What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[GreyWoolfe]

"bottle of water" 

100% alcohol may be a bit of a reach statement though.

I have some 99.9% IPA, but don't think I've ever seen 100%. Color me skeptical at what the difference could be in that 0.1%.

Me neither, I buy the MG Chemicals 99.9% pure anhydrous.

[pdenisowski]

Well, I guess I technically didn't "buy" this, but I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to have one

NPA stands for Network Problem Analyzer, I guess ?

Since it was released today - it's network power analyzer

[armandine2]

... never knowingly, until today a JIS screwdriver 

(Vessel) after  a bit of a run of "exotic" brands - Hasegawa, Excelta, Erem/Weller

Re. the JIS rabbit hole

[jonpaul]

Apricot and Nectarien trees

Spring plantihg!

Weight was ~ 30 kg ea, two for $80 at Costco....

Jon

[beanflying]

Spent way to much on non Electronics while I was doing 'stuff' for others the last week, better get back to selling some excess now things are 'normal' whatever that is

Couple of Noga mag bases and tops, one ex USA and the other a local Pawnshop seller.

 

6" Magnetic suppository with a bit of a cosmetic issue but seriously 'cheap' for what it is.



Likely a Mitutoyo comparator stand (not specified) to make a squareness comparator because it is hip to be square. Crazy cheap even with post from the USA



6" Sine plate, sold the last remaining part of what is now a 4th morgage on the remaining kidney to a sub prime lender for this. Still far better than anything locally available.



All up about $500 USD landed so I think it is a Win 

[RAPo]

I've got an Aristo Hyperbolog slide rule.
Something about the box tells me that the previous owner was into electronics.

[pdenisowski]

Korean keyboard stickers

[shapirus]

...ok, now it's time to find myself a reason why I absolutely needed to order this little thingy

[DiodeDipShit]

I just bought a Harrison Laboratories 855B Power Supply. Out with the old homemade bridged variac. In with ..... an old ....

[Martin72]

A mini vise for my mini bench drill, made of aluminum.
Then a transistor tester arrived from China.
Normally I am not interested in such devices, but this one is different from others:
hfe up to 10mA, then Uce sat up to 2A, and finally Uce breakdown up to 1000V...

[tautech]

Then a transistor tester arrived from China.
Normally I am not interested in such devices, but this one is different from others:
hfe up to 10mA, then Uce sat up to 2A, and finally Uce breakdown up to 1000V...

Looks interesting.....
Review thread to come ?

[Martin72]

I had that in mind, yes.
We once had a project that was developed at the end of the 60s, a DC/AC inverter based on transistors.
They had to be selected for gain and Uce sat, and there was special measuring equipment for that.
We still have them...
If I can find the transistors, that would at least be a valid comparison.
Otherwise, I will test and comment on the device elsewhere, but this will only take place after the presentation of the power analysis function of the SDS800X HD, due to time constraints.

[shapirus]

Then a transistor tester arrived from China.
Normally I am not interested in such devices, but this one is different from others:
hfe up to 10mA, then Uce sat up to 2A, and finally Uce breakdown up to 1000V...

It's not only for transistors, but pretty much for anything. An interesting device indeed.

It goes way over 1 kV, it's more like up to 1.5 kV in reality.

One problem is that it ramps up the voltage too fast, so fast that it fails to detect the breakdown threshold, and too fast for the display and the user to see anything meaningful on the screen if that happens. This is an issue for parts with Vbr on the lower side: I tried to measure, for example, a particular MLCC, but could not: it broke down before the device could sense it. Maybe only an issue with capacitors, though, need to check something else with low Vbr. Maybe a 12-volt zener? :)

I wonder if it's possible to make that ramp slower. If the timing is set in firmware, which is likely, then the answer is most likely no, unless it's possible to download and reverse engineer it, but otherwise, if it's something like an RC network, then maybe. I haven't yet opened mine, no idea what's inside.

p.s. it works fine from a 5V DC supply despite the "6V" printed near the input power jack :)

[shapirus]

Maybe only an issue with capacitors, though, need to check something else with low Vbr. Maybe a 12-volt zener?

No need for guesswork:



That's a 5V6 zener diode all right.

[shabaz]

Those low-cost vises have convenient M5 tapped holes on top, perfect for DIY custom jaws, e.g. 3D-printed.
I used a couple of pieces of alu and cut a little groove into the edges, making it handy for clamping PCBs (although it can only handle small boards).

[McBryce]

...ok, now it's time to find myself a reason why I absolutely needed to order this little thingy

(Attachment Link)

When you find out, let me know. I've been asking myself the same thing for over a year, while looking for situations where it would be a better solution than the DSA815-TG that it's sitting beside.

McBryce.

[shapirus]

...ok, now it's time to find myself a reason why I absolutely needed to order this little thingy

(Attachment Link)

When you find out, let me know. I've been asking myself the same thing for over a year, while looking for situations where it would be a better solution than the DSA815-TG that it's sitting beside.

McBryce.

Well, of course I started with attaching the antenna and checking what's out there on air. This device has a rudimentary "listen" function and a 3.5 mm audio jack output, so I used it. Apparently it can decode both AM and FM, and that happens transparently: there seems to be no setting to choose the mod. type.
Discovered that there's *a lot* still going on in the SW band, managed to receive something that sounded like Chinese (?!) at ~7.35-7.42 MHz, some apparently UK-based station which told a story about Her Majesty at 10-ish MHz IIRC, and a lot of others.
That's fun, but to do that seriously I would need a better antenna and a proper radio, of course.
Found some peaks in the ~195-202 MHz range, which are dedicated to radio broadcasting, per our regulations, but couldn't pick any voice there (but I need to retry during day time, as that time I tried it in the middle of the night).

It's weird that it's not level-calibrated above 5.35 GHz from factory. Why? They expect the users to have their own 5.35 GHz signal source and use that. Well yeah sure I have loads of those sitting on my desk. Not that I really need to measure anything that high, was just curious if my 802.11ac WiFi signal would show up, for which level calibration isn't required anyway, as a relative measurement would be fine too. It didn't show up, though, maybe I was doing something wrong.

The signal generator is rudimentary: frequency accuracy is so-so, jitter is terrible, and output level stability is questionable, but it still may come in handy if you need a RF signal and don't have any other generator. AM modulation seems to use what looks like a 3-bit DAC to set the amplitude.

On the other hand, when I enabled the Cal output, the 10 MHz frequency accuracy there was really good -- from my initial estimation (via a freq counter with a known error at 10 MHz), it was very close, below 1 ppm, to my GPSDO, but I need to repeat this test with them sitting side by side.

As far as its primary purpose, which analyzing spectra, it seems to be quite good, well, that's what it's popular for. What would I use it for besides checking what radio waves are out there? Can be used to estimate how clean a generator's sine wave output is. Or, I'm going to try to estimate edge speeds of the pulses produced by my pulse generator, which is faster than my scope is capable of, using the method described in tggzzz's blog, but I'm waiting for some feed-through attenuators to arrive first.

Menu tree can give clues to what else can be done using it. I haven't yet dived into all of that.

missed this part:

while looking for situations where it would be a better solution than the DSA815-TG that it's sitting beside.

I don't have any other SA, so obviously for me it's first of all an SA. But other than that... Portability, at least, and maybe something else.

[kripton2035]

I use it to find what devices are emitting around me
and I don't have any other SA beside so I use it from time to time !

[shapirus]

On the other hand, when I enabled the Cal output, the 10 MHz frequency accuracy there was really good -- from my initial estimation (via a freq counter with a known error at 10 MHz), it was very close, below 1 ppm, to my GPSDO, but I need to repeat this test with them sitting side by side.

So yeah it's quite impressive. About 10 minutes after powering on, the 10 MHz signal on the TinySA Ultra's calibration output had only ~0.15 Hz (which is 15 ppb) difference against the GPSDO, then at ~40 min after power-on the frequencies became equal and then the difference became non-zero again and changed polarity. And I'm not really sure if that's not the GPSDO tuning its frequency, as it hasn't been powered on for long enough, either. I'll let them both run for a couple more hours and see if and where it stabilizes.

The GPSDO is a TM4313. A cheap one, but should be more than good enough for this kind of comparison.

One way or another, that's way less than 1 Hz difference at 10 MHz so far. Definitely very good.

[armandine2]

just got from Amazon under £20 - Yuange TV LED backlight tester - a bit of fun and could help salvage a 42-inch LG TV 

... and power lead plug fitted my spare euro/uk adaptor 

[shapirus]

So yeah it's quite impressive. About 10 minutes after powering on, the 10 MHz signal on the TinySA Ultra's calibration output had only ~0.15 Hz (which is 15 ppb) difference against the GPSDO, then at ~40 min after power-on the frequencies became equal and then the difference became non-zero again and changed polarity. And I'm not really sure if that's not the GPSDO tuning its frequency, as it hasn't been powered on for long enough, either. I'll let them both run for a couple more hours and see if and where it stabilizes.

The GPSDO is a TM4313. A cheap one, but should be more than good enough for this kind of comparison.

One way or another, that's way less than 1 Hz difference at 10 MHz so far. Definitely very good.

Update: so it stabilizes at about 0.3 Hz difference, which is 30 ppb, unless my math is wrong.
Not sure which sign though. If I set the scope to trigger on the GPSDO's signal, then the TinySA Ultra's signal is moving to the left. I'm failing to figure out which of the signals is ticking slower in this case.

ch2 (trigger: ch2): GPSDO, ch1: TinySA Ultra.

[DiTBho]

a 80s friction downtube shifter made by a Bulgarian company
and two Teres1 DIY laptop kits from Olimex for my friends

[RAPo]

Around May, the postman will deliver two Post versalog slide rules, the 1460 and the 1461 both in prestine condition.

[coppercone2]

fenix E03 V2.0 flashlight. Normally I don't buy things that have non replaceable batteries but this is the exception. key chain sun

[paulca]

I got myself one of these:
https://www.radiacode.com/

An RC103.  Awesome bit of kit.

At the moment I am trying to capture a 24 hour spectrum in my kitchen, which I can then use as a base background for other spectra.

After looking through the house top to bottom, I don't have anything more radioactive than the cat or myself.

The background spectra is looking fairly normal.  Lots of low end noise, but clear "bumps" for Ra226 chains and K40.  That was just from a 1 hour spectra.

I look forward to testing the mapping function.

Other purchases....

* A vile of broken uranium/vaseline glass (I have no interest in pretty glass ware!).
* An ionisation smoke alarm, as all of mine are optical.

If I wasn't on "that" list before, I am now.