Other What's ruining your life right now?

Hearing about everyones problems besides mine, Phone has been ringing off non-stop this morning. Messages, texts, calls...

Long story short the missus is having a bit of a career crisis, she doesn't feel she's respected where she currently is and wants a change but can't decided between doing a course at college on beauty or going to work for the NHS as a HCA. I'm 100% fully supportive on any path she chooses that will make her happy even if it means short-medium term financial struggles.

The one thing I didn't sign up for was the earache I'd get from everyone who has a vested interest in her...

If I hear one more person start a message or sentence with "Well this is what I think...." your opinions don't help anyone... keep them to yourself.

 

Haha, cat spew is really quite unpleasant. My cat once spewed in a horizontal line right across my keyboard. Let's just say that cleaning that up was an extremely unpleasant task

 

You should have seen my bloody face ! lmfao thankfully it was all mainly dried overspray, so came off in the shower

 

.... rats.

I knew there'd be a bit of slop as the GBS-8200 board is only 117mm and the enclosure is made for 120mm boards. I didn't realise that slop is enough to make the board not slide into the rails properly.

Hm. Re-think required... I could tap some threads into the bottom of the case in order to mount motherboard stand-offs, but I'd have to shave some more material off the sides of the GBS-8200 PCB. Luckily there's about 1mm or so where there is no copper, but I don't know if that'll be enough.

.... rats.

 

What's the height that the rails accept?

I'd be tempted to buy a sheet or two of some Evergreen styrene in the appropriate thickness, maybe double up between the rails, and screw the board down to that.

But then, I quite like styrene.

 

This feels like an elegant solution, really

 

I think I see what you're getting at.

Rails are 1.6mm high, standard PCB height (OK OK, if you want to be pedantic, the most common thickness for PCBs is akchuwally 1.57mm).

As such there's bugger all room to slide anything under the PCB...



The annoying part is that it's so close being the right width... Too wide to fit between the rails and just a gnat's knacker too narrow to be comfortably supported on either side



I'm going to bolt one end of this board to the end-panel of the enclosure via the VGA output, so TBH I might just leave it as is. I can use some plastic standoffs of appropriate height on the side that isn't supported by a rail and let the bolted VGA connector secure it in place. These rails alone don't secure PCBs in place, as long as there's something underneath it to take the weight it should be fine...

Most of the strain is going to be put on the opposite end anyway. That's where the SCART connector will live, and the friction on a SCART connector is a lot higher than a VGA connector.

 

I was thinking more of making a shelf, so the styrene slides in where the board would and the board is secured to the styrene.

Something like;




Excusing the child-like handwriting and scribbling.. A smart man would have used the line tools.

 

Sorry, technical drawings MUST be done in MS paint ... you failed !

 

My normally nonchalant-to-a-fault brain has switched into full-gear anxiety mode with the house move, and we're only a day into the process.

Last night instead of sleeping, I decided I'd lay awake for most of the night and think about everything that could possibly go wrong. It was a productive night.

 

Have you considered repeating a mantra?

I expect "no stamp duty" will sooth your mind.

It cost me £10k last time, and they spaffed it all on Brexit, it's a wonder I've slept since.

 

Well it's not strictly speaking "no stamp duty", but I expect the changes in thresholds is a key driver behind things moving quite so quickly, and it all helps.

I may actually have to look into some meditation of breathing exercises or something like that... The innate ability for people to be idiots and my inability to control them in this situation is the core of what's getting to me.

There are 4 parties in the chain - first time buyers, people buying ours, us and the people that we're buying from moving to a rental whilst they build a new house. I'm told that's excellent, but it's still a lot of potentially unreliable moving parts.

 

Funny, I always felt different about it; it was the first house I'd seen that I really wanted to buy (have you seen my Edwardian villa?) but I knew the whole process was a house of cards filled with liars and idiots so I sort of went into it thinking there's a good chance it will fall apart, and because of that it was quite liberating.

My only advice to anyone in the house buying game is to keep records of all correspondence and events, if things do start to go pear shaped the ability to quote to people what was said and when is quite powerful.

 

Everything sort of fell into place with the new place, and selling our current house to get to where we are now... and very quickly. Maybe a feel like we're due a spanner.
I am expecting it all to fall apart, just very much don't want it to and that's what's playing on my mind.

This will be the first, last and only time in a housing chain like this.
Last time it was an exchange with a builder.
The time before was the first purchase.
The one after will be a downsize.
So long as I don't actually lose my mind in the coming weeks. Looking tenuous at this current point in time though.

 

It'll be fine. Everyone in the process has a vested interest in everything going through.

And don't forget, for everything over £500k you're paying, a percentage of that goes to worthy causes like moat cleaning expenses and porn for Lord Smith's husband.

 

I can recommend the Buddhify app - it has loads of good meditation exercises for a whole range of different scenarios, such as "can't sleep".

 

Will check it out, my brain going into "what if" overdrive the second my head hits the pillow is driving me nuts!

Our buyers came round to have a look again the other day. The agents say it's extremely common, Rational brain thought this was because buying a house is exciting, and you need to figure out what goes where, measure things up, debate over who gets what room and so on. Anxiety brain, meanwhile, was shouting above it all saying "OH NO, THEY'RE HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS, THEY'VE SEEN SOMEWHERE ELSE, THEY'RE TRYING TO FIND REASONS TO PULL OUT, AAAARRRRRGGGGHGHGHGGH!"

They came round, and then proceeded to figure out where things go, measure things up, debate over who gets what room and so on. Yet anxiety brain still won't STFU about it

 

Not directly ruining my life, but that explosion in Beirut... Damn. As if 2020 wasn't bad enough already.

 

So overkill then?