Author Topic: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread  (Read 14405931 times)

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Online xrunner

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21000 on: December 11, 2018, 02:13:24 am »
New battery came in for the hp 8904A today. Per service manual instructions, wired up a temp 3V battery across C5. Removed and installed new battery. Note the original small plastic washer on Neg. lead to prevent the metal of the batt. terminal cutting into other traces.

Replaced board and we're back in business.  :box:

Now waiting on new replacement IEC line filter.  :popcorn:
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Offline mnementh

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NOS Oldaker Leads
« Reply #21001 on: December 11, 2018, 05:42:51 am »
In other News...

               

My order of NOS Oldaker Leads, to match my favorite Oldaker modular test probes, which I bought on eBay stole for a $10 "Make Offer" arrived today. After dismantling one end of a lead to see what was under the molding, I decided to just build the leads with the "craptacular" 4mm banana plugs we were talking about the other day.

1- After soldering the spring and lead in place, I wrapped two full layers of cello tape around the threads to tighten them up; I figured if I was gonna tape it, the tape might as well serve a purpose. When I assembled, the ends got a good bite on 4-5 threads and feel pretty solid.

2 - Both ends presents a 90° threaded connector, meant for use evidently with probe, plug, alligator or jack; I've searched many times over the years, and evidently this is an Oldaker "thing". I've NEVER seen any Modular leads from Oldaker except the #537 & the #598, and they both expect you to use a 90° at the probe. I've seen straight leads on soldered-together probes, but not the modular sets.

3 - Here's what I got; 5 sets of vulcanized rubber 18ga leads in perfect NOS condition; not the least bit stiff or cracky, and not mallowy either. Just a joy in the hand. I also got 2 sets of BNC to Oldaker probe test leads, and a set of screw-on 4mm banana socket adapters. I've tried to use these before; they're too fat for shrouded plugs, and the bottoms have a rim that cracks out if you put them on the probes. I'm still trying to figure out  :wtf: they were thinking there. All leads are old-school 48" long.  :-+

4 - Once doctored up, the cheap-ass banana plugs actually seem half-decent; they plug in positively and smoothly with a good ~8mm of engagement, and they look like they belong on the 3478A. I'm no petite flower ("ham-fisted" is the term that comes to mind), so we'll just have to see how well they hold up under my tender ministrations.  ;)

5 - In use: I had my reservations that the 90° angle at the probe would be annoying... it's why I haven't had a massive hard-on to buy the matching leads, and certainly not willing to pay the "collectible" price everybody seemed to want for them. But really it isn't that bad; having the lead draped across the back of my hand does bug me (I've been bit by ignition coils a few times using old-school automotive oscilloscopes), but as long as I turn the probe so the leads points away from my hand it doesn't bother me at all. And it seems it may even be a better arrangement to minimize capacitive/inductive coupling with my body during sensitive measurements.  :-+

If you're wondering: from my testing so far, a shorting lead or shorted set of leads measures ~0.1400-0.1800Ω on this meter; so far, I haven't figured out how the "auto-zero" is supposed to work. I really need to read the manual rather than just skimming it like 6 times.  :palm:

So there you have it... one of the last pieces of the 3478A puzzle finally coming together... now all I need is a space deep enough to to be able to use it without it eating up half the workspace on my bench like it's doing here.   :box:

mnem
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« Last Edit: May 24, 2022, 10:54:37 pm by mnementh »
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Offline GregDunn

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21002 on: December 11, 2018, 06:03:03 am »
Light Beer is just WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG on every level


As a German friend once pointed out: at least by drinking it you can stay hydrated.   :-DD
 

Offline Cubdriver

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21003 on: December 11, 2018, 06:33:32 am »
New battery came in for the hp 8904A today. Per service manual instructions, wired up a temp 3V battery across C5. Removed and installed new battery. Note the original small plastic washer on Neg. lead to prevent the metal of the batt. terminal cutting into other traces.

Replaced board and we're back in business.  :box:

Now waiting on new replacement IEC line filter.  :popcorn:

I really need to excavate mine from the rack, pop it open and check the battery.  It's probably due...

Thanks for the nice photos, xrunner.

-Pat
If it jams, force it.  If it breaks, you needed a new one anyway...
 

Offline beanflying

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21004 on: December 11, 2018, 07:16:43 am »

As a German friend once pointed out: at least by drinking it you can stay hydrated.   :-DD

I have been known to resort to the aforementioned Donky Pee with a slice of lime for this purpose but my preference in the big smoke was a Bavarian Weiss Beer one of my local pubs used to carry.

Washing down the MDF dust with a G&T with a splash of Bitters tonight.
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: NOS Oldaker Leads
« Reply #21005 on: December 11, 2018, 09:16:21 am »
If you're wondering: from my testing so far, a shorting lead or shorted set of leads measures ~0.1400-0.1800Ω on this meter; so far, I haven't figured out how the "auto-zero" is supposed to work. I really need to read the manual rather than just skimming it like 6 times.  :palm:

Well, RTFM is a useful last resort, but that reading sounds about right and in this case I would simply use 4 bits of wire :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21006 on: December 11, 2018, 09:21:02 am »
The 3478A is calibrated for either 2-wire or 4-wire apparently. Depends on how the unit was set up to start with.

I'm liking my 8012A. You calibrate it by shorting the test leads then zeroing it out. Works pretty well and is cheaper and easier than dealing with kelvin connections and good enough. Gives 1mR resolution. It's good enough to trace board shorts out anyway.
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21007 on: December 11, 2018, 11:21:40 am »
The 3478A is calibrated for either 2-wire or 4-wire apparently. Depends on how the unit was set up to start with.

Too many variables for me to be happy about calibrating (cf zeroing) a 2 wire resistance measurement.


Quote
I'm liking my 8012A. You calibrate it by shorting the test leads then zeroing it out. Works pretty well and is cheaper and easier than dealing with kelvin connections and good enough. Gives 1mR resolution. It's good enough to trace board shorts out anyway.

I thought we were talking about measuring resistance, not radioactivity :) https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21008 on: December 11, 2018, 12:12:49 pm »
Unicode support on this forum is shite. Ohms symbol (nice and easy to type on macOS - option+Z) rendered as the Unicode “square of fuck you”. Hence R. Boo hiss.

I expect LaTeX or at the very least MathML support on an engineering forum  :popcorn:

I spend half my day in MacTeX
 

Offline beanflying

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21009 on: December 11, 2018, 12:20:20 pm »
Unicode support on this forum is shite. Ohms symbol (nice and easy to type on macOS - option+Z) rendered as the Unicode “square of fuck you”. Hence R. Boo hiss.

I expect LaTeX or at the very least MathML support on an engineering forum  :popcorn:

I spend half my day in MacTeX

There used to be a quirk with Unicode on SMF and I think you could set UTF-8 as an option but it may not be here?

edit yep still an option https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/UTF-8_Readme
Coffee, Food, R/C and electronics nerd in no particular order. Also CNC wannabe, 3D printer and Laser Cutter Junkie and just don't mention my TEA addiction....
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21010 on: December 11, 2018, 12:31:02 pm »
Not sure. There’s an ohms emoticon but I felt dirty using it :)

MySQL + PHP + Unicode is a pain in the ass so I suspect it’s probably broken if it’s even turned on.
 

Offline beanflying

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21011 on: December 11, 2018, 12:37:53 pm »
This forum is very bare bones which isn't always a bad thing.

The forum I had to sort was brought forward from a custom build of the old version then rebuilt from there. There was plenty of times mods installed wouldn't port forward and weren't updated by their creators so I had to sort out their code at times which was messy trying to follow someone else work as well as not breaking the base code for SMF  |O
Coffee, Food, R/C and electronics nerd in no particular order. Also CNC wannabe, 3D printer and Laser Cutter Junkie and just don't mention my TEA addiction....
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21012 on: December 11, 2018, 01:10:37 pm »
Yes it seems relatively fast. I had to look after a vBulletin forum for a couple of years. That was a pig.
 

Online xrunner

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21013 on: December 11, 2018, 01:51:31 pm »
I really need to excavate mine from the rack, pop it open and check the battery.  It's probably due...

Thanks for the nice photos, xrunner.

-Pat

You should, you really should!  :clap: I'll remind you if we don't see it in a few weeks.

The thing is really long, but I think I have managed to make a place for it on the bench by creatively re-arranging a corner. Might even run a 10 MHz ext. reference to it (I did test that and it works well).
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 06:21:10 pm by xrunner »
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21014 on: December 11, 2018, 02:57:14 pm »
Unicode support on this forum is shite. Ohms symbol (nice and easy to type on macOS - option+Z) rendered as the Unicode “square of fuck you”. Hence R. Boo hiss.

I expect LaTeX or at the very least MathML support on an engineering forum  :popcorn:

I spend half my day in MacTeX

Ahem  As I now see you've noted, \$\Omega\$ :)

MathJax, I believe. What's one more language to learn - we know so many that language N+1 is easy.


« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 03:03:07 pm by tggzzz »
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21015 on: December 11, 2018, 03:23:17 pm »
I couldn’t face using that dirty hack. It was like typing up your homework in the early 1980s. Oh dot matrix printer doesn’t print theta, just leave a space and write it in after  :palm:
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21016 on: December 11, 2018, 04:23:58 pm »
I couldn’t face using that dirty hack. It was like typing up your homework in the early 1980s. Oh dot matrix printer doesn’t print theta, just leave a space and write it in after  :palm:

Youngsters; don't know what they had.

Consider "scientific typists" in the 60s and 70s using IBM Selectric golfball typewriters. If you wanted a symbol, you removed and replaced the golfball (twice!). Or "legal typists", where corrections were not allowed - so if you made a mistake, you started again on a new piece of paper :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21017 on: December 11, 2018, 04:41:35 pm »
My mother still has a selectric! She's got a perfectly good computer but likes that better because there are less distractions when she's writing to people.
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21018 on: December 11, 2018, 05:09:58 pm »
My mother still has a selectric! She's got a perfectly good computer but likes that better because there are less distractions when she's writing to people.

They have the advantage that you think "what am I going to write next", rather than "why the eff is/isn't it doing that".
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21019 on: December 11, 2018, 05:15:30 pm »
Same reason I use MacTeX. Also weighs a lot less than a Selectric and the battery lasts longer ;)

Edit: actually the battery on this thing is bloody amazing. 09:45 - 17:15 non-stop (bar 20 mins for a shit Pret) iTunes, python, iTerm/vim, Safari. No charge. Battery still on 44%  :o
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 05:17:30 pm by bd139 »
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: NOS Oldaker Leads
« Reply #21020 on: December 11, 2018, 05:51:45 pm »
If you're wondering: from my testing so far, a shorting lead or shorted set of leads measures ~0.1400-0.1800Ω on this meter; so far, I haven't figured out how the "auto-zero" is supposed to work. I really need to read the manual rather than just skimming it like 6 times.  :palm:
Well, RTFM is a useful last resort, but that reading sounds about right and in this case I would simply use 4 bits of wire :)

LOL... I'm totally snurching that.

While I know I AM resourceful enough to build a pair of "semi-kelvin" probes for this thing, that seems a bit convoluted just to get it to come close to zero. I figured the fact I couldn't find some equivalent of Δ or "zeroing" was simple user error. One of the grails I was seeking in the purchase of this unit was the 4-decimal resolution for locating shorts in a PCB.

The 3478A is calibrated for either 2-wire or 4-wire apparently. Depends on how the unit was set up to start with.

I'm liking my 8012A. You calibrate it by shorting the test leads then zeroing it out. Works pretty well and is cheaper and easier than dealing with kelvin connections and good enough. Gives 1mR resolution. It's good enough to trace board shorts out anyway.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.  :palm:

Well, I stand subjected. To the whims of some OCD murrfurr at HP who couldn't see past the tip of his own penis when they laid out the functionality of this meter 30-something years ago.   |O

*Shakes fist at imaginary foe across the temporal divide*

 :rant: "Hello...! digital MULTI-meter... as in for use with MULTIPLE applications, NOT just the one purpose YOU felt it was best suited to!!!"


Unicode support on this forum is shite. Ohms symbol (nice and easy to type on macOS - option+Z) rendered as the Unicode “square of fuck you”. Hence R. Boo hiss.

I expect LaTeX or at the very least MathML support on an engineering forum  :popcorn:

I spend half my day in MacTeX

Ahem  As I now see you've noted, \$\Omega\$ :)

MathJax, I believe. What's one more language to learn - we know so many that language N+1 is easy.


Out here in the upper layers of the intardnet, [ALT]+234 from my Windoze box still seems to work render properly on FireFlump or Chrome, on Windoze, Android and iOS. Am I missing something here?

Here's 3 happy little omegas for you to hold and cherish: ~~~>  Ω Ω Ω  <~~~ Let me know if you get them.  ;D

mnem
*Off to the fApple Store*
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 06:08:41 pm by mnementh »
alt-codes work here:  alt-0128 = €  alt-156 = £  alt-0216 = Ø  alt-225 = ß  alt-230 = µ  alt-234 = Ω  alt-236 = ∞  alt-248 = °
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21021 on: December 11, 2018, 05:56:45 pm »
Ohmmmmm Ω \$\Omega\$Ω \$\Omega\$Ω \$\Omega\$Ω \$\Omega\$Ω \$\Omega\$Ω

Sussed it I think. May hace been user error  :-DD
 

Offline GregDunn

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21022 on: December 11, 2018, 06:04:33 pm »
Late to the party, but option-Z generates a Ω symbol on my keyboard (and on the forum) - is that what you used?
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: NOS Oldaker Leads
« Reply #21023 on: December 11, 2018, 06:33:37 pm »
If you're wondering: from my testing so far, a shorting lead or shorted set of leads measures ~0.1400-0.1800Ω on this meter; so far, I haven't figured out how the "auto-zero" is supposed to work. I really need to read the manual rather than just skimming it like 6 times.  :palm:
Well, RTFM is a useful last resort, but that reading sounds about right and in this case I would simply use 4 bits of wire :)

LOL... I'm totally snurching that.

While I know I AM resourceful enough to build a pair of "semi-kelvin" probes for this thing, that seems a bit convoluted just to get it to come close to zero. I figured the fact I couldn't find some equivalent of Δ or "zeroing" was simple user error. One of the grails I was seeking in the purchase of this unit was the 4-decimal resolution for locating shorts in a PCB.

Ah, that's  a chance to get a new class of test equipment, e.g. a Hytrak 100D. That is designed to measure low resistances (one range is up to 0.2 \$\Omega\$). You don't even need to look at the display, since it emulates a mandrake by screaming at you.

Glider pilots have a very similar instrument, the audio variometer, which allows you to know how fast you are going up/down while still keeping an eye on those other aircraft which are (hopefully) a few hundred feet away.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 06:35:09 pm by tggzzz »
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #21024 on: December 11, 2018, 06:46:53 pm »
Late to the party, but option-Z generates a Ω symbol on my keyboard (and on the forum) - is that what you used?

Yes I used that but it posted random crap so I edited it. Not sure why that happens. I break everything I touch :D
 


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