Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[PA0PBZ]

Is the accuracy of this kind of unit good for calibrating a (200Mhz, 7 digits) frequency counter? --> Yes
Do I need something more precise than this? --> No
Is it an overkill? --> Yes (but who cares?)

There you go.

[mnementh]

   What is this? Throw back Thursday? Speaking of old station wagons. And GreyWoolfe mentioned Chevy Celebrity Station Wagon.

Well, here was mine. 1986 "Eurosport" option although it was no where near a European inspired vehicle. 2.8 V-6 with a new feature called "Port Fuel Injection". Of course automatic transmission which true to GM form shit the bed at about 80K miles and cost a fortune to fix. The one nice thing it had with the Eurosport option was a free flow exhaust so the V-6 had a nice bark to it.

EHRRRMUHHGRRRD!!! It's a pregnant Chevy Citation!!!   

mnem
I had one too... but the wheels came off.

[mnementh]

What the heck.....one more. I consider this my last "fast car". 1993 Chevy Cavalier Z24. Don't laugh mnem....it really would scoot. Why? Well, most Chevy Cavaliers were 4 banger/automatic slow pokes. Not the Z24 option. 3.1 liter V-6 with a Getrag 5 speed stick. Chirp the Goodyear Eagles in 1st and 2nd gear with almost no effort. That car surprised a lot of people....especially the ricer boys with their Civics and Accords. 

Oklay... time for my own "dirty little secret" grandma's grocery getter: My "Stock sleeper" for a while was a '88 5-speed T-Bird Turbo Coupe. I bought it by accident at auction with a "blown" motor that turned out to be a clogged cat; it was actually fun to drive stock out of the box. With OE intercooler, chipped EEC-IV and manual boost control, it could generate 5lbs boost at idle and would still meter correctly at 26lbs. 

Stock exhaust on the SC was 3" all the way back to a cat that, I kid you not, was as big as a fucking spare tire with a muffler that was bigger. 

It was fun to go hunting Mustangs in that thing... all you could hear was the rushing air of the exhaust as it went by; even the turbo spooling up wasn't audible until it hit around 12-14lbs boost.

mnem
"In order to become old and wise, you must first survive being young and foolish."

[factory]

Nice! That brings up a question...on my 432A (which also came with a thermistor!) the physical zero screw seems to have either fallen out or gotten jammed inside. I can still zero it by sticking a flat screwdriver in there, but I'm wondering if it can be fixed by tearing into it and removing the meter movement?

This is getting too common for my liking, as I've had two recently where the front half of the zero set screw has fallen out, if it was complete in the sellers pictures have a good look through the box & packaging, hopefully you will find the other half as I did.

Of course if they had been packed properly I don't think they would have fallen off, one of them the mains plug was resting on the front panel and the other packed in too small a box.

I did repair one a long time ago and as I didn't have the missing bit or a meter front of the same design I had to rob it from another meter, it was very fiddly to glue back in place so that it still moved.

David

[kj7e]

So far I'm supper happy with the Explorer ST, its twin turbo 3L V6 makes 400HP and 415lb-ft torque, AWD with rear wheel drive primary.  First, its amazing how quite it drives.  Secondly, stand on the go peddle and it will surprise you.  I've not tested this myself, but reviewers are testing 0-60 in under 5 seconds and 1/4 mile times around 13.4 sec and factory speed limiter set at 143 mph, that's not bad for a stock production 5,000lb SUV.

Now to make this TEA related... Think of all the cool gear I can haul back home from a Ham Fest and do so quickly 

[0culus]

Nice! That brings up a question...on my 432A (which also came with a thermistor!) the physical zero screw seems to have either fallen out or gotten jammed inside. I can still zero it by sticking a flat screwdriver in there, but I'm wondering if it can be fixed by tearing into it and removing the meter movement?

This is getting too common for my liking, as I've had two recently where the front half of the zero set screw has fallen out, if it was complete in the sellers pictures have a good look through the box & packaging, hopefully you will find the other half as I did.

Of course if they had been packed properly I don't think they would have fallen off, one of them the mains plug was resting on the front panel and the other packed in too small a box.

I did repair one a long time ago and as I didn't have the missing bit or a meter front of the same design I had to rob it from another meter, it was very fiddly to glue back in place so that it still moved.

David

Unfortunately it was missing in the seller's pics as well. 

[bd139]

Even as a former 110 defender driver, I really don't know why most of you guys drive what you do. 1.0L here, 3 cylinders, 68 horses, does 60+ mpg, all safety features such as ESC/curtain airbags etc. When you step on the pedal it goes eventually but most of the time it's either rammed in traffic or driving in a straight line 

Plenty of room for hamfest gear. Yep fits:



Also fits:



Half of Ikea fits too, although I was shitting myself slightly when I got the trolley to the car 

[Carl_Smith]

So far I'm supper happy with the Explorer ST, its twin turbo 3L V6 makes 400HP and 415lb-ft torque, AWD with rear wheel drive primary.  First, its amazing how quite it drives.  Secondly, stand on the go peddle and it will surprise you.  I've not tested this myself, but reviewers are testing 0-60 in under 5 seconds and 1/4 mile times around 13.4 sec and factory speed limiter set at 143 mph, that's not bad for a stock production 5,000lb SUV.

Now to make this TEA related... Think of all the cool gear I can haul back home from a Ham Fest and do so quickly 

My 2017 Explorer is front wheel drive primary.  When I switch the dash to the graphic that shows power to the wheels it almost always is mostly on the front wheels unless you accellerate hard or it thinks you need AWD.

I was kind of wondering why they switched to front wheel drive, then back to rear wheel drive with the 2020 model.

I think the answer is that you can't effectively use 400 HP on a front wheel drive SUV.   

[kj7e]

I think the answer is that you can't effectively use 400 HP on a front wheel drive SUV.   

Better towing ratings and torque steer is a bad thing.

[mnementh]

Tell that to my 500CID Eldorado.

mnem
*vroom*

[0culus]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

[med6753]

Wow....that Type 114 is clean! 

[Cubdriver]

Beauteous, 0culus.

I have an HP pulse generator buried in the monstrous queue that I'll get to some day.  I hope.

-Pat

[BU508A]

Even as a former 110 defender driver, I really don't know why most of you guys drive what you do. 1.0L here, 3 cylinders, 68 horses, does 60+ mpg, all safety features such as ESC/curtain airbags etc. When you step on the pedal it goes eventually but most of the time it's either rammed in traffic or driving in a straight line 

I have no idea why, but this has come to my mind somehow ...   



    

[xrunner]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

Oh nice circuit board! 

[Specmaster]

Even as a former 110 defender driver, I really don't know why most of you guys drive what you do. 1.0L here, 3 cylinders, 68 horses, does 60+ mpg, all safety features such as ESC/curtain airbags etc. When you step on the pedal it goes eventually but most of the time it's either rammed in traffic or driving in a straight line 

Plenty of room for hamfest gear. Yep fits:



Also fits:



Half of Ikea fits too, although I was shitting myself slightly when I got the trolley to the car 

Yep, I agree with you. If I was on my own, I think I'd go for something like that instead my huge car, but seeing as my sons, all 3 of em are 6ft 4" or 1.9M tall I need something  like it so that they can sit behind me and leave the leg room I need cos I'm also 6ft 4" and like a brick dunny 

Also of course in city traffic I'm lucky to get 25MPG but on a really decent run it will do over 50 MPG with loads of power to boot, and speaking of boot, its about 3 times as big as yours without putting the seat down, so even more space for TEA goodies 

[tggzzz]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

Nice example, but I don't think I'd swap it for my 115, because of the variable rise and fall times.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/anachrocomputer/albums/72157690644170820/
(Not my photos)

[0culus]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

Oh nice circuit board! 

It's gorgeous! Super super clean inside.

I spent some more time with the 431B today. I pulled and resoldered Q109 and it seemed to fix the 10 KC amplifier/oscillator behavior when there's no thermistor attached. It misbehaves like always when I attach the thermistor.  The thermistor is known good; it works perfectly on my 432A.

[0culus]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

Nice example, but I don't think I'd swap it for my 115, because of the variable rise and fall times.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/anachrocomputer/albums/72157690644170820/
(Not my photos)

I think I need one of those to go along with my 114. 

[FransW]

PM6669: 9.2 Mb, need a mail adress, too large for TEA

PM3265, no, however: 3262 (13Mb) - 3264 (97Mb) - 3266 (24Mb) - 3267 (2Mb)
PM2454  (4.5Mb) included here

PM6603: no
PM5105: French, 5,5Mb
PM6620: no but: PM6622-PM6624-PM6625  Operation & Service manual (English, German)
PM6669: yes, 9,2Mb

Frans

[battlecoder]

Received that Type 114 today. It is in basically new condition. For the price? An absolute steal and a big upgrade over my homemade 555 timer based pulse generator. 

What a beauty~

[FransW]

PM6303: http://ftb.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=manuals&dir=Philips/PM6303A_LCR_Meter

[0culus]

So I got lucky and found another 431B at the local surplus shop, in sad shape that I can break down for parts.

[mnementh]

So......VC2000, 1900A, 1912A, 7260A all calibrated with no issues. Left to do is the 2465DMS which is much more complex as shown in the attached link. But now that I have a more accurate reference I should be able to get closer than the current offset of 25Hz. The IG-4244 does drift somewhat from 1MHz so you have to monitor it just before applying the calibration constant.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-2465b-oscilloscope-teardown/msg1937605/#msg1937605

I'm NOT saying that I want to calibrate my newly-acquired frequency counter, or that I'll become a time nut....BUT... if I wanted to do that, would this GPSDO be good enough for that purpose? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32947070594.html

Welcome to this rathole

You would get a more solid answer if you asked the question in the metrology forum 

I'd search there for the specific device, also for "Allen deviation" and "21ns glitch".

Summary: only you can define "good enough for your purposes.

Good enough. 


IN OTHER NEWS...


My wife just informed me that I have a shiny new Ryzen 3700X inbound to go with my  new MB. She also informed me that I should not expect anything else for my birthday. 

mnem
*totes down widdat*

[Neomys Sapiens]

PM6669: 9.2 Mb, need a mail adress, too large for TEA

PM3265, no, however: 3262 (13Mb) - 3264 (97Mb) - 3266 (24Mb) - 3267 (2Mb)
PM2454  (4.5Mb) included here

PM6603: no
PM5105: French, 5,5Mb
PM6620: no but: PM6622-PM6624-PM6625  Operation & Service manual (English, German)
PM6669: yes, 9,2Mb

Frans

Might you have the service manual for the PM3088? That would help me!