Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

bd139, I do indeed have the blue one, its a IG-4505 and she is in all of her original splendor the modification made was to remove the pre-attached BNC lead with the 50 termination resistor with a BNC socket for more flexibility and of course easier storage when not in use as the lead always got in the way. I have made up a special lead with the 50 resistor built in to retain the 50 connection if required.

I have also recapped and cleaned it and thoroughly checked it over and tweaked the calibration to bring the output voltages up and now she is bang the money. Now of course having seen that IG-4244 of med6753 I want one as well. Not too sure which is the earlier one but I'm kinda guessing its not mine as if the numbering system went in chronological order, mine is the newer of the two.

[bd139]

That’s the jobby. Looks in fantastic condition 

I’ll shout what I did five minutes ago “fucking hells bells”. Power supply just blew up on my 465. Took a bridge rectifier with it. Fuuuuuuu. And such is life i now have three dead scopes on my hands.

[bd139]

 

Sod it factor 9 Mr Sulu. I will be in receipt of another DS1054Z this Wednesday.

Will fix this tek and lose it. It is cursed now.

[GerryBags]

That’s the jobby. Looks in fantastic condition 

I’ll shout what I did five minutes ago “fucking hells bells”. Power supply just blew up on my 465. Took a bridge rectifier with it. Fuuuuuuu. And such is life i now have three dead scopes on my hands.

Sorry to hear that, and I feel your pain (i'm on 4  )

Can we have pics of the repair, please, you know they'll come in handy for quite a few other TEA freaks... me included. There's a 475 that looks in very nice cosmetic condition, claimed to be but not shown working, on the Bay for £120.... if you feel like you need to join me on 4 dead 'scopes.

[GreyWoolfe]

bd139, I do indeed have the blue one, its a IG-4505 and she is in all of her original splendor the modification made was to remove the pre-attached BNC lead with the 50 termination resistor with a BNC socket for more flexibility and of course easier storage when not in use as the lead always got in the way. I have made up a special lead with the 50 resistor built in to retain the 50 connection if required.

I have also recapped and cleaned it and thoroughly checked it over and tweaked the calibration to bring the output voltages up and now she is bang the money. Now of course having seen that IG-4244 of med6753 I want one as well. Not too sure which is the earlier one but I'm kinda guessing its not mine as if the numbering system went in chronological order, mine is the newer of the two.

I scored one for free.  Mine needed recapped as there were 2 bulging caps in it.  I also did the same BNC mod.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to tweak the calibration.  Yours does look a bit nicer than mine but mine is quite nice considering the age.

[bd139]

That’s the jobby. Looks in fantastic condition 

I’ll shout what I did five minutes ago “fucking hells bells”. Power supply just blew up on my 465. Took a bridge rectifier with it. Fuuuuuuu. And such is life i now have three dead scopes on my hands.

Sorry to hear that, and I feel your pain (i'm on 4  )

Can we have pics of the repair, please, you know they'll come in handy for quite a few other TEA freaks... me included. There's a 475 that looks in very nice cosmetic condition, claimed to be but not shown working, on the Bay for £120.... if you feel like you need to join me on 4 dead 'scopes.

Will do. Looks like the caps are fine after testing ESR in circuit. The bridge rectifiers in these are seriously weak so tend to just blow up on their own. They replaced them with a different unit later in the production cycle. Might be that. Haven’t debugged it properly yet.

I saw that scope. It’s also only 20 mins down the road from me as well.

Honestly though the D83 is a hard one so I’m not sure I’m going to do much for my mental health taking on another project. Especially as I’m supposed to be studying for my full amateur radio license at the moment.

[Specmaster]

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

[med6753]

bd139, I do indeed have the blue one, its a IG-4505 and she is in all of her original splendor the modification made was to remove the pre-attached BNC lead with the 50 termination resistor with a BNC socket for more flexibility and of course easier storage when not in use as the lead always got in the way. I have made up a special lead with the 50 resistor built in to retain the 50 connection if required.

I have also recapped and cleaned it and thoroughly checked it over and tweaked the calibration to bring the output voltages up and now she is bang the money. Now of course having seen that IG-4244 of med6753 I want one as well. Not too sure which is the earlier one but I'm kinda guessing its not mine as if the numbering system went in chronological order, mine is the newer of the two.

The IG-4244 was introduced in 1984. Your IG-4505 dates much earlier than that, back into the early to mid 1970's. I think they were available concurrently, at least for a while, but I would have to check the catalogs to verify that.

The IG-4244 also has the special 50 ohm terminated coax for the "Time" output for scopes with 1MEG input impedance. Since my two 2465's have a 50 ohm input available I can use a standard RG-58 patch cable and it's properly terminated. 

I don't have time today but tomorrow I'll pull it down off the shelf and take some pron shots of the insides. I have to dexoit the range switch anyway...it's getting a little dodgy.

 

[med6753]

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

I'm putting my 465 project on the shelf for a while. Too many other things going on here lately involving life.  I still have to pull the vertical board and fix the issues with channel 2 attenuator deck but at least all my power supply issues (for now!  ) are fixed.

[bd139]

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

To be honest they are pretty reliable. The problem here is the age of the units, the lifespan of the parts and the complexity aren’t in your favour. They were built with no compromises using the highest quality parts at the time with the intention of lasting under 8 years. This one is 44 years old so it has done fine

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

I'm putting my 465 project on the shelf for a while. Too many other things going on here lately involving life.  I still have to pull the vertical board and fix the issues with channel 2 attenuator deck but at least all my power supply issues (for now!  ) are fixed.

Yeah I find you have to approach these in bursts of energy. Going to forward engineer something I think before I go insane

[Specmaster]

bd139, I do indeed have the blue one, its a IG-4505 and she is in all of her original splendor the modification made was to remove the pre-attached BNC lead with the 50 termination resistor with a BNC socket for more flexibility and of course easier storage when not in use as the lead always got in the way. I have made up a special lead with the 50 resistor built in to retain the 50 connection if required.

I have also recapped and cleaned it and thoroughly checked it over and tweaked the calibration to bring the output voltages up and now she is bang the money. Now of course having seen that IG-4244 of med6753 I want one as well. Not too sure which is the earlier one but I'm kinda guessing its not mine as if the numbering system went in chronological order, mine is the newer of the two.

The IG-4244 was introduced in 1984. Your IG-4505 dates much earlier than that, back into the early to mid 1970's. I think they were available concurrently, at least for a while, but I would have to check the catalogs to verify that.

The IG-4244 also has the special 50 ohm terminated coax for the "Time" output for scopes with 1MEG input impedance. Since my two 2465's have a 50 ohm input available I can use a standard RG-58 patch cable and it's properly terminated. 

I don't have time today but tomorrow I'll pull it down off the shelf and take some pron shots of the insides. I have to dexoit the range switch anyway...it's getting a little dodgy.

Thanks for putting me right on that, all it does is make even more determined to get one like yours 
I'd love to see the naked view of it please, I need more porn 
I agree with the 1M input, most newer scopes come with 1M these days, hence why I made a up a 50 lead so if I need to have 50 for a particular scope, I have the lead ready for it 

EDIT Just found this excellent site where a person has built one from a kit documented it as they went.

http://www.pestingers.net/pages-images/heathkit/test-equipment/ig4244/ig4244.htm

[Specmaster]

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

To be honest they are pretty reliable. The problem here is the age of the units, the lifespan of the parts and the complexity aren’t in your favour. They were built with no compromises using the highest quality parts at the time with the intention of lasting under 8 years. This one is 44 years old so it has done fine

Sorry to hear about your lovely 465 power supply falling on its sword like that  On the other hand it does kind of make me glad I never ventured down the Tek route  as they are it seems forever going fucking wrong so maybe its time to look at other brands for the future?

I'm putting my 465 project on the shelf for a while. Too many other things going on here lately involving life.  I still have to pull the vertical board and fix the issues with channel 2 attenuator deck but at least all my power supply issues (for now!  ) are fixed.

Yeah I find you have to approach these in bursts of energy. Going to forward engineer something I think before I go insane

How about forward engineering a device that predicts / warns of when kit is going to let go like that, now that would be really useful.

[bd139]

Already got a doomsday clock. It’s 23:59:59 all the time when you’re using “vintage” kit.

Forward engineering here is arguing with my PICkit3 to persuade it to fill up a 12f629 with something akin to a 555’s worth of functionality.

[mnementh]

bd139, I do indeed have the blue one, its a IG-4505 and she is in all of her original splendor the modification made was to remove the pre-attached BNC lead with the 50 termination resistor with a BNC socket for more flexibility and of course easier storage when not in use as the lead always got in the way. I have made up a special lead with the 50 resistor built in to retain the 50 connection if required.

I have also recapped and cleaned it and thoroughly checked it over and tweaked the calibration to bring the output voltages up and now she is bang the money. Now of course having seen that IG-4244 of med6753 I want one as well. Not too sure which is the earlier one but I'm kinda guessing its not mine as if the numbering system went in chronological order, mine is the newer of the two.

 

I scored one for free.  Mine needed recapped as there were 2 bulging caps in it.  I also did the same BNC mod.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to tweak the calibration.  Yours does look a bit nicer than mine but mine is quite nice considering the age.

Going price for a working example appears to be $65-80 on fleaBay. Not too bad if they do what they say, actually.


mnem
*Currently being hated by my wife's Saturn*

[Specmaster]

Trust me, they exactly what they say they do, they are spot on.

[mnementh]

I see there's a stair-step cal generator for $200 asking price as well. Interesting, but the provenance of the thing... It's  USA made; does anybody here know anything about this "BP Magnetics" out of Tustin, CA?


mnem
*melting in the Tejas suck*

[bd139]

Interesting! Probably a DDS chip!

[mnementh]

The seller reed-d has eBay history going back to '97 with 100% positive rating selling Tek gear; I've been on there since they were still echoBay and that was '98. Damn.

Anybody know who this guy is?


mnem
*Not glerp-compliant*

[bd139]

‘01 for me. Was yahoo auctions before that. I’ve had several accounts though thanks to SWMBO’s incompetent selling and forgetting to send stuff.

Not sure who the seller is. Drop them a message and ask ‘em

[tautech]

Sod it factor 9 Mr Sulu. I will be in receipt of another DS1054Z this Wednesday.

And you weren't even tempted to try something better ?
Or was it the devil you know ? 

Bugger about the 465 anyway, sorry to hear that.

[bd139]

Yeah I did. Had a Keysight DSOX2012A in the RS basket but couldn’t bring myself to press the button.

The 465 will live again! They always do.

[mnementh]

Took the whole brood to see Solo today; I am quite appalled at all the negative critical response surrounding it. 

In all honesty, while not the tragic delight Rogue One turned out to be, I rate it a solid #5 behind Rogue One and the original trilogy. My only concern is that they may try to continue the whitewashing/retcon of Solo that Lucas started with the re-releases of the originals; make him a straight hero instead of the original rogue beloved by 3 generations. They had one scene... a conversation... that pretty effectively hung a lantern on it if they ARE foreshadowing that character development. 

Oh, and wasted the day Friday trying to go buy some dueling lightsabers for my son and myself (UltraSabers.com is actually located less than half an hour away), only to find myself broke down with a dead fuel pump in the Houston hot & humid 20 miles from home for an hour and a half. With my daughter in the car. Thank Ifni for USAA and roadside assistance.  New fuel pump is on the way. Amazon Prime saves the day again; it'll be to my door faster than my local parts house could have it (Tuesday - woulda been tomorrow but for Memorial Day Holiday), and for a third the price.



Also rebuilt my Horror Fraught MIG welder over the weekend; the stinger got run over on the ground by the cart one time too many and broke the gas valve inside. Bought a complete 14AK series gun and lead for $32 delivered on fleaBay; while not the kit I WANTED that would have upgraded to a solenoid gas valve and longer lead, it also didn't cost $70 plus solenoid valve plus another $40 for the euro-connector base I WANTED to go with.

All in all, quite an upgrade anyways. The original stinger was a snap-together resin affair with the cheapest possible everything including a plastic liner, plastic gas valve I'd already Polish-engineered back together once and a cheesy switch made of plastic bits and stamped zinc-plated steel. The new one is made of glass-filled nylon, screws together and has a real steel liner, brass gas valve and a proper freaking micro-switch. Oh, and it has a hook to hang it on the side of the cart; something I've been meaning to do but could never be arsed.

Now it's fixed, I can use it to make a proper rip fence for my huge-arse table-saw; got me some old bed frames to cut up for angle iron. 

So now I'm driving the wife's old Saturn until I get the hoopty Franken-Cruiser back to life; good thing I spent last week getting the brakes sorted with pads, rotors & shoes. 


That concludes another installment of "What the TinkerDwagon's been doing in the Texas Suck",


mnem
Oh, and my Keto diet is going gangbusters as well. Averaging 20 grams/day without suffering too much at all; sometimes even have enough left over for a little morsel of dark chocolate as a bedtime treat.

[tautech]

Now it's fixed, I can use it to make a proper rip fence for my huge-arse table-saw; got me some old bed frames to cut up for angle iron. 

mnem
Oh, and my Keto diet is going gangbusters as well. Averaging 20 grams/day without suffering too much at all; sometimes even have enough left over for a little morsel of dark chocolate as a bedtime treat.

How huge arsed ?
Pics ?

[Mr. Scram]

Is that diet a permanent thing? Or are you going to do this for a few months and then go back to your old ways?

[bd139]

Took the whole brood to see Solo today; I am quite appalled at all the negative critical response surrounding it. 

In all honesty, while not the tragic delight Rogue One turned out to be, I rate it a solid #5 behind Rogue One and the original trilogy. My only concern is that they may try to continue the whitewashing/retcon of Solo that Lucas started with the re-releases of the originals; make him a straight hero instead of the original rogue beloved by 3 generations. They had one scene... a conversation... that pretty effectively hung a lantern on it if they ARE foreshadowing that character development. 

Never been a massive Star Wars fan myself. Found the original films a little incohesive. However I watched Force Awakens last night and it wasn’t actually that bad. Might go and see Solo. Dead pool 2 this Friday though. I hit the cinema on my own on Friday mornings every alternate week. Costs £5 and there isn’t anyone there to piss me off

On the subject of diets, I eat anything that moves or did move until I cooked it. But I walk a lot. I’ve walked nearly as many miles as I’ve driven in the last two years.