Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

That's not a 2465B. It's not even an 'A'. It's a first gen 2465, just like mine! No SMT A5 board! This is my practical side trying to deceive my TEA side. It blinded me. But the truth is out.

Yes, but the RIFAs are that much older. In my 2465 one vapourised the series resistor, took out a 1cm patch of the PCB prepreg, and carbon was deposited along the airflow path. Yuck.

I suspect that has happened to the one near me

[bd139]

tggzzz: have you seen this? Not terribly far from you

https://www.gumtree.com/p/medical-laboratory-equipment/tektronix-2465-300mhz-oscilloscope-fully-working-/1296704580


I'd grab it if it was a bit closer but it's about £45 (plus food) of travel for me plus a whole day out

[tggzzz]

tggzzz: have you seen this? Not terribly far from you

https://www.gumtree.com/p/medical-laboratory-equipment/tektronix-2465-300mhz-oscilloscope-fully-working-/1296704580


I'd grab it if it was a bit closer but it's about £45 (plus food) of travel for me plus a whole day out

Shhh!

Swansea is at the wrong end of the M4, over toll bridges. The car cost would be £80 at HMRC rates (which I use to try and convince myself that I don't want something).

I'd want to pick it up in person, since there are too many ways that someone can fail to pack it for couriers, and there's no way of getting your money back from gumtree.

[Ero-Shan]

Yes, I like the little add in meter and its all modular so I can it as mentioned, wall socket to DUT, Variac to DUT, Dim Bulb to DUT, Isolation Transformer to DUT or any combination so I could if required, go isolation transformer, Variac, DUT with the meter inserted anywhere along the chain. Its particularly useful with the Variac as you don't need to tie up any of your multimeters in order to monitor the voltage being applied to the DUT.

OK. You won. This is so much nicer than my crappily built box with 4-mm sockets to connect meters to! 
A very useful piece of equipment. The one small minus is for the minimum voltage of 80 volts. Better still than needing a separate supply.

[Ero-Shan]

You're welcome!

Hmmm... seems I can get right through the checkout to the payment page on my PC, as long as I'm logged into my account. Maybe you need hop on a PC and create an account? There's always the option of using your PayPal card as a credit card as well; gives you a 2nd layer of security even if you have to use a public PC. I agree it would be a lot easier if they just took PP directly though...

mnem
*tsk-ily*

Sorry, I don't grok this. I have an account (almost since ABE started), and I'm using a 'real' computer. I have no PayPal account, though, and no mobile phone. I do have a credit card since ages, but when they sent me the newest, they made 2 factor authorization mandatory, and the second factor must be a mobile phone. The only thing I can use the credit card for now is scrapping of stickers from TE. 

[Ero-Shan]

On another topic, no parcel arrived Saturday so it must surely be here tomorrow and I'll find out the damage for a re-calibration of the 3478A as well tomorrow I have emailed them already.

The same here. Just checked and saw that my PM2421 is supposed to ride with Hermes. That's bad news. Nine out of ten times Hermes arrives one or two weeks late here with a red sticker on them: "Irrläufer" (misrouted mail). And all of them are correctly addressed.
It must be me. My c't (magazine) should have arrived on Friday also. It's still not here. And I saw the postman pass an hour ago (extremely early - most of the time it's about 4 pm.). 

[Ero-Shan]

Part I.

Saturday's lawn-mowing was only part of the household chores I'd sworn to do during this long weekend. While eagerly waiting for my parcel to arrive, I commenced the ironing marathon. And miracles do happen! To be fair to Hermes, they did deliver the thing today. Which means I sat there with the cardboard box in my sweaty hands and could not open it immediately. Instead I had to hoover and wipe the floors (the latter is associated with real physical pain, so I keep deferring it for too long). As I expected to get hungry eventually, I also had to go and buy something to eat.

But then I finally got around opening the box, and here it was: The PM2421 that was solely responsible for my relapse! Except for the styrofoam placed directly in front of the front that left tiny pieces all over and in the binding posts, it was properly packaged. Well, some of the upholstering looked a bit on the "good opportunity to get rid of some garbage" side. The meter looked good apart from the loose mains switch - thus I've not yet powered it up.

Here's some pictures of this beautiful instrument. Even if it doesn't work and I can't get it to, I'm not sorry for the 30 € (with shipping).



This case is made to last:



That label implies some pride (my reading):



And the innards, so full of colors! I could look at them for hours. 







Hope I'm not violating any rules by posting lots of biggish pictures (I do scale them down to 50 % however).
If you're offended by this, please let me know.

Now if you take a closer look at the labels above the switches on the front, you'll probably see why I just had to have this baby. 

Ero-Shan, whose mood lightened up considerably during the last hours.

[Specmaster]

The delivery man has been and delivered my Advance SG63A signal generator, weighs a bloody ton, nearly had a heart attack lifting it up  . Opened it and its well made, pictures to follow and connected it the scope and frequency counter and it appears to be 100% spot on both modulation (AM and FM) and frequency is also seems to there well within the specification. more to follow later, chores beckon.

[bd139]

That’s a proper bit of kit. Good haul. 

Nothing exciting to report today. I spent three effing hours measuring and matching 200 crystals by hand to make IF filters (while on a phone conference - Ho Ho Ho). Got two sets out of that for 200Hz and 3KHz IF strips which wasn’t bad. TF930 battery went flat finally as well.

[GerryBags]

Ero-Shan, that is gorgeous! Would that, then, be a VTDMM?

Erm, guys? I just received the closest equivalent of the NTC 7.5 Ohm thermistor from the A2 board on my 2467B. The leads on the old one (the larger of the two on the edge of the board) has gaps between the leads and the case on both leads and the resistance is high. The closest I could find was a 7 Ohm 10A but it's about 50% larger, physical size and it's radial, not axial. Does anybody know of a better equivalent to 75DJ7R5K-RO-220? The same part in a later copy of the SM is: 307-0350-00.

[Specmaster]

I tried very hard to ignore it but I couldn't help myself, I'm now the proud owner (at least till I see it) of another HP3466A, I think I could end going for all for all my bench meters to be HP ones, I really like their gear its awesome. Can't quite believe how little it went for, £31.50. Ebay is most certainly picking up again. Now I need to think about what meter(s) am I going to part with to enable these new ones to sit in my stack? I know it goes against the grain of TEA but I cannot have them all, house isn't big enough and SWMBO would make me sleep in the garage. 

[bd139]

Nice one 

That's a good price.

[Specmaster]

Hope I'm not violating any rules by posting lots of biggish pictures (I do scale them down to 50 % however).
If you're offended by this, please let me know.

Now if you take a closer look at the labels above the switches on the front, you'll probably see why I just had to have this baby. 

Ero-Shan, whose mood lightened up considerably during the last hours.

I don't think your breaking any rules with the size of your photos, what the point of posting thumbnails of all that lovely colourful porn, impact and detail is lost then. I'll be posting some of my own soon 

[Ero-Shan]

I tried very hard to ignore it but I couldn't help myself, I'm now the proud owner (at least till I see it) of another HP3466A, I think I could end going for all for all my bench meters to be HP ones, I really like their gear its awesome. Can't quite believe how little it went for, £31.50. Ebay is most certainly picking up again. Now I need to think about what meter(s) am I going to part with to enable these new ones to sit in my stack? I know it goes against the grain of TEA but I cannot have them all, house isn't big enough and SWMBO would make me sleep in the garage. 

Don't you dare throwing your PM2521 out! It served you well all the time, so it deserved to stay in it's accustomed place during it's final years.

[Ero-Shan]

Ero-Shan, that is gorgeous! Would that, then, be a VTDMM?

VTDMM? Nice idea! But those tubes have no vacuum inside, just neon at a low pressure.

I've now powered it up. There's some random counting until it stops at 03.34 (or thereabouts). No change whatever switch is actuated (apart from the mains switch, which will effectively make the display all dark  ).
The thorough manual and pretty schematics hopefully help me fixing it. I'm still hopeful. Tomorrow looks like a good day for going at it.

[Specmaster]

Signal Generator comes back home to Essex, some before and after photos and some shots of the amazing detail inside. This thing even has 2 screening cans, 1 inside the other and works perfectly, no adjustments needed, the frequency on the dial is bang on when checked with my TF930, I'll post a couple shots later of that.


Before


Those knobs were actually grey after all. As you can see there is what looks like a varnish run ending in tear drop on the left of the front. Anyone have any ideas on how I remove this without damaging the rest of the front?


Screening can 1 which has another slightly smaller one beneath it (thought I took a photo of it but no, I didn't).


Whats under the screening cans


Whats outside the can.

A few more to follow later.

[Specmaster]

Ero-Shan, that is gorgeous! Would that, then, be a VTDMM?

VTDMM? Nice idea! But those tubes have no vacuum inside, just neon at a low pressure.

I've now powered it up. There's some random counting until it stops at 03.34 (or thereabouts). No change whatever switch is actuated (apart from the mains switch, which will effectively make the display all dark  ).
The thorough manual and pretty schematics hopefully help me fixing it. I'm still hopeful. Tomorrow looks like a good day for going at it.

Oh dear, I hope its not terminal like my poor Philips PM2521 that only wants to display 2.0000 all the time 

[GreyWoolfe]

I tried very hard to ignore it but I couldn't help myself, I'm now the proud owner (at least till I see it) of another HP3466A, I think I could end going for all for all my bench meters to be HP ones, I really like their gear its awesome. Can't quite believe how little it went for, £31.50. Ebay is most certainly picking up again. Now I need to think about what meter(s) am I going to part with to enable these new ones to sit in my stack? I know it goes against the grain of TEA but I cannot have them all, house isn't big enough and SWMBO would make me sleep in the garage. 

I have 2 of them and I like them, love the red display.  I scored both of mine for a total of about $80 USD or around 58 GBP.  The pushbutton switches on both needed a really good cleaning so the indicator LEDs matched the pressed function button and they are more than accurate for my needs.  As long as there is no outflow of toys from my office into the house, SWMBO leaves me alone.

[Ero-Shan]

Ero-Shan, that is gorgeous! Would that, then, be a VTDMM?

VTDMM? Nice idea! But those tubes have no vacuum inside, just neon at a low pressure.

I've now powered it up. There's some random counting until it stops at 03.34 (or thereabouts). No change whatever switch is actuated (apart from the mains switch, which will effectively make the display all dark  ).
The thorough manual and pretty schematics hopefully help me fixing it. I'm still hopeful. Tomorrow looks like a good day for going at it.

Oh dear, I hope its not terminal like my poor Philips PM2521 that only wants to display 2.0000 all the time 

Me too. The good thing with these old machines is that they tend to be made of "normal" parts, so repairable in principle. The test gear I have should also be sufficient to do all necessary measurements. If the brain involved is up to the task, however, is a totally different question. We'll see. Ar least the Nixies and their drivers are definitely OK.

Beautiful generator you've scored! 

And just don't give up on your Philips yet. 

[Specmaster]

Ero-Shan, that is gorgeous! Would that, then, be a VTDMM?

VTDMM? Nice idea! But those tubes have no vacuum inside, just neon at a low pressure.

I've now powered it up. There's some random counting until it stops at 03.34 (or thereabouts). No change whatever switch is actuated (apart from the mains switch, which will effectively make the display all dark  ).
The thorough manual and pretty schematics hopefully help me fixing it. I'm still hopeful. Tomorrow looks like a good day for going at it.

Oh dear, I hope its not terminal like my poor Philips PM2521 that only wants to display 2.0000 all the time 

Me too. The good thing with these old machines is that they tend to be made of "normal" parts, so repairable in principle. The test gear I have should also be sufficient to do all necessary measurements. If the brain involved is up to the task, however, is a totally different question. We'll see. Ar least the Nixies and their drivers are definitely OK.

Beautiful generator you've scored! 

And just don't give up on your Philips yet. 

I'm not giving up on the Philips, I have a soft spot for Philips and that meter in particular, it was my first 4.5 digit and for that alone, I love it. It had so much going against it when I got it but I managed to salvage it for few more months life before it finally went belly up but I live in hope of maybe making 1 out of 2 with the right donor 

[bd139]

The interesting thing I find with Philips stuff is that they are indeed normal parts. And Philips made most of them!

[GerryBags]

I'm of an age where, when I read "Phillips", I hear "phirrips - very rerriable!". 80's ads were absolutely covered in mind-glue.

[Specmaster]

Now for something completely different, some gratuitous photos of my sig gen and TTI TF930 checking the accuracy of the dial.

The first 3 wavebands are indeed spot on as mentioned earlier but it seems the the upper 2 bands are slightly off but armed with the TF930 is not a problem. If I can locate a service manual for gene, then I can adjust it back into spec again.

10MHz.



35MHz



200Mhz



Not bad for £36.01 and it even came with the original instruction manual in pretty good condition as well, thats my third Ebay score in a week.

[BravoV]

Has anyone have spare & cheap  -> HP 1143A (Probe Offset Control and Power Module) to spare ?

[Specmaster]

Nope not me.