Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 15:07:57 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: bar coding tech stuff

I'd like to briefly address the "just bring everything" philosophy ...

I don't agree with it, because assuming "everything" more than covers the
anticipated needs, it speaks to not actually understanding the needs.

Good example this year was the intercom stuff.  I had just taken custody
of the gear, spent good parts of November working many bugs out of it, and
it was about to go out on the most intercom-heavy gig we do -- Arisia,
mostly because of video, but we were also going to run a *second tent* on
it as well.  This might have been the event where "just bring everything"
would be the most appropriate, but I didn't.  I wanted an actual *design*
in hand, and to be able to calculate required + optional cable lengths and
gear quantities.  Never mind that the needs went way *over* what I actually
now own and thus we needed additional stuff from David and Syd and z!, but
I kept close track of that and in the end brought *almost* everything
I have.  But three or four perfectly functional 100' cables stayed home
because I knew we simply would not need them once the base infrastructure
went into place.  Including for miscellaneous temporary reconfigurations
like rehearsal tables.  [Eliding that we could have possibly used those
for the audience-mic shots up into the truss, but which was overruled by
people who wanted to just buy more 100' XLR...]

So I went into con with printed design sheets that anyone could have likely
worked from to lay out the system, although I wound up doing the bulk of that
build myself since it was sort of a first trial for me to make sure it was
all put together right and various theories of mine would prove out.  It
didn't take all that long, including the extensive labeling I was adding.
And the system behaved pretty much flawlessly -- almost no hum, no channel
crosstalk, no scratchy volume pots, and good intelligibility with minor
exceptions for a couple of known-crappy headset mics which probably just need
some crud shaken out of their capsules.  Stuff that people weren't using
came back to the depot, so *I* for the most part knew where gear was when
not usefully deployed somewhere.  Which in this case wasn't much, since we
were pretty much at the limit of all contributed quantities anyhow.

I also actively managed battery pack life for z!'s wireless beltpacks, and
changed out exactly *one* set over the entire weekend because I and my
voltmeter knew that the rest were still fine.  That flew directly against
another typically wasteful philosophy of ours, to blindly load battery-powered
stuff with a fresh set for every event.  That's bullcrap, and produces far
too much waste of batteries that are still perfectly good -- if we'd done
that with comm, we would have gone through that entire case of Procells and
come up short anyway.

So all of this was a good example of how much better things can go with
what is often viewed as an "orphan child" that traditionally gets hastily
thrown together at the last minute because everyone forgot about it until
it's suddenly needed.  Oh right, intercom, damn, where are those crates,
and who can run that out for us right now??  You know who you are.  Well,
hopefully those days are over.  And hopefully you see how I'm sort of
echoing DrClaw's approach to provisioning a set of rooms, in terms of
permanent vs. floating inventory.

_H*


Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 18:58:41 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: batteries redux

Actually, I used a generic VOM.  As I said before, the no-load curve on
alkaline cells is not all that flat.  They start new at something over
1.6V, and are heading for being on the way out when they get down around
1.4V.  Within that range I'm gauging by hundredths, e.g. 1.58 is obviously
newer than 1.51.  Most devices will continue to run with a supply equivalent
to its cells being down around 1.3 or even as low as 1.2V per, by which
point they're definitely toast.  It helps to know the given equipment's
limits and drain rate -- which I didn't with z!'s comm packs going into
the con, but a day of observing usage vs. capacity told me what I needed
to know.

It's far better to know than to guess, however you do it.  I don't really
like the "testers" *because* they place additional drain on the cells,
often substantial, even if only for a few moments.  If they're otherwise
running some widget drawing 50 milliamps that can still suck away more
life than is warranted.

Z!'s HME system, by the way, is more frugal on batteries than Ed C's
Telex systems because the beltpacks keep their transmitters off until you
key up and talk.  Ed's can be set like that but generally aren't, thus
transmitting all the time, except for maybe one or two packs he's got.
Perhaps they should all be set for "transmit on talk", which involves a
nontrivial bit of hardware-mod inside, although I think that produces a
few more annoying artifacts at the receiver/combiner in the base when
they key up and down all the time.

_H*