EE occupational deformation?: share your story - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2019, 08:22:49 pm
content: It just happened to me, wondering if more EE's relate to this.I am currently in the south of France, the Provence.Tonight I visited a beautifull little restaurant, nice weather, good wine, charming companion everything about the holiday, then the mineral water is served.........I look at the label and poof there goes the EE occupational deformation at work.The water is aprox. 60000 ohms and the conductivity is 15,2uS/cm.What use is this information to anyone ? What could I do with this ?Projects come to mind where variable resistances of 60000 ohms and more could be combined with visual led feedback, 60k is low enough to get the gate of a fet conducting, why did I not bring my multimeter, etc.Then my lovely wife makes light comments to get me back on earth and the next course is served.It takes me another couple of minutes to get back in the atmosphere before the water was served.Perhaps being seperated from my hobby for two weeks is part of the cause or just occupational deformation.Does this happen to you to? Share your story.

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:41:54 am
content: Metal test labs...They have micro volt meters to read the stresses of metals

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 11:21:58 am
content: The real WTF is why would anyone specify specific conductance of drinking water in the first place?Is that how they brag about mineral content?Also, I don't get the 60k spec at all. Measure from where to where? You should have asked the waiter for clarification

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 01:50:08 pm
content: It's the resistance it offers to the flow of metallic current from your wallet. Suppose your wallet has a potential of 120,000. 120k / 60k = 2 Euros. To illustrate, that nice bottle of wine has a resistance of only 3k, therefore it will cost you 120k / 3k = 40 Euros.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 04:13:16 pm
content: Quote from: magic on June 22, 2019, 11:21:58 amExactly what's the point?

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 04:27:01 pm
content: I'm pretty sure they're just using it as a way of stating the purity. Conductivity is one method for testing TDS (total dissolved solids).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_dissolved_solids

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 04:28:23 pm
content: Maybe they're trying to emphasise the mineral content, but it's rather curious. My story isn't specifically electronics related but more engineering related. The other day someone was talking about how old cars of the same model are never alike as they're all hand made and all I could think of was how shoddy either process control or the tolerances were.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 04:28:43 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on June 22, 2019, 04:13:16 pmThis is an example of a cultural difference between Europe and the USA.Putting such details on a bottle of water in Europe makes people think the water has scientific properties, and therefore it must be good. It's positive marketing.In the USA science is of the devil, and so it would be negative marketing. Bottles marked like that would get left on the shelf on this side of the Atlantic

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 04:50:39 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on June 22, 2019, 04:28:43 pmDunno, I would think laymen here would be weirded out by their drinks having some electric propertiesIt must be a French thing and likely a result of some local advertising dickwaving competitions, incomprehensible to outsiders who haven't seen the ads.I have no bloody idea why they believe I would care about that. I have no idea if lower or higher is supposed to be betterI only offer my humble remark that the unit of volume resisitivity is Ω·m, if that's what they meantThat they can't even get the units right is all proof I need that they don't know what they are talking about and neither their customers

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 05:02:01 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on June 22, 2019, 04:28:43 pmPerhaps France and the rest of Europe, I have never seen this before and esp so dominantly presented on the front. Perhaps in the tiny fonts on the back.My friends think it is an indication that there are many ionized minerals in the water, that should be a good thingI am already happy the amount of radiation is not on the bottle.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:08:35 pm
content: I think it's as rdl said, it's a measure of the mineral contents, or TDS, it's mineral water after all. More ions -> higer conductivity.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:14:51 pm
content: The numbers indicate a very low level of dissolved solids, somewhere in the area of 10 mg/liter, so I doubt it's meant as an advertisement of beneficial mineral content.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:16:09 pm
content: Quote from: apis on June 22, 2019, 06:08:35 pmIt is. However, most products include a table of mineral analysis on the label, mg/L of calcium, sodium, magnesium, etc. That is more directly useful and comparable between products.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:19:09 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on June 22, 2019, 06:16:09 pmYes, I agree. I haven't really seen it here before to be honest and I don't have any bottles at home so I can't check.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 06:54:47 pm
content: Not much point in a detailed analysis of that water, because whatever solids are there are probably in the sub ppm level.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 07:14:05 pm
content: In Brasil they usually have a very thorough mineral listing, conductivity and even radioactivity level at the spring. I don't know how useful all this was.

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 09:10:25 pm
content: I just checked the label on my favourite mineral water and was surprised to find that it indeed reports conductivity too. 598.67 μS/cm. Apparently the EU limit is 2500 μS/cm.Now it's a pretty big label at 11 pages long but disappointingly there is no mention of resistance in it.Usually I am coy and not a posh brand show-off type, but I link myfavourite spring waterquality label for reference

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2019, 09:12:21 pm
content: Does a soldering-iron burn count?I drilled a hole in my own finger once, too, but it eventually healed. I should probably stick to software.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 01:00:28 am
content: First time I see that on a bottle of mineral water.Detailed mineral content yes, but conductivity? Never seen that.So it's definitely not specifically an european thing, more like a pretty weird bottle.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 01:29:13 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on June 22, 2019, 04:13:16 pmThe point is those who are concerned or interested can have it available. If nothing else it shows it is being tested. And since it is being tested, and published, any changes are going to be noticed and then the reason for the changes can be investigated.The real question should be. What's the point of selectively picking at any particular piece of information on a label that you're unconcerned about and carrying on like it matters to nobody?What if there was a nearby mine or industrial plant being constructed and there was a concern waste would enter the water table or underground aquifers.What could cause it to change? Would that cause be harmful? Would you want to know? Do you want to drink the water and trust it is safe? Or do you want to justhopeit is safe. That is the point.Everything on the label is there for a reason. Even, and especially, the marketing claims. The words chosen. The lack of specific medical claims. Everything.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 03:52:31 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on June 22, 2019, 04:28:23 pmThere are old cars &oldcars.If they were made before about 1900, that may well be the case, but pretty much anything newer than that will have been made on a production line, using standardised parts.What did, & does happen, is that slight specification changes ocurr within a model year, so that different components may have been used.They are almost always interchangeable, though, as car manufacturers pride themselves on that.If you are talking about merely "old" cars, like from the 1960s & '70s, one thing that was all the rage in those years, was that you could order various models with a wide range of specifications, so you could find the same model with varying combinations of options.Obviously, you had to wait, as your desired options were unlikely to be on the showroom floor!

author: exe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 07:11:56 am
content: Quote from: KE5FX on June 22, 2019, 09:12:21 pmYou'll be fine, Mother Nature supplied us with 9 more spare fingers...Not all parts are redundant, however:https://www.reddit.com/r/dontputyourdickinthat/comments/985ee4/dont_put_your_dick_where_you_wouldnt_put_your/

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 10:19:25 am
content: I helped a friend configure his new Miele washer and dryer recently, and one of the settings on the dryer is water conductivity (normal or low). The manual gives some threshold for where you should select "low". Apparently, since modern tumble dryers use electrical conductivity to measure residual moisture, if the conductivity is too low, the dryer will think the clothes are already dry when they're actually not. We found out that while the city water authority here in Zurich provides this measurement, my friend's county in USA does not.As an aside, we also discovered that the terms "hard" and "soft" water areextremelyrelative. What's considered "hard" water in USA is on the high side of "soft" for Europe. "Hard" water in Europe is off the charts for USA. Interestingly, when my friend bought his new machines in December, the manual for the washer just said to choose a given setting for soft/medium/hard/very hard. But a few months ago, Miele changed the manual and now includes a water hardness test strip, so that you just match up the strip to the needed setting. Definitely easier than dealing with various hardness scales and fuzzy terms like "soft".

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 12:44:55 pm
content: I can't help but wonder how innacurate would be measuring the conductivity of the water and moisture in face of the various brands and compositions of detergents, bleaches and softeners.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 01:32:35 pm
content: I don't think those even matter, compared to the huge differences by fabric type and the amount of residual water left behind (which varies significantly depending on the final spin speed and duration).Nonetheless, this is how dryers measure moisture; I have never seen or heard of one that does it by any other method. (Other than being timed drying alone, using no moisture sensing at all.)I don't think it is especially accurate in practice: if the drum is too full, or not full enough, or it's a mix of fabric types/weights, or if it's a fabric that dries very quickly superficially but not deep down (like synthetic fleece, or down-filled items), the results are inconsistent.

author: EmmanuelFaure
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2019, 07:45:46 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on June 21, 2019, 08:22:49 pmWorking at ITER?

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2019, 08:15:00 am
content: Quote from: EmmanuelFaure on June 23, 2019, 07:45:46 pmNo on holiday