Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

Dear Abby,

I've just located an extender cable for Tektronix TM500 series scope/amplifier/counter/generator/etc. Does this mean I have to start collecting TM500 series crates and plugins?

[xrunner]

Dear Abby,

I've just located an extender cable for Tektronix TM500 series scope/amplifier/counter/generator/etc. Does this mean I have to start collecting TM500 series crates and plugins?

No - it means I'm going to ask you if you want to sell it to me. 

(seriously)

[tggzzz]

Dear Abby,

I've just located an extender cable for Tektronix TM500 series scope/amplifier/counter/generator/etc. Does this mean I have to start collecting TM500 series crates and plugins?

No - it means I'm going to ask you if you want to sell it to me. 

(seriously)

But I've only just got it! And I recently didn't bid on some TM50x stuff because I didn't have an extender.

OTOH, http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=TEKTRONIX%20067-0645-02&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1
Tempting.

[BravoV]

Talking about TM50X, does anyone here, may be have this spare knob gathering dust in your drawer ? 

Tried Sphere and Qservice, but its always OOS. 

[bitseeker]

New syndrome: EEK! EEVblog Equipment Kollecting

Just started mine with the HVP-70. It's for safely working on the switch mode power supplies in my repair queue, of course.

[mmagin]

New syndrome: EEK! EEVblog Equipment Kollecting

Just started mine with the HVP-70. It's for safely working on the switch mode power supplies in my repair queue, of course.

I haven't repaired much SMPS, but do you often find you actually need to scope things, rather than merely looking for burned components and doing ohm-meter/diode tests?
(I can imagine it being quite useful for testing new designs however!)

[bitseeker]

The few that I've worked on thus far had faults that were usually identified visually, via DMM or, at most, ESR measurement. However, I have one with odd shutdown behavior that I'd like to scope out. Being able to see the relative timing of the HV circuits with the LV control/feedback may prove useful.

Apart from SMPS, the differential probe will also be useful for inspecting signals in equipment where you don't have a schematic (an evermore prevalent situation), since you don't have to worry about accidentally shorting to ground especially in devices that have one or more faults.

[AF6LJ]

New syndrome: EEK! EEVblog Equipment Kollecting

Just started mine with the HVP-70. It's for safely working on the switch mode power supplies in my repair queue, of course.

I saw that and would love to have one, a little out of my price range right now.

[bitseeker]

Yeah, it's nothing to sneeze at, price-wise. However, it was one of the considerations when I opted for the DS1054Z a couple years ago. Adding this probe still hurts the wallet less overall than if I had bought a higher-grade DSO. It's all about the trade-offs.

Conscientious TEA. Can it be?

[xrunner]

But I've only just got it! And I recently didn't bid on some TM50x stuff because I didn't have an extender.

Oh I understand, I think there is a guy that makes them and sells them on Ebay. 

Apart from SMPS, the differential probe will also be useful for inspecting signals in equipment where you don't have a schematic (an evermore prevalent situation), since you don't have to worry about accidentally shorting to ground especially in devices that have one or more faults.

Cool deal. I need one of those.

Worked on the DM501 today. Had to take quite a bit of it apart so as to access the switches to get some Deoxit in them. Quite a few of them and they are underneath another board. I also re-seated all of the socketed ICs. After all of that it now seems to work very well. Will want to do a cal on it, but since I have no extender (and tggzzz won't sell me his) I think I can strip the top and sides off the TM504 to get to the adjustments.

The PS503 is working OK, but I noticed one thing. It can output more current if you put it in the "High Power" slot (the one on the far right side). It tells you which slot it is in by virtue of a red LED on the front, which does not illuminate if it's in that slot, but does illuminate if its in any of the other slots (the illumination means that it is limited to 400 mA). It does this by a switch which presses against the aluminum back panel in the High Power slot, but encounters a hole in the other slots and so doesn't get pressed. The problem is that the LED is always on no matter what slot it is in. Will have to put that on my to-do list for tomorrow. 

[bitseeker]

The problem is that the LED is always on no matter what slot it is in. Will have to put that on my to-do list for tomorrow. 

More Deoxit to the rescue?

[xrunner]

More Deoxit to the rescue?

Could be could be ... That'll be my first solution. Shoot with this vintage stuff it's no telling. That's why I like it, you always learn a lot about how the electronics and mechanical parts change over time. Could be a contact issue or some weird mechanical issue. 

Edit: I just realized today that my iPhone 5c battery is crapping out. I need to get one on order ASAP like right now! Fortunately I have the knowledge and tools to replace it myself. 

[bitseeker]

I just realized today that my iPhone 5c battery is crapping out. I need to get one on order ASAP like right now! Fortunately I have the knowledge and tools to replace it myself. 

And that, folks, is the understatement of the day.

[Brumby]

New syndrome: EEK! EEVblog Equipment Kollecting

Just started mine with the HVP-70. It's for safely working on the switch mode power supplies in my repair queue, of course.

I saw that and would love to have one, a little out of my price range right now.

Same here.  Plus I don't really have a lot of call for one (but that doesn't count, does it!)

[Cubdriver]

New syndrome: EEK! EEVblog Equipment Kollecting

Just started mine with the HVP-70. It's for safely working on the switch mode power supplies in my repair queue, of course.

I saw that and would love to have one, a little out of my price range right now.

Same here.  Plus I don't really have a lot of call for one (but that doesn't count, does it!)

I find that once I have a particular tool, I begin finding additional uses for it that I might not previously have thought of, or perhaps am more inclined to do new things that said tool enables me to do, things that I might not have considered feasible before getting the tool.

(How's that for some justification?)  (it is true, though, so I suppose it's legit...)

-Pat

[bitseeker]

It all sounds good to me.

On a completely different note, this week I successfully avoided buying a half a dozen things on my watchlist. Don't worry, I'm not cured, yet. Just celebrating the small successes.

[frozenfrogz]

Here is what the cat brought in, together with a defective 8060A.

[PA0PBZ]

Here is what the cat brought in, together with a defective 8060A.

Wow, that looks brand new, did you just unpack that?

[1xrtt]

Talking about TM50X, does anyone here, may be have this spare knob gathering dust in your drawer ? 

I may have it, I had a DC503 that blew up. I'm travelling until 27th, so I'll have to look for it. PM me by then if you don't find it anywhere else.

[bitseeker]

That 8050 does look like new. I wonder where it was hiding all these years.

[frozenfrogz]

Of course I did a tiny bit of cleaning, but that 8050A is in almost NOS shape
It has got some marking on the top, seems to have been part of a bigger lab, but overall I could not be happier!
I wanted to buy an 8060A from the small ads and after asking about what condition the display was in, if it got serviced in the last couple of years (leaking caps...), the seller wanted to send me pictures and to his surprise the meter would not want to turn on.
He apologized and told me he had also an 8050A in working condition.
I took both – of course.

The 8060A will need some love, from the first look inside, a coffee spill might have been the culprit. There is some brown shmoo inside that is water-solvable and in the spill area there is some heavy oxidization. Does not exactly look like leaky caps, but the rubbed of brown stuff has some smell to it I can not really pin to anything familiar. However I already found a broken trace, but I will have to look into this sometime next week. Maybe there will be some write-up, depending on my findings.

Almost forgot: The 8050A does not only look great, it seems spot on from what I can tell!

[xrunner]

So I found out why the PS503 current limit warning LED wasn't going off in the high power bay. I shot it with Deoxit and checked a few other things and didn't find anything wrong. When it was outside the bay I noticed how far the internal moving plastic part that holds the wipers was coming to the back of the switch, when I pushed it in. Since the cover was off the PS503 I could tell how far it was being pushed in when the PS503 was fully inserted into the bay. It looked like the switch wasn't being pushed in far enough! 

There wasn't anything wrong with the switch ... what it turned out to be was (see pics) the rubber cover that came with the switch was simply worn out and didn't provide enough "pushy-backy" (a technical term) for the switch to work! So it goes with this older stuff - it can have equal issues with both electrical and mechanical parts. 

But to fix it I simply dug into my parts junk and found a small rubber cap and put it on top of the original part. Done deal. 

The bonus pic is how I was able to start calibrating the DM501 in situ, since I have no extender. Really not a big deal at all.

[Housedad]

I've always had a soft spot for Heathkit stuff, having made and owned some of it back in the 70's and 80's.   I found a usable EU-30A decade resistor and bought it just to fulfill a wish from long, long ago.

[bitseeker]

There wasn't anything wrong with the switch ... what it turned out to be was (see pics) the rubber cover that came with the switch was simply worn out and didn't provide enough "pushy-backy" (a technical term) for the switch to work! So it goes with this older stuff - it can have equal issues with both electrical and mechanical parts. 

Nice find and mod. That should last quite some time.

[tautech]

Talking about TM50X, does anyone here, may be have this spare knob gathering dust in your drawer ? 

Tried Sphere and Qservice, but its always OOS. 

Find the Tek PN# and google for that.