Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

188,888 blink of doom!

just zoorched my fluke 8810a.

Whoopsy! Just remember every day that the equipment dies instead of you is a good day

I have decided to exactly that for a couple of evenings at least 

I have cleaned and tidied my bench though. Looks half respectable now 

Don't get zapped using a T12 and to think that it needed was a decent 24v PSU or even a 28v and you'd have had all the heat you need and NO zaps 

That has an X2 on it as well. Most equipment does. It’s actually a function of probability. The device needs to be yanked from the power mid cycle so there is a high potential across that cap. The nicer manufacturers out there have a stonking great big resistor across it to discharge it.

Well it's not going well so far. I managed to get it up with 2 bench supplies in the end. Only pulls 600mA from each supply. Should have worked that out to start with.

However the display is flickering. Power rails are 100% fine so this is HT related. No bloody VR37 resistors in stock on RS until December 12th either. This one might have to go away in the cupboard for a bit

Edit: I am now the owner for 5 broken analogue scopes (475A timebase still has problems but switch related). No more!

Things are going slightly better here, snagged a Sony mini hi-fi unit with a dodgy CD player, because I though the Minidisc deck would fit the Aiwa, Naah  But the CD player just wanted the laser cleaned and it sprung to live, works perfectly now, so it is all working perfectly, just awaiting the arrival of remote for it and it can on sale, CD, MiniDisc, Cassette, FM/MW/LW with speakers in almost new condition, hmmm chicken dinner 

Sound pretty good to me. Glad someone is having some luck

I have spent the evening reconfiguring backups, doing tax return and listening to music. Fun fun fun

[Specmaster]

The T12 might well have a X2 capacitor in but I always switch off on the switch behind the unit before unplugging the lead so the cap is on the load side of the switch.

Not seen anything so far to make me buy anything in the Black Friday sales, has anyone else?

[TERRA Operative]

Just snagged an entire replacement front panel for my HP 5304A, including the missing 'Resolution' switch and a complete BNC input board I NEED, two parts of almost unobtanium on their own.

Now the painful wait for delivery...

[med6753]

188,888 blink of doom!


just zoorched my fluke 8810a.

Ouch! At least you didn't become the circuit path to ground.  But welcome to the destroyed Fluke DMM club. My similar 8800A sits in a closet badly damaged due to my stupidity.

12KV? Sounds like you were trying to measure the anode voltage of a scope or small B/W analog TV. Correct? 

[mnementh]

You are a hazard to yourself and others around you.      Unplug the soldering iron and step away from the repair cue.  Go watch the boob tube or something useless.   

Perhaps you should take up knitting or something safe for a while until you get your mo jo back. 

You're suggesting that a man suffering an acute breakout of Penis Fingers compounded with Murphy's Entanglement should take up a hobby involving strangulation cord and pointy metal spikes...  You do consider bd to be a friend, right?    

mnem
 

[bitseeker]

Not seen anything so far to make me buy anything in the Black Friday sales, has anyone else?

Nope. I'm having a quiet, shopping-free, turkey-filled day.

[Housedad]

I can't even move after that meal, much less shop.  OOOOOH, my belly!

[mnementh]

After filling myself up on ham and turkney and bizcuits and gravy and homemade apple pie... we came home and I proceeded to eat 6 pieces of baklava as my bedtime treat.

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm going to slip out of these overstuffed pants and slip into something a little more comfortable... like a coma.   

mnem
*wibble*

[tautech]

Yeah well turkeys.....the mob of ~1/2 dozen I drove past today gobbled at me and I warned them they're lucky they roam my paddocks and not some in the US.....and you guessed it, they just gobbled back at me !
Cheeky buggers.

[Housedad]

Now that is something I would have never thought of.  Turkeys in NZ.  Dunno why not,  but WTH.

[tautech]

Now that is something I would have never thought of.  Turkeys in NZ.  Dunno why not,  but WTH.

They certainly ain't everywhere in fact it's not that common to see them.
Pop bought 4 hens and 2 gobblers home in the old wooden and wire banana boxes from a clearing sale way back in the '70s and as kids we fed them regularly a bit of wheat to keep them local until they got breeding......and breed they did ! Clutches of a dozen were common and within a few years we had some hundreds roaming around the farm.
But they were got for a job, summers on a sheep farm when the grass got short and ground cracked allowed the black field cricket a refuge and the little buggers like locusts consumed a pile of pasture that even when the autumn rains came took months to recover.
Before long the mobs of turkeys would line up, up to 100 abreast and sweep across the paddocks devouring every cricket they had the chance to. There got so many we had organised shoots, slaughters actually, to keep the numbers down to something the farm could easily sustain and at those times they realized ours wasn't the safest property to be on. Today descendants of that 1/2 dozen free range ~5km from where they first got established.
As teenagers we plucked and cooked dozens of the damn things to the point where now several decades later I wouldn't care if I never tasted one again. We got real fussy as to when we would harvest them as when on the crickets they certainly weren't the best to eat.

Memories.............

[bd139]

Got to be honest I do like a turkey. But I’m a lazy bastard so I’ll just buy a prepped crown off my sister (lives on a farm with turkeys, horses and about a mega ton of potatoes and carrots - she’s a wise person!)

Edit: keeping it TEA related, I found out that LCSC stock metal glazed resistors of 510k with 700V WV which is twice the measured 375V across them in the 2235. Will order some of those. Will turn up before RS have stock in December and are only £0.04 each instead of £1.00 each for the Vishay ones. Bastards literally don’t want my business.

[Cerebus]

Now that is something I would have never thought of.  Turkeys in NZ.  Dunno why not,  but WTH.

No weirder than having potatoes. tomatoes or peppers, all biological imports from the Americas. Ya wouldn't think a bag of chips an odd thing to have...

[bd139]

Fortunately they didn’t inherit the wrong side of the road in NZ 

[tautech]

Fortunately they didn’t inherit the wrong side of the road in NZ 

As a teen I was on the other side more often than not. 
Now most around here are tarmac. 

[med6753]

Fortunately they didn’t inherit the wrong side of the road in NZ 

We have wild turkeys here. They're too stupid to know which side of the road they are on. 

Other trivia.....It is currently 10 degrees F outside. That's -12 C for you Celsius folks. It's way too early for those temps. Usually not until the end of December or early January does it get this cold. Plus we had our first big snow last week, nearly a month early. It's going to be a long Winter.

Thanksgiving brings families together. It unfortunately also brings with it domestic violence. The police scanner has been very busy the last few days responding to those calls.   

TEA stuff. Both Vertical plug-ins on the OS-245 (7603N) have been giving me attenuator fits. Again. Don't know what's up with these 7A15A plug-ins. They must have a lot of hours and somewhat worn out. Pulled them apart, again. Cleaned them, again. Both now working fine, for now. Oh and BTW, remember the retrace issue I had with the mainframe several months ago? It has not come back. Weird. But at least I have on file a copy of what a "good" retrace pulse looks like.

   

[bd139]

Tek attenuators are always like that I find. Then again it's ex-defence sector which usually means it has been fumbled by idiots. I've seen some unholy shit done to kit which has been in the field.

I saw a nice little Tek step attenuator the other day on ebay and skipped it after I found it had leaf contacts in it. Just ran a mile. Not sure I will do another scope from that era. Honestly at this point, when I use my TDS210 I am basically delighted. It's just enough scope and not too much of a bastard. New "vintage" is ~1997 for me. That puts you plainly in the middle of (a) TTi power supplies that aren't shit (b) Fluke 87 (c) silent TDS scopes with inside them (d) 33120A

[Specmaster]

Got to be honest I do like a turkey. But I’m a lazy bastard so I’ll just buy a prepped crown off my sister (lives on a farm with turkeys, horses and about a mega ton of potatoes and carrots - she’s a wise person!)

Total agreement here as well, going out to get my frozen crown today to make sure of getting one 

Edit: keeping it TEA related, I found out that LCSC stock metal glazed resistors of 510k with 700V WV which is twice the measured 375V across them in the 2235. Will order some of those. Will turn up before RS have stock in December and are only £0.04 each instead of £1.00 each for the Vishay ones. Bastards literally don’t want my business.

The thing I like about audio is that the things that are in demand are not that old so are unlikely to require recapping, mostly replacing drive belts, the odd IC or transistor where some idiot had shorted the speaker leads. Downside is that it has a short spell of manufacture before it becomes obsolete and dedicated spares become almost impossible to get so donors become the sole source which tends to leave a lot of carcases around that maybe only need the odd drive unit or the DAB card to be replaced to fetch them back into living items again 

[med6753]

Got to be honest I do like a turkey. But I’m a lazy bastard so I’ll just buy a prepped crown off my sister (lives on a farm with turkeys, horses and about a mega ton of potatoes and carrots - she’s a wise person!)

Total agreement here as well, going out to get my frozen crown today to make sure of getting one 

Edit: keeping it TEA related, I found out that LCSC stock metal glazed resistors of 510k with 700V WV which is twice the measured 375V across them in the 2235. Will order some of those. Will turn up before RS have stock in December and are only £0.04 each instead of £1.00 each for the Vishay ones. Bastards literally don’t want my business.

The thing I like about audio is that the things that are in demand are not that old so are unlikely to require recapping, mostly replacing drive belts, the odd IC or transistor where some idiot had shorted the speaker leads. Downside is that it has a short spell of manufacture before it becomes obsolete and dedicated spares become almost impossible to get so donors become the sole source which tends to leave a lot of carcases around that maybe only need the odd drive unit or the DAB card to be replaced to fetch them back into living items again 

OK, both of you have mentioned "frozen crown". What the hell is that? Did the Queen leave her crown outside in the snow? 

[Specmaster]

Not sure I will do another scope from that era. Honestly at this point, when I use my TDS210 I am basically delighted. It's just enough scope and not too much of a bastard. New "vintage" is ~1997 for me. That puts you plainly in the middle of (a) TTi power supplies that aren't shit (b) Fluke 87 (c) silent TDS scopes with inside them (d) 33120A

Agree with the TDS210, I love mine and find the Fluke 3390B very noisy with the fan going all the time although TBH, I do prefer the display on the Fluke, far crisper but then it is a CRT 

[bd139]

OK, both of you have mentioned "frozen crown". What the hell is that? Did the Queen leave her crown outside in the snow? 

Someone does all the turkey hard work like plucking it, yanks the legs off and leaves you with just the breast meat. Then freezes it. Get them early here as they sell out quick as Specmaster says. Then you shove the thing out to defrost for about 4 days in the fridge leaving you bugger all room for anything else, stick it in the oven for a few hours (covered in foil for the first half resting on some onions and carrot chunks and some water), carve it, make gravy from what is left and job done. So much less hassle than burning your porch down or dealing with a whole turkey.

Edit: this doesn't always go as planned. Turkey sometimes has frozen bit in the middle if you don't know what you're doing, mother-in-law looks at you like an ebola victim, wife cries in kitchen, kids shake their head at you, Christmas ruined etc. Only happened once 

Not sure I will do another scope from that era. Honestly at this point, when I use my TDS210 I am basically delighted. It's just enough scope and not too much of a bastard. New "vintage" is ~1997 for me. That puts you plainly in the middle of (a) TTi power supplies that aren't shit (b) Fluke 87 (c) silent TDS scopes with inside them (d) 33120A

Agree with the TDS210, I love mine and find the Fluke 3390B very noisy with the fan going all the time although TBH, I do prefer the display on the Fluke, far crisper but then it is a CRT 

I'm hoping to get that sort of result out of the 2235 eventually. Once I've argued with it

[med6753]

Oh OK.....basically like most of us get a turkey here, but with the legs and wings intact.

Frozen solid, check.
Takes up all the room in the fridge, check
Takes days to defrost, check
Takes hours to cook, check
Still frozen inside? Ahem, meat thermometers are a new wonder device. 
No bread stuffing??? Gotta have stuffing! 

[bd139]

Yeah I learned all about meat thermometers that time

Of course there's stuffing. I do ours different than you're supposed to. Get some sausage meat and sage and onion powder stuffing. Rehydrate the latter then mush it all up and cook it in a separate tray. Tastes bloody amazing.

I am the world's laziest cook.

[nixiefreqq]

188,888 blink of doom!


just zoorched my fluke 8810a.

Ouch! At least you didn't become the circuit path to ground.  But welcome to the destroyed Fluke DMM club. My similar 8800A sits in a closet badly damaged due to my stupidity.

12KV? Sounds like you were trying to measure the anode voltage of a scope or small B/W analog TV. Correct?

yep.  was checking an hp 54502 that looked a little dim.  was afraid it might be the tripler.

turns out the anode voltage was ok.   the internal brightness control just needed a tweak. 


the dim thing in the room was me.

[Specmaster]

Oh OK.....basically like most of us get a turkey here, but with the legs and wings intact.

Frozen solid, check.
Takes up all the room in the fridge, check
Takes days to defrost, check
Takes hours to cook, check
Still frozen inside? Ahem, meat thermometers are a new wonder device. 
No bread stuffing??? Gotta have stuffing! 

Problem with a whole bird is that everyone wants the breast meat and the legs tend to get left or fed to the cats. Never have yet had frozen turkey left inside, but then unlike bd139, I never ever cook, leave that to my excellent wife who knows what she's doing in the kitchen, still stresses her out though doing the Christmas dinner, never quite sure why, its much the same as Sunday dinner, with a turkey instead of chicken??

Bread stuffing  not heard of Sage and Onion stuffing then eh  , oh well whatever floats your boat but a whole bird does demand stuffing, we do the stuffing separately, basically for me 

Someone does all the turkey hard work like plucking it, yanks the legs off and leaves you with just the breast meat. Then freezes it. Get them early here as they sell out quick as Specmaster says. Then you shove the thing out to defrost for about 4 days in the fridge leaving you bugger all room for anything else, stick it in the oven for a few hours (covered in foil for the first half resting on some onions and carrot chunks and some water), carve it, make gravy from what is left and job done. So much less hassle than burning your porch down or dealing with a whole turkey.

Edit: this doesn't always go as planned. Turkey sometimes has frozen bit in the middle if you don't know what you're doing, mother-in-law looks at you like an ebola victim, wife cries in kitchen, kids shake their head at you, Christmas ruined etc. Only happened once 

Not too sure about resting on a bed of carrots and onions, I'm the only one of loves onions (they tend to cause air pollution later in the day  ) but wait, where's your streaky bacon laid across the top of the crown???