What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[BFX]

Next nice piece of equipment to lab Agilent 53181A
I seen this as not working on eBay but wait pictures shows "SELFTEST PASS" and I couldn't resist:) TEA


And Yes it was broken ... no reading of input signal. Then I open this guy and wohoo part of PCB where BNC is placed is completely broken. Superglue should do the job.
]

Some superglue and hotglue for strength.


Repairing broken traces.


And wuoalaaa it's working    That's was quick repair:) Some cleaning and job done:) Finally I was lucky like SignalPath several times


Merry Christmas! 

[technix]

If I pass them I am heading to Lanzhou University for a MSc program next year.

Prospective alumni .

You have been studying there too?

[McBryce]

Next nice piece of equipment to lab Agilent 53181A
I seen this as not working on eBay but wait pictures shows "SELFTEST PASS" and I couldn't resist:) TEA

And Yes it was broken ... no reading of input signal. Then I open this guy and wohoo part of PCB where BNC is placed is completely broken. Superglue should do the job.

Some superglue and hotglue for strength.

Repairing broken traces.

And wuoalaaa it's working    That's was quick repair:) Some cleaning and job done:) Finally I was lucky like SignalPath several times

Merry Christmas!

3GHz board for Channel 2 ordered?

McBryce.

[BFX]

Next nice piece of equipment to lab Agilent 53181A
I seen this as not working on eBay but wait pictures shows "SELFTEST PASS" and I couldn't resist:) TEA

And Yes it was broken ... no reading of input signal. Then I open this guy and wohoo part of PCB where BNC is placed is completely broken. Superglue should do the job.

Some superglue and hotglue for strength.

Repairing broken traces.

And wuoalaaa it's working    That's was quick repair:) Some cleaning and job done:) Finally I was lucky like SignalPath several times

Merry Christmas!

3GHz board for Channel 2 ordered?

McBryce.

It's on the task list also with OCXO module

[blueskull]

You have been studying there too?

Graduated bachelor of science on electrical and informational science and technology, with excellent thesis.

I do have to warn you that Lanzhou is a city with extreme poverty. Be ready to go back 20 years in time.

[chickenHeadKnob]

Graduated bachelor of science on electrical and informational science and technology, with excellent thesis.

I do have to warn you that Lanzhou is a city with extreme poverty. Be ready to go back 20 years in time.

Going from coastal temperate climate to inland arid also a shock, gonna need a new coat

[blueskull]

Graduated bachelor of science on electrical and informational science and technology, with excellent thesis.

I do have to warn you that Lanzhou is a city with extreme poverty. Be ready to go back 20 years in time.

Going from coastal temperate climate to inland arid also a shock, gonna need a new coat

I came from the far northeastern China, which is not far from Siberia. I moved to central China for college, then North Carolina (basically Shanghai in US, in terms of climate) for MS and PhD.

It takes time to settle, but it does happen eventually.

[Terry01]

Next nice piece of equipment to lab Agilent 53181A
I seen this as not working on eBay but wait pictures shows "SELFTEST PASS" and I couldn't resist:) TEA


And Yes it was broken ... no reading of input signal. Then I open this guy and wohoo part of PCB where BNC is placed is completely broken. Superglue should do the job.
]

Some superglue and hotglue for strength.


Repairing broken traces.


And wuoalaaa it's working    That's was quick repair:) Some cleaning and job done:) Finally I was lucky like SignalPath several times


Merry Christmas!

Safe to call this a "NICE 1" 

[beanflying]

The TEA thread is evil 

Got a little customer 'emergency' job (Coffee machine version of PEBCAK) on Christmas Eve so I brought a last minute gift for myself. It won't make it for tomorrow but it's the thought that counts 

ADF 4350 dev board in a box with a few bits and a display.

[Inflex]

Much to the chagrin of many, bought a VICI VC8145 ( I can hear the ambulances running now ) for $160 AUD.

Already written the software for linux to tie it in with Openbroadcaster/YouTube, logging and eventually in to my Boardview suite.

It's little more than a glorified handheld with a 9V power brick inside but it has fast continuity and for the work it'll be doing it's already an overkill.

I think the next meter will likely be an Agilent or Fluke, however for now, this covers the needs.

[blueskull]

Wurth 885050 capacitor kit. $140 on a kit of MLCCs .
Normally I would never waste my money in such a way, but this is an exception.
I didn't have time to finalize my calculations, and DigiKey cuts off in 20 minutes for X-mas eve (1:00 PM EDT, as I was told on the phone).
So I have to order an all-inclusive kit just for the one part I need immediately.

Along with $100 worth of other parts, namely some GaN transistors and some passives, and some OPAMPs.
Fast class-D envelope tracking is interesting.

[CatalinaWOW]

Next nice piece of equipment to lab Agilent 53181A
I seen this as not working on eBay but wait pictures shows "SELFTEST PASS" and I couldn't resist:) TEA

And Yes it was broken ... no reading of input signal. Then I open this guy and wohoo part of PCB where BNC is placed is completely broken. Superglue should do the job.

Some superglue and hotglue for strength.

Repairing broken traces.

And wuoalaaa it's working    That's was quick repair:) Some cleaning and job done:) Finally I was lucky like SignalPath several times

Merry Christmas!

I'd call this a win-win.  You got a great cheap instrument.  The commercial lab probably couldn't do the same repair and sell it in good conscience.  They would have had to do the whole board replacement.  Non-economic.  So they got something and you did too.

[lewis]

Nice unit , will we see a teardown...

Hmmmm.... that's tempting......

What is the value of the resistor you are trying to measure?

About 120R, ±20% ish.

I can measure that easily...

Oh, I'm not sure, I bet you can't measure to ±20% quite as accurately as I can.......

[Rbastler]

Got myself a Keithley 181. Reason ? Just because.
Works perfectly. Its just hard to find the right plug for the mV input. I got one, but I want another one. Plus the mV connector on the 181 is gold plated. From what I read in a repair thread for the 181 here, it should be silver plated ?
I will change the filter capacitors, just for good measure and calibrate it. Now I need a KVD....

[Rbastler]

Rest of the pics:

[knapik]

I just backed the icebreaker FPGA dev board as a Christmas present to myself.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga

[Edison]

An emergency button



Hopefully it's the last time I will deal unsafely with live 220Vac voltages... 

Just remember those contacts in there are not rated for continuous operation at 10A, and also they are not fail safe when disconnecting into a high current. They tend to weld together under heavy load, so best used in conjunction with a sensitive 16A AC1 rated contactor. Those at least will, when paired with the appropriate overload, provide good protection. Hope you also got some LED power on indicators to go with them.

The contactor should not be operated correctly, it is a safety button with locking, these buttons are used to control the circuit breaker trip coil - the most reliable disconnection -   - the coil acts on the circuit breaker locking mechanism

[Edison]

So that is why my box-o-magic has a relay

The contactor is here for the START-STOP function of the stop button in the security design

[julianhigginson]

Wurth 885050 capacitor kit. $140 on a kit of MLCCs .
Normally I would never waste my money in such a way, but this is an exception.
I didn't have time to finalize my calculations, and DigiKey cuts off in 20 minutes for X-mas eve (1:00 PM EDT, as I was told on the phone).
So I have to order an all-inclusive kit just for the one part I need immediately.

Along with $100 worth of other parts, namely some GaN transistors and some passives, and some OPAMPs.
Fast class-D envelope tracking is interesting.

if you buy from digikey, do you still get lifetime free refills?
I love my wurth kits.

[blueskull]

if you buy from digikey, do you still get lifetime free refills?
I love my wurth kits.

I highly doubt if I will ever deplete the kit.
I only need weird values. Common values like 104, 105, 106 are ordered in thousands at a time.

But in case I need a refill, I don't think they will give me any troubles.
They want people to use their parts. The more prototypes they support, the more money they make.
The only reason they don't hand out sample kits for free is because there will be too many fraudulent requests (by students, hobbyists, etc., instead of by commercial engineers).

[Specmaster]

An emergency button



Hopefully it's the last time I will deal unsafely with live 220Vac voltages... 

Just remember those contacts in there are not rated for continuous operation at 10A, and also they are not fail safe when disconnecting into a high current. They tend to weld together under heavy load, so best used in conjunction with a sensitive 16A AC1 rated contactor. Those at least will, when paired with the appropriate overload, provide good protection. Hope you also got some LED power on indicators to go with them.

The contactor should not be operated correctly, it is a safety button with locking, these buttons are used to control the circuit breaker trip coil - the most reliable disconnection -   - the coil acts on the circuit breaker locking mechanism

Correct, these emergency stop buttons are only rated for the coil current only and should never ever be used as a means of breaking the mains power supply directly, only via a suitably rated contactor

[Terry01]

Rest of the pics:

Those are some nice pics! The older stuff is fascinating I think. I wish I knew enough to be able to fix this kind of stuff. 

[ChrisG]

Hi all, I bought the ZD-8915 and JBC CD-2BE. Yeaahhhhh. The ZD-8915 I ran through some of it's paces and it works, so far, very well! The glass tube is a night mare to take out. Now in search of 1 eurocent coins as we never had those in the Netherlands. A US dime or perhaps some other copper (plated) smaller coins will do the trick as the mid-point stopper and solder catcher. I've now squeezed in from an previous de-soldering equipment (Philips rebranded SEM/FTM technologies). The JBC I did not try yet. Only connected it, played with the super fast heat and sleep mode. And of course updated the software. Very happy so far with these purchases and will definitely try out some other active tips for the JBC from other sources (.... express). Should I post pictures?

[gamalot]

A cheap preheater.

[McBryce]

One of these: Asus 31.5in TFT Monitor, because I was fed up of people telling me how old, dated and small my current monitor looks.

McBryce.