What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[mansaxel]

Swedish made Electronics Adjuster  Move over AvE, Dave and Clive 

There can be only one!

There are, in fact, not only one , but several Swedish axe brands. The one Bean posted is a Hultafors, which is probably the largest hand tool company in Sweden that has not been bought by a multi-national and then been brand-raped.[0] Their hammers are legendary; I own both the carpenter's and the electrician's models from them. One feels twice as strong and hits more often with them, compared to no-brand shit.

The most "hand-crafty" axe-makers with market presence globally probably are Gränsfors Bruk and Wetterlings, but I'd argue that the Hultafors is pretty close to them in performance.

• Bahco, in particular, is now owned by Crap-On who churn out badly designed me-too shite rebranded to that once stellar brand. The things that made Bahco good, like the Nut-Fucker (adj. wrench), the Ergo screwdrivers, the pipe wrench, et c. still are made, though.

[beanflying]

Hultafors brought Hults Bruk as part of their portfolio and the heads come from there. In Oz branded Hults Bruk Axes run twice the price and for Bush use OTT the heads are still stamped Hults Bruk Hults Bruk here http://hultsbruk1697.se/

Our local big box hardware chains sell nothing but crap  I did the rounds of the local Chainsaw/Timber type hangouts and apart from having no flaming idea they also had no stock. Way back into the dim dark ages of my working life I worked for a company that was a Stihl agent and we sold Axes and a range of Hickory handles but the small chainsaws seem to have taken the place of axes in forrestry.

[cdev]

Axe heads and metal trade items like them were arguably the first money.

Swedish made Electronics Adjuster  Move over AvE, Dave and Clive 

[elor]

keithley mania day
2700 no power 100
2306 stuck at initializing might be just the sram but who knows
also someone modified it so everything possible 125 plus 40 for shipping
both sold for parts

probably over paid
not the worst mania i ever had i think the worst one was a lecroy which i still own

lol almost forget the last week 2100 for 40 plus 40 for the shipping (pm if you have a spare complete front panel)

[gamalot]

A small bottle of high strength thread locker and two pieces of Raspberry Pi Pico. 

[elekorsi]

Bought this cutie today. With all original accesories (in original zipper plastic bags) and in mint condition. No signs of use whatsoever... One probe was probably never used as it still has a silicone protective cap on the tip. So, when i saw the manufacturing date i couldn't beleive it, hehe
Lol, there are even original cable twist ties inside.
Oh and an unopened envelope with floppy disc for the fluke view software 
I am curious if the battery is still original, as a quick test today gave me an impression that there is still a lot of juice in it... Will see tomorrow when i test it in field...

[DrG]

From https://www.amazon.com/Harbor-Freight-Tools-43060-Control/dp/B002MLE01A US16.94 (and when I ordered it a few weeks ago, it was free shipping USPS) and I ordered it with some trepidation...



I know these are cheap (try not to laugh). I did some due diligence (I hope, successfully). I looked at some videos, including some that included tear downs.

I have a rather nice Dremel 4000 with speed control and a workstation/ drill press and a flex shaft. I think it is quality equipment for my level. The problem is that I do not have an unlimited amount of space. If I just want to do some small thing (e.g., drill a single hole), it is a pain to dig it out and set it up. That's fine if I am going to be using it for a while.

I also have these two drills, which are both decades old. Neither has speed control. So that is why I bought this.



So far, it works well with both of them.

[rfclown]

GPSDO and a Distribution Amplifier. Also some 2N2222 transistors. All eBay. I just modified the GPSDO to fix the design flaw in the "RS232" output.

[Calambres]

Arrived yesterday... yay! 

[beanflying]

Arrived yesterday... yay! 

Send it back clearly they forgot a button 

[Calambres]

ASMOF it's 6 buttons too many 

[McBryce]

Arrived yesterday... yay! 

Fixed... You're welcome!

McBryce

[Calambres]

NO WAY!  hahahaha!   

[ocw]

I recently received five Rakon VTX0225AR 10 MHz VCTCXO's.  While I did not need GPSDO precision, these came closer to that than I expected--0.05 Hz drift during a recent 3.5 hour test.  See the first attachment.

The second attachment shows the oscillator board with its metal cover removed and terminals labeled.  Another picture floating around has those terminals incorrectly labeled.  Besides having a trimmer capacitor available for adjustment of its frequency, it has a control voltage terminal where the frequency can be more finely tuned.  That is how I adjusted the frequency to that shown on the first attachment.  Even with the trimmer capacitor set for the highest frequency possible, it seems like most or all of the units do not quite make it to exactly 10 MHz.  However, it is obviously possible after adding the voltage adjustment.  Accordingly, that voltage adjustment only seems to raise the frequency.  Via a fixed and trimmer resistor combination, I have the electronic frequency adjustment range set to 10 MHz +/-10 Hz.  That makes fine adjustment easy via a 25 turn trimmer.

The VTX0225AR has a clipped sine wave output.  Attachments show that on my oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer.  While ALL harmonics only go down slightly at higher frequencies, I saw almost nothing in the way of modulation products or IMD very close to its 10 MHz frequency.  While it is possible to add a bandpass filter for using one of those harmonic frequencies, the last two attachments show its output with a Mini-Circuits SCLF-10 10 MHz low pass filter connected to the oscillator's output.

What do these things cost?  How about $2 each?  A quantity of five is available on eBay for $10.  See: https://www.ebay.com/itm/232248869943 That auction confuses things by highlighting the oscillator's reel number rather than its part number shown in the pictures.

So far I am very happy with the purchase.

[GerritMax]

Picked up this beauty today from facebook marketplace.
It's a Seck 1882 mk2 compleate with the VU meter bridge and one psu.
Even got the operators instructions with it, all for £30

[mansaxel]

Picked up this beauty today from facebook marketplace.
It's a Seck 1882 mk2 compleate with the VU meter bridge and one psu.
Even got the operators instructions with it, all for £30

That's about the right price for it. I remember good and bad things about the Seck mixers.

[trophosphere]

I finally got a hold of a RTO2044 to join my merry band of instruments on the bench. Needless to say it will be a while before I purchase something else. 

[KrudyZ]

I finally got a hold of a RTO2044 to join my merry band of instruments on the bench. Needless to say it will be a while before I purchase something else. 

Right! Looking at that bench it's clear that you hardly ever buy anything nice

[Tom45]

Right! Looking at that bench it's clear that you hardly ever buy anything nice

That was the first thing that came to my mind too. The second was the saying that a clean bench is a sign of a sick mind. 

[Adrian_Arg.]

Station Soldering YIHUA 8786D i
 

[beanflying]

$0.02 teardown. 4 Cell USB based battery charger eBay auction: #383907981622

I was expecting a horror show on the inside for the few $ but actually not to bad at all. Large chip on the display board is a Holtek LCD driver. Unbranded micro on the mainboard and some reasonable hardware. It has 4 independent chargers unlike some which are two pairs, it also runs a slower charge rate for AAA's over the AA's. Case is fairly tough and having everything screwed together 

[tautech]

2x Siglent SDS2104+ as a gratitude from our T&M supplier for delayed delivery of a large Keysight order.

Now working on hacking them for their maximum potential.

Oh, you finally got some, wow that took a while. 
Looking forward to your feedback about them. 

[jb990]

Found a good one used Agilent U8001 power supply, thinking of ordering. Bought an ESD mat (from the eBay seller mentioned in a few threads here), and a monitor swing arm to mount my monitor off the bench surface.

[pqass]

With fingers-crossed, I bought my first eBay for-parts-only test gear; an E3611A power supply.   The seller noted that the voltage bounced around regardless of setting.  After watching a few YouTube repair videos and studying the schematic, I knew they were quite fixable by having few custom parts.

With the top off, it was readily apparent that the bulk caps in the bipolar power section threw their guts out all over.  Measuring the test points showed that it was far below the required +/-12V.   After desoldering the bad caps, the nearby bridge rectifier and trimmer pot I cleaned up the mess with ipa.   That goo gets under the green mask and eats the traces/pads to the point of breakage!

After re-tinning the bare/missing traces and replacing the components, it worked!!!  Woohoo!!!   With my DIY analog load attached, the power supply's readout tracks bang-on to the multimeter below it.

The 3478a meter was also an eBay find that I'd acquired a year ago.  I've documented the battery replacement elsewhere on this forum.

Overall, I'm finding that I browse eBay a little too often lately.  Hmmm....

[jonovid]

More arms for the bench
Monitor Desk Mount Arms  see
made from die cast aluminum in gray metallic paint with allen key adjustment by grub screws. with some black phasic cosmetic end caps. 
the hinges have fat steel pins in steel bushes pressed into die cast aluminum arms.   
this benchtop arms are at the cheap end of the scale. lacking any vertical spring balancing or USB ports.
so are not prominently listed on the offceworks site.    Australian office supplies stores.
my bench image see \/  has a notch in the end plate, this is part of the die cast aluminum.
decorative lines set into the cast aluminum. not photoshop!
other image is of images from the offceworks site.
ready-to-assemble  desk mount kit also has two steel plates so the temporary bench clamp can be made a permanent attachment
by drilling a hole through the bench & adding 6 wood screws.

I am one of them DIY hobbyist's that has five projects on the go at the same time. 
however only one completed.   
so when bench real estate is at a premium, a way to find extra bench space is essential.
an old dentist chair with its many arms is a bit too expensive. 
however local office supplies has this desk mount twin benchtop arms for pc monitors.
the two benchtop arms can hold up to 8kg x2 and swing out to 30cm from a 35cm high upright stand.
one can hold say the oscilloscope,  the other a pc monitor or set of DIY DMM cradles.  16kg
all up off the bench. needing custom DIY cradles, however this is another project,
so time will tell when all is gets done.