heat ‘Boost’ mode operates for about 15 minutes when you
push the (momentary) switch. A lower
power ‘Maintenance’ mode runs continuously when the switch is on. Boost
mode also activates the rear-view mirror heaters.
The demister itself is the typical
resistive type but is split into two
halves – the halves run in series
in Maintenance mode and parallel
in Boost mode. When this car was
designed, they didn’t have the integrated electronics systems that cars
have now, so the timing and switching functionality was provided in a
special double-width relay that plugs
into the fuse panel.
This relay also has start and ignition
inputs to disable the demister during
starting or when the engine isn’t running, and an output to drive the indicator light in the switch.
I found a used relay online, and it
wasn’t too expensive, so I bought it. It
arrived a week later but, after plugging
it in, I was disappointed to find Maintenance mode worked OK but Boost
mode didn’t. I was about to contact the
seller, but a check of the ad showed it
was “for parts or not working” – I had
missed that point. I decided to try to
fix it myself. I thought it probably had
a dried out electro.
It wasn’t hard to open – I used a
screwdriver to bend the aluminium
case around the edge and removed
the phenolic base. The base was part
of an assembly that included the two
relays and a phenolic PCB. The circuit consisted of two relays and three
transistors plus quite a few resistors
and diodes.
It all looked pretty good – the tracks
and soldering were OK with no apparent faults, nothing was scorched, and
the electros hadn’t leaked or were
siliconchip.com.au
A redrawn circuit diagram of the demister from a Porsche 928, with the actual module shown in the photo below.
bulging. I set it up on a bench supply
and confirmed the Maintenance relay
operated correctly but the Boost didn’t.
I measured the relay coils and found
the Maintenance coil to be about 60W
but the Boost coil was way higher – in
the kilohms range. I had a good look
at the PCB – most of the soldering still
looked OK, but the relay coil windings
were very fine wire (0.1mm) and where
they joined onto the PCB looked a bit
sus, so I cleaned and resoldered them.
It was tough to tell if the joint was
OK because the wire was so fine, but
now I measured something more reasonable for the Boost relay coil. Testing now showed it would latch for
about three minutes, but nothing like
the expected 15.
To make matters worse, the time
would get shorter each time I tried it,
and after a couple of runs, it would
only pull in while the Boost line was
active (ie, while the button was being
pressed).
There were two electros – one of
them was 470μF (clearly the main timing capacitor), so I measured voltage
across it while I held the relay engaged.
It discharged very slowly, as expected,
but I didn’t know what the trip point
was. I replaced it anyway, but it didn’t
make any difference.
I then started changing other parts
– the other electro and the transistors
siliconchip.com.au
– all to no avail. I saw another solder
joint that I didn’t like the look of, so I
resoldered it, then decided to resolder
them all. It still didn’t work.
Next, I decided to trace out the circuit. This sounds easy, but the combination of non-standard part pin spacing, no overlay and some factory modifications meant it took a few hours
before I had something that I thought
was right.
I’m quite amazed by electronic
design engineers of these old eras –
they did so much with minimal parts.
Like old valve TVs – 10 or so valves to
Australia's electronics magazine
make a whole TV! These days you’d
just pop in a microcontroller and be
done with it, but that’d be a couple of
hundred thousand transistors on its
own. A 555 could do the timing, but
that’s probably a hundred transistors,
plus you’d need other logic.
I tried monitoring voltage levels,
but due to the very analog nature of
the design and the pre-existing fault,
I struggled to rationalise what was
happening with what was on the schematic. In desperation, I measured the
relay coil winding resistance again
and found the Boost relay coil was
February 2022 89
back where it was when I started, way
too high.
Thinking I still hadn’t made a decent
connection, I fiddled around with it –
sometimes it would measure OK and
sometimes not. I couldn’t see anything
wrong with the coil but nothing I was
doing was working, so I decided to
bodge in a temporary replacement. I
grabbed a relay from an old motorised
car antenna and wired it in place. Success! This worked for around 15 minutes every time.
The next thing was to fix it properly. The antenna relay was too big,
so I either needed a new, smaller version or had to fix the old coil. From the
load resistance, I worked out it needed
20A contacts but I couldn’t find anything small enough, so I started looking inside old car relays. I found one
with a coil similar in size and resistance to the faulty one, and with a bit
of trimming, I got it to fit.
My guess is the old relay coil has a
break somewhere with the wire ends
rubbing against each other to make a
high-resistance joint. When I moved
it around or some heat accumulated
in it, the ‘joint’ would fail.
Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait for
a while before I actually use it as the
car needs a lot more work.
Mobility scooter repair
B. G., of St Helens, Tas wasn’t content to simply swap a failed board. He
decided to investigate and figure out
why it failed. It turned out to be a simple but unexpected fault...
My wife has a large second-hand
four-wheel mobility scooter (she calls
it her tractor). One morning when she
went to power it up, it was dead; when
switched on with the key, a small
meter usually shows the relative battery condition and a power LED lights.
I could see a bunch of cables running
up the steering column, disappearing
behind a cover. Removing that cover
exposed a circuit board. This was easily removed by unplugging the cables.
Close inspection showed a mixture of
parts and no sign of heat or damage.
We had the original operating manual with the agent’s number in Hobart.
We rang him, and he very helpfully
agreed to send several boards after
paying a deposit. He suggested measuring the battery voltage and shorting
the key switch, which I did to no avail.
Starting with the easiest part to
access, I decided to replace the control
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Silicon Chip
board on the steering column and was
rewarded by the machine coming to
life. I returned the remainder to the
agent. He was surprised at the failure,
saying they had never had a control
board failure before.
But the story doesn’t end there.
When our family arrived for Christmas from the mainland some months
later, lo and behold, the scooter failed
again with the same symptoms. My
son-in-law, a medical electrical engineer, decided to remove all covers and
trace and check all the looms while I
traced as much as possible on the new
control board.
There was no obvious damage on
this board either, but the key switch
track went through a plated-through
via to a socket pin to the motor controller. The trouble was that there was
no continuity from one side of the
board to the other, so we used a small
drill to open up the via and soldered a
wire to the tracks on both sides. That
fixed the continuity problem, and the
scooter came back to life.
For the other failed board, a simple wire link soldered between the
socket contacts was an easier and
quicker repair. So I now have a serviceable spare.
I contacted the agent again. He
seemed impressed, saying that they
would not be able to fault-find to that
extent, and they would email the manufacturer in Israel. Some weeks later,
the agent rang again to say that they
had agreed with our diagnosis and that
they would modify all their boards
with a wire link.
I hope the brain keeps working; it’s
satisfying when it does.
Editor’s note: it seems that the via
was too small and fused due to inrush
current at switch-on. Larger vias or
more vias in parallel would likely solve
the problem, although a through-wire
is a very robust solution.
The misattraction of a nuclear
magnetic resonance machine
D. D., of Coogee, NSW recalls a
servicing problem he encountered
many years ago. At first, it seemed
that something was wrong with the
electronics, but the fault was traced
to another nearby source...
Two articles in the August 2021
issue prompted me to write to you:
Advanced Medical & Biometric Imaging (siliconchip.com.au/Series/369)
and the History of Op Amps article
(siliconchip.com.au/Article/14987).
Both brought back fond memories
of my long-lost youth and reminded
me of a story that might amuse your
readers.
The top and underside of the control board of a mobility scooter. A simple wire
link as shown on the underside fixed the continuity problem that was found.
Australia's electronics magazine
siliconchip.com.au
In the mid-1960s, I worked at a
university chemistry department
in the UK, looking after electronic
equipment. The story involves
NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)
machines and valve-based op amps.
NMR machines were highly prized
(and very expensive) in those days,
and the chemists loved them because
they could get a beautiful paper chart
output showing the exact chemical
composition of a sample.
Not long after I started, we got
an NMR machine. It was installed
during a holiday period when the
university was very quiet, in a small
room on the lower ground floor of the
building. One of the lab technicians,
Archie, was ‘promoted’ to work as
the machine operator and given the
necessary training to use it.
All went well for a few weeks; academics and researchers brought samples down to be analysed, and Archie
duly provided the relevant chart outputs. However, it was not long before
things started to go awry.
One day, I got a call from a harassed
Archie asking if I could go and see
what was going wrong with his
machine. He showed me charts where
the trace had started normally and
then suddenly disappeared. “It happens at random,” he said, “and usually when I am just doing something
very critical, it is driving me mad. Do
you think you can fix it?”
I was a bit dubious as it was a very
complex machine, and I only had the
vaguest idea how it worked, but I took
the manuals back to my workshop to
study and promised to come back the
next day.
I could see that it had a huge magnet, and the manual made it clear that
the stability of this magnet was of
paramount importance, within a few
parts per million. I also saw that the
output peaks could be integrated to
indicate the quantity of each element
in the sample. This was done using a
valve-based op amp integrator.
My first thoughts were that either
the magnet or the integrator were
drifting randomly. I wasn’t game to
go anywhere near the magnet as the
manual had lots of dire warnings, but
I thought I could have a look at the
integrator. This was a plug-in module; I pulled it out and saw it had a
row of valves and an impressive looking feedback capacitor, among other
components.
I could see no obvious signs of a
fault. Ordinarily, I would have suspected the feedback capacitor and
replaced it, but I could not find a
suitable part, and I was reluctant to
‘hack into’ this new and expensive
machine. So I admitted defeat and
said I would call the company.
Soon, the rep turned up and of
course, Murphy being alive and well,
the machine behaved perfectly. He
said that the problem was probably caused by large metallic objects
moving in the magnet’s fringe field.
Maybe it was cars passing by in the
car park, right outside the wall, or the
lift next door.
He said the magnet fringe field
could extend several metres, and the
solution was to install steel sheets in
the walls of the room to screen the
magnet. The estimated cost was thousands of pounds.
At this point, the Professor was
called, and a discussion ensued as
to what to do. As a true academic,
he decided that an experiment must
be conducted to find the actual cause
of the problem. One of the junior lab
techs was summoned and asked to
drive his car past the NMR room,
jump in the lift, go up to the top floor,
then come back down. Archie started
a scan, and we all waited to see the
results.
Sure enough, both things caused
the machine to go haywire. The Professor was very annoyed and puzzled, and demanded to know why
this had not been observed when the
machine was first installed. Of course,
it was now term time, and hordes of
students were around, going up and
down in the lift and driving in and
out of the car park.
The Professor said he was not going
to pay thousands for screening the
room. His solution was to paint an
exclusion zone outside on the car
park tarmac and instigate times when
the lift could not be used. Poor old
Archie then had to put ‘out of service’
signs on the lift whenever he quickly
did a batch of scans.
The situation still exists with modern NMR and MRI machines, but
proper installation planning involving medical physicists can eliminate
the problems (see www.aapm.org/
SC
pubs/reports/RPT_20.pdf).
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November & December 2021 issue
siliconchip.com.au/Series/374
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siliconchip.com.au
Australia's electronics magazine
February 2022 91
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