well holy cow I am tempted. two hundred US but it's a fully functional oscilloscope in the size of an iWhatever. max input 80v but see that's overkill and underkill; need a tiny voltmeter just to be able to check that any given mains adapted psu is functioning! could always carry a selection of small halogen bulbs I suppose lol in a banned case. and yet the Purpose of the exercise is to condense into small, something that can detect the big! is it so hard to get a mains tester built in? is it so necessary to spend well for a tiny tool that's not only an oscilloscope but records readings on flash memory?! overkill? underkill?
can't we cover half the goals for a fraction of the price?!
the freedom that one could have if one had the functions of a multimeter in a truly shirt-pocket sized device!
two hundred big ones. arg. tempted.
how comesit y'all don't think it makes
sense to have a multimeter as a kit? forgive me for being british, but
measuring things is supposed to be the art that superpositions hard science and hard experience?! I think it would be the
ultimate kit! to challenge people to build the device which measures their
own accuracy. just think of what we might learn from the feedback!; if AFI makes a meter that can test mains electricity, and no one dies during assembly or usage, then there is indeed hope for man! or scores goes up in smoke and the survivors learn from
that.
we should do this; for Science.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPyGvqNn4Ymy mate mark HAS a tiny avometer (analogue) that he intends to give me. cost him zilch. aparently it works just fine though.
with that in mind, seems so obvious to me that there should be a Kit for measuring things! or even just relevant components made available so we can, for example, form a voltmeter in the size of a wristwatch, or a basic avometer in the size of a MintyBoost. evne if it's analogue. to measure, is the essence of experiment. to read the results is the essence of observation. from there we make that leap of faith between doubting decartes and trusting occam.
I don't want to buy a product to find out if my MintyBoosts give 5V! If I can't trust my own work then how can I trust a generic avometer?! I trust something I pay for as much as something I make at the best of times! It's all a matter of beer! Why not throw the die?! Conclude with the same mind that observes?! I know what yar thinkin; my avometer needs recalibration.
"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!"
"Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.
"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the word 'Victoria,' it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the victory of Adam."
