Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Cool! Does it say "Holy shitballs!" every time you power up? 

[bd139]

Yes this was the first change to the software I did. 2 seconds of holy shitballs!

[Mr. Scram]

We have a few female techs at work. But their numbers seem to have decreased over the years.

And then we have this.....tech named "Grace" suddenly declared that her/his name is now "Gray". Is taking male hormones and will now use the Men's restroom with management's blessing. We were like  and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.

What's there to do about it? It's not as if born men are looking at your dingus end in there. If you don't wave yours about, nobody's going to see anything. If you do wave it about the issue might not be your colleague. 

There's plenty of places where there are no separate bathrooms to begin with and I don't think that ever was an issue.

[med6753]

We have a few female techs at work. But their numbers seem to have decreased over the years.

And then we have this.....tech named "Grace" suddenly declared that her/his name is now "Gray". Is taking male hormones and will now use the Men's restroom with management's blessing. We were like  and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.

What's there to do about it? It's not as if born men are looking at your dingus end in there. If you don't wave yours about, nobody's going to see anything. If you do wave it about the issue might not be your colleague. 

There's plenty of places where there are no separate bathrooms to begin with and I don't think that ever was an issue.

Personally I don't care. And no, I don't go waving my dingus about. We were all brought into a conference room with this individual and it was announced to us that they would now be using the men's restroom. We were given the opportunity to ask questions and there were some real pointed questions. But here's what pissed us off.....we were told under no circumstances would ANY negative comments either indirectly or directly towards this individual be tolerated. I would, not "could", result in immediate termination. And...if you have a problem with this individual using the men's restroom then it's just too bad.

So let's turn it around. Tomorrow I'm wearing a dress to work and from now on need to use the ladies restroom. I wonder how far that will go? 

[bd139]

My male boss disappeared once for 6 months and came back a woman. Don't think anyone blinked an eye.

I think this annoyed her.

[mnementh]

yea.....guess they do all that stuff.

but they do smell good.

and it is unlikely they will leave a transmission in the bathtub. (now who did that?)

we should count ourselves lucky.

 

When I was a senior in high school, a friend of mine had my mother convinced that we had used the dishwasher (which she knew had a leak, and which had not been used in years) to clean the innards of the TH-400 transmission from my '69 Catalina.  (In fact, we'd cleaned them in the sink and simply rested them on the dishwasher to dry - it was one of the old roll-around ones that had a retractable hose that clipped onto the faucet; we'd pulled the dishwasher out into the middle of the kitchen when we ran out of space on the table.)

She got home from work to find us in the kitchen with freshly washed automatic transmission parts spread out on paper towels covering every flat surface in sight.  She asked why the dishwasher was out, and Phil immediately said "we used it to wash these parts!!", and of course she believed him. 


I'm not sure if I ever really convinced her that we had in fact done them by hand in the sink...

-Pat

The real question is......did that TH-400 work after you got it back together? 

TH400 is damn near nuclear-bomb-proof; the real question is why y'all took it apart. 

When the 302 in my grand-dad's old F-150 blew up, I decided to put the Caddy 500 & TH400 I had under the stairs as a spare for mother's Fleetwood in it. The conversion was dead-simple; used a hybrid u-joint to put the TH400 yoke on the Ford driveshaft, then redrilled the crossmember for the trans mount, drilled & bolted the crossmember down where it needed to be for the driveshaft. After that, hung engine in the compartment off the hoist while I cut & welded up a couple engine mount brackets from 12" channel; bolted that to the frame and dropped the engine on the new mounts. Took me an hour & a half to have it in with driveshaft & bolted down. But me and my buddy Chris spent a whole weekend fabbing up an aluminum shroud for the Cadd radiator. 

Once I had it all plumbed up and a B&M floor shifter installed the following weekend was almost over & I wanted to get it driving quick, so instead of modding my carb for electric kickdown, I just hose-clamped a micro-switch to the shifter arm. I SWEAR, I really did plan to just use it that way for a little bit... but I very quickly got used to being able to force a downshift WHEN I WANTED IT that I soon installed a tiny push button right under my pinkie finger. 

That truck was an original "OD 4th" model; it had 2.73 gears in it. Even so, that Cadd would still make it do wheelstands in 1st & 2nd gear, and that TH400 just took all the abuse 630 ft-lbs of torque and a 20-year-old kid with a lead foot could give it. Only thing was... when the vehicle warmed up, it just reeked like death. I scratched my head for a couple months, but eventually tracked the stink down to the trans dipstick one afternoon while checking the fluids; dropped the pan and found half a dead mouse sucked up into the filter, and the other half up on the top of the valve body by the front accumulator.

Ahhhh, the joys of a misspent youth... 


mnem
"In order to become old & wise, you must first survive being young & daft."

[Mr. Scram]

Personally I don't care. And no, I don't go waving my dingus about. We were all brought into a conference room with this individual and it was announced to us that they would now be using the men's restroom. We were given the opportunity to ask questions and there were some real pointed questions. But here's what pissed us off.....we were told under no circumstances would ANY negative comments either indirectly or directly towards this individual be tolerated. I would, not "could" result in immediate termination. And...if you have a problem with this individual using the men's restroom then it's just too bad.

So lets' turn it around. Tomorrow I'm wearing a dress to work and from now on need to use the ladies restroom. I wonder how far that will go? 

I can understand them wanting to make sure no nasty remarks would be made. People can be hurtful and it seems they wanted to make sure there's none of that, face to face or behind the back. I don't know whether this is the most fruitful approach, but I assume they did some homework. It's hardly the first company to deal with such a situation.

I'm fairly sure it would work the same way the other way around. If you're talking serious steps to transition to a woman, making use of that bathroom and wearing dresses seem part of it all. I understand that's happening in plenty of places.

[nixiefreqq]

nope.....fried bagworms are not on my menu.

and believe it or not.   barb across the street said to save the bagworms so she can show her "tree guy".

if she has a "tree guy" what is my sweaty ass doing up on the ladder?

is it me, or is something wrong here?

What's wrong is that you apparently can't say no, or at least lack the ability to come up with a decent excuse.

point taken.

but in my defense.   it is bad enough when swmbo goes into sgt major mode and puts my ass to work.  but resistance is futile when the neighborhood women cooperate in an organized plot designed to put me up a tree.   

maybe it WAS time to hatch a cunning plan.  firing up cubs torch and toasting a couple of the cocoons might have given the hens pause.  (but with what is happening on the west coast maybe its better not to be seen setting fire to a row of trees?)

or next time I might just say "holy shitballs" and head for the basement.

   

[Mr. Scram]

At least they put you up a tree, rather than hanging you from one. Though I like the "holy shitballs" idea. A little FUD won't save you from duty, but causing some panic before you move out and fix the problem could be amusing. Might remind the misses why she keeps you around.

[Cubdriver]

The real question is......did that TH-400 work after you got it back together? 

To the great surprise of my many doubters, as a matter of fact it did!  And as to why I took it apart, it was run with low fluid at some point and was beginning to slip.  If memory serves, I had to replace the intermediate clutch plates as they were glazed.

Dropping it in the dead of winter using a floor jack and with the car supported on jack stands was lots of fun, too.

-Pat

[VK5RC]

I think bd139 has just started a great trend, all TEA followers' home-brew gear has to flash, 'holy shitballs'.

Seriously nice home brew Ant Analyzer though.

Re using the si5351, there is an open source VNA, which uses one, 'eu1ky' v3, one of the guys at the radio club ordered some of the pcb, which is a daughter board attached to a ST demo board (stm32F.....) with touch screen etc, all up costs about AUS$130.
Rob

[mnementh]

My male boss disappeared once for 6 months and came back a woman. Don't think anyone blinked an eye.

I think this annoyed her.

My take on it is this... If the boss goes home a rooster nad comes back a hen, and that's the worst thing that happens tooya in a day... it's been a damn fine day. 


mnem
I think "Holy Shitballs!" just became the new "Salt Life!"

[med6753]

My male boss disappeared once for 6 months and came back a woman. Don't think anyone blinked an eye.

I think this annoyed her.

My take on it is this... If the boss goes home a rooster nad comes back a hen, and that's the worst thing that happens tooya in a day... it's been a damn fine day. 


mnem
I think "Holy Shitballs!" just became the new "Salt Life!"

Roosters just crow. Hens henpeck you. 

[mnementh]

...and parenthood is like being pecked to death by a duck. So it all comes full-circle, right? 


mnem
As long as s/he doesn't try to take the break room over for a walk-in shoe closet... then there'll be blood.   

[neo]

...and parenthood is like being pecked to death by a duck. So it all comes full-circle, right? 


mnem
As long as s/he doesn't try to take the break room over for a walk-in shoe closet... then there'll be blood.   

I don't know the kind of shady ducks you have been hanging out with but my three dozen are just about the friendliest things you have ever met.   

Stay far away from the 4 geese though, they'll kill ya dead before you even knew what hit ya!

[mnementh]

Of course they are friendly. They're the decoys. 


mnem
'nuff sed.

[mnementh]

Quick heads-up... anybody needing lots of clean 12V power. There's a vendor with oodles of 870W Dell server supplies for ~$14 shipped; these are reasonably easy to power up per the .pdf below. I put 10 in my cart and it did discount shipping; came up to $116 total, plus there is "make offer" so if you wanted to do a large lot for a little cottage industry to sell at swap meets, etc you can probably get them even cheaper.

Same vendor also has the HP common-slot power supplies in 460W variant (super easy to turn on, plus huge busses top & bottom to solder to) for the same money.


mnem
*Juicy*

[neo]

LONG post but i'm playing 200 pages of catch up here, pages from my last to 460.

They're congregating...or perhaps colluding. Did you recently schlepp some of the units I see there?

Indeed I did.  You obviously recognize the pile just to the left of center as my recent score.

That I do. Thought I might've been seeing things, heh heh.

It's funny when packing the instrument to ship it winds up being more challenging than bringing it back to life was...

Haha, yep. Hmmm, if only we could set up a compound, like back in the '60's, where TEA members could live. Imagine the hackerspace we'd end up with.

Yeah, about that compound, it is a wonderful idea but i'm terribly afraid any gathering of 3 or more individuals constitutes a cult.  Also to Pat, nice collection! 

 
While I'm waiting for bits, I finally got round to sorting out the time-base knob on the 2465B. It had been sheared off where the grub screw bit on the shaft. I drilled the shaft, pinned it with a length of brass micro-tube which got the ends squished flat and was bonded in with vinyl superglue (PC-80). I drilled out a length of styrene rod , heated the squished end of the pin a little and glued that on with the PC-80 too. That's the white section. It was much easier this way than dismantling the front panel and replacing the shaft, and it seems plenty strong enough. A tap on the end gives a single, solid response from the shaft as a whole. I'm happy, even if it does show up the bromine on the older plastic a bit.

Interesting alternative to my own similar repair using splice & solder technique a few weeks ago...


mnem
*Trying to find the cosine of happiness*

I fixed my shaft, on a tek 7A26, with a coupling nut. Worked wonders AND i even managed to get it adjust to look dead stock.

TEA related....looks like the earliest I'll get time to pull the vertical board out of the 465 will be sometime this weekend. I'll post pix of what I find. Also going to order a complete set of replacement caps for the PSU in the 2465. Just to have them on hand for when I decide to dive in and replace them.

Sort of TEA related. It seems that a high degree of test equipment addicts appear to be grumpy old men...I.E.....post war baby boomers or there abouts. I wonder if it's an affliction of our age or our upbringing? Dunno know the answer to that and not really interested but I am very curious as to what you all look like. It would be nice to place a face with a screen name. After all, I think us addicts should stand up and be noticed as well....strange. 

So I'll put my money where my mouth is and post up. Pix 1 is how I look 98% of the time. Jeans, t-shirt, work boots. Home, work, out and about. Comfort and simplicity. Fashion trends be damned I don't care. Pix 2 is fancy restaurant with my lovely lady. Yep, I compromised. Button down shirt, slacks, and shoes. I'm not a complete redneck and I do have a little bit of sense. Besides...she happy with how I look....I happy. Pix 3 is proof positive that you can polish a turd. My niece's wedding last June. The boss...in the foreground...insisted that I buy a new suit. I obeyed. Damn tie choking me the entire time. As soon as we got to the reception the tie came off.

So...post'em up. If I did, you can.   

If i put my ugly mug here i think it may break your monitor though if you insist i may, i stress may, consider it.

Ok regulators are shot, caps are shot, half the diodes are shot in the power supply.

So I bypassed the power supply, which is neatly possible due to two links on the board, and chucked a bench power supply on it.

And you know what? It only still works perfectly. I am extremely surprised!

It pulls a monster current of 40mA per rail and the supply appears not to require tracking so I'll just knock up a LM317/337 type supply, stick and IEC socket and fuse holder on and rip the old ICs and caps out. Phew!

Shows how good the original design was if it survived that amount of overvoltage, even if they were a little bit quirky in areas, I like my couple of Heathkit item's and there is still loads on offer.

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

Yes heathkit is AWESOME, i'd love to have a it-11. The crazies have made them unobtanium 

am thinking about slapping a $20 yellow sticky on this monster and taking it to a hamfest tomorrow.

portascope my ass!  (Dumont 765H).

30 years ago a buddy gave it to me as compensation for wrecking my yamaha 535.  told him we were even since he spent two weeks in the hospital and probably took a bullet meant for me.  he also used to put roadkill snakes in my top center desk drawer, but stopped because he knew i felt sorry for the snakes.

the smokin'and drinkin' finally took him to where ever big reckless wildmen wind up.

so maybe its time to let go of this hulking non-HP 25Mhz pos?

If you still have, and still want to get rid of send to a loving home, that scope i think i could be interested.


Also, Pat, i found the problem in my 5340A. Well, more or less, i need only replace A23, i believe thats the number, the counter register at any rate. I need a donor.

[mnementh]

Quick heads-up... anybody needing lots of clean 12V power. There's a vendor with oodles of 870W Dell server supplies for ~$14 shipped; these are reasonably easy to power up per the .pdf below. I put 10 in my cart and it did discount shipping; came up to $116 total (including sales tax!), plus there is "make offer" so if you wanted to do a large lot for a little cottage industry to sell at swap meets, etc you can probably get them even cheaper.

Same vendor also has the HP common-slot power supplies in 460W variant (super easy to turn on, plus huge busses top & bottom to solder to) for the same money.


mnem
*Juicy*

[EDIT]

I have one of these 870W PSUs on the way; I'm going to see if I can figure an easy way to get power out of them like I did my HP Common-slot supplies. I'll update with photos when it gets here.

     
 
I usually buy the cheap 4mm bullet connectors to get power out of these easily; just solder them directly to the buss like this gives a 4mm banana socket that will accept regular or shrouded banana plugs.

The banana plugs that come with generally give a reliable connection up to 20A continuous or so; plus they're cheap as beans so not painful to replace as needed. Also good to "give away with" a power supply you make for someone else.

For anything that requires serious current, or where I need maximum reliability/low contact resistance, I usually use the HXT-style bullets in 5mm-8mm variants as needed for expected current. They also have the original HXT-style 4mm bananas.

banggood.com is also my source for super-supple fine-strand silicone wire. They have it from 26ga-8ga and in colors. This cable does NOT have a voltage rating on it; so assume 120VRMS or less.

If you need it faster, Hobbyking.com also keeps a similar selection of connectors (plus ones optimized for right-angle connection) and silicone wires in their US warehouses. Prices vary; in some cases they can be cheaper than BG, so shop carefully.

[/EDIT]


mnem
*Juicy*

[bd139]

More power! 

Having a shit day here. Car is out of it (£1152 for DPF, clutch, EGR and a hose) which is BER territory, boiler appears to have packed in and my garden gate fell to bits. No TEA fun for me for a bit

[Specmaster]

More power! 

Having a shit day here. Car is out of it (£1152 for DPF, clutch, EGR and a hose) which is BER territory, boiler appears to have packed in and my garden gate fell to bits. No TEA fun for me for a bit

Geez, thats a real shit day, I think you preempted it with your "Holly Shitballs" yesterday so it looks a Skoda Octavia could be rolling up outside your house anytime soon then, petrol (or for those over the pond, Gas) or diesel?

[tggzzz]

nope.....fried bagworms are not on my menu.

and believe it or not.   barb across the street said to save the bagworms so she can show her "tree guy".

if she has a "tree guy" what is my sweaty ass doing up on the ladder?

is it me, or is something wrong here?

What's wrong is that you apparently can't say no, or at least lack the ability to come up with a decent excuse.

point taken.

but in my defense.   it is bad enough when swmbo goes into sgt major mode and puts my ass to work.  but resistance is futile when the neighborhood women cooperate in an organized plot designed to put me up a tree.   

maybe it WAS time to hatch a cunning plan.  firing up cubs torch and toasting a couple of the cocoons might have given the hens pause.  (but with what is happening on the west coast maybe its better not to be seen setting fire to a row of trees?)

or next time I might just say "holy shitballs" and head for the basement.

Think positive! How are you going to spend all those brownie points that you've accrued

[bd139]

More power! 

Having a shit day here. Car is out of it (£1152 for DPF, clutch, EGR and a hose) which is BER territory, boiler appears to have packed in and my garden gate fell to bits. No TEA fun for me for a bit

Geez, thats a real shit day, I think you preempted it with your "Holly Shitballs" yesterday so it looks a Skoda Octavia could be rolling up outside your house anytime soon then, petrol (or for those over the pond, Gas) or diesel?

May just scrap it and do without for a bit and see what happens. I’ve got the cash for a new car but don’t want to spend it at the moment. Am considering buying a touring bicycle.

Random question - does anyone know of any guides for building 18650 based packs with BMS and charge management? I’ve got my hands on a stack of unused laptop batteries here which I am considering recycling a couple of radio packs.

[Specmaster]

won't get any TEA related goodness in a touring bicycle and certainly not a 465 

[bd139]

I reckon I could get a 465 on a trailer