Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Whenever you post this, I can hear the piano riff. (Makes you wonder what else has been embedded into your brain.)

[Housedad]

Yes... the man who imagined a world connected by communications satellites before Sputnik, and who brought us "3 Laws Dependable, 3 Laws Safe!" The man was a visionary... and of course, as such, found himself constantly bound by Cassandra's dilemma.

mnem
If only we applied those 3 laws to.. our laws.

Thank you for the reference.  I had never heard of Cassandra's dilemma or if I had studied it 45 years ago in school, I had forgotten it.  Nice tidbit of mythology to know. i really need to read a refresher book.

[Housedad]

I ordered my DE5000 3 weeks ago.  Got a notice this morning that states:

"Your item has been processed through our facility in ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS) at 5:21 am on October 21, 2018."

I googled about it and all it means is that it arrived, not departed from.   (Government double speak at work?)  God alone knows how long it will linger there. 

Anyone else ever have it take this long to get a package from Japan?

[med6753]

I ordered my DE5000 3 weeks ago.  Got a notice this morning that states:

"Your item has been processed through our facility in ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS) at 5:21 am on October 21, 2018."

I googled about it and all it means is that it arrived, not departed from.   (Government double speak at work?)  God alone knows how long it will linger there. 

Anyone else ever have it take this long to get a package from Japan?

If it came in though JFK customs (most likely) in my experience it will move along quickly.

[tggzzz]

There are two more 475's available and a 465 on there at the moment as well. Looks intact apart from one of the 475's. Go go go.  I'm not taking two on

I saw those, and they aren't too far from me. But I have a 465B with no timebase in the queue, so sanity (temporarily) prevailed.

Still tempted by a 3? digit nixie DVM, but the seller won't let it go at a price I can justify to myself.

[bd139]

I figured the 475A with DM44 was worth it. How can you logically turn down a 250MHz scope with DMM for 22p/MHz

I have considered buying the other 475A for parts. I'm hoping someone else grabs it first.

Nixies are almost always worth it. If that Heathkit meter was a nixie tube one I'd have grabbed it.

I have actually considered grabbing some of the Advance counters that you see floating around for virtually nothing. I know this is a sin but they have a lot of decent tubes in them and driver ICs. Cue PCB and nixie clock. The counters themselves are crap and barely worth even saving.

[med6753]

I figured the 475A with DM44 was worth it. How can you logically turn down a 250MHz scope with DMM for 22p/MHz

I have considered buying the other 475A for parts. I'm hoping someone else grabs it first.

Nixies are almost always worth it. If that Heathkit meter was a nixie tube one I'd have grabbed it.

I have actually considered grabbing some of the Advance counters that you see floating around for virtually nothing. I know this is a sin but they have a lot of decent tubes in them and driver ICs. Cue PCB and nixie clock. The counters themselves are crap and barely worth even saving.

If you lived on this side of the pond you'd be broke, your wife would divorce you, and your kids would disown you. There are shit loads of 465's and 475's on Evil bay. 

(I purposely rarely look because I'd be tempted too.....and broke.  )

[tggzzz]

I figured the 475A with DM44 was worth it. How can you logically turn down a 250MHz scope with DMM for 22p/MHz

I have actually considered grabbing some of the Advance counters that you see floating around for virtually nothing. I know this is a sin but they have a lot of decent tubes in them and driver ICs. Cue PCB and nixie clock. The counters themselves are crap and barely worth even saving.

I'm not a fan of the DM44s. They were a crude stopgap on the way to "proper" designs (i.e. the 24x5), and they make it a pain to service the actual scope.

As for nixies for clocks - yes. But I have a 11.5 digit panaplex display (plus a few neons) and drivers that I ought to use. I'm pondering how to use a 2.5+3+3+3 format.

And then I have many naked neons and a 180V PSU that I ought to use for something ornamental in the Hunkin or steampunk styles.

Must fix my Solartron 7075s first.

[bd139]

If you lived on this side of the pond you'd be broke, your wife would divorce you, and your kids would disown you. There are shit loads of 465's and 475's on Evil bay. 

I'd have a nice big house though

I figured the 475A with DM44 was worth it. How can you logically turn down a 250MHz scope with DMM for 22p/MHz

I have actually considered grabbing some of the Advance counters that you see floating around for virtually nothing. I know this is a sin but they have a lot of decent tubes in them and driver ICs. Cue PCB and nixie clock. The counters themselves are crap and barely worth even saving.

I'm not a fan of the DM44s. They were a crude stopgap on the way to "proper" designs (i.e. the 24x5), and they make it a pain to service the actual scope.

As for nixies for clocks - yes. But I have a 11.5 digit panaplex display (plus a few neons) and drivers that I ought to use. I'm pondering how to use a 2.5+3+3+3 format.

And then I have many naked neons and a 180V PSU that I ought to use for something ornamental in the Hunkin or steampunk styles.

Must fix my Solartron 7075s first.

Yeah they're certainly not perfect and in some ways inconvenient for sure. However still useful. The 1/TIME option (which is present) is great for when you're setting up VFOs as it's quite surprisingly accurate. One of the interesting things is that I'm a fan of "less is more" (as are you I believe) and it's possible to actually do genuinely useful work with just that box, a suitable power supply (SLA / 8xAA batteries etc) and a soldering iron. No requirement to dig out the frequency counter or DMM as well.

I would love to see a panaplex clock. There are some old crappy (not decent end) Datron DMMs on ebay at the moment with those displays in them. I was considering buying them just to filch the displays out.

[med6753]

Since we're on the subject of 465's/475's. Been unmercifully running my 465B nearly everyday for hours on end to try to force any additional crap outs. It has performed flawlessly. It's connected to the audio output of a police/fire scanner just to generate random patterns.

I'm impressed. 

[bd139]

Good to hear 

You've got a good one there then

[med6753]

I'm not a fan of the DM44s. They were a crude stopgap on the way to "proper" designs (i.e. the 24x5), and they make it a pain to service the actual scope.

As an owner of both types each has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Yes, the DM44 has to be removed for servicing of the scope but once you know how it's done it takes less than 5 minutes. What I like about the DM44 is it's separate display for the DMM function.

The 2465 DMM board also has to be removed for servicing of the scope but it's not difficult. It's the rest of the disassembly of the other options that's a real pain. The DMM display is integrated into the CRT display and that's OK unless you are using one of the other options like the Counter/Trigger. There's only so much real estate available on the CRT and turning on the DMM disables any other options that might be displayed. That could be a big disadvantage.

I think there are later Tek analog scopes that have an integrated DMM but also have a separate VFD display for the DMM function. That is a much better design.

[tggzzz]

I would love to see a panaplex clock. There are some old crappy (not decent end) Datron DMMs on ebay at the moment with those displays in them. I was considering buying them just to filch the displays out.

Well, this is what I would be working with. There are the V/ohms/AC/Busy neons in the white boxes next to the Panaplex devices. The character set is only 0-9 and -, due to an unobtanium driver chip. Yes, I could spin a board, but I'm lazy.

Needs 180V +5V + TTL + something to display.

[bd139]

That’s quite a nice little board and on top of that some good condition displays. Reckon that wouldn’t be too hard. Can probably bodge some existing Arduino crap into it easy enough.

180v is easy enough too. Chinese valve transformers are about £9 shipped. The 150v  secondary will knock out around 180v once rectified and smoothed.

[tggzzz]

That’s quite a nice little board and on top of that some good condition displays. Reckon that wouldn’t be too hard. Can probably bodge some existing Arduino crap into it easy enough.

180v is easy enough too. Chinese valve transformers are about £9 shipped. The 150v  secondary will knock out around 180v once rectified and smoothed.

I wouldn't say it was a little board - there are two of them and they are from a full width 19" rack box The segments are 15mm high, so easily visible from a distance.

Arduino or ESP8266 would be a doddle; the latter makes it possible to conceive of IoT information sources.

I've just obtained a Chinese 12Vdc to 180Vdc board, principally preparing for my oversized-dekatron-out-of-neons (or similar) playthings. When, that is, I get A Round Tuit and some pretty and stiff wire.

[mnementh]

Weird coincidence.  Probably about while you were post that, I was trying to fix mine.  It's a bit different though, it has a slider switch and push button.  I think it was the first meter I bought. But it quit working properly many years ago.

 

The obvious problem was that when I set it to the ohms function it just shut off.  I figured it was a simple fix, just take it apart and clean the gunk out of the slider switch and it will be fine.  I did that, and also cleaned some crud off the battery contacts and figured it would be fine. 

Put it back together and now it remains on in the ohms position, but I tested it by hooking it to my bench power supply set to 2.5 volts and it read 1.2 V or so.      Then I found that if I pressed on the front in just the right spot it would jump up and read 2.5 volts like it should.   OK, cracked solder joint or something.  Except I inspected every joint under my binocular microscope from several lighting angles and couldn't find a single joint that looked bad. 

And in the process of taking the thing apart several times, since you can't just test the circuit board out of the case, I managed to break several of the tabs that hold the case together.   Tried to glue them back and had an issue with a pressurized super glue tube that belched out everywhere when I opened it, cleaned up that mess, tried to glue the tabs back, resoldered a few joints on the board in the area where pushing on the case made it work, and no dice.  Still reads wrong unless I push hard right on where it says "meter."   Which is no where near any of the inside switches or contacts for anything.  It's actually right where one corner of the big IC is on the circuit board.  Figured maybe I could resolder all the pins of the IC in that area, but I decided I had already spent too much time on fixing something I don't need and was taking up way more time than I expected.

I had one of the 22-169s like this one I bought after the 22-171A; it was a total piece of bunk. The selector slide was "jiggery-doo" flaky from day one, eventually it got to where it would only work at all with a binder clip squeezing on the lower right corner by the lead exit. I took it apart several times and tried to fix it to no avail; eventually I came to the contusion that the fault had to be in the COB under that blob of resin, so declared it a lost cause and used the leads & case to fix up my 22-171A, which continued to be my "tool box meter" for many more years.

Whenever you post this, I can hear the piano riff. (Makes you wonder what else has been embedded into your brain.)

https://youtu.be/VOaZbaPzdsk

I know, right? Same thing with School House Rock and Sesame Street... whenever I my kids are counting, I hear it in this tempo... and of course I teach them to count to twelve, not ten... 

Yes... the man who imagined a world connected by communications satellites before Sputnik, and who brought us "3 Laws Dependable, 3 Laws Safe!" The man was a visionary... and of course, as such, found himself constantly bound by Cassandra's dilemma.

mnem
If only we applied those 3 laws to.. our laws.

Thank you for the reference.  I had never heard of Cassandra's dilemma or if I had studied it 45 years ago in school, I had forgotten it.  Nice tidbit of mythology to know. I really need to read a refresher book.

I find myself in a near-constant state of flux between being Cassandra and being Diogenes... sometimes both at once.    

Trying to teach your kids right from wrong in the Age of Global Deceit will do that to you. 

Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury... the futures they envisioned encompassed the best and the worst of humanity. A well-rounded education must include them all.

A few years before he died, Asimov conspired with James Burke and Jules Bergman to present a series of lectures at NASA when I was still young; the transcript has been a staple of their library since. Amazing how over 30 years later, their insights into humanity and the future are as relevant as ever:   http://history.nasa.gov/sp482.pdf

I've attached I, Robot below.  Here is where I found it: http://www.ttu.ee/public/m/mart-murdvee/Techno-Psy/Isaac_Asimov_-_I_Robot.pdf

I ordered my DE5000 3 weeks ago.  Got a notice this morning that states:

"Your item has been processed through our facility in ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS) at 5:21 am on October 21, 2018."

I googled about it and all it means is that it arrived, not departed from.   (Government double speak at work?)  God alone knows how long it will linger there. 

Anyone else ever have it take this long to get a package from Japan?

Yeah, mine drove me crazy; it's like once it got to the US it went from "1st Class" mail service to "Last Class". Took 2 1/2 days to get from Japan to LA; then 10 days to get 1500 miles from there to me. And the same exact  tracking. 

Be patient; it'll get tooya. And you'll be amazed at how much tech they stuffed into that little box. 

mnem
"He was a hairy bear, he was a scary bear, we made a hasty retreat from his lair; and described it later with adjectives..."

[mnementh]

Figured it was time for me to post something completely TEA...

https://youtu.be/0gSPxQY-dOk
http://alan-parekh.com/projects/multimeter-clock-simpson-260/

I remember stumbling across this years ago when it was still pretty new; it appears Alan has since made a kit and published his code for those of us without access to CNC woodworking gear. Neat.

mnem
"...All this science I don't understand;
It's just my job, five days a week.
A rocket man... a rocket man.

And I think it's gonna be a long long time,
'Till touch down brings me round again to find'
I'm not the man they think I am at home.
Oh no, no, no... I'm a rocket man...!
Rocket man; burning out his fuse up here alone..."

[GreyWoolfe]

Or, you can go the lazy man's way and get a Jameco kit.  https://www.jameco.com/z/ANGCLKV1-Wicked-Device-Angular-Clock-Kit_2207831.html

[tggzzz]

I've attached I, Robot below.  Here is where I found it: http://www.ttu.ee/public/m/mart-murdvee/Techno-Psy/Isaac_Asimov_-_I_Robot.pdf

I've repeatedly pointed people on this forum to another of Asimov's stories, one that directly influenced what I did/didn't want to do.

It remains completely relevant to posters that proselytise that theoretical knowledge is useless and that practical knowledge is all that is necessary. (Usually accompanied by an anecdote about a PhD tryign to measure the impedance of the mains with an Avo, or similar). For the avoidance of doubt, I also state theory without practice is mental masturbation, whereas practice without theory is alchemical fumbling.

The story is "Profession", and it can be speed-read. https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php

[URI]

As we're speaking of oscilloscopes:

I fetched my repaired DSPX3034A today and put it on my bench having activated the easter egg screen saver as my nearly first step for a nicer photo.   

Ok, this is what I have now:
It's a DSOX3034A with the original four 500MHz probes and all accessories (as far I can tell) and the power cord.
The Keysight marked folder holds the calibration certificate.   


Ok, this is what I paid for my "new" scope (I think I won't beat that again):
500,-€ price
4,99€ domestic shipping to me
32,40€ express shipping to Keysight

Over all I paid less than 540,-€ for this now freshly manufacturer calibrated 350MHz/4Gs/s 4 Channel former Agilent scope.
I'm relieved and happy that I didn't end up with four Agilent 500MHz probes (which isn't too bad..) and a bricked Agilent DSOX3034A. 
BTW -It was rebadged to Keysight along with the repair avoiding booting up an Agilent Scope with a Keysight splash screen..   

I'm really excited -so many buttons and functions!      

I'll play around with it now...       

[med6753]

Wow, nice! "May the force be....." Oops, wrong space theme. "Live long and prosper" 

[GregDunn]

Picked up an ESI 253 autoranging impedance meter at the hamfest yesterday, complete with Kelvin probes, for a reasonable $40.  More details:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/esi-253-score-and-small-issues/

[tautech]

As we're speaking of oscilloscopes:

I fetched my repaired DSPX3034A today and put it on my bench having activated the easter egg screen saver as my nearly first step for a nicer photo.   

Ok, this is what I have now:
It's a DSOX3034A with the original four 500MHz probes and all accessories (as far I can tell) and the power cord.
The Keysight marked folder holds the calibration certificate.   


Ok, this is what I paid for my "new" scope (I think I won't beat that again):
500,-€ price
4,99€ domestic shipping to me
32,40€ express shipping to Keysight

Over all I paid less than 540,-€ for this now freshly manufacturer calibrated 350MHz/4Gs/s 4 Channel former Agilent scope.
I'm relieved and happy that I didn't end up with four Agilent 500MHz probes (which isn't too bad..) and a bricked Agilent DSOX3034A. 
BTW -It was rebadged to Keysight along with the repair avoiding booting up an Agilent Scope with a Keysight splash screen..   

I'm really excited -so many buttons and functions!      

I'll play around with it now...       

Play with the hack ? 

[mnementh]

As we're speaking of oscilloscopes:

I fetched my repaired DSPX3034A today and put it on my bench having activated the easter egg screen saver as my nearly first step for a nicer photo.   

Ok, this is what I have now:
It's a DSOX3034A with the original four 500MHz probes and all accessories (as far I can tell) and the power cord.
The Keysight marked folder holds the calibration certificate.   


Ok, this is what I paid for my "new" scope (I think I won't beat that again):
500,-€ price
4,99€ domestic shipping to me
32,40€ express shipping to Keysight

Over all I paid less than 540,-€ for this now freshly manufacturer calibrated 350MHz/4Gs/s 4 Channel former Agilent scope.
I'm relieved and happy that I didn't end up with four Agilent 500MHz probes (which isn't too bad..) and a bricked Agilent DSOX3034A. 
BTW -It was rebadged to Keysight along with the repair avoiding booting up an Agilent Scope with a Keysight splash screen..   

I'm really excited -so many buttons and functions!      

I'll play around with it now...       

   Okay... not to be the wag of the channel, but... have you confirmed it's the same serial number and they didn't just exchange it for a Keysight refurb?
Either way, you gambled and won... and definitely have earned The Jammy this week... Eat it in good health!!!

mnem
"Maybe." said the Chief.

[bd139]

@URI congratulations. Jammy git award indeed.