Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Still got a couple of meters of 25 pair dry core cable that I scrounged off a telco tech to chop up and use as breadboard jumpers.

Ha! Mine came/comes from the London Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton, circa 1972.

I still have several other items from that era, e.g. a Rocky Horror Show T-shirt (not Picture show), some fanfold lineprinter paper, and some electronic items.

   HAAA! I still have one-a deez!!!

Also have assorted Rocky Horror and ScapeSpeare memorabilia. 

mnem
"Don't be upset; it was a mercy killing..."
"It was a killing killing!!!"

[tggzzz]

Also have assorted Rocky Horror and ScapeSpeare memorabilia. 

"Rocky Horror Show" or "Rocky Horror Picture Show"? Not the same!

Having Tim Curry stomp past you up the theatre aisle was memorable Oh, happy daze never to be repeated.

[bd139]

@bd, that sure does look nice that meter and and its dead nuts on the AC. How did you manage to separate the DC socket from the chassis which you earthed? When I had mine I couldn't see a way around that problem, plus I wanted to make still have the same convenience factor as your 87V, i.e., 1 set of leads for both AC and DC without having to change leads or sockets. I was scared that if I did anything other than follow the same train of thought it might result in Kaboom. Not that I've ever managed to blow up a meter yet but there's a first time.   

It's huge. I love it.

The DC jack is actually grounded now so the negative lead of the AC and the DC input is always at earth potential This is the safest way to operate these meters as the socket itself has the shield potential on the front of it which could be dangerous as hell if it was floating. This limitation is not much of a problem in daily use.  I try and leave the lead arrangement as original as possible as it's quite handy being able to just pop a resistor across the leads and switch range if you're in the middle of something.

Originally, unlike the V7-A's this entire thing has a floating chassis so you could actually replace the jack with a plastic one and earth the chassis and it'd be floating inside. BUT we don't know the breakdown voltages of the transformer, the pots, the switches in it so it wasn't worth the risk. This will be used for DC ground referenced stuff and never go near the mains so I'm not overly bothered.

I'll probably not use and and just sell it once I've done it though like I do with most of my stuff. The journey is what counts to me.

[med6753]

Making good things even better. Was noticing that this 8810A needed a good 2.5+ hours to settle down after a cold start. It wasn't a lot but anal me noticed it. In addition the 10VDC range adjust was a 20 ohm single turn trim pot which was real touchy. Surmised that this trim pot was probably a contributor. Decided to replace it with a 12 turn trim pot. After the required half hour warm up did a quick cal to the 9.99691VDC reference. And here it is several hours later.  Other than an occasional flash of '68' or '70' it hasn't budged. It used to vary by as much as +/- 3 least significant digits prior to the trim pot change. No more. Me happy. 

Some guys love their Nixies. I love the ruby red LED's. 

[Specmaster]

@bd, that sure does look nice that meter and and its dead nuts on the AC. How did you manage to separate the DC socket from the chassis which you earthed? When I had mine I couldn't see a way around that problem, plus I wanted to make still have the same convenience factor as your 87V, i.e., 1 set of leads for both AC and DC without having to change leads or sockets. I was scared that if I did anything other than follow the same train of thought it might result in Kaboom. Not that I've ever managed to blow up a meter yet but there's a first time.   

It's huge. I love it.

The DC jack is actually grounded now so the negative lead of the AC and the DC input is always at earth potential This is the safest way to operate these meters as the socket itself has the shield potential on the front of it which could be dangerous as hell if it was floating. This limitation is not much of a problem in daily use.  I try and leave the lead arrangement as original as possible as it's quite handy being able to just pop a resistor across the leads and switch range if you're in the middle of something.

Originally, unlike the V7-A's this entire thing has a floating chassis so you could actually replace the jack with a plastic one and earth the chassis and it'd be floating inside. BUT we don't know the breakdown voltages of the transformer, the pots, the switches in it so it wasn't worth the risk. This will be used for DC ground referenced stuff and never go near the mains so I'm not overly bothered.

I'll probably not use and and just sell it once I've done it though like I do with most of my stuff. The journey is what counts to me.

I've come to expect the journey is king with you, much the same as it is with me and audio and radios but test gear I generally like to keep and only flip it when I need to thin out a bit and then it is generally the lowest order things that go first like 3.5 digit meters before my 4.5 or higher ones. Even thenI generally end up buying more, better gear in a slow but steady upping the quality and capability of my test gear that I have on my bench.

Right now I have a Pioneer A109 amplifier on it that has had a liquid spill over the main board and its stopped working. Looks like might be some form of cola, brown and sticky but so far I have not found anything visually wrong other a blown fuse so I'll finish cleaning it tomorrow, replace the fuse and try it out.

[mnementh]

Also have assorted Rocky Horror and ScapeSpeare memorabilia. 

"Rocky Horror Show" or "Rocky Horror Picture Show"? Not the same!

Having Tim Curry stomp past you up the theatre aisle was memorable Oh, happy daze never to be repeated.

Alas, MY Rocky Horror memorabilia came from being the show, not WATCHING it. 

At a crazy theater in Dormont, PA that had this pipe organ where the whole console rose up out of the middle of the orchestra pit on a dais, which they incorporated into the show. The troupe had quite a rabid local following; I read (long after I'd moved on) that a few years later they got some proper choreography and gained enough notoriety to attract Curry himself to sit in for a few showings.

*Sigh* That's as close as I got... though I played Frank, Rocky AND Eddie in different arrangements. I was incorrigible... one show Rachel and I ad-libbed the entirety of I Would Do Anything For Love instead of Bless My Soul while the audience cheered on. Another I did the entire show as Rocky wearing matching gold lame' Mickey Mouse ears. Didn't crack a smile once.

mnem
Fishnets fucking chafe. Right THERE.

[0culus]

snip

mnem
Fishnets fucking chafe. Right THERE.

OK, now we're getting into TMI territory.   

[worsthorse]

Alas, MY Rocky Horror memorabilia came from being the show, not WATCHING it. 

At a crazy theater in Dormont, PA that had this pipe organ where the whole console rose up out of the middle of the orchestra pit on a dais, which they incorporated into the show. The troupe had quite a rabid local following; I read (long after I'd moved on) that a few years later they got some proper choreography and gained enough notoriety to attract Curry himself to sit in for a few showings.

*Sigh* That's as close as I got... though I played Frank, Rocky AND Eddie in different arrangements. I was incorrigible... one show Rachel and I ad-libbed the entirety of I Would Do Anything For Love instead of Bless My Soul while the audience cheered on. Another I did the entire show as Rocky wearing matching gold lame' Mickey Mouse ears. Didn't crack a smile once.

mnem
Fishnets fucking chafe. Right THERE.

Wait... you lived in/near Dormont?  Seriously?  I grew up nearby...

[mnementh]

Yeah, went to school in Mt. Lebanon. Class of '87.

The synagogue in Squirrel Hill where they had that shooting...? I used to go to the chess club there Wednesday nights.

mnem
Win, lose or SUCK... once a Steelers fan, always a Steelers fan. 

[worsthorse]

Yeah, went to school in Mt. Lebanon. Class of '87.

The synagogue in Squirrel Hill where they had that shooting...? I used to go to the chess club there Wednesday nights.

mnem
Win, lose or SUCK... once a Steelers fan, always a Steelers fan. 

Graduated from McKeesport in 1976. Watched a *lot* of hockey in the Civic Arena and a lot of Steelers on Mon Valley bar TVs.   

[mnementh]

Lived in Mckeesport late 70s-early 80s; Upper 10th ward. It was a fucking war zone after the steel mills shut down. Lower 10th ward was worse. I remember stepping over a dead body to get on a bus across the street from The Elbow Room. Also remember going down to the Yough and fishing around the pilings of the 5th Ave bridge; you didn't dare eat anything out of that river so we just threw 'em back. Nuthin' but ghost carp and catfish anyways.

[Peesborgh Joke: Recipe for Fresh Caught Fish]

Get you a nice ash or birch plank; oil it. Skin fish, lay on plank.

Season with lots of butter, garlic & onions. Bake in oven at 325° for 6 hours.

Throw fish away; carve & eat the plank.

[/Peesborgh Joke]

*Google maps*

Yup. W. 6th Avenue. Still cobblestone up the long hill... still a fucking deathtrap in the winter I'm sure. Nobody ever rebuilt the house we were burned out of when the owner decided it needed a little Jewish Lightning renovation; it's still an empty lot. Luckily, I was at the Elbow Room waiting for my mom to get off work so we could have popcorn shrimp (my treat for being good at school all week); otherwise I'd have been in the house. Dunno if that would've stopped the bastards or not.

I'll be fu**ed. The neighbor's house with the red porch is still painted red... that retaining wall everybody swore was going to fall and let the house roll down the hill is still leaning like the Tower of Pisa.

Oh yeah... I remember walking about 100 yards out on the railroad bridge on a dare; I was well over the water. I THINK I touched the handrail of the platform at the first trestle before I chickened out and ran back. I made the mistake of actually looking down between the ties at the water; had nightmares about that bridge for years, well into my teens. 

mnem
Jeebus.... ghosts. All up in my shit now... 

[0culus]

*snip* I remember stepping over a dead body to get on a bus across the street from The Elbow Room. *snip*

 

sounds like a colorful place to live...

[beanflying]

Lucky I have several hours and 1/2 a bottle of Gin to try and remove images of @mnementh in fishnets from my mind before sleep

Device of the Day. This precision Resistance Measuring System could be yours for the price of a 3458A  eBay auction: #163589309024

[worsthorse]

*snip* I remember stepping over a dead body to get on a bus across the street from The Elbow Room. *snip*

 

sounds like a colorful place to live...

I hear you mnem, all up in my shit tonight, too.  Haven't thought about those days in a long time... I lived in the ninth ward, which was peaceful compared to the lower tenth or either of the villages. Worked on the ambulance service for a couple of years around 1977, mostly weekend night shifts, while I went to school. Yeah, colorful is one way to describe it.  Can't say that I miss it much.

edit:  google street view is not your friend on nights like this. trust me.
 

[BravoV]

TEA brotherhood .. assistance needed ... 

Rohde & Schwarz SML 03 sig gen (9 kHz to 3.3 GHz) .. est bargain price about 150 bucks, snag it ? 

Assume its working , passed self test & in cal, with minor scratch as normal usage for quite sometimes.

Random photo from Google

[bitseeker]

$150 sounds like a great deal to me. Note that the pic is an SML 01.

[Carl_Smith]

Then we found that one of the walls was electrified.
We could measure AC of 20..50V by poking two test probes into it about 1m apart even with a 20k /V meter. That was the day when we started to rewire.

A manager at a previous job told me a story about when he bought a house and found a bit of a leak under the bathroom sink.  He grabbed a wrench to tighten the fitting and as it turned a bit his hand hit the wall and he got a bit of an electric shock.  So he got his multimeter and measured 120V between the wallpaper and the pipe.

Turns out someone had wallpapered the bathroom with some fancy wallpaper that had metal foil in it.  And when they got to an electrical outlet, they had folded the wallpaper into the box, put the outlet back in and the cover back on.  The foil wallpaper might have been stuck to the side of the box when it was originally put up but he found the flap touching the hot terminal of the outlet.

[BravoV]

$150 sounds like a great deal to me. Note that the pic is an SML 01.

Ok, thx. Yeah, that photo was randomly taken from google.

[bitseeker]

OK, was just making sure it wasn't a pic of the actual item.

[Housedad]

Also have assorted Rocky Horror and ScapeSpeare memorabilia. 

"Rocky Horror Show" or "Rocky Horror Picture Show"? Not the same!

Having Tim Curry stomp past you up the theatre aisle was memorable Oh, happy daze never to be repeated.

Oh, the things I try to forget, and then I am reminded...

[nfmax]

Right now I have a Pioneer A109 amplifier on it that has had a liquid spill over the main board and its stopped working. Looks like might be some form of cola, brown and sticky but so far I have not found anything visually wrong other a blown fuse so I'll finish cleaning it tomorrow, replace the fuse and try it out.

Wait - you mean Cola comes fitted with a fuse these days?

[tggzzz]

Also have assorted Rocky Horror and ScapeSpeare memorabilia. 

"Rocky Horror Show" or "Rocky Horror Picture Show"? Not the same!

Having Tim Curry stomp past you up the theatre aisle was memorable Oh, happy daze never to be repeated.

Alas, MY Rocky Horror memorabilia came from being the show, not WATCHING it. 

At a crazy theater in Dormont, PA that had this pipe organ where the whole console rose up out of the middle of the orchestra pit on a dais, which they incorporated into the show. The troupe had quite a rabid local following; I read (long after I'd moved on) that a few years later they got some proper choreography and gained enough notoriety to attract Curry himself to sit in for a few showings.

*Sigh* That's as close as I got... though I played Frank, Rocky AND Eddie in different arrangements. I was incorrigible... one show Rachel and I ad-libbed the entirety of I Would Do Anything For Love instead of Bless My Soul while the audience cheered on. Another I did the entire show as Rocky wearing matching gold lame' Mickey Mouse ears. Didn't crack a smile once.

mnem
Fishnets fucking chafe. Right THERE.

OK, that equals my anecdote

[mnementh]

$150 sounds like a great deal to me. Note that the pic is an SML 01.

Ok, thx. Yeah, that photo was randomly taken from google.

Yeah, seriously. For that price take it hand & all, providing you get to confirm it works or have right of return. 

Lucky I have several hours and 1/2 a bottle of Gin to try and remove images of @mnementh in fishnets from my mind before sleep

*sigh*

I was a completely different person then; still very active and skinny as a rail. I looked like some starving poet or aspiring actor; had the whole "Sunglasses at Night" club-crawler thing going on. There are still days when I don't recognize myself in the mirror; there are two of "me" in here now.

*snip* I remember stepping over a dead body to get on a bus across the street from The Elbow Room. *snip*

 

sounds like a colorful place to live...

I hear you mnem, all up in my shit tonight, too.  Haven't thought about those days in a long time... I lived in the ninth ward, which was peaceful compared to the lower tenth or either of the villages. Worked on the ambulance service for a couple of years around 1977, mostly weekend night shifts, while I went to school. Yeah, colorful is one way to describe it.  Can't say that I miss it much.

edit:  google street view is not your friend on nights like this. trust me.

Yeah, colorful is a nice euphemism for it.

McKeesport around then was pretty much starvation & silent desperation; 3rd generation steel workers still clinging to the dream that the next president would somehow wave a magic wand and reopen the mills. My mom worked as an ER Nurse at Presby on Polock Hill. Every Saturday night was an endless stream of gunshot wounds and knife/bottle lacerations; she'd come home and tell me about it and cry when she lost some kid who reminded her of me in some way, which was pretty much at least every week.

No, I should NOT have Googled that. But at least I'm glad I escaped... so many didn't.

mnem
"Nothin' but the dead and dyin' back in my little town..."

[Neomys Sapiens]

TEA brotherhood .. assistance needed ... 

Rohde & Schwarz SML 03 sig gen (9 kHz to 3.3 GHz) .. est bargain price about 150 bucks, snag it ? 

Assume its working , passed self test & in cal, with minor scratch as normal usage for quite sometimes.

Random photo from Google

I have that beast at work: great signal generator - clean spectrum and advanced modulation capabilities - go for it!

[URI]

TEA brotherhood .. assistance needed ... 

Rohde & Schwarz SML 03 sig gen (9 kHz to 3.3 GHz) .. est bargain price about 150 bucks, snag it ? 

Assume its working , passed self test & in cal, with minor scratch as normal usage for quite sometimes.

Random photo from Google

I have that beast at work: great signal generator - clean spectrum and advanced modulation capabilities - go for it!

At that price I wouldn't think twice since you could get easily more if it isn't repairable and you'd offer it as defective/for parts.
Get it and don't worry.