EarthLife

There's a total lack of science on TV these days, so any that might pop up should be encouraged I think. As for the secrets of the universe, any advanced lifeforms out there with any intelligence will I'm sure be making sure their presence remains unknown ! Do we jump into a croc/ally infested river for a quick dip, or even just make your presence known to them, or wave hello to that group of hungry lions just over there ? I'm guessing most wouldn't ? .. true knowledge has it's uses from time to time

I never said it was a good solution Just an attempt to make something of an already unsuitable situation really. If nothing else it helps teach them a 'little' about electronics.

Whoever said the human race was logical? .. Dr. Gillian Taylor

The easy solution to this problem is to use a boost regulator on the 12V output, something like this will give a couple of amps capability .. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374835259124 You can get higher current/power units from places like AliExpress etc if you want more output current capability. You will get more than 12V output from the boost regulator/converter, you simply adjust/set it to say something like 13.5V or 14V, which is perfectly fine. Once set you will have a constant regulated DC supply for whatever you want. Just try not to drain the power banks battery too much as some battery types don't always recover too well from being over discharged.

The way it's normally done on say a car is to use an IR LED and monitor the reflected/refracted light in the window screens glass, if it changes then you have water on the outside of the glass (due to blobs of water changing the reflection/refraction direction). It's very simple and reliable. https://cecas.clemson.edu/cvel/auto/sensors/rain-sensor.html But to stop copper from corroding just coat it with something like conformal PCB coating or pot it in silicon sealant (local DIY store) etc ?

Amazing how they get that paint to create the camo effect Amazon UK sell it it seems, though £74 a can .. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Krylon-K02728007-Fusion-Spray-Paint/dp/B07LFRWLV8

I wonder what "special paint" you use ? I was thinking about using this "black hole" paint .. https://www.stardustcolors.co.uk/bodywork-matt-paints-and-topcoats/1581-blackest-black-extreme-black-paint.html Quite expensive but it's a one off thing to do.

One way is to have a 12V lead acid battery as your supply, keep a charger (constant voltage PSU etc) attached to it (and powered) that will maintain a constant 13.5V at the battery terminals (lead acid maintenance voltage).

Yes the 12V outputs from the PC PSU's I've seen and used are not regulated, it's the main 5V or 3V output that's regulated, the other voltage outputs will bop up and down as they please. And yes adding a high capacitance (low ESR) at the far end (the load) can certainly help as well with noisy loads like motors. The electronics in these consumer type scope mounts are very cheaply made, they are most definitely not over engineered etc, they can be very picky and have little to no protection against certain conditions. Get yourself a proper 12V to 14V PSU that is regulated and can handle at least twice the peak current (it will last longer if you do).

Well you can sometimes find the short circuit by measuring the milli-volts across two power pins on each chip with your meter with a current limiting power supply connected to the PCB. If a chip is the possible culprit then you'll get almost zero mV across it's power pins, where as on the other chips you may well have a few mV's on them, but that can depend on knowing the routing of the power track(s). It works due to PCB tracks having resistance. You can also find a short on a PCB with the same current limited power supply connected by using a thermal imaging camera (if you're lucky enough to have one), it can be quite magical when you see the PCB track temperatures, the shorted chip might also show up as being a bit hot. But anyway, whilst you have it apart, solder a nice fat reverse biased diode across the power input connector - it will save the boards if you do it again.

Without knowing all the technical details of your mounts and different power supplies and how you have the systems wired up etc it's impossible to say. Do your other mounts have any possible electrical pathway to ground ? Do the internal PCB's have there negatives connected to the mounts metal work ? Lots of other things to know before anyone can give you that answer.

Very few switch mode power supplies (SMPS) have the output DC connected to Earth (helps prevent earth loops for one) which is why you often get a tingle, it happens with certified SMPS as well as cheap chinese ones. As has been said it's due to leakage, you get it both outdoors and indoors and is caused by the transformers coil-to-coil capacitance and the Y-Capacitor (the little capacitor that goes from the mains side to the output side). The Y-Capacitor is there to help reduce EMI (electrical interference emissions), which to be honest is a feature of class 2 SMPS's that I find a little scary because it's a possible failure path directly from the dangerous mains circuit straight to the low voltage output. The trouble with using any SMPS (or even linear power supplies) outdoors is you can very easily have dampness and/or condensation on the supplies PCB etc, this can easily cross the mains to low voltage output circuit (say across the HF transformer pads), especially at night. If that happens then your in danger ! It's much better to keep all outdoor voltages to a low'ish level (say 48V AC or DC and lower), that just means using either a battery system or running a low voltage supply from indoors to outdoors which then you regulate/step down at the mount to suit your needs.

oh sorry, I thought I'd remove the last bit I wrote as didn't really want to go down that route. I liked Carl enormously !! we need more like him.

When you look at the spectral curve of light that rains down through our atmosphere from our cosy star, it kind of lines up with the spectral curve of our eye sight, I highly suspect our eyes evolved to only detect what light is available in plentiful supply. Any alien life forms wizzing around the other stars out there would I guess have eye sights with a spectral response that matches up with the available light coming from there own suns that make it through their particular atmospheres. This could mean that the little aliens would most likely have IR vision if their sun is a red dwarf, etc. Life is extremely clever, and extremely resourceful ! a mystery for sure.

What's being said is that we have no way of communicating with each other on how we each actually perceive certain facets of our sensory input, such as colour, we simply don't have the ability to communicate that kind of information, at least no way that we currently know of. It highlights just one of the limitations of our ability to learn and/or comprehend the place we appear to exist within, our own existence etc, which can be frustrating, very much so to some, not at all to others, to some the mystery is the best bit of it all.