Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Does anyone know if Brother Neomys is still around ?

Yep.
A reasonably regular on Discord TEA.
Last seen a week or 2 back.

[TERRA Operative]

My latest.
I accepted a partial refund.

BTW,
it was before I dropped to 1/4 visdom.

I can see what a replacement part is worth from Keysight if you want?
Shipping from me to you wouldn't be expensive for something that small.
I can at least ask to see. I know the rear plastic is not expensive as I've bought a few (people seem to love ripping the bumpers off, breaking the plastic) but who knows for the front...
(I'll need to know model and serial number).

[TERRA Operative]

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.



(New scale on the meter).

[tggzzz]

Looks like high end reputable auction houses are starting to notice how much TE has increased in price.
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bonhams/catalogue-id-bonham10948/lot-e09d3f3f-bc01-459b-8c81-b14e00c8bd6d

Some of the other items in that sale are even more expensive...

Let's compare with other items from the same auction...

A compass on steroids https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bonhams/catalogue-id-bonham10948/lot-255969b2-5375-434b-88a1-b14e00c8bd69

A Leica 35mm camera with 50mms lens, in a colour that is even stranger than my ANITA LSI 1000 https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bonhams/catalogue-id-bonham10948/lot-74656690-f2ff-4c4a-83e4-b14e00c8bd6d

And some engraved brass https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bonhams/catalogue-id-bonham10948/lot-4bd18da7-4501-4f08-9ca6-b14e00cdb2fb

Anybody going to bid?

I can't afford to, since I seem to be attempting to corner the market in a particular type of classic calculator. Currently I own ~0.02% of the entire production run, and have lowball bid on another example. I hope I lose.

[srb1954]

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

(New scale on the meter).

How did you get such a nice clean cut-out for the mirror scale?

I have to make a new scale for my 8405A Vector Voltmeter which uses a similar style meter movement.

[Runco990]

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

Did you know that every single meter has a unique scale made JUST for that movement?  It was HP's way to increase accuracy! 
So the reproduction is perfect for YOUR meter.  Which looks awesome, btw.

How did you do it so clean, if I may ask? 

[taste_tester]

I saw this repair video of the Fluke 101, just uploaded and barely any views. Didn't take it seriously at first due to the spelling mistake in the thumbnail but it's an interesting repair after all....

I had been a little worried about the same alkaline batteries that had been in my Fluke 101 for maybe 6 years already, so I checked and luckily no damage, but I've just swapped in lithium batteries following Dave's review.



Nice repair though, honestly if I had a Fluke 101 suffer that much damage I would just spend the $42 instead of all that time and effort fixing it up, but I respect this guy for repairing all that battery damage.

Curious how the nearby black blob didn't have any of its traces affected.

[taste_tester]

Any idea why many Japanese sellers are using free shipping?
(have I already asked it)

Must be a cultural thing.
And I've still got some of those through HK post.

eBay, Etsy and several other selling platforms incentivize free shipping and often prioritize listings which offer free shipping over those which don't, because "$75.00 free shipping" psychologically appears preferable to something like "$40 + $35 shipping", so it's easy to factor the cost of shipping into the price in exchange for preferential placement in search results.

[m k]

Two first from my ePay listing.
How are JP/AUS/NZ prices?

US $286.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/386303397053

US $368.90
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225760054258

My device is MY44 and old style buttons.

[Vince]

Does anyone know if Brother Neomys is still around ?

Yep.
A reasonably regular on Discord TEA.
Last seen a week or 2 back.

Ah, strange, maybe his PM e-mail notification got lost and he didn't see my message.
Glad to hear he is still alive and well.
I will try contacting him on Discord then, well assuming I still have access to it that is.

[TERRA Operative]

How did you get such a nice clean cut-out for the mirror scale?

I have to make a new scale for my 8405A Vector Voltmeter which uses a similar style meter movement.

Did you know that every single meter has a unique scale made JUST for that movement?  It was HP's way to increase accuracy! 
So the reproduction is perfect for YOUR meter.  Which looks awesome, btw.

How did you do it so clean, if I may ask?

I have a Silhouette Cameo 3 desktop cuttter that I used to cut out the shape. Worked really well once I got it dialed in (I use it with an Adobe Illustrator plugin to send the cut job directly from Illustrator to the cutter).

I heard of the custom scale thing. Is that per model or per instrument? How did they do that custom print for every individual meter face cost effectively?

To make mine I scanned in the old scale then traced it in CAD (easiest for me to get all the angles right) then imported to Adobe Illustrator to made it all pretty with fonts and line widths etc and to make the outline to send to the cutter.
Then I printed it onto printable white plastic sticker sheet in my inkjet and passed it through the cutter to cut it to size.
A bit of windex on the meter face after removing the old scale and cleaning it to make it easy to slide the sticker into place and squeegee it flat, then finally hit with a hairdryer to dry it and let it stick in place.

[factory]

If you can upload the original files somewhere, I can pump them through Photoshop to crunch them down to a small size at almost original quality if you want.


[EDIT] Here you go, I optimised and bookmarked the PDF file, reduced the file size from 71Mb down to 16Mb with same resolution and imperceptibly less colour space.
https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment/files/All%20HP,%20Agilent%20and%20Keysight%20instruments%20in%20folders%20by%20part%20numbers/000%20to%20999/427A%20Multimeter

The main circuit diagram page seem to have lost some resolution, as have the diagrams on the changes pages  , see pages 48/49. This is why I scanned them at 600dpi, instead of 300dpi used for the text pages.

I've had an email from Ed at Bama, he's created several versions with reduced the file sizes and added OCR to the pdf, even those below 2MB still have excellent quality for the diagrams, I'm impressed with the work he's done. 

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/hp/427a/

P.S. I really need to get better at doing some of this, when I'm scanning manuals, of course I used free software to make the pdf.

David

[Ice-Tea]

I hope I lose.

Hah!

No, you don't.

[srb1954]

I heard of the custom scale thing. Is that per model or per instrument? How did they do that custom print for every individual meter face cost effectively?

A scale was plotted individually for each meter using a custom calibrator set-up.

The process is described in HP Journal Vol. 12 No. 7 March 1961.

[tggzzz]

I hope I lose.

Hah!

No, you don't.

Unfortunately the other bidders were after Bakelite radios, curling tongs, and similar, so the bidding didn't reach my maximum lowball bid. I now own ~0.025% of the production run.

Unless it is pre WW1, I'll flip it. Not sure when, since we are coming to the "sell in May and go away; come back in September" phase.

[tggzzz]

P.S. I really need to get better at doing some of this, when I'm scanning manuals, of course I used free software to make the pdf.

Free software should be fine; I've got better results than most of the free manuals you can find. Example:
http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/82.37.103.191/Telequipment_Type_V1_Single_Trace_Amplifier_Plugin_Operator_Manual-September1978.pdf
This contains two variants of one particularly poor/problematic page: https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/otisking-manual.pdf

The process is:

• manual: take A4 image scans of each page
• manual: optionally take photographs of >A4 pages, crop/stitch multiple photos if necessary
• automated: convert scans/photos to compressed images, one suitable for greyscale images, one for text
• manual: select image/text variant
• automated: convert/concatentate the variants to single pdf file

The most time consuming parts are 1 and 2.

Let me know if more details would be helpful. You'll need to understand bash scripts

[factory]

I heard of the custom scale thing. Is that per model or per instrument? How did they do that custom print for every individual meter face cost effectively?

A scale was plotted individually for each meter using a custom calibrator set-up.

The process is described in HP Journal Vol. 12 No. 7 March 1961.

A servo based calibration machine for the older scale plates. But looking at a manual I got out of storage, the 432A manual from 1969, it states they were "individually computer-calibrated", wonder if this was also covered in one of the Journals.

David

[factory]

Any idea why many Japanese sellers are using free shipping?
(have I already asked it)

Must be a cultural thing.
And I've still got some of those through HK post.

eBay, Etsy and several other selling platforms incentivize free shipping and often prioritize listings which offer free shipping over those which don't, because "$75.00 free shipping" psychologically appears preferable to something like "$40 + $35 shipping", so it's easy to factor the cost of shipping into the price in exchange for preferential placement in search results.

Trouble with this is the customs documentation & import taxes, in your example the seller will probably declare $75 for the item, then a separate shipping/postage price might also be shown somewhere, customs will then add the postage to the $75 item value to calculate the tax, therefore you may end up paying tax twice on the postage. 

David

[TERRA Operative]

If you can upload the original files somewhere, I can pump them through Photoshop to crunch them down to a small size at almost original quality if you want.


[EDIT] Here you go, I optimised and bookmarked the PDF file, reduced the file size from 71Mb down to 16Mb with same resolution and imperceptibly less colour space.
https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment/files/All%20HP,%20Agilent%20and%20Keysight%20instruments%20in%20folders%20by%20part%20numbers/000%20to%20999/427A%20Multimeter

The main circuit diagram page seem to have lost some resolution, as have the diagrams on the changes pages  , see pages 48/49. This is why I scanned them at 600dpi, instead of 300dpi used for the text pages.

I've had an email from Ed at Bama, he's created several versions with reduced the file sizes and added OCR to the pdf, even those below 2MB still have excellent quality for the diagrams, I'm impressed with the work he's done. 

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/hp/427a/

P.S. I really need to get better at doing some of this, when I'm scanning manuals, of course I used free software to make the pdf.

David

Weird, I didn't touch the resolution at all, it was left the same as in your uploaded PDF.
Once I'm back in town, I'll take another look and check what's up.

[Kosmic]

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.



(New scale on the meter).

Good job, look really good 

[m k]

Any idea why many Japanese sellers are using free shipping?
(have I already asked it)

Must be a cultural thing.
And I've still got some of those through HK post.

eBay, Etsy and several other selling platforms incentivize free shipping and often prioritize listings which offer free shipping over those which don't, because "$75.00 free shipping" psychologically appears preferable to something like "$40 + $35 shipping", so it's easy to factor the cost of shipping into the price in exchange for preferential placement in search results.

Trouble with this is the customs documentation & import taxes, in your example the seller will probably declare $75 for the item, then a separate shipping/postage price might also be shown somewhere, customs will then add the postage to the $75 item value to calculate the tax, therefore you may end up paying tax twice on the postage. 

David

I do customs clearances my self, it's an online service here.
It's doing its job pretty well.
Only problem is unknown tracking code, changed when parcel exports China.

[Runco990]

How did you get such a nice clean cut-out for the mirror scale?

I have to make a new scale for my 8405A Vector Voltmeter which uses a similar style meter movement.

Did you know that every single meter has a unique scale made JUST for that movement?  It was HP's way to increase accuracy! 
So the reproduction is perfect for YOUR meter.  Which looks awesome, btw.

How did you do it so clean, if I may ask?

I have a Silhouette Cameo 3 desktop cuttter that I used to cut out the shape. Worked really well once I got it dialed in (I use it with an Adobe Illustrator plugin to send the cut job directly from Illustrator to the cutter).

I heard of the custom scale thing. Is that per model or per instrument? How did they do that custom print for every individual meter face cost effectively?

To make mine I scanned in the old scale then traced it in CAD (easiest for me to get all the angles right) then imported to Adobe Illustrator to made it all pretty with fonts and line widths etc and to make the outline to send to the cutter.
Then I printed it onto printable white plastic sticker sheet in my inkjet and passed it through the cutter to cut it to size.
A bit of windex on the meter face after removing the old scale and cleaning it to make it easy to slide the sticker into place and squeegee it flat, then finally hit with a hairdryer to dry it and let it stick in place.

Well, THAT is clearly beyond MY capability in tools.

Would you ever consider doing this as an occasional job if someone sent you the meter? 
I don't need one, mine are all perfect (so far), but who knows... YOU had one....

I just had someone 3D print me some side trim panels for my Tascam 122.  Now a 3D printer IS on my shopping list!   

[TERRA Operative]

Yeah, I can do the occasional meter face for members here. I'm prepared to do the cutting etc too, they'll fit into a standard envelope for super cheap shipping worldwide.

I have a resin and filament 3D printer here at home, but I don't use them currently (The usual 'down for maintenance and upgrades' thing...) but getting parts resin printed at PCBWay who I use for PCB's is realllly cheap these days and the quality is fantastic.

[mianos]

I just fixed my new, to me, 3478A. I rebuilt the switch with springs from ebay, it was missing some.
I just fired it up today and given it a bit of time to warm up.
Seems like it's in cal with my fleabay AD584 that's been running a few weeks.
Co-incidentally, the random voltages on the can seem to line up with the multimeter. What luck

[AVGresponding]

Hey now...