Inside a cable stripping machine.

Excellent, I think quite a few kids took the back off the telly. I bet most survived too, although they may have had a sudden forceful education. Particularly if they tried to remove the anode cap.

Big Clive

Yep. Any glamorous industry is very exploitative. If you choose a "dirty" job there's a lot less competition and a lot more money to pursue the fun stuff in your own time. That said, the "dirty" industries are also full of interesting electronic stuff now, and you get to play with it and scavenge bits while being paid.

Big Clive

Sounds a bit like the music recording industry...

Gordo

Apparently, when I was 3 my parents returned home one night to find the babysitter asleep, the back off the TV and yours truly had unplugged all the valves (tubes) and arranged them in a line on top. TV was off, but in those days the chassis was live! My parents had to get a "man" in to replace all the valves in their correct sockets. As they say "What doesn't kill you.."

Gordo

I always recommend getting a traditional trade before specialising. The industries that people (falsely) perceive as glamorous like showbiz have very high competition from a continuous supply of people who will literally work for nothing to get their foot in the door. Many event companies will happily use these people until they stop working for nothing and then replace them with someone who will.

Big Clive

I apparently took the vacuum cleaner to bits at the age of three. I wasn't even aware three year olds could do stuff like that, but I do have a vague early memory of having trouble sitting the motor back in. I hope the thing was unplugged when I did it.

Big Clive

Great question David. I've always found the whole conventional current vs. electron flow thing to be an excellent example of the need to keep Technical (with a capital "T") stuff in perspective... unless, as Clive points out, you're a physicist or molecular biologist or chip designer or dude who builds/services machines for chip designers. While it's very interesting to learn and understand how electron flow works at an atomic level, and it may be useful for some people to explore the principles and mechanics of why it is so, for us technical types who are simply working at operating/maintaining/repairing electrical or electronic equipment on an everyday level it is, to a large extent, navel gazing. We needn't concern ourselves with which direction those teeny-tiny subatomic particles are actually travelling through a conductor, since our minds are usually contemplating higher concepts such as "why won't this bastard thing just fucking work already?!" :)

Chris Talbot

I dunno about Clive, but that's certainly how I got into electronics. Drove my parents up the wall. :) My most memorable experiment was the time I figured out that I could fit the pluggable 2-pronged end of the low-voltage "track power" cable from my Lego train set (which usually connected to a chunky autotransformer "control station" with a rotary Forwards/Backwards control on top) straight into the Figure 8 socket on the end of my mains-powered cassette player's supply lead which, I deduced, should really turbocharge my train's performance. This was in the days before RCDs/RCBOs... almighty *BANG* (ELV cable disintegrating and fuse exploding in the metal fusebox outside), I jumped backwards about a foot, Dad apparently jumped about the same distance straight up in the air then hit the ground at a run, swearing blue murder. It was an... educational sort of day, I didn't mess around with 240V for a long time after that. Respect due to the LEGO company's design team though, since I'm here to tell the tale. Very much an "edge case" failure mode, but the design of the cable/connectors was obviously pretty safe. Or maybe I was just lucky... :)

Chris Talbot

In the „diamond lamp LED remix“-video you mentioned that you once have fallen asleep and fell into a live electrical distribution. I would love to hear the story behind it in the Q&A video. When you once told the story about you getting an electrical shock in a super market it was very entertaining, too (Not that I enjoy you having pain, but it was nevertheless).

I recommend using conventional current flow. In the early days of electricity it appeared that electricity was flowing from positive to negative, but the electrons flow the other direction. All the diodes are based on conventional current flow, so it's easier to think that way. The only people who really need to know about electron flow are scientists and semiconductor manufacturers.

Big Clive

When looking at circuit diagrams, confused between conventional and electron flow diagrams, especially when it comes to components like diodes where orientation in the circuit does matter. Which is “right”? Any suggestions to understanding better? Just forget electron flow exists and go with conventional for everything?

The Griffiths Family

There's a meet up tomorrow.

1290 incl the components, yeah it can be tedious in one sitting.

Send me a message telling me what it is.

Big Clive

Do you plan to hold another real life meetup at some point?

How do I donate/send you something for potential testing/featuring in one of your videos?

Gadgetman

For the Q&A I would be interested to know about your work history Clive , clearly you have a interest in lighting but did you start as a sparky and move in to it ?? Was electronics the hobby then in to a business ect

Jamie blatant

Clive, how did you get into electronics? Did you disassemble every toy you ever got from an early age to figure out how it worked? What sparked your interest?

Gordo

Or, we could buy one, reverse engineer it and....

Gordo

Ok, if you go to www.aliexpress.com and search for "Wire Stripping Twisting Peeling Machine" there's a unit similar to Clive's for $280. It comprises a motor and gearbox in a nice metal enclosure plus a machined aluminium head assembly - the business end. It's just the head assembly we need - motors are cheap on eBay and looks like it screws onto a 1/4" metal shaft. Now, if we can only convince the Chinese to sell us a "replacement" head at a reasonable price...

Gordo

I doubt it could since the pencil sharpener uses rotary mesh blades which would simply "sharpen" the insulation... However, I wonder if it isn't possible to build something like this that's driven by a power drill. A quick Google search reveals lots of drill-operated wire strippers, but they seem to be more for stripping the copper out of insulated wire, not what Clive has. There's a company Greenlee makes a drill attachment for stripping very heavy duty electrical cable - looks cool but again, not really what we're looking for.. So the search continues..

Gordo

Ooooh!! I like the look of that. Next one comes up on eBay, it'll be all BigClive subscribers bidding against each other for it ;-)

Gordo

I'm not sure I'd have the patience to solder over 1000 fumbly solder joints in the cube.

Big Clive

buy a kit of those 8x8x8 led cubes and solder whilst you have the Q&A, that should have the show going for a while :)

Cool tool.

Howard Simons

I worked in France at the Disney Studios park when it was being built.

Big Clive

What a great little machine, I suspect it's hideously expensive so i wonder if a hand cranked pencil sharpener could be adapted to do the same thing...

Matt Tester

Oh I'd like one of those!

Michael Thompson

Wow, flashback to my apprenticeship, part of which was spent in the control panel assembly shop of an industrial instrumentation company. As a menial I was sat in front of this machine's relative for several days until I heard whirrrr click click in my dreams. I was actually taught how to change and set the blade after it jammed several times

Phil Collins

Can you record it in slo-mo when you strip the cable?

Clive, I know you've stated a bunch of times the work you do between mainland Scotland (Glasgow/Edinburgh) and the Isle of Man... do you go anywhere else for work, or maybe I should say, have you had the opportunity to go anywhere else for work say outside of the UK?

Matt Enwright