Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Yeah same photo. Not uncommon. Goes in buyer’s favour as they didn’t show the actual item if you want to make a claim. I’ve actually used the seller before on numerous occasions and if anything goes wonky they sort it instantly.

Usually they seem to photo the shittest item and you get a better one

BTW: step one when you get it is take photos. Insta refund if it’s hooky.

[Specmaster]

That's a relief  When did you buy yours, was it the 20th? The one that they show as sold on the 20th is shown as working order but requires calibrating?

[bd139]

Mine was 20th. I expect to cal. Yours doesn’t say that it does which might mean better news for you

Mine is due to turn up tomorrow so I’ll let you know the news. Might be another TF930 style win yet

[Specmaster]

Yeah same photo. Not uncommon. Goes in buyer’s favour as they didn’t show the actual item if you want to make a claim. I’ve actually used the seller before on numerous occasions and if anything goes wonky they sort it instantly.

Usually they seem to photo the shittest item and you get a better one

BTW: step one when you get it is take photos. Insta refund if it’s hooky.

I do that anyway just in case but I doubt its hooky, their feedback is almost perfect and have been around for years.

[bd139]

Yeah only problem I had with them was a tek 475 badly packaged. Scope was fine but it destroyed the packaging entirely! Another one with a shorted tant and popped fuse that. £45 spend £190 back the following week. Best profit margin ever

[Specmaster]

Mine was 20th. I expect to cal. Yours doesn’t say that it does which might mean better news for you

Mine is due to turn up tomorrow so I’ll let you know the news. Might be another TF930 style win yet

Fingers crossed, mine is scheduled for Wed/Thursday delivery, 48 hour service, so hopefully if they dispatched today, it might here Wednesday. 

[bd139]

Mine went UPS next day so I reckon Wednesday for yours.

[Specmaster]

Mine went UPS next day so I reckon Wednesday for yours.

Hope so, can't wait to see how it fairs on my reference voltage module.

[ChrisLX200]

Somewhat dodgy ebay adverts for Agilent 3458A DMMs

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Agilent-3458A/323222399560?hash=item4b418e6a48:g:E98AAOSwqIta3gYR
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Agilent-3458A/222941763072?hash=item33e85d5600:g:rtIAAOSwLjRa3gf3
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Agilent-3458A/323222422091?hash=item4b418ec24b:g:0esAAOSwWida3glk

Same person seems to have a 3458A in three different countries, and the same photo. Oh, and don't bother bidding - just send him the money  

Edit: well that was quick - gone already!

[Specmaster]

Certainly was quick, although there are still 3 on there but boy are they expensive, almost 3 times the price of previous sales.

[bd139]

One went for £150 a couple of years back from one of the IT resellers. I would have sniped it but there is literally fuck all I could do with it other than resell it and I didn’t want to risk shipping it.

Not really sure what I need a 5.5 digit meter for apart from rarely nulling out cheap opamp offsets. Anyone got any ideas?

[Specmaster]

What do you mean, you have a 5.5 digit meter arriving tomorrow?

[bd139]

Yep. Need some excuses to use all 5.5 digits.

[tggzzz]

Not really sure what I need a <piece of test equipment> for

Ahem.

Go and wash your fingers out with soap.

[Specmaster]

well I know I don't need all of them for sure, but it is a newer meter than my others which are 4.5 digits so I can use it to establish the accuracy of the 4th digit

[bd139]

  It’s easy to wind you lot up

Plan is to get it calibrated and play with voltage references. I’ve got some AD587s (pulled), an LM399 and some REF02s floating around

[GerryBags]

More = better. Would have thought was obvious. 

[ChrisLX200]

Like Dave showed recently useful on Ohms for localising a short on a PCB, but you need the digits

[Specmaster]

Like Dave showed recently useful on Ohms for localising a short on a PCB, but you need the digits

Yep, you're right and that is about the only time the extra digits are really useful and meaningful IMHO

[mnementh]

Guys, if one wants a Linux/Windows/OS X thread it can be found in every other frickin' topic on here.

Please, pretty please, can we not make the TEA thread another one of those?

Please don't make me get the cluebat ... 

come on man... you're jumping the "OT Nazi" gun a LITTLE quick here. 

We've had three pages that are at least 50% general computer stuff and it's started to get onto choice of operating system. I don't think it's jumping the gun to ask nicely, really nicely, to draw it to a close. "Off topic" is pretty loose here, and I'm perfectly happy with that, but there's a difference between a couple of pages of shed talk on the delights of post-pub-nosh from around the world and getting into the perennial, persistent, perpetual, pernicious, peripatetic wibble that is the Internet discussing OS choice.

And what is wrong with a few pages of 50% general PC griping? If we were actively arguing about it, yeah, I could see... but this is just good-natured water-cooler talk, and unlike most such chatter, it didn't devolve into virtual cat-calling or chest-beating. Smeesh. It is EXACTLY the same as the above "Shed talk"; in fact it IS just that. It's just venting; everybody needs to do that, and they need to do it in the company of friends for it to help.

Nice string of "P" words there, though.  Well-played. 

The problem is that it's not a seed that has been planted, but a tree that has grown through various threads and now creeps into this one. Enough is enough, we don't need the same discussion in 14 threads.

Oh, FFS... that's like saying talking about water or air is an offshoot of discussion from another thread.  Ontogeny does NOT recapitulate Phylogeny, no matter how many times you read such in dusty old tomes that were wrong. They were STILL all WRONG. 

This subject matter was born here of honest discussion, it belongs here, and getting bent outta shape because you've seen any or all of it in a dozen other threads is really a matter of tuning your personal annoyance filters rather than anything really wrong with the content. If you think that random good-natured venting about OSes should be a  "Third Rail" Godwin's Law type thing, then there's something seriously wrong with the SNR in your own perspective matrix.

Like Dave showed recently useful on Ohms for localising a short on a PCB, but you need the digits

Yep, you're right and that is about the only time the extra digits are really useful and meaningful IMHO

Most of the time they just vacillate wildly, mocking you as you try to see the pattern in the random flipping digits. I don't need a machine to mock me; I have two children and a wife to do that.


mnem
*~ Today's discussion ingredients:
Great grey-green greasy grimy gobs of gopher guts, simulated monkey feet, topped up with chopped up baby parakeet and minced mouse butt all molded into twin patties (With actual MOLD!), then cooked in a reduction of bat guano and dingoes' kidneys and served on a toasted sesame seed bun.~* "Bon Appetit!"

[Specmaster]

Guys, if one wants a Linux/Windows/OS X thread it can be found in every other frickin' topic on here.

Please, pretty please, can we not make the TEA thread another one of those?

Please don't make me get the cluebat ... 

come on man... you're jumping the "OT Nazi" gun a LITTLE quick here. 

We've had three pages that are at least 50% general computer stuff and it's started to get onto choice of operating system. I don't think it's jumping the gun to ask nicely, really nicely, to draw it to a close. "Off topic" is pretty loose here, and I'm perfectly happy with that, but there's a difference between a couple of pages of shed talk on the delights of post-pub-nosh from around the world and getting into the perennial, persistent, perpetual, pernicious, peripatetic wibble that is the Internet discussing OS choice.

And what is wrong with a few pages of 50% general PC griping? If we were actively arguing about it, yeah, I could see... but this is just good-natured water-cooler talk, and unlike most such chatter, it didn't devolve into virtual cat-calling or chest-beating. Smeesh. It is EXACTLY the same as the above "Shed talk"; in fact it IS just that. It's just venting; everybody needs to do that, and they need to do it in the company of friends for it to help.

Nice string of "P" words there, though.  Well-played. 

The problem is that it's not a seed that has been planted, but a tree that has grown through various threads and now creeps into this one. Enough is enough, we don't need the same discussion in 14 threads.

Oh, FFS... that's like saying talking about water or air is an offshoot of discussion from another thread.  Ontogeny does NOT recapitulate Phylogeny, no matter how many times you read such in dusty old tomes that were wrong. They were STILL all WRONG. 

This subject matter was born here of honest discussion, it belongs here, and getting bent outta shape because you've seen any or all of it in a dozen other threads is really a matter of tuning your personal annoyance filters rather than anything really wrong with the content. If you think that random good-natured venting about OSes should be a  "Third Rail" Godwin's Law type thing, then there's something seriously wrong with the SNR in your own perspective matrix.

Like Dave showed recently useful on Ohms for localising a short on a PCB, but you need the digits

Yep, you're right and that is about the only time the extra digits are really useful and meaningful IMHO

Most of the time they just vacillate wildly, mocking you as you try to see the pattern in the random flipping digits. I don't need a machine to mock me; I have two children and a wife to do that.


mnem
*~ Today's discussion ingredients:
Great grey-green greasy grimy gobs of gopher guts, simulated monkey feet, topped up with chopped up baby parakeet and minced mouse butt all molded into twin patties (With actual MOLD!), then cooked in a reduction of bat guano and dingoes' kidneys and served on a toasted sesame seed bun.~* "Bon Appetit!"

You are correct about the last digit fasilating and is a thing of great annoyance but as Dave showed in a video, a great in low ohms range for tracking down a short circuit on pcbs. I have said on many occasions now, I know of nothing where having that extra digit on other ranges is critical to the safe and efficient operating of the circuit being developed or tested. It doesn't manifest itself by adding an extension of say the voltage range from say 1000.0v to 10000.0v, instead it adds another digit after dp.

If your boss said he was increasing your salary from 4.5 digits to 5.5 digits you'd be pissed to discover he increased just the dp places I bet. [emoji6]

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

[tggzzz]

It’s easy to wind you lot up

Plan is to get it calibrated and play with voltage references. I’ve got some AD587s (pulled), an LM399 and some REF02s floating around

Welcome to the "two clocks" rathole. Your SO is going to love the multiple variants of each class of equipment You may get "that looks pretty" bonus points for merely having multiple examples rather than multiple variants.

[bd139]

I’m building a “pyramid of accuracy and resolution” here so these will be subjects to the master once calibrated

Either that or it’s going to go down like a ponzi and I’m in the voltnut thread.

[tggzzz]

Like Dave showed recently useful on Ohms for localising a short on a PCB, but you need the digits

Yep, you're right and that is about the only time the extra digits are really useful and meaningful IMHO

You also need the extra resolution whenver changes are more important than absolute value.

I once worked for a company that made a very expensive attenuation meter. Its accuracy was a mere 0.1dB but nobody cared about that. They were interested in its resolution and stability of 0.001dB.

The application was measuring the impedance of 61.8ohm submarine cable as a function of temperature. They stuck a large drum in a room-sized oven, and heated/cooled it over the course of a week.

[tggzzz]

I’m building a “pyramid of accuracy and resolution” here so these will be subjects to the master once calibrated

... both physical and metrological pyramids, I suspect.