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Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

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Brumby:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on July 15, 2022, 08:02:42 am ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on July 14, 2022, 05:57:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: Robert763 on July 14, 2022, 05:20:55 pm ---There is 3 phase in the street but not in the house. If I could get an extension lead from two neigbours I'd be set though  ::)
EV's and non-gas heating is driving  three phase supplies for some new build housing though.

--- End quote ---

You might need quite long extensions, from what I can make out (from observing single phase power failures) the phases down my street change about every six houses.

--- End quote ---

From observing the telephone poles, in my road they change every house, and every house could easily tap all three phases.

--- End quote ---

Typically, except for some of the newer areas of Sydney (where things are underground and I've never investigated what is buried), you will find four wires strung from pole to pole down the street, making access to 3 phase physically straightforward to anyone who wants it.  From any given pole, several homes are fed and you will usually see a similar number of connections to each phase - so phase balancing by household.  It is really easy to identify the neutral. ;D

In fact, I recently had my meter box upgraded to allow for future plans and decided to move from a single phase supply to a 3 phase one.  This just required running new cabling from the street pole.  I now have an aerial bundled cable instead of the previous 2 wire feed.

The whole upgrade was around the $5k mark, which was felt - but now its done, options for moving forward have increased nicely.  As a bonus, the garage circuit which had gone dead recently, came back to life after the work.  That was nice.  :)

Getting solar now has my attention .... if I can get myself motivated to dive in.  Two storey freestanding house with roof orientation and pitch within 2º of ideal for a fixed installation, plus it's a gable roof, so a nice rectangular area available, with only a solar hot water panel to work around.  Afternoon shading from a spectacular Jacaranda in my front yard is a nuisance, but the wife loves that tree.  I can't get too gung-ho about trimming that as there is an absolutely massive gum tree across the road that I can't touch that will also shade things.  Microinverters feel like the appropriate direction, but that's just one of a couple of significant decisions that will require some homework.

The next step is to get some idea of decent equipment and decent installers ... and I am not keen on having to deal with the bull and crap I feel is destined to flow.


Now I just have to get motivated - but I'm not in the mood.........

dl6lr:

--- Quote from: bd139 on July 15, 2022, 07:01:11 am ---Well spotted. I was clearly asleep when I wrote that. It’s a 74S287.

--- End quote ---

74S287 (National) = 7611 (Harris) = 82S129 (Signetics) = 6301 (MMI) = 7114 (Fujitu) = 24S10/34S10 (TI) = 93427 (Fairchild) = Am27S21 (AMD)
See https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=PromRef.txt

I have a programmer that can read and burn them:
Kontron MPP-80 with personality module MOD 6 or MOD 11 and adapter SA 4-2, according to the documentation. Available here... but haven't testet it yet with those buggers.
At least reads missing devices as 0xF and screams about non programmable bits when trying to program a zero. If I can be of any help...

mnementh:

--- Quote from: med6753 on July 15, 2022, 04:46:32 am ---Pat, that looks great!  :-+ I'm surprised you got such good results with the "Goof Off". I've used it and was never happy with the results. I found "Goo Gone" to work much better. I have yet to try those Mr Clean Magic Erasers. I may pick up one next shopping trip.

Edit....Papa Smurf's Shade Tree Painting Service has been mothballed.  :-DD
--- End quote ---

My experience with both products shows Goo Gone to be much better for goopy stuff like sticker residue and tar, while Goof Off is better at removing stains like ink and Sharpie.


--- Quote from: some random web search: ---The key difference between Goo Gone and Goof Off is that Goo Gone is a mild citrus-based solution, and Goof Off is a potent acetone-based formula. Goo Gone is ideal for removing residue from stickers and tape, while Goof Off is better suited for heavy-duty messes like tar, dried paint, and glue.
--- End quote ---

 :-//

I'm just glad for Pat that the Goof-Off didn't try to float the front escutcheon plate off the thing. I've made that mistake before, even had it de-laminate a multi-layer badge.  :-[

mnem
 :-DMM

bd139:

--- Quote from: Vince on July 15, 2022, 01:52:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: bd139 on July 15, 2022, 01:32:54 pm ---Hey it's HP. Doesn't matter which side, I'm sure we appreciate it. Apart from med  :-DD

Edit: so the whole blowing a PROM thing lead to a rabbit hole where I found the schematics for my old Z80 SBC I built when I was 12 which I never really liked. Mulling ideas around a 6502 variant with FORTH as a bench utility computer. Can probably put one together for less than the price of a BBC at the moment which have reached extortion value. And of course incur hours of glorious fettling.

--- End quote ---

Oh I misunderstood... thought you had your childhood BBC computer still with you, albeit inaccessible packed somewhere.... if you have to buy one of course it's not very interesting financially...

I guess any 8 bit micro would be plenty enough to make a programmer here... aren't they any available in the UK at all ?!  :-//
You said you have a programmer for PIC chips is that it ? Can't one buy a PIC MCU currently ?! Has it gotten that bad ?!
I mean could be, I don't know... haven't tried to buy an MCU recently....

Honestly if getting something done with a micro of any sort, is that much trouble.... for only 256 memory locations to program, I would just do it by hand ! :-//

Just put an 8 bit counter to drive the address pins, that you can increment with a push button (or just put a couple coding wheels). Maybe add LED 7 segment displays to it so you can make sure the address bus is indeed at the intended location, then put a coding wheel or dip-switches on the 4 bit data bus and just flick through the 256 memory locations, shouldn't take all that long to program even by hand  :-//
Maybe add displays to the data bus as well, so you can then read the PROM to make sure it's been programmed properly.

It's a one-off thing, it only needs to let you program THAT particular chip, and do it once, maybe twice if unlucky the first time, but that's about it...

It's not like you were trying to make something fancy that's universal and super convenient and quick to mass program these because you want to flog them on Ebay by the hundreds... you only need to get that one job done, no more,  that's all...

--- End quote ---

Here's how it goes in my head:

1. Buy a wonky Tek 465B because green wiggles FTW.
2. Ok the PROM is bust.
3. Can I buy a PROM? Yes. Order it.
3. Find the PROM supplier is shit when RM lose the package thus not being able to
4. Do some reverse engineering and find the PROM is one of N different types.
5. Discover they are really expensive to buy and the programming is difficult.
6. Knock up an Arduino programmer in my head based on the datasheet.
7. Discover thanks to the chip shortage that the only arduinos that aren't rip offs are based on the new Logic Green clones. argh.
8. Think back to the last time that you had a general purpose computer that could wiggle bits. Oh BBC.
9. Spend way too much time looking at BBCs on ebay.
10. Accidentally stumble across a 6502 SBC PCB and go down a rabbit hole of the old 6502 SBCs and FORTH via TCJ (tggzzz will know that reference).
11. Wonder why the hell I am doing this.
12. Go for a walk.
13. Come back, unpack the SDS1202X-E and stare at it for a bit and think ahhhhhhhhhh that's why I bought you.
14. Stick the 465B back in the cupboard in the repair queue and wait for a mule to appear.


Also, LOL at the price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225075970394

mnementh:

--- Quote from: mnementh on July 14, 2022, 12:10:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on July 14, 2022, 11:21:06 am ---Not good enough. "it's all right there" means nothing. Be specific.

From what I can guess, you are trying to make my statement that "The only thing adding displacement is good for is going fast in a straight line" to mean "drag racing is stupid and wasteful". Well, I did not say or imply that, at least not by any reasonable metric, and it is not nor has ever been my view. You added two and two and got the national debt of Uruguay.

In the context of the rest of my post it should be clear to anyone that this is a statement of engineering fact, no more and no less. Which it is, unquestionably.

To be absolutely clear, I will not sit idly and quietly by while I am falsely accused of something. You have failed to even attempt to show any actual evidence, so I can only surmise that you know you are in the wrong but don't want to admit it.
If it were a simple matter of opinion or an error in fact, I would be happy to let the matter lie, and move on. However I will NOT be traduced unfairly and without response. How dare you falsely accuse me of being childish, and throwing insults, when all the while doing that very thing.

Since it apparently your position to refuse responsibility for your mistakes and to continue to malign my character and intent, you may consider my promise to ignore your existence to be in effect from this moment onwards.

Apologies to other users of this thread for the unedited quotes, but I wanted to make sure the context of what has been said by all parties to be plain and unbiased.
--- End quote ---

No. I'm done with this.

mnem

--- End quote ---

I wanted to just walk away from this... but I can't. Y'all can hate me, but I really get tired of being shouted down by people blowing up over an honest misunderstanding.

First off: I was the one who said it was wasteful. That was the entire point of my original post:


--- Quote from: mnementh on July 13, 2022, 11:32:22 am ---
--- Quote from: bd139 on July 13, 2022, 08:06:59 am ---Yep. Rocking the 0.99L 3 cyl here  :-DD   Sounds like a V8 if you stick kangaroo juice in it.
--- End quote ---
I think you've been drinking too much of the kangaroo juice. Nothing sound like a V-8 except a V-8. ;)

I have no problem with folks keeping the heavy metal of yesteryear alive... I'll always be a motorhead, and there still is no replacement for displacement. But this is a different world; these toys of yesteryear have to be treated as toys, not as a way of life if we are to survive as a species. We cannot afford for those lovely beasts to be anybody's "daily driver" any longer.

mnem

--- End quote ---

Second: This kind of crap is actually offensive to folks who have actually fielded a race car, and know from first-hand experience the trade-offs one makes when putting a race car on the track or strip:


--- Quote from: AVGresponding on July 13, 2022, 11:41:55 am ---Aaaaand this has always been utter nonsense. This is why Colin Chapman's designs blew all the primitive displacement based ones into the weeds.

The only thing adding displacement is good for is going fast in a straight line. For anything else, weight reduction is the real answer. Hence how Mini Coopers could beat 7-litre+ yank tanks in the early days of touring cars.
--- End quote ---

This kind of broad, overweaning statement is deliberately inflammatory, and honestly deserved the very mild rebuke of "Don't be a dick". Everything else that followed is entirely over-reaction over a misunderstanding. If you cannot admit you contributed to that misunderstanding, then you have only yourself to blame for your own butthurt.

As someone who has actually done it, when you're planning a race car, there are a lot of trade-offs, but bottom line is that for any build, there is going to be a certain minimum displacement that will get the job done. PERIOD. Even your example Mini-Coopers won't get out of their own way with bd139's 1-liter 3-lunger, no matter how much you huff it. And I have no doubt that every one of Chapman's Coopers were stroked & bored to get every cc that block was capable of. That is just how racing is done.

I wouldn't expect you to know what a bell blanket is without Googling it, or the fact that tire pressure is part of the math when deciding which set of gears to drop in your quick-change rearend. But being able to quote examples of people who've done racing differently, or may have even done it better than me, does not mean you know better than me. There are a lot of things you don't know until you've done it; comparing rally racing to drag racing is a self-serving straw-man argument, and you know it. I for sure know it; I've done both.

If you really want to have an adult conversation about this, we can do it. But bloviation like "Aaaaand this has always been utter nonsense...." is not adult conversation. You might be right about some things too; but you might find yourself in a "Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" situation.

Cheers,

mnem
*sad sigh*

*edited to reduce unintended aggro tone*

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