What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[canibalimao]

No, you'll spend months and buckets of money collecting and refurbishing parts.  Then when you're about 90% complete, a complete, working unit will fall into your lap for free!   

Ed

And that's when you pick the 10% missing from the free working unit to put the other unit working 

[bsudbrink]

No, you'll spend months and buckets of money collecting and refurbishing parts.  Then when you're about 90% complete, a complete, working unit will fall into your lap for free!   

It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't laid out the chum line.  Also, in two months, when you're using it and the unobtainium component fails, you will have a spare and the document on how to replace it.

[McBryce]

Not to mention the fact, that if you ever do get it working, you'll have at least 8 spares for 90% of the parts, that you were forced to buy to get some hard to find parts.

I gave up doing that years ago. It's always cheaper to wait for a complete device.

McBryce.

[julianhigginson]

I got a RPLIDAR from seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedstudio or whatever it's called (well, actually 2 because their 2 price is way better than the 1 price and I can sell one on..)

Here you can see it trying to make sense of my extremely messy office... 180-240 deg is the corner of the room with the door. 240-300 is my ridiculously messy workbench with a collection of crap on it... 300-0 is blocked by packaging from the LIDAR sitting on my laptop, and a rack full of stuff at a really oblique angle. 0-30 is the wall behind my computer desk... 30-120 is a whole pile of crap on my computer desk, and an open cupboard... And 120-180 is me. It tracks my body movement quite well, and I can see each of my arms when I lift them up through its plane of vision. Looks like it'll be very useful for a movement tracking idea I have.

And a photo of it on the desk..


Also from the photo you can see I bought a bus pirate 3.6 while I was at it.

And I got my CY8CKIT-059 from Element14 too..

[xrunner]

Oh neeto! Another toy to entice my credit card out of my wallet. 

[AF6LJ]

That's rather fun...
And potentially useful...

[PTR_1275]

Amongst lots of other foodies I've bought over the last few months, I just paid for a nice looking EDC AC voltage standard. 6 decades, 10mv, 100mv, 1v and 1000v ranges. I've got a few EDC DC voltage standards, so I'm looking forward to getting this one into the rack.

The model is AC1000DB, but I couldn't find much info on them when I had a quick google at lunch time.

Other goodies I've recently purchased are some Leeds and northrup resistors, ESI SR1 resistors, and a kikusui Insulation Tester.

[dexters_lab]

i don't normally post in here but then it's not every day you buy an electron microscope (well, 1/2 of one) 

I could understand buying a complete electron microscope, but what use is half an electron microscope?

McBryce.

dexters_lab obviously subscribes to the "bait" theory of equipment acquisition, as do I.  In brief, if you want something but can't find it, start collecting all of the parts, documents, etc. that you will need to repair and/or operate it.  Now, somewhere out there, there is a broken electron microscope that "knows" that dexters_lab has the parts to fix it.  It will find its way to him.

i am kinda the other way around... i know there are parts in it that can be used elsewhere and i'll get to make a teardown video while we're taking it to bits

the real kicker is the company i got it from scrapped the other half, which was the control & display console before they realised it went with the actual microscope 

[bitseeker]

That's rather fun...
And potentially useful...

Always good to have your priorities in the correct order. 

[NottheDan]

Random eBay purchase arrived today. The description was pretty meaningless and from the photos it was obviously home-made (or at least an one-off custom job) but it also has a calibration tag and the seller regularly sells surplus college lab equipment. It was cheap enough, so I let my curiosity get the better of me.
So when I got it out it greeted me with a worrying rattling.

Opened it and found what you see attached. A Maplin GA28F MOSFET amp (seems to be a a later one, judging by the use of Exicons an a power supply that looks to be a rushed replacement. I don't think anyone though long about it, the way it was mounted.

Still no idea what it was actually used for.

[VE7FIM]

New to the lab: A 4145B Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer (really just a fancy programmable SMU).

Boots and passes self tests.



Now I just need to find some triaxial cables to connect it to the test fixture that don't cost more than I paid for the unit itself...

[mmagin]

New to the lab: A 4145B Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer (really just a fancy programmable SMU).

Nice.  I guess that's one of the later ones, since it has a 3.5" floppy drive.  Hopefully those are a physical format that's compatible with normal floppy drives so you an easily back up the boot disk and stuff

[VE7FIM]

Nice.  I guess that's one of the later ones, since it has a 3.5" floppy drive.  Hopefully those are a physical format that's compatible with normal floppy drives so you an easily back up the boot disk and stuff

Unfortunately it's still in LIF format, so not easy to copy. It's on the list to get an old DOS box up and running, as I also need to copy and archive a bunch of HP 70000 LIF disks I have kicking around.

Fortunately, there is a company that will sell you a replacement disk for a reasonable price if you need one: http://www.glkinst.com/test-equipment/

[tablatronix]

Amazon has very cheap 611 solder holders, not sure if its a mistake or not, I bought three and a laptop /equipment stand to test out clearing my desk a bit.

[nctnico]

Brass hinges from Aliexpress. I can no longer stand the nylon hinges my grandfather used on a small oak cabinet I inherited (family air loom). I can't pass it on as it is now!

[Vgkid]

I didn't even know that you could buy nylon hinges.

[TAMHAN]

That 4145 must have been big buxx!!!! Congrats!

[SeanB]

Random eBay purchase arrived today. The description was pretty meaningless and from the photos it was obviously home-made (or at least an one-off custom job) but it also has a calibration tag and the seller regularly sells surplus college lab equipment. It was cheap enough, so I let my curiosity get the better of me.
So when I got it out it greeted me with a worrying rattling.

Opened it and found what you see attached. A Maplin GA28F MOSFET amp (seems to be a a later one, judging by the use of Exicons an a power supply that looks to be a rushed replacement. I don't think anyone though long about it, the way it was mounted.

Still no idea what it was actually used for.

I will guess it was meant to be a servo amplifier, used to drive some laboratory experiment. Mosfet output gives reasonable performance ( at least somewhat in the sink side, not so much on the source side) with 22V rails, and was probably used to drive some loads like transducers and such that needed a little more grunt than a 741 could give.

Brass hinges from Aliexpress. I can no longer stand the nylon hinges my grandfather used on a small oak cabinet I inherited (family air loom). I can't pass it on as it is now!

Real brass, or plates steel which is a lot more likely in cheap hinges.  Nylon hinges likely used as they are cheap, and a drop in part for the older types of recessed hinges.

[Johnny10]

Datron 4000A Autocal Standard.

Whew!  Maybe I shouldn't have turned it on.
Smells like a rats nest burning.

[Fortran]

Holy crap that thing is gorgeous!

Light some scented candles, put on a Barry White collection and give it a sponge-bath

[whitevamp]

Haven't received yet, but i have on order a 1074z, should here wed.
and just order last night off fleybay GDM-8251A

[SeanB]

Half of the smell will be the mains filter starting to cook itself.

[Johnny10]

Seems it was stored somewhere with high moisture.
Trying to break loose screws now.

Just picked it up about 2 hrs ago.
Hey it has handles on the side and I bet they can take the weight.

66 lbs.
Has someone a manual or error code description?

[Johnny10]

OK, Found two tantulum 22uF 25V capacitors that smoked like a cigarette burning.

Those two circled in red should be yellow.

[NottheDan]

I will guess it was meant to be a servo amplifier, used to drive some laboratory experiment. Mosfet output gives reasonable performance ( at least somewhat in the sink side, not so much on the source side) with 22V rails, and was probably used to drive some loads like transducers and such that needed a little more grunt than a 741 could give.

Cheers. Not some area I plan on working in anytime soon. So I'll probably shelve it once I see if I can get it running again. Maybe I'll need an amp at one point.