electronics repair

[Dr_Evil]

My reasoning for liking 4:3 and 5:4 monitors has been covered pretty well. I despise having to read wide lines of text. Having to scroll to read text because a giant picture was posted is on the same level of reading wide lines of text.

 

[djQUAN]

If the screen is too wide, I resize the width of the window to make the webpage narrower. "wasted space" isn't a problem since monitors these days are big enough anyways. Or just put another window on the side to view something else at the same time.

 

[Sigurthr]

Back to the OP; I repaired and modified a burnt out 24W CFL ballast (cap replacement) to run a Probe Start 175W Metal Halide lamp that had its starter electrode ablated off by accidentally being run in the wrong position. Now I've got a nice 25W High Pressure Mercury night light for the normally unlit second bathroom. It takes a couple kV to ignite a MV/MH lamp without a starter electrode (pulse start) but fluoro ballasts handle it easily.

 

[bofhemeritus]

I've replaced several zeners on my TI AM335X starter kit, a varistor in an elderly Onkyo amplifier and fixed more VCRs than I would like to admit to. It's far cheaper to repair most things than just bin them, though - I'm in total agreement. (Don't ask how I popped the zeners, it's embarrassing.)