Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Yeah ten flipping dollars. 10Mhz crystals are 10 cents and a 74hc390 50 cents

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

[BU508A]

1MHz crystals seem to be unobtainable now

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142397832207

40 pieces available, 6 pound per piece

[med6753]

Yeah ten flipping dollars. 10Mhz crystals are 10 cents and a 74hc390 50 cents

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

You need to do a total "shutdown" one day and do an inventory of what you got. 

[bd139]

On it now 

Decided to sell the 87V in the end. I haven't touched it other than once since I got the original 87. The default AC on amps annoys the living fuck out of me. It's just one of those horrid horrid misfeatures that shouldn't exist.

[Mr. Scram]

On it now 

Decided to sell the 87V in the end. I haven't touched it other than once since I got the original 87. The default AC on amps annoys the living fuck out of me. It's just one of those horrid horrid misfeatures that shouldn't exist.

So you'll buy a new one in a few months?

[med6753]

So here I am packing up the rear of the CR-V with all the tools I think I'll need this coming week. I would probably be better off just packing all the tool boxes but they are too numerous and too freaking heavy. And like Nixiefreq mentioned the other day I'll probably forget something.   

Luckily she does have some tools left by her ex.

And next week's weather is gonna be hot which does not bode well with me. Oh well. 

[mnementh]

   I've been looking for one more P6541 probe to give me a complete set for the Tektronix 338 logic analyzer and the prices on ebay have been ridiculous. So no joy until I came across this:eBay auction: #323543249158 On which I made a low offer, which was almost instantaneously accepted. So now I own a Tektronix 308 logic analyzer to go with the 338 for the price of the probe alone. Do I need another low speed logic analyzer? Of course not. But I didn't need the first one, either. In other news, I now have three, count 'em three, laptops running MSDOS 6.22 (one with Windows 3.11, whoop!). How did this happen? Well, I needed one to run a bunch of really really old radio programming software, so now I have three.

And if there is any electronic rabbit hole deeper and twistier than the ones I usually inhabit, it is the one with the sign over that entrance that says...    MSDOS  remember all those old games you used to play? right this way!  MSDOS 

  MAME  CABINET!!!  MAME     If you care... you can probably get what you paid for that thing back by selling just the fluorescent green iris-indicator power button assembly on the 24xx threads...

mnem
 

A little to the left of my horrible cut-out I used this power switch:      Meter:     Yesterday evening I searched for an adequate housing. Looked at thousands and found nil. Since the transformer is large and heavy, and the panel meters are quite deep, it needs to be rather big and sturdy. I'm afraid I'll have to stick with that crap. The PSU will be used maybe twice a year, so I won't be bothered too much. And if I ever stumble upon a nice housing, I can still make a better version.

There will be other things where I can learn filing.     (SNIP)

Oh, see, you have nothing to worry about; your meter has a pretty broad bezel around it as it is intended to be panel-mount.  My little dissertation was on making panel openings "pretty enough" that the opening itself can be exposed; I used to make custom face panels for bezel-less DIN mount car radios using those techniques. LOTS of them. 

My living room is definitely a reflection of the lack of female supervision.....and it will remain that way. 

Speaking of which, starting tomorrow (Monday) and until the following weekend I won't be on much other than an attempt to keep up with the thread. I'll be at her place doing some contractor work. 

Don't forget your fuzzy handcuffs... the ones YOU have a key for.

Meanwhile in other news. That car scanner I ordered from Amazon  USA arrived while I was out at Headcorn Battle of Britain Airshow, did indeed it Reset my airbag error code for all of £12.20 so I'm a happy thumper. I'm back today already at Headcorn for day by the runway, overcast at the moment and the odd drop of rain in the air.

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

   Still waiting on mine.     I wanna nuke my neighbor's Jetta; it has a code from the parking brake lever (long ago repaired) that refuses to self-reset.

*Kicks Volkswagen right in the fahrvergnüggets just on general principles*

Result!

"I love when a plan comes together.", Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith.

   

Just for you, C.

Yeah ten flipping dollars. 10Mhz crystals are 10 cents and a 74hc390 50 cents

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

You need to do a total "shutdown" one day and do an inventory of what you got. 

Yeah... imagine THAT.  

On it now 

Decided to sell the 87V in the end. I haven't touched it other than once since I got the original 87. The default AC on amps annoys the living fuck out of me. It's just one of those horrid horrid misfeatures that shouldn't exist.

So you'll buy a new one in a few months?

Naaahhh... He's gonna get the 87-IV/189 like mine.

So here I am packing up the rear of the CR-V with all the tools I think I'll need this coming week. I would probably be better off just packing all the tool boxes but they are too numerous and too freaking heavy. And like Nixiefreq mentioned the other day I'll probably forget something.      Luckily she does have some tools left by her ex.    And next week's weather is gonna be hot which does not bode well with me. Oh well. 

Good luck, buddy. I recommend you pack lots of sweat-rag bandannas and Gatorade/Powerade. I'll be thinking of you enjoying your fixer-upper booty call as I continue sweating my juevos off in the Tejas Suck.   

mnem
Vaya con Juevos, my friend. 

[mnementh]

Yeah ten flipping dollars. 10Mhz crystals are 10 cents and a 74hc390 50 cents

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

OOOOOODLES of 1MHz crystals on AliEx...

https://www.aliexpress.com/premium/1MHz-crystal.html?SearchText=1MHz+crystal&switch_new_app=y

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32775766525.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33011432544.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33010009985.html

mnem

[nixiefreqq]

it must be the heat and humidity.

just made an offer on a broadband sampling voltmeter (hp3406a)

what the hell am i gonna' use that antique for?

it even has an old style oval power jack.

maybe the guy will reject my offer?  at least when yer feeling rejected you are feeling something (other than regret, and the wrath of swmbo).

[Cerebus]

Maybe of interest to TEA members in the UK. HP 8567A SA £250 buyer collects from Brum: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254288638712 ... too far for me and I don't have anywhere to put it.

Tempted...

But yeah, it is a big sod to find room for, and Brum is a fair old drag. Once upon a time I'd of thought little of driving to and back from Brum in a day, used to have a PoP there that I regularly visited to commission new customers, but it seems like too much of a fag nowadays. I'd have to work myself up to it. Plus, although I'd like a spec. an., I'm not sure that I need one; not in the way that I (always) need another digit of DC measurement resolution.

[Specmaster]

On it now 

Decided to sell the 87V in the end. I haven't touched it other than once since I got the original 87. The default AC on amps annoys the living fuck out of me. It's just one of those horrid horrid misfeatures that shouldn't exist.

More of an electricians rather electronics meter then, just woke up and toddling off to bed [emoji57]

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

[Specmaster]

So here I am packing up the rear of the CR-V with all the tools I think I'll need this coming week. I would probably be better off just packing all the tool boxes but they are too numerous and too freaking heavy. And like Nixiefreq mentioned the other day I'll probably forget something.   

Luckily she does have some tools left by her ex.

And next week's weather is gonna be hot which does not bode well with me. Oh well. 

Good job the car has AC, you can go and sit in it for a while and cool down, [emoji106]

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

[tautech]

Spec, got any tips for a Yamaha RX-V440 that won’t latch the ON button ?

[worsthorse]

Yeah ten flipping dollars. 10Mhz crystals are 10 cents and a 74hc390 50 cents

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

I have gone through that two or three times in the last six months, the last two times ordering an expensive part only to find I had half a dozen stashed away after the new batches arrived.   

That started me on the inventory of my component stock. I finished the last two crates of semiconductors and most of the ICs two days ago.  I probably have an inventory of about eight-five percent of my high value component stock now and I have way more stuff than I thought.  Imagine that!

  

Based on the inventory, I would think I was a hoarder except I was in a barn today looking at three dozen UHF public service band mobiles, in their boxes, along with six complete repeaters (six foot tall cabinets), and about three hundred foot of hardline stuffed into a six by eight closet, serving as housing for a large family of sizable rats.

So unless I notice rats in my stuff I will now assume I am not hoarding.   

[mnementh]

Spec, got any tips for a Yamaha RX-V440 that won’t latch the ON button ?

Look in the bottom of the cabinet for a bit of copper colored spring sheetmetal and/or a little u-shaped bit of chromed wire. Those are from the ratcheting mechanism. Inspect the head-end of the switch to make sure they're there and indexed properly so they follow the grooves as they should to latch & unlatch.

mnem
 

[tautech]

Spec, got any tips for a Yamaha RX-V440 that won’t latch the ON button ?

Look in the bottom of the cabinet for a bit of copper colored spring sheetmetal and/or a little u-shaped bit of chromed wire. Those are from the ratcheting mechanism. Inspect the head-end of the switch to make sure they're there and indexed properly so they follow the grooves as they should to latch & unlatch.

mnem
 

Nah it's a tactile switch that triggers the mains power relay that's not latching ON.
Few interruptions here but I'll eventually sort the bugger.

All linear PSU, 2 in fact 1 of which is for the Standby circuitry which also powers the relay coil.
Might just be stuffed relay contacts that's not powering the unit properly for it to latch ON.
I'm sure I have enough tools to sort it but maybe brain power is lacking. 

[bitseeker]

I was disappointed by HP for the first time today ,  I discovered the 5221a counter uses the line frequency as its time reference, so in Aus 50Hz, it counts too high (1.2x).

There you go. Problem solved. Looks like it was an option originally.

Looks like 7490 counters. 74HC390 x3 + 10MHz crystal = much cheaper and less power hungry than HP's version, plus you can probably add an external standard input then.

Yeah, the A version was clocked from the power line. B version was 1 MHz with ability to take an external clock input. I've got a 5321A. Good idea to build your own XCO option.

Rob, does your 5221A have any of the digit options (5th or 6th digit)? My 5321A doesn't.

[mnementh]

Spec, got any tips for a Yamaha RX-V440 that won’t latch the ON button ?

Look in the bottom of the cabinet for a bit of copper colored spring sheetmetal and/or a little u-shaped bit of chromed wire. Those are from the ratcheting mechanism. Inspect the head-end of the switch to make sure they're there and indexed properly so they follow the grooves as they should to latch & unlatch.

mnem
 

Nah it's a tactile switch that triggers the mains power relay that's not latching ON.
Few interruptions here but I'll eventually sort the bugger.

All linear PSU, 2 in fact 1 of which is for the Standby circuitry which also powers the relay coil.
Might just be stuffed relay contacts that's not powering the unit properly for it to latch ON.
I'm sure I have enough tools to sort it but maybe brain power is lacking. 

Ahhhh... I used to have that receiver... or maybe a 420.    I could've sworn it had a mains power AND a soft on/stby button. 

More likely it's detecting DC on one of the speaker lines and is going into safety mode immediately. Leaky caps, leaky finals or preamps. This is like one of the most common failure modes on these discrete-final DTS receivers from this era.

mnem
*stuck in the Tejas suck*

[Carl_Smith]

This seems like a bad idea.  But I think I'll throw one in my order anyway.   

[0culus]

That has blown up motherboard written all over it. 

[worsthorse]

Earlier this week, someone gave me a stack of laptops, including two Panasonic CF25 Toughbooks.



I have been looking for a machine on which I could run MSDOS and these seemed good candidates.  I brought the first one up without a problem and indeed it runs MSDOS 6.22. Other than a dead CMOS battery - which is a hassle to change - it seems to be working as intended.



The second one, I managed to brick while I was trying to figure out how to get around the supervisor password; it gets through post but then displays this:



So I spent a couple of hours internetting and located a service manual, along with sources for the original diskettes, drivers, and user manuals. I also ordered a box of floppies and a USB floppy drive I can use on my Win7 box.  Since I know I already broke it and I love to take things apart (although sometimes getting them back together is, well, problematic for me) and I knew that I had to disassemble it to change the lithium battery, I figured, why not right now?





The service manual does a pretty good job describing disassembly (oh, remember the days when companies wrote service manuals?)  and the machine is mechanically easy to understand.





It is actually pretty well built, although the decision to require the motherboard to be removed to replace the CMOS battery seems a little boneheaded. The processor is actually attached to the bottom half of the case and plugs into the motherboard, which I thought an interesting way to manage heat as there are no fans in the box.

So now it is on my bench while I wait for button cell battery holders - so I can relocate the battery to a more logical location - and my delivery from 1994 so I can make floppies.   

Sidenote - @mnen, I came across your tag on another forum, in a 2010 era conversation about the CF25, which didn't really surprise me. 

[mnementh]

IIRC, the CF-25 is one of the ones where the supervisor PW is written to the BIOS PROM. If so, you're not going to get around it without swapping a chip.  These machines were designed for military and Police abuse; they come with a 3-5K pricetag and a service contract for their entire foreseeable lifetime in service. A lot of their design choices are predicated on that.

They're built that way because up through the CF-30 all the fully-ruggedized models were all passively cooled through the huge chunk of magnesium alloy that formed the case. They were built that way so they could be made waterproof; not just rainproof but safe to wash in the sink under running water or with a garden hose or in some versions, even fully immersed. 

Yeah, I was a regular over there for years. Really good bunch of folks. Still have the CF-29 they got together and built for me after my CF-28 got stolen. I drifted away from there after my mother passed; they were where I escaped while we were battling her cancer and losing. I'm not the same person I was then, and my heart just isn't in it anymore. The last time I went there all I could see was my old posts... talking about what it was like watching her fade away, every other post felt like a ghost of her.

On top of that, I really don't do a lot of cable pulling or new construction rack & stacks anymore... I can't handle the heat and when they deploy new infrastructure now, it's usually right when there's nothing but concrete and blocks. I don't NEED a laptop that can beat lesser machines to a fine powder. I need one that won't break my back. 

mnem
*originator of the term "bulldozer chic" *

[Specmaster]

Spec, got any tips for a Yamaha RX-V440 that won’t latch the ON button ?

Look in the bottom of the cabinet for a bit of copper colored spring sheetmetal and/or a little u-shaped bit of chromed wire. Those are from the ratcheting mechanism. Inspect the head-end of the switch to make sure they're there and indexed properly so they follow the grooves as they should to latch & unlatch.

mnem
 

Nah it's a tactile switch that triggers the mains power relay that's not latching ON.
Few interruptions here but I'll eventually sort the bugger.

All linear PSU, 2 in fact 1 of which is for the Standby circuitry which also powers the relay coil.
Might just be stuffed relay contacts that's not powering the unit properly for it to latch ON.
I'm sure I have enough tools to sort it but maybe brain power is lacking. 

Ahhhh... I used to have that receiver... or maybe a 420.    I could've sworn it had a mains power AND a soft on/stby button. 

More likely it's detecting DC on one of the speaker lines and is going into safety mode immediately. Leaky caps, leaky finals or preamps. This is like one of the most common failure modes on these discrete-final DTS receivers from this era.

mnem
*stuck in the Tejas suck*

@tautech, I'm inclined to agree with mnem on this one, I've not worked on one of those yet. But the question is this, if the power switch is just a tactile type then there has to circuitry to convert the pulse from the switch to the relay into both an ON and OFF. What happens if you hold power switch in, does it power up OK then or goes in standby mode after a breif ON period? If it goes off again off then I'd look for DC leaking through were it shouldn't be. Have you pulled a service manual for this at all, it might be usual to RTM for further clues.

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[tggzzz]

Edit: random thought. considering selling literally everything I own and starting again with an on demand approach.  This comes from finding about 300 trim caps sitting in the cupboard. I bought some more the other day because I thought I'd nearly run out  .

Swings and roundabouts, as with most things in life. If you can't find something, it it lost. Having something saves seach time, lead time, and money - and regret that you threw one away.

There are a number of ameliorations:

• have everything visible in small drawers
• have a list of what you have and where it is stored, for whatever definitions of "where" are helpful. Spreadsheets are useful since you can sort the order in whatever way is currently helpful

I've used the latter for my prepping provisions for a political event that may still happen. No, I'm not going to discuss that event.

[VK5RC]

I was disappointed by HP for the first time today ,  I discovered the 5221a counter uses the line frequency as its time reference, so in Aus 50Hz, it counts too high (1.2x).

There you go. Problem solved. Looks like it was an option originally.

Looks like 7490 counters. 74HC390 x3 + 10MHz crystal = much cheaper and less power hungry than HP's version, plus you can probably add an external standard input then.

Yeah, the A version was clocked from the power line. B version was 1 MHz with ability to take an external clock input. I've got a 5321A. Good idea to build your own XCO option.

Rob, does your 5221A have any of the digit options (5th or 6th digit)? My 5321A doesn't.

No only 4 digits for both at present, no 5th or 6th digit in the 5221A, the 5221B has a bad nixie tube - I am on the hunt - those 'upside down' nixies- I think I have found one - but in a batch of others.
Re the 1MHz/100 Hz reference I have the decade counters but have cheated and have a 1MHz x-tal oscillator on the way.
Rob