Author Topic: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread  (Read 14548445 times)

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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24100 on: February 01, 2019, 12:38:23 am »
So far I have contracted with someone else to print or have things printed in PLA, brass, nylon and SLA. I don't know what I will use next; paper?

Hence there's no point in my getting a printer.

There; fixed that for ya.  ;)   A really big difference; I'm sorry.
Just like leasing a car is not the same as building one from the hubs up, which I've also done.  :-DD

Leasing isn't the right analogy. Owning a car vs taking a taxi is more apt.

The more important first part of the analogy is correct; I'll concede you the latter part.  ;)

I have literally built more than one road-legal vehicle from scratch, just as I've built two different 3D printers. True, the Tornado is more of a kit, but there's still a helluva difference between building a car vs owning vs taking a taxi, just as there's a helluva difference between building and using your own printer and borrowing one.

mnem
But, since I've also built a checker Marathon from parts from the ground up... now I can say I built, drove AND took a taxi all in the same vehicle!  :-DD

My father always wanted to strip and rebuild an engine with me, but I wasn't too interested. The nearest he got was a set of books from the 1930s describing how to build a car from scratch. The first part was how to build the tools necessary to build a car, e.g. how to drill holes to make a cylinder block.

The nearest I got was designing and making a computer in 1976, using the primitive construction techniques I developed three years earlier, as described in https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/a-40-year-old-hack-disinterred/ That hack still works.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24101 on: February 01, 2019, 12:42:27 am »
Quote from: mnementh
In Other News...

   Various packages from Amazon were delivered today by no less than 3 different couriers... things are about to get very crunk, or very real.  :scared:
mnem
Trust no electron!!!
@mnem, what is that PCI card for?

One of them is a humdrum USB3.0 controller for the extra USB ports in the hot-swap bay. Short one port for that on my older MB. The other is a nifty little bit of kit that turns a PCI slot into a 2.5" HDD bay. I'll either use it as intended, or if possible, cut it into one of the side-loading drive bays.

I'll need to hinge the glass door if I do that, which may or may not happen; depends on just how much of a PITA it turns out to be for me to migrate the PC from the right side of my desk to the left, where that door could swing open.

mnem
*Cooking dinner-ily*
« Last Edit: February 01, 2019, 12:45:09 am by mnementh »
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Online beanflying

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24102 on: February 01, 2019, 12:43:05 am »
Leasing isn't the right analogy. Owning a car vs taking a taxi is more apt.

Just so long as your prints are cleaner and don't smell like a Taxi  ;)
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 Specmaster

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24103 on: February 01, 2019, 01:11:21 am »
@mnem, that is what I thought it was (the USB3 card) because I could see it contained 4 power supplies on it but wasn't 100% sure because you always have a habit of unearthing strange beasts that are new to most of us, especially on this side of the pond.  :-+
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24104 on: February 01, 2019, 01:14:47 am »
My father always wanted to strip and rebuild an engine with me, but I wasn't too interested. The nearest he got was a set of books from the 1930s describing how to build a car from scratch. The first part was how to build the tools necessary to build a car, e.g. how to drill holes to make a cylinder block.

The nearest I got was designing and making a computer in 1976, using the primitive construction techniques I developed three years earlier, as described in https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/a-40-year-old-hack-disinterred/ That hack still works.

My grandfather was the "father figure" when it came to things mechanical... I remember crawling through the guts of a combine from the back forward, to put vise-grips on a stripped carriage bolt in the chaff separator chute; one of the few times we weren't at odds and I could tell he was proud of my mechanical aptitude. "You did good, boy" was probably the closest to actual praise he was able to muster; I knew this about him by then and took it as it was given, holding it close in my heart, feeding and cherishing the glow as only a 10-year-old boy can.

Another time I overheard him talking about me tearing down the crankcase/transmission of a beat-to-death RT1-360 dirt bike I'd scrounged... I had every last bearing and gear cluster and spring and ball laid out in rows on the bed of an old hay wagon. I worked on that thing for three days, transferring every part from the grenaded crankcase halves to a new set I'd bought from the local Yamaha dealer.

He never admitted it to me, but I overheard him there talking to his grown-up friends, and he was amazed at me doing all that intricate shifter mechanisms and rebuilding the clutch pack and new crankshaft seals, and actually reading and understanding service manuals an inch and a half thick. I was 12 years old at the time.

It was one of the few things we sortof shared before he died; and now a bittersweet memory because I never did tell him I overheard. I so wish I had; it would have been common ground for actual reconciliation rather than the uneasy, grudging "understanding" we arrived at instead.  *sigh*

*mnemories*
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24105 on: February 01, 2019, 01:50:16 am »
@mnem, that is what I thought it was (the USB3 card) because I could see it contained 4 power supplies on it but wasn't 100% sure because you always have a habit of unearthing strange beasts that are new to most of us, especially on this side of the pond.  :-+



You mean like this little gawddammitt?  :-DD

mnem
 :popcorn:
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24106 on: February 01, 2019, 02:06:24 am »
One of them is a humdrum USB3.0 controller for the extra USB ports in the hot-swap bay. Short one port for that on my older MB. The other is a nifty little bit of kit that turns a PCI slot into a 2.5" HDD bay. I'll either use it as intended, or if possible, cut it into one of the side-loading drive bays.

I'll need to hinge the glass door if I do that, which may or may not happen; depends on just how much of a PITA it turns out to be for me to migrate the PC from the right side of my desk to the left, where that door could swing open.

mnem
*Cooking dinner-ily*
What's that thing on the right? I see a 2,5" HDD bay, USB 3 ports and possibly a fan controller?
 

Offline Specmaster

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24107 on: February 01, 2019, 02:53:42 am »
That is hot swap drive caddy that fits in 5.25" bay and accepts 1 x 3.5" Sata and 1 x 2.5" Sata drives and has 2 USB3 sockets.
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24108 on: February 01, 2019, 04:23:36 am »
 

BING!!! BING!!! BING!!! Give Spec a Kewpie Doll!

Yup... of course, it has a little more crap on it than my old "just a 3.5" hot-swap... so wouldn't fit without a little more case butchery clearance adjustment. Now have Fusion 360 open, trying to get started on a angle tray so I can bolt it down.

Who the EFF was it that got me involved with Fusion? It was you bean, wuzz'nitt? Im'o gonn' break muh foot off in yer arse, I swear... HOW DO YOU EVEN START BUILDING A BOX?!? How do you pull a surface?!? :-DD

No, seriously; it's not THAT bad. It's just learning a different way of thinking about 3D objects. I think it probably is better than Sketchy-Up... which is downright anti-intuitive in many ways. But still... I got used to being able to easily roll the object on any axis.  :palm:

Okies... time to put this widdle dwagon to bed... I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow.

Cheers,

mnem
I am MOOP.
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Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24109 on: February 01, 2019, 07:33:42 am »
... from an old RF guy: ONLY A DEAD PROBE IS A GOOD PROBE.
If you want to measure some Gigahertzy stuff accurrately, provide a defined impedance path and not some antenna/inductor/capacitor mess hack.
If you still do (I confess having made FET probes myself) dont just believe what you see. Scepticism is king !

Indeed. It’s not just GHz either. Last time (the very last time) I went to the local radio club, someone was down there showboating their new Hantek trying to use it to measure the VFO frequency on an old Howes kit. This was done by hitting the top of the tank with a 10x probe, setting the offset trim and then trying to tune the band. Was slightly amusing. I considered not saying anything for a bit.

Measurement by substitution!

Edit: nice HP supply here 20V 10A £100 free delivery in UK. Well worth the money. Unfortunately it’s rack mount which is a bit too big for my place otherwise I’d have grabbed it https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F392227951333
« Last Edit: February 01, 2019, 07:39:06 am by bd139 »
 

Offline Specmaster

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24110 on: February 01, 2019, 09:34:26 am »
Anyone using Kicad? I have drawn a schematic OK but when I go and do the basic circuit check by clicking on the red ladybird or red bug button. Then clicking Run I get lots error reports of items having no connections. Looking at the schematic there green arrows in the locations where it thinks the bad connections are?

What have I got wrong?
« Last Edit: February 01, 2019, 10:14:00 am by Specmaster »
Who let Murphy in?

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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24111 on: February 01, 2019, 10:31:39 am »
Anyone using Kicad? I have drawn a schematic OK but when I go and do the basic circuit check by clicking on the red ladybird or red bug button. Then clicking Run I get lots error reports of items having no connections. Looking at the schematic there green arrows in the locations where it thinks the bad connections are?

What have I got wrong?

Try asking here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/kicad/
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 #24112 on: February 01, 2019, 10:38:11 am »
Anyone using Kicad? I have drawn a schematic OK but when I go and do the basic circuit check by clicking on the red ladybird or red bug button. Then clicking Run I get lots error reports of items having no connections. Looking at the schematic there green arrows in the locations where it thinks the bad connections are?

What have I got wrong?

DRC failure. Inputs / outputs / power flags missing. In the manual ;)

 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24113 on: February 01, 2019, 10:54:47 am »
Jackpot! Racal 9915 arrived.

Did some deep research on options on these and this paid off. Unmarked with no options logged on the back. However research points to low serial numbers having the 9442 OCXO standard installed because the standard xtal osc was too crap to ship at the time. If you look carefully at the back panel you can see grey plastic sticking through the hole. The standard crystal osc doesn't have the grey plastic around it. Thus it has an OCXO in it.

And it did. £26 well spent!

Built like the proverbial brick shit house like all Racal kit is. Weighs in just under 4KG with batteries (which are dead of course and will be removed!). Currently being left to reach room temp as it's been in a PF warehouse and van overnight. Some pictures:

Date codes indicate assembly in 1977. Last cal was 2007.

Nuclear bomb proof engineering. Hardly any plastic at all!



Top view



OCXO Standard



Very happy  :-+
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24114 on: February 01, 2019, 12:18:08 pm »
Ok battery kicked and warmed up and some repair work is required. Works perfectly but the frequency standard is way out. Looks like no oven heat. These use a power transistor so looks like something has gone phut. Fun fun fun!

Worst case it’s easy enough to bodge an aliexpress OCXO in there with a /2 on the output.
 

Offline med6753

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24115 on: February 01, 2019, 12:20:17 pm »
Nice score!  :-+ Brick shit houses are always preferable to wooden ones.  :-DD

Oh and.....





 :-DD :-DD :-DD
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24116 on: February 01, 2019, 01:16:21 pm »
Jackpot! Racal 9915 arrived.

Did some deep research on options on these and this paid off. Unmarked with no options logged on the back. However research points to low serial numbers having the 9442 OCXO standard installed because the standard xtal osc was too crap to ship at the time. If you look carefully at the back panel you can see grey plastic sticking through the hole. The standard crystal osc doesn't have the grey plastic around it. Thus it has an OCXO in it.

And it did. £26 well spent!

Built like the proverbial brick shit house like all Racal kit is. Weighs in just under 4KG with batteries (which are dead of course and will be removed!). Currently being left to reach room temp as it's been in a PF warehouse and van overnight. Some pictures:

   Top view:    OCXO Standard:

Date codes indicate assembly in 1977. Last cal was 2007.   Nuclear bomb proof engineering. Hardly any plastic at all!

Very happy  :-+

Is that a pack of NiCd A cells?!? I don't think I've seen one IRL of those since my first gig straight out of college...  :palm:

@mnem, that is what I thought it was (the USB3 card) because I could see it contained 4 power supplies on it but wasn't 100% sure because you always have a habit of unearthing strange beasts that are new to most of us, especially on this side of the pond.  :-+



You mean like this little gawddammitt?  :-DD

mnem
 :popcorn:

What? No takers? Not even a WILD-ASS GUESS? Some lot of computer nerds you are...  :P

mnem
https://youtu.be/LNs0i5fmqTQ
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Offline capt bullshot

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24117 on: February 01, 2019, 01:22:36 pm »
What? No takers? Not even a WILD-ASS GUESS? Some lot of computer nerds you are...  :P

That's a BIOS diagnostic code display card for the PCI bus, why? I don't take it, I don't need it.
Safety devices hinder evolution
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24118 on: February 01, 2019, 01:26:15 pm »
Is that a pack of NiCd A cells?!? I don't think I've seen one IRL of those since my first gig straight out of college...  :palm:

It is indeed. Pack weighs a ton. Also has burned out the series resistor on the board when they went short. Not a problem.

OCXO is fecked. I am starting a separate thread for it.
 

Offline capt bullshot

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24119 on: February 01, 2019, 01:28:08 pm »

It is indeed. Pack weighs a ton. Also has burned out the series resistor on the board when they went short. Not a problem.


7Ah NiCd cells. Nothing wrong with them being shorted, that's the best state to store them long term.
I'd try to revive them, NiCd is pretty robust.
Safety devices hinder evolution
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24120 on: February 01, 2019, 01:42:13 pm »
A couple have leaked a bit and gone frosty. They're duff for sure.
 

Offline Martin.M

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24121 on: February 01, 2019, 02:19:56 pm »
unpacking HP 8556A
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24122 on: February 01, 2019, 02:24:32 pm »
Is that a pack of NiCd A cells?!? I don't think I've seen one IRL of those since my first gig straight out of college...  :palm:

It is indeed. Pack weighs a ton. Also has burned out the series resistor on the board when they went short. Not a problem.

OCXO is fecked. I am starting a separate thread for it.

Shocking. ;) At least it's not Ceylon cells.  :P  Planning to do a NiMH or Lixx upgrade? And what's the little blue one next to it? A pack of alkaline coin cells to retain user parms?

What? No takers? Not even a WILD-ASS GUESS? Some lot of computer nerds you are...  :P

That's a BIOS diagnostic code display card for the PCI bus, why? I don't take it, I don't need it.
Another Kewpie doll, please! This time for the Cap'n!

A POST Card... yes.

I know; it's a relic from a bygone era as most proper MBs have it built in nowadays. But once upon a time it was one of the earmarks of a real IT tech, along with a PSU tester. You "Admins" can suck it; I'm talking about the grunts in the field here. ;)

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/absolute-coordinates-amp-grid-level-guides/idi-p/5111642

Fucking seriously, AutoDesk? NO ABSOLUTE COORDINATES? Are you insane?!?    |O

mnem
I think I've leaked a bit... and have definitely gone a bit frosty.  :o
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Offline Martin.M

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24123 on: February 01, 2019, 02:25:49 pm »
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
« Reply #24124 on: February 01, 2019, 02:27:40 pm »
unpacking HP 8556A



Unpacking HP 19511-80014...  :-DD

mnem
Oh, I kill me...  :P
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