Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Or Hermes'ed 

[tggzzz]

The latest acquisition is slightly strange... Three of us have chipped in to buy a scanning tunnelling microscope, a.k.a. an atomic force microscope. Hopefully the main challenge will be working out what the interface to the computer is. At least there will be three sets of eyes on the problem.

So the next task is to to make the unpleasant long journey to a hell-hole of a holiday resort, and hopefully retrieve my leopard on the way back.

And news just in...

Since I didn't win my third luggable spectrum analyser, the auction house intermediary thoughtfully suggested things to assuage my sorrow: some "palisade gates" and "Starbay Shagreen and Acacia Walnut 2 door 3 drawer cabinet functional with boundless character". Thank god I haven't got enough money in the bank, otherwise I would have been sorely tempted. Not.

Having just had a report of one of the aforementioned holiday resorts, get tooled up 

Having visited the seafront when I went, my next visit will be strictly to an industrial estate, and then out again. To keep me awake on the journey, I'll hve loadsa fun trying to guess what the martian-looking aggie vehicles in the fields do to take work opportunities away from migrant workers.

I doubt it is any worse than my local variant (which has the advantage of trees and contours). Looking at the news for my destination, I see the local paper sums it up well in its review: "The location of the Premier Inn is obviously perfect for guests. You are close to restaurants, pubs, bingo halls, arcades, the beach - you name it." But why on earth buld a new one there?

I have seen a couple of electron microscopes on ebay but never an STM. Didn't think they were in the remotely affordable territory on the second hand market yet.  I've seen a couple of attempts to build them though at home. From my bookmarks... http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/spm/index.html . Either way, enjoy that as it will be a blast playing with it. I got to spend half a day as a muggle at Glaxo once in the distant past watching them play with one and an NMR machine used to test my illicit home brew drugs.

This has "Cranfield University" on the rear, and is probably 15/20 years old. Ob porn, and I suppose it is a form of TEA/GAS:

If the leopard is convincingly well stuffed it should live on the passenger seat. Then you can pretend you're a Saudi Prince 

Too big and old for that, and the rest of the vehicle would belie that notion Fortunately the leopard folds up arounds its snarl, like the Cheshire cat.

When taking it to be restored the almost retired taxidermist commented on its size, which adds credence to the familiy legend that it was shot (in the mid 30s) by my step-grandfather because it was old and had become a maneater.

Ob aside: my grown up daughter has recently admitted that it took her a long time and visits to many friends to realise that most grandparents houses weren't full of stuffed wildlife. But the leopard is mine and has been since 1961, when my grandparents died and I inherited it. The elephants' feet went to my aunt

I'm not sure whether to simply lay it in its traditional position, along the back of the sofa, or find a way of hanging it on the stairwell wall.

[bd139]

Ah yes. I know where that is. I drove past the building site when I was dragged there last year for a one day training thing (aka comatose for 5 hours straight with a crappy sandwich interlude). Stayed in a B&B the night before run by a couple of yokels who cracked London jokes slightly too regularly and couldn't cook a fried egg. Horrid area.

That STM looks like a ton of fun. Interested to see what you get out of it.

I have this picture in my head still. I assume it's more impressive? 

[Specmaster]

@ Med and bd, Well, no sooner had typed that message about the radio arriving, then the door bell rang, DPD where there with it. Very nicely wrapped up and well protected with many layers of bubble wrap, it is filthy (photos to follow later) but what a surprise, the unobtainable telescopic aerial is there and it is indeed intact whoop whoop, everything seems to be there and even the handle (leathercloth peeling off, not a problem, already have plenty of that, but chrome end caps for the handle are intact so many these days are missing those.

Hooked it up to my PSU and raised the volts slowly to the required 18V and its drawing 45mA which is fine, but no sound from the speaker. Swapped out the power amp and tried again and it sprung to life  but lacked the usual sparkle, so needs some tweaking of the RF section, sound lacked bass and treble, despite working the controls so need to check that out.

It does show that someone has been in before me as some of old resistors and caps have already been replaced.

Given that this set has a slightly smaller cabinet and uses the same loudspeaker and power amp and has the reputation of having the best sounding Hacker I'm struggling a little right know to fathom that out. First things first, lets work out why the power amp is dead.

The working amp is on the right and is one that I have in a Sovereign RP25 waiting on a donor as the cabinet is in a poor way on that particular unit. 

[tautech]

The working amp is on the right ............

Look at that resistor between the 2 lolipop caps.

[bd139]

Looking good.

Forgot about those bastard lockfit transistors (BC148) though. Nothing but aggro those things.

[tautech]

Looking good.

Forgot about those bastard lockfit transistors (BC148) though. Nothing but aggro those things.

Just because they ain't BD139's !   

[tggzzz]

Ah yes. I know where that is. I drove past the building site when I was dragged there last year for a one day training thing (aka comatose for 5 hours straight with a crappy sandwich interlude). Stayed in a B&B the night before run by a couple of yokels who cracked London jokes slightly too regularly and couldn't cook a fried egg. Horrid area.

That STM looks like a ton of fun. Interested to see what you get out of it.

I have this picture in my head still. I assume it's more impressive? 

That is indeed..... impressive. But in the way that seaside resort is impressive. There's a choice w.r.t. that taxidermist: shoot them or educate them. Since it hasn't lost too much colour, the taxidermist simply cannot have the excuse that they've never seen a leopard.

My leopard is nice, and flat except for a large lump.

[bd139]

Shoot them, stuff them and put them on display for other taxidermists as a warning?

Looking good.

Forgot about those bastard lockfit transistors (BC148) though. Nothing but aggro those things.

Just because they ain't BD139's !   

Nailed it 

If you get any BC lockfits just replace the first 1 with a 5 and you get a suitable replacement. So BC548 in this case. Or any other GP NPN that isn't poo. 2n3904 / 2n2222, bc108, bc107, anything really. The lockfits mechanically fail inside after about 5-30 years. Stupid design.

[Specmaster]

Looking good.

Forgot about those bastard lockfit transistors (BC148) though. Nothing but aggro those things.

Just because they ain't BD139's !   

Or BC108's  although this radio does infact have 3 of them in it and the amp uses a OC71 as an pre-amp 

[bd139]

I think they probably used the OC71 because the transistor is crap so it wont oscillate like mad. A lot of the "post-germanium" amplifiers they shifted in transistor radios were pretty unstable I found because Si transistors were so much better. When the battery got a bit low they'd start motorboating or oscillating above audio frequencies resulting in flat and leaking batteries

[tautech]

Looking good.

Forgot about those bastard lockfit transistors (BC148) though. Nothing but aggro those things.

Just because they ain't BD139's !   

Or BC108's  although this radio does infact have 3 of them in it and the amp uses a OC71 as an pre-amp 

Shit I think I've got one of them ! Yours if you need it. 
Nah, it's an OC16.  Memory cell malfunction.
Looks more like a stud diode than a tranny.

[med6753]

"Lockfit" transistors? Never heard of them. Must be a British thing. 

[bd139]

They are. Mullard created them. They were designed for fast mass production as the silicon was stuck on the lead frame and they were easy to machine insert. Missed the target by a mile.

[PA0PBZ]

[med6753]

They are. Mullard created them. They were designed for fast mass production as the silicon was stuck on the lead frame and they were easy to machine insert. Missed the target by a mile.

So basically....Mullard vacuum tubes  . Mullard transistors.  I guess they should have stuck with tubes (valves). 

[Specmaster]

Both amps have been quickly checked using multimeter and both seemed to be OK (although the working one has been extremely hot at some point because the sleeving on output transistors has melted), plugged them both back one at a time and both are now working but if tapped can cause sound to drop out for a second, which seems to a fracture in one of the lock-fit BC148's I think I have comparable ones in my parts bin.

Lockfits can be bastards to get out as well, may have to cut the legs and extract that way.

[med6753]

I can't let this one go by. 

[salvagedcircuitry]

I'm very surprised that New York State isn't on that list. In fact I would have expected NY to be the first to demand that Ebay collect sales tax. They don't call NY "Land of Taxes" for nothing and I'm sure sooner or later they will be added. 

Don't worry, NY passed it on June 1st. Anything that ships to a NY resident that is sold on ebay gets taxed. 

[mnementh]

Nice one. Hopefully, it isn't anything too hairy to get up and running again.

It always makes me laugh the way eBay continues to lie about how much something sold for when an offer is accepted. Anything to make people believe they should list or bid higher on the next one.

That was actually at the request of the sellers. People were selling spreadsheets of vendors sorted by how many percent less than list they accepted offers for, all from data scraped off the site. Speaking as a sometimes seller, I personally feel it's nobody else's business how desperate I am to sell, or if I had a moment of weakness and accepted an offer for much less than something was worth.

And certainly NOT acceptable that people should be able to scrape that information from a website to A) use against me and 2) make more money selling "How to Make a Killing on fleaBay" discs than I ever made selling things of real worth.   

Like that Ifni-accursed smashed iPwn X I sold... I had to field no less than 72 bottom-feeder offers and requests for the IMEI; I EARNED the money I got for that thing.

Now imagine if you're in the business of recycling iPwns and such... 

Yeah. I think the repair should be ok. the unit is not too old so parts should still be attainable. I may be taking a break from higher priced items on ebay though, now that it has become tax-a-chusetts:
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/paying-items/paying-tax-ebay-purchases?id=4771&amp
https://esellercafe.com/on-july-1-ebay-will-collect-sales-tax-for-four-more-states/

The dog days are over, that's for sure. 
I'm glad I snagged my higher end test gear when i did....

I'm very surprised that New York State isn't on that list. In fact I would have expected NY to be the first to demand that Ebay collect sales tax. They don't call NY "Land of Taxes" for nothing and I'm sure sooner or later they will be added. 

Too many vendors operating out of a storage locker, and the mob still has too much of a hand in state legislature; when you get sales tax involved, then you have to keep records of all your sales... next thing you know there's a paper trail leading back to your 6 heads in a dufflebag. 

Oh, fuck... THOSE little bastards. They are positively demonic. And because it's been cooking itself to death for decades due to contact resistance, when you try to clean the legs up to solder them the whole fucking thing crumbles. If you can get it out in one piece at all.

mnem

[salvagedcircuitry]

I nearly fell off my chair until I saw the $42 offer accepted 

Hold your coffee:
kikusui PLZ664wa for $700. $644 after ebay promotion 

[SoundTech-LG]

My day has gone to shit. Took my '04 Honda Civic in for annual inspection. Turns out the tires are dry rotted and cracked. Won't pass. I only drive that car a few thousand miles per year and the thread isn't even half worn. But they have a date code of 2013 and the rubber is drying out. Gonna take about $500 USD went all is said and done to bail it out of jail. 

Oh well. 

A good buddy is real anal about his vehicles and every couple of weeks rubs some of that tire black on the sidewalls and never has issues with cracking.

The solution is to do more burnouts.

1.0L front wheel drive. Hmm 

You must be getting old if you can't remember how to smoke up a little front wheel drive car ! 
Easy if you have a working handbrake. 

Ma's 1275 GT Clubman could do the meanest burnouts. 

If you just want to have fun, the Azenis model can certainly provide that for a few miles of smiles anyway...

https://showroom.windingroad.com/listings/product/96/

[bd139]

I nearly fell off my chair until I saw the $42 offer accepted 

Hold your coffee:
kikusui PLZ664wa for $700. $644 after ebay promotion 

Hahahaha well played. That's a good win 

Tackling a really complicated problem over next few days. Actually earning my money for once  . Have not died if I disappear for a few days.

[Cerebus]

The elephants' feet went to my aunt

Eccles:                               "They run in the family."

Neddie Seagoon:                "Whey hey!"
Fx:                                    (Simultaneously, rimshot followed by cymbal)

Hercules Grytpype-Thynne: "You silly twisted boy."

[med6753]

Well that was painful. MS did it again. They just can't leave things alone.  WIN10 update 1903. Not only did it take for freaking ever to update but it screwed with my WIN7/WIN10 Network file sharing. WIN10 could access WIN7 files but WIN7 could NOT access just my main user folder. All other files/folders, no problem. If I tried to tell WIN10 to share the folder it said "Fuck you, can't share it". And it all has to do with the fact that MS removed Homegroup from WIN10. Took me hours of my life that I won't get back but I finally figured it out and all is well again. 

I also got the parts for the OL-1 but I'm just too annoyed right now to work on it. And to MS......BITE ME!!!