Brickies in London

[jgh]

I was wondering if they really meant it when they said 18-24 months training. When I did some bricklaying the total learning was several decades of being aware of the built environment, 20 minutes checking in a building trades manual, and 20 minutes experimenting. I would have thought a brick-laying apprenticeship would have been: help Frank with those non-load-bearing bits that are going to be hidden under render/plaster, graduating to: do those non-loadbearing bits on your own, graduating to: do hidden load-bearing bits, graduating to: do bits that are going to be visible and need to be pretty.

jgh

[Ian Jackson]

Well, I'll believe you.

But won't the reading be very dependent on the spacing of the conductors?

[Andy Burns]

JOOI, did you compare it to results from a 'normal' clamp meter?

Whenever I've done similar surveys I used an IEC C13->C14 cable ("kettle extension") that's been pared-back to reveal the individual conductors, thankfully most kit had dual PSUs, so supply to one could be removed, insert my test lead, measure with clamp meter, replace and then repeat for the other PSU.

[Adrian]

Exactly. Three years.

(See also: ARW's tales of apprentices)

[Tim Watts]

I believe it was optimised for certain standard cables:

and does say it approximates with others.

It's a bit moot anyway - I noticed Megger have discontinued it due to "lack of demand" which I find not entirely believable as it was and still is the only instrument that could do this.

Some googling suggests another company stepped up and offered to make it under licence under a different name but Megger had destroyed the case moulds so it would have been too expensive to start from scratch.

[CB]

That's hardly fair. On the science front we have

Brian Cox Jim Al-Khalili Helen Czerski Dara O'Brien David Spiegelhalter Ben Goldacre

All fairly regular presenters/commentators on BBC TV and/or radio. (You may have to look at BBC4 or BBC R4 to find them)

I have only recently discovered why there seems to have been this increase in real scientists (as opposed to professional presenters) on TV and radio in recent years and it seems that their research funding provided by the government is directly affected by their "public outreach". (It may have always been so but I believe the effect has recently been exaggerated).

I agree with you about engineers though. I cant immediately name one who appears regularly.

Chris.

[whisky-dave]

So multi-core cable has 2 or 3 cores, I've not used the term multicore for when there's less than 4 conductors. Maybe because when I've used multicore wire it's been 4, 8 or more. Looks like you have to split the cores.

But when it comes to measuring currents I'd like one of these.

"The Aim I-prober 520 is the Carol Vorderman of the technical world. It is slim, good looking and very clever. "

and with a claim like the above wouldn't we all ;-)

[jgh]

Samantha Carter is on Pick TV each weekday evening.

Ok, I'll get my coat...

jgh

[Harry Bloomfield]

It cannot work, if they balance out flow and return. It can only measure some current if there is an imbalance and another route, but then you are reading a proportion of the current, rather than the entire current.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dell Boy was an electrician.

[S Viemeister]

Harrison Ford was a carpenter.

[The Natural Philosopher]

So was Jesus.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Which TV series/ films was he in?

[Adrian]

[Tim Streater]

He was an extra in The Life of Brian.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Life of Brian IIRC

[newshound]

That's presumably got a Hall effect sensor at the tip. So relies on just picking up magnetic field from the conductor of interest.

[newshound]

+1!

[Andrew Gabriel]

Are you getting him mixed up with his dad?

[F Murtz]

Would make no difference as it is extremely easy to find out how and still not many people can, or be bothered.