What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[Specmaster]

Goes by fast, doesn't it?

On the 228/228A, be sure to check the NiCd batteries inside. Mine were leaking.

Sure does go by fast, all of what 2 days?

[Specmaster]

Today I had this nice soldering fume extractor/filter delivered, seems to work a real treat too and I hope that it fulfill a dual purpose, my does artwork design and uses alcohol based pens for his work and these tend to give him a headache so I thought that when I'm not soldering, he might use it to whisk away the alcohol fumes as well.

Time will provide the answer as always.

I've got one of those too, it's not bad for the coin but the range is fairly limited so you need to place it close to your work area so it sucks up the fumes. I assume you got the carbon filters too?

Yep, sure did, came with 4 of them.

[Kjelt]

Cool Tutankahmon 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankham

Are you going to bring it back to life?

I hope to raise it from the dead and put it in my Cocktail Arcade cabinet.  (Hopefully the custom Konami chips are still OK)

PS
The MAME emulation for this is not complete so having the real thing is a big deal to me. 

Cool hope it works out. Where did you get these vintage boards? I know a lot of arcade machines were stripped for the parts or rebuild the cabinet for mame clones. I just don't know where the parts ended up.

[djos]

Today I had this nice soldering fume extractor/filter delivered, seems to work a real treat too and I hope that it fulfill a dual purpose, my does artwork design and uses alcohol based pens for his work and these tend to give him a headache so I thought that when I'm not soldering, he might use it to whisk away the alcohol fumes as well.

Time will provide the answer as always.

I've got one of those too, it's not bad for the coin but the range is fairly limited so you need to place it close to your work area so it sucks up the fumes. I assume you got the carbon filters too?

Yep, sure did, came with 4 of them.

Cool, I pulled mine apart to see if there was an easy way to get more rpm out of the fan, unfortunately it's a basic 240 vac motor with just an on off switch so I might see if I can find a higher cfm fan and retro fit it to boost performance.

[Specmaster]

Sounds like a good idea, keep me posted on your progress?

[djos]

Sounds like a good idea, keep me posted on your progress?

Will do. 

EDIT: I'm thinking of using a 12v high CFM PC case fan so I'll likely convert it to run from a suitable DC plug pack.

[TerraHertz]

Went to buy C, bought D,E,F,G.
A few tools, from an old machinist clearing out his garage on gumtree. Dammit, I could have spent ten times what I did, if I had it to spare.

All the cutting bits are tapered drills. Not something I _really_ need, just cool. And would be pretty hard to buy if I ever do need some.
Mainly I wanted the proper machinist's vice, and ratcheting thick cable cutter. The sheet of gasket material was thrown in free.
The reel is hardened fine stainless steel wire, used for wire cutting (like water jet cutting.) Not that I have a wire cutting machine, but I'm pretty sure that will be useful.
The bags of crimp terminals are some special silver-nickel alloy, that's good up to around 400 deg C.

$190 all up. What I went there for, was a 3-jaw lathe chuck. He didn't have a suitable one.

Edit: Yes, I already cleaned the surface rust off the vice.

[McBryce]

Cool Tutankahmon 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankham

Are you going to bring it back to life?

I hope to raise it from the dead and put it in my Cocktail Arcade cabinet.  (Hopefully the custom Konami chips are still OK)

PS
The MAME emulation for this is not complete so having the real thing is a big deal to me. 

Cool hope it works out. Where did you get these vintage boards? I know a lot of arcade machines were stripped for the parts or rebuild the cabinet for mame clones. I just don't know where the parts ended up.

The companies that maintained the machines usually scrapped the PCBs after the game was no longer popular or too old to be interesting. I did some work for one of these companies and they had an entire hall full of these boards stacked head-high. I think I still have some of them that I took for parts (mainly for the EPROMs as they sometimes contained 20+ socketed EPROMs).

McBryce.

Edit: Forgot to mention: I just scored a "defect" Flir One V2 for Android. Description said "it sometimes works" and the owner thinks that wobbling the USB connector gave results. Are/were these known to have dodgy joints around that area? Is there anything else I should be looking for? Either way, I got it for absolute peanuts, so even if I don't get it working, I won't be all that worried.

[FrankE]

Solder wire 62/36/2 Tin/Lead/Ag ISO 29454 1.1.1 rosin-fluxed, roughly 0.4mm
Pomona croc clip breakout.
Filter for 60mm fan for 66311B and while I'm at is for my PC, printer and switch
Enamel wire in various sizes which took me ages to work out with the weird American units.

Doubt I'll be using Digikey again in a hurry.

[NivagSwerdna]

Cool hope it works out. Where did you get these vintage boards? I know a lot of arcade machines were stripped for the parts or rebuild the cabinet for mame clones. I just don't know where the parts ended up.

At vast expense on EBAY.  They are collectable up until the point they are not-repairable due to lack of custom parts.  Some custom chips have modern CPLD replacements but most are unobtainium.

[DTJ]

What I went there for, was a 3-jaw lathe chuck. He didn't have a suitable one.

Have you seen the chucks Hare & Forbes sell. Quality seems reasonable for the price.

https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/3-Jaw-Backplate-Mount-Lathe-Chucks
https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/3-Jaw-Camlock-Mount-Lathe-Chucks

[TerraHertz]

What I went there for, was a 3-jaw lathe chuck. He didn't have a suitable one.

Have you seen the chucks Hare & Forbes sell. Quality seems reasonable for the price.

Yep! I've bought enough from them that I get their catalog in the mail. They have a sale on Thur 15th - Sat 17th of March btw.

But I'm looking for a 3-jaw that fits my recently bought big OLD Macson lathe. Has an unusual chuck mounting. The 3-jaw that came with it has a crack in one of the jaws. I can make an adapter to some other chuck, but haven't really seriously started looking for an original replacement yet. Just happened to see a gumtree listing, and the guy was nearby.

[ChrisLX200]

I'm making a magnetic/flexible build-plate for my 3D printer so I bought some thin spring steel sheet (0.8mm) and will use some neomydium magnets embedded in the alloy heated bed platform. Problem was - what to use to glue the magnets in place? After searching around I bought the stuff shown below: Permatex Supra Grey. Good for 260degC so certainly suitable for 110degC (max) of the heated bed.

Also received some 2ft lengths of Nylon rod (6mm and 8mm dia) to make a remote push-switch for my PSU.

[rsjsouza]

I got a mint PC XT on the cheap:

[HighVoltage]

I got a mint PC XT on the cheap:

Nice!

I had a 95LX then a 100LX and sold my 200LX (mint condition) for almost 500Euro a year ago.
The beauty about these HP palmtops is the boot time: Instant!

The only problem they had was a weak hinge that broke off.
I have really good memories of these small palmtops
 

[rsjsouza]

I got a mint PC XT on the cheap:

I had a 95LX then a 100LX and sold my 200LX (mint condition) for almost 500Euro a year ago.
The beauty about these HP palmtops is the boot time: Instant!

Nice! These early pocket computers still go for a pretty penny if in good condition.

At the time I used to drool over the 95LX and the older Sharps PC1211 and PC1500, but $$$ was really tight. In the late 1980s my daily driver was a Casio SF-4000 and a few years later I upgraded to a SF-9600. I still have both, together with a Casio FX-880P given to me years later.

[BU508A]

Received this today:
- a radio from Grundig for our kitchen (with DAB+, WLAN, LAN, internet radio, USB, UKW (FM))
  the price was reduced from 299,-- EUR to 99,--
- some 4mm binding posts
- plastic spray
- air pressure
- 1TByte USB HDD
- and some other stuff

[djos]

I got a mint PC XT on the cheap:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/what-did-you-buy-today-post-your-latest-purchase!/?action=dlattach;attach=402116

Nice!

I had an Atari Portfolio back in the day (as used in T2), it was fantastic for getting past STD/ISD dial lockout's on the dumb PABX's most companies had in the 90's as it had a built in tone-dialer. This let you bypass systems that limited the length of the phone number you could dial. I also used to write code on it in the text editor for assignments when I was bored at work (computer and Hifi sales).

[Inverted18650]

I'm making a magnetic/flexible build-plate for my 3D printer so I bought some thin spring steel sheet (0.8mm) and will use some neomydium magnets embedded in the alloy heated bed platform. Problem was - what to use to glue the magnets in place? After searching around I bought the stuff shown below: Permatex Supra Grey. Good for 260degC so certainly suitable for 110degC (max) of the heated bed.

Also received some 2ft lengths of Nylon rod (6mm and 8mm dia) to make a remote push-switch for my PSU.

"A big clunkin' power switch?"

[julianhigginson]

a Desoldering gun. (plus more anti-static matting, some contact cleaning spray, freeze spray, etc etc... damn you Mektronics!)

I really wanted a Metcal/Thermaltronics unit to go with my soldering station, because the idea of owning an air powered tool was exciting. But sensibleness prevailed and I bought something that doesn't need a compressor under my desk, and can work independently of my main soldering iron.

So I got the Den-on SC7000Z and the matching stand.



Initial thoughts:

The stand kind of sucks. the handle of the gun rests on the table, and it sits really untidily, with the power cable not easy to tuck out of the way... And the heated metal parts are clear enough of the desk if you just rest the gun on its side anyway... I probably wouldn't have spent the extra $50 on it if I'd seen it in action.

The gun is pretty hefty, but seems quite well balanced. I reckon I could do a lot of desoldering with this if I needed to.

[McBryce]

Can't you just give the stand a bend backwards to get the gun to clear the desk?

McBryce.

[julianhigginson]

the strip of metal where the iron holder connects to the base is relatively thin.
I expect that if I bent it up it'd end up back down on the bench soon enough.

But still, I guess I'll try it, if I don't decide to just return it.
At the moment it's returnable in as-supplied condition with box and plastic. And the gun could do with a second tip with a bigger opening. (comes supplied with just a 1.0mm opening tip)

Very happy with the actual SC7000Z itself though (which is the main thing)  - I had a quick go desoldering a few TH parts this afternoon. It made pretty short work of some heavy looking solder joints

[frozenfrogz]

a Desoldering gun. (plus more anti-static matting, some contact cleaning spray, freeze spray, etc etc... damn you Mektronics!)

Congrats!

I bought one of the cheapo 24V/80W clones some time ago and do not know how I could live without one for such long time

A desoldering gun is such an essential time and trouble saver!

[HighVoltage]

I got a mint PC XT on the cheap:

I had a 95LX then a 100LX and sold my 200LX (mint condition) for almost 500Euro a year ago.
The beauty about these HP palmtops is the boot time: Instant!

Nice! These early pocket computers still go for a pretty penny if in good condition.

At the time I used to drool over the 95LX and the older Sharps PC1211 and PC1500, but $$$ was really tight. In the late 1980s my daily driver was a Casio SF-4000 and a few years later I upgraded to a SF-9600. I still have both, together with a Casio FX-880P given to me years later.

Interesting!
I had the same but one more flagship, the Sharp PC1600 with floppy-drive and 4 color A4 size Plotter
It also had RS232 at the time and I had interfaced it to instruments.
But that was real $$$ at the time.
Others bought a car for that money.

[McBryce]

I was more of a PSION fan. I went through most of them and still have my PSION 3c and MX5. The sliding keyboard on the MX5 was an engineering masterpiece and the button feel could put many modern laptops to shame.

McBryce.