Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

https://youtu.be/il_pfqVsD-M

Positively pornographic. 


https://youtu.be/be4LrGn0lPg

Correction... I stumbled across THIS one... which led me to that one. No less pornographic in its own right...


mnem
Yes, you may touch it.

[Specmaster]

Bastards! now I have to go and make myself some buttered toast. Mmmmm, toast!

Toastoffice still open? It sounds like a good name does that, you'd have a quite a few potential customers here I think.

[mnementh]

My diet is toast.

mnem
*juddering quietly in the corner*

[Specmaster]

Harlow. Nuff said. zombie chav zone. Used to work in Harlow.

Got my DPD notification that new Rigol is arriving tomorrow. I noticed Telonic will give you a £10+VAT discount if you don’t want the “free” multimeter. The “free” multimeter is a shiny DT830 one you can get from CPC for £4 so the word “free” is a bit misplaced.

Here’s what the “free” DMM is good for. This one came with the last order:

https://youtu.be/s1eiwcRGb6Q

Is that the "free gift" they send you so you're not allowed to be torqued off that the actual 'scope didn't arrive anywhere near the advertised delivery time? They're STILL playing that game?


mnem
The only good Muppets are Electric Mayhem.

Wrong, here are some good Muppets 

[Specmaster]

https://youtu.be/il_pfqVsD-M

Positively pornographic. 


https://youtu.be/be4LrGn0lPg

Correction... I stumbled across THIS one... which led me to that one. No less pornographic in its own right...


mnem
Yes, you may touch it.

Thats nice, YouTube is now my favorite entertainment medium, I watch more of that then I do TV, unless I'm downstairs late at night, but even then I'm watching some on YouTube on the smart TV 

[mnementh]

(SNIP)
mnem
The only good Muppets are Electric Mayhem.

Wrong, here are some good Muppets 

No, those particular Muppets have definitely gone bad... VERY bad. 

https://youtu.be/_4zXPSHeKJM


mnem

[bd139]

No, they didn't because it came back with it reading precisely the same readings it went in with, and TBH, I don't think that I did short out the RAM feed. IIRC the CAL switch was in the enable position and I think I pressed the SRQ button on one of the ranges by accident and wiped out the settings on that particular range and hence why the display was saying "Uncalibrated" because if a single range is not calibrated it won't pass the self test and that message is what it displays by default. I have since calibrated all ranges and it passes the self test and also agrees with my other meters give or take 1 or 2 mV.

EDIT. I have not calibrated the many Flukes meters I have nor the recent HP3466A and seriously doubt that they would agree with so little difference between them if the calibration was not good enough at the mV level. I don't need micro volt measurements and if I did I would get a meter designed for that level of measurement.   

Gotcha. That makes sense now.

I would like to apologise for the toast incident. I have punished myself by eating toast last night and this morning 

Is that the "free gift" they send you so you're not allowed to be torqued off that the actual 'scope didn't arrive anywhere near the advertised delivery time? They're STILL playing that game?

Nah this is Telonic. They're pretty good. Next working day delivery with one hour delivery slot for free. The free meter is a "how can we screw someone for another 8 quid and use the word free at the same time" pitch.

Talking of which my new scope is due to arrive in the next hour 

[bd139]

Arrived, unpacked, plugged in, riglol'ed up to 100MHz. Bob = uncle:

[Specmaster]

They do look nice especially with the large screen (8 x 12) and 4 channels but the bugs??

Does the 100MHz means that it came with extra bandwidth activated, or did you pay for the key / hacked it?

[ElektroQuark]

Hacked, I bet.

[Zucca]

100MHz

ohhh.... much better than 50Mhz

Curiosity strikes again: since you are not a beginner how do you plan to use it? Is it like the second vacuum cleaner which can clean inside the first one?

 

[bd139]

Yes cracked of course. I wouldn’t have bought it if I couldn’t crack it.

It is basically a Swiss Army knife.

I need SPI decode as well as I’m trying to get a PIC to talk to an ADC over SPI and its not working.

[GreyWoolfe]

"Here, hold muh beer and watch THIS!"

I thought that was the last thing a redneck said before death overtook.

[bd139]

Highly recommended: https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmybeer/

[Specmaster]

Yes, its a jack of all trades but master of none as the saying goes, if they could fix the slight bugs and quirks it might be a really great purchase. I know Dave used to seriously recommend that model as a "no brainer" go get one but was 3 years ago.

[bd139]

All scopes are a jack of all trades though. They're mostly useless in the frequency domain, the time domain isn't all that accurate either and the voltage measurements aren't that good really. This is why we have DMMs, frequency counters etc as well.

However it's the only tool that does all of the above at the same time and draws them on a pretty picture and in this case allows it to hang around longer than the phosphor would

The bugs that remain for me in the Rigol are the shitty FFT implementation, some UI lag, naff probe coax and the DC drift that plagued my last unit resulting in a self cal needing to be done every week.

The big non bug is the price, crackability and the fact it has an ethernet hole in its bum.

Tradeoff really which it still wins pretty well. Keysight's offering I was looking at was about £1300. Versus £370 it's a no brainer. Siglent is pretty good there too (nod to tautech) but the distributors in UK are shit so you have to buy it from EU which has a worse statuatory warranty on it than if you buy it here in the UK

[Cerebus]

"Here, hold muh beer and watch THIS!"

I thought that was the last thing a redneck said before death overtook.

I believe that in the canonical form the words "Hey y'all" are required to appear somewhere. Something along the lines of:

"Billy-Bub, hold muh beer. Hey y'all, wuch this!"

[med6753]

My turn for a crap out. The recently purchased 2465. Complete power loss. Shit! Check the fuse and it's OK. So I tear it apart. I have AC power in. The EMI filter is OK. No blown caps. But no mains AC to the primary rectifier bridge at the input of the DC bulk for the switcher. That's strange. Finally found the culprit. The power switch itself. It's a DPST switch and one side was open. So as a temporary measure I jumpered that side of the switch and the scope powered up. For now it's fixed. But I really doubt I'm going to find the proper replacement switch unless I rob it off a carcass. So I'm thinking about a more permanent solution.

While I had the Regulator and Inverter boards out I looked them over real good. They both have original factory caps. No bulging or leakers that I could see. But I'm now definitely going to order replacements and get it done soon. And figure out what to do with the power switch.   

[bd139]

Does that have one of those schaffner filters in it? I'd swap that out if you can if it does. That'll be the next thing that blows up and they go off in style.

[mnementh]

(SNIP)

I would like to apologise for the toast incident. I have punished myself by eating toast last night and this morning 

Is that the "free gift" they send you so you're not allowed to be torqued off that the actual 'scope didn't arrive anywhere near the advertised delivery time? They're STILL playing that game?

Nah this is Telonic. They're pretty good. Next working day delivery with one hour delivery slot for free. The free meter is a "how can we screw someone for another 8 quid and use the word free at the same time" pitch.

Talking of which my new scope is due to arrive in the next hour 

w00t! 

mnem
We do not speak of the toaster incident.

[med6753]

Does that have one of those schaffner filters in it? I'd swap that out if you can if it does. That'll be the next thing that blows up and they go off in style.

I'm not familiar with a schaffner filter. Here's the primary side of the Inverter circuit. Does it have one?

[Specmaster]

Its normally built into the IEC connector and has a built in fuse?

[med6753]

Its normally built into the IEC connector and has a built in fuse?

The EMI filter is built into the IEC connector but the fuse is separate.

[mnementh]

"Here, hold muh beer and watch THIS!"

I thought that was the last thing a redneck said before death overtook.

I believe that in the canonical form the words "Hey y'all" are required to appear somewhere. Something along the lines of:

"Billy-Bub, hold muh beer. Hey y'all, wuch this!"

Sadly, the beer-swilling fuckwit usually survives; it's his passengers and other motorists that get the Darwin Award. 

"Y'all" is only formal speech in Alabama and parts of Mippippippi.

Highly recommended: https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmybeer/

*SNERK*

I scrolled for several minutes, but my favorite is right at the top; that kangaroo with a dog in a headlock.  That's the sort of story you tell your grandkids and they think you've lost your marbles. 


mnem
Toasty.

[Cerebus]

mnem
We do not speak of the toaster incident.

In which case, if we don't speak of it, then we'll have to let Kriten and Lister do it for us: