Sunday, February 10, 2008

Electrical pull cord


Electrical pull cord
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
Or “anatomy of a piece of string”.

Who’d have thought that something as simple as a bit of string could be so complicated ? The cord is made up of three strands surrounded by an elastic coating that’s very similar to bungie cord. I suppose this is to reduce the shock loading on the switch itself and reduce mechanism breakages. In this case, the covering has snapped leaving the switch usable but needing a couple of quid and 5 minutes to make things look nice again.

Perhaps I’m the only person in the world who is interested in this – I bet there aren’t any other picture on Flickr of snapped string ! Once there must have been a group of boffins who came up with the idea of course - what else did they invent ?

I took the shot as a test to see if adding a 2dp close up lens to the camera made any difference. I’m not convinced that it matters on a digital as it does on a conventional SLR. The thing that brings you in really close is a set of extension tubes or bellows but the ones I have won’t fit my current camera. Still, it’s worth experimenting, especially now I’ve bought the lens !

No comments: