Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[nixiefreqq]

That wasn't what I meant, but actually that is also the case, albeit rarely. (Well, quite often if you include fruit and veg...)

I was put off for a few decades because that caused my digestive tract to evacuate at both ends simultaneously, even though I'd bought the items in Harrod's food hall!

Edit: they need to be regarded as the food of the poor, but now you normally get them in high-end restaurants and foodie establishments.

I think the only thing that did that to me was a suspiciously luke warm cheeseburger and stella artois. Yes both were luke warm. They were the only two things left to consume in the on train cafe on a trip on the Midland Mainline escaping Nottingham to London circa 2001. I reckon the burger had done a couple of trips at that temperature. I had to pay for a taxi home and the additional £30 soiling charge and arrived home minus any dignity I may have collected over the years.

TMI!

[med6753]

Never been much of a breakfast eater. Just give me my coffee...which I am drinking right now.    Typical American breakfast. Mostly starch and carbs. No wonder we're fat. 

It's not the starch & carbs; it's the fact of EVERY MEAL being large quantities of starch, simple sugars  AND fatty meats. AND the fact that our socioeconomic structure actively devalues everybody who actually does productive work, while rewarding most those who "advance" to parasitic positions where all their work is done at a desk. 

You can be healthy and keep the weight off eating EITHER ONE; by being active and counting calories on a mostly starch diet or by limiting starch carbs and loading up on fiber carbs with a high-protein diet. It's when your diet is BOTH at the same time (read: pretty much EVERY form of MRE in the grocery store and MOST restaurants) that it becomes near-impossible to manage weight, even with reasonable amounts of exercise. Which is, of course, "The American Way" of making food "for profit", because grain fillers and simple starches have the highest profit margin compared to actual protein and fresh vegetables. 

You know who lives forever? Asian fishermen. Lots of hard physical work in a tropical environment, diet mostly rice (the simplest starch available) with small amounts of fish protein high in amino acids & antioxidants.

mnem
*Sigh*

You seem to want to blame the food industry rather than the choice the individual has. Unfortunately that's the prevailing liberal attitude pervasive today. No personal accountability. I made poor food choices over the years. And I paid for it with type 2 diabetes. My fault. No one to blame but myself. The food industry didn't force me to eat what I did.  So when I was diagnosed 5 years ago I had to make choice. Clean up my eating habits or pay the price. I chose the former. Cut out the crap. Minimum carbs and starches. I'm just under 6 ft (183cm) tall. At that time I weighed 203 pounds (92kg). I don't know what that is in "stones". I typically don't carry them around with me.  I cut my weight down to 175 pounds (79kg). Been there ever since but after retiring this January I did put about 7 pounds back on due to not being as active. And I've been adjusting my eating habits again to account for that. In addition my A1C has been consistently under 6.9 with just oral medication and diet. I made these decisions by my little self. And the food industry didn't send black helicopters to force feed me on what us typical Americans want to oink out on. 

[med6753]

And now some TEA content because we are getting way off subject.

The Heath OL-1 scope (again). I wasn't happy with the quickly cobbled together DC supply for the tube filaments. The voltage is too low (5.7VDC). I noticed that the vertical gain is off plus I happen to discover that Mullard 12AU7's won't even conduct at that filament voltage. But RCA and GE tubes will. Odd.

So I am designing and installing a dedicated DC filament supply. That involves fitment of a separate transformer and regulated supply. Plus I wanted to cleanup the crappy wiring around the CRT. First pix is the before. 2nd pix is the after. New transformer installed on left. All CRT wiring moved to the right side to avoid the inductive field of the new transformer. Those 2 white wires hanging are the secondary of the transformer. The DC supply is still to be built up and installed. That's tomorrow's project. 

In the meantime I did power up the scope after this mod to make sure the new transformer had no ill effects on the CRT trace. All is well.

[tggzzz]

The world universe is OUT TO GET YOU!!!   

mnem
"Listen... It's a tough universe. There's all sorts of people & things trying to do you, kill you, rip you off; everything. If you're going to survive out there... You've really got to know where your towel is."

Yes, and I acknowledge I'm an insufficiently hoopy frood.

But Adams didn't realise that, with care, even a sheet of polyester can act as a towel. In some cases a dual-purpose custom shaped piece of cloth can act that way. I didn't do that last week with my pyjamas in that way after a shower,  oh no. Oops, what a giveaway.

[tggzzz]

Never been much of a breakfast eater. Just give me my coffee...which I am drinking right now.    Typical American breakfast. Mostly starch and carbs. No wonder we're fat. 

It's not the starch & carbs; it's the fact of EVERY MEAL being large quantities of starch, simple sugars  AND fatty meats. AND the fact that our socioeconomic structure actively devalues everybody who actually does productive work, while rewarding most those who "advance" to parasitic positions where all their work is done at a desk. 

You can be healthy and keep the weight off eating EITHER ONE; by being active and counting calories on a mostly starch diet or by limiting starch carbs and loading up on fiber carbs with a high-protein diet. It's when your diet is BOTH at the same time (read: pretty much EVERY form of MRE in the grocery store and MOST restaurants) that it becomes near-impossible to manage weight, even with reasonable amounts of exercise. Which is, of course, "The American Way" of making food "for profit", because grain fillers and simple starches have the highest profit margin compared to actual protein and fresh vegetables. 

You know who lives forever? Asian fishermen. Lots of hard physical work in a tropical environment, diet mostly rice (the simplest starch available) with small amounts of fish protein high in amino acids & antioxidants.

mnem
*Sigh*

You seem to want to blame the food industry rather than the choice the individual has. Unfortunately that's the prevailing liberal attitude pervasive today. No personal accountability. I made poor food choices over the years. And I paid for it with type 2 diabetes. My fault. No one to blame but myself. The food industry didn't force me to eat what I did.  So when I was diagnosed 5 years ago I had to make choice. Clean up my eating habits or pay the price. I chose the former. Cut out the crap. Minimum carbs and starches. I'm just under 6 ft (183cm) tall. At that time I weighed 203 pounds (92kg). I don't know what that is in "stones". I typically don't carry them around with me.  I cut my weight down to 175 pounds (79kg). Been there ever since but after retiring this January I did put about 7 pounds back on due to not being as active. And I've been adjusting my eating habits again to account for that. In addition my A1C has been consistently under 6.9 with just oral medication and diet. I made these decisions by my little self. And the food industry didn't send black helicopters to force feed me on what us typical Americans want to oink out on. 

Over here, there have been several "medical" TV programmes on this subject recently, typically involving a doctor/presenter (e.g the van Tulleken twins) doing some sensible tests and experiments on themselves and a small group of patients.

Frequently a small subset of the group radically reverses their diagnosis, e.g. moving from "type 2 diabetic" to "pre-diabetic". Reducing the calories is often involved, but also shifting to different types of carbohydrates is significant. In this case "different" means "more complex" and "less refined", which means they are absorbed more slowly.

[bd139]

Ah we love a bit of Chris and Xand in this house.

[med6753]

Ah we love a bit of Chris and Xand in this house.

? 

[bd139]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJDFI9j8UeNoqra37p5OkA/videos

[mnementh]

Never been much of a breakfast eater. Just give me my coffee...which I am drinking right now.    Typical American breakfast. Mostly starch and carbs. No wonder we're fat. 

It's not the starch & carbs; it's the fact of EVERY MEAL being large quantities of starch, simple sugars  AND fatty meats. AND the fact that our socioeconomic structure actively devalues everybody who actually does productive work, while rewarding most those who "advance" to parasitic positions where all their work is done at a desk. 

You can be healthy and keep the weight off eating EITHER ONE; by being active and counting calories on a mostly starch diet or by limiting starch carbs and loading up on fiber carbs with a high-protein diet. It's when your diet is BOTH at the same time (read: pretty much EVERY form of MRE in the grocery store and MOST restaurants) that it becomes near-impossible to manage weight, even with reasonable amounts of exercise. Which is, of course, "The American Way" of making food "for profit", because grain fillers and simple starches have the highest profit margin compared to actual protein and fresh vegetables. 

You know who lives forever? Asian fishermen. Lots of hard physical work in a tropical environment, diet mostly rice (the simplest starch available) with small amounts of fish protein high in amino acids & antioxidants.

mnem
*Sigh*

You seem to want to blame the food industry rather than the choice the individual has. Unfortunately that's the prevailing liberal attitude pervasive today. No personal accountability. I made poor food choices over the years. And I paid for it with type 2 diabetes. My fault. No one to blame but myself. The food industry didn't force me to eat what I did.  So when I was diagnosed 5 years ago I had to make choice. Clean up my eating habits or pay the price. I chose the former. Cut out the crap. Minimum carbs and starches. I'm just under 6 ft (183cm) tall. At that time I weighed 203 pounds (92kg). I don't know what that is in "stones". I typically don't carry them around with me.  I cut my weight down to 175 pounds (79kg). Been there ever since but after retiring this January I did put about 7 pounds back on due to not being as active. And I've been adjusting my eating habits again to account for that. In addition my A1C has been consistently under 6.9 with just oral medication and diet. I made these decisions by my little self. And the food industry didn't send black helicopters to force feed me on what us typical Americans want to oink out on. 

Choice? What choice? Where?

It IS the fucking food industry. If you're poor, all you can get to eat is shit food that's mostly simple carbohydrates. Even if you're willing and have time to cook it all yourself, decent non-starch vegetables and meats that aren't full of cereal fillers and/or injected full of water/sugar/salt cost a fuxking fortune. You think Super-size Me is ONLY about the fast-food industry? Con-Agra, Kraft and Monsanto control more than 80% of the food in the aisles of ANY supermarket. For the majority of ordinary people in major cities, there is NOWHERE ELSE to shop that they can get to. Even when you WANT to eat right, it's nearly impossible unless you're rich.

So yeah, it's easy to blame individual people; the generally punitive attitude of our society lends itself to that. But if you open your eyes, you soon start to see all the ways EVERYTHING that has any ties to ANYTHING commercial is STACKED AGAINST the average citizen.

And yes, that includes the food supply itself being actively poisoned; not only with chemicals so toxic they literally have to genetically modify food plants so they don't die from what's being sprayed on them, to everything grown in the state of Texas and California being irrigated with fracking wastewater trucked in from all over the south.

Why? Because it's more profitable, no matter how many people die. "Fuck 'em; they're not people. They're poor." EVERY town is Flint, MI.

mnem
"Not eating SHIT" should not be a privilege reserved only for the rich.

[tggzzz]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJDFI9j8UeNoqra37p5OkA/videos

I didn't know they did that. I've only seen their post watershed documentaries.

[med6753]

Earlier today the remote on the Fire Stick quit working. Dead batteries. No problem. Have 2 - AAA on hand. Fixed. Then the outside temperature sensor for the digital thermometer quit. Again, dead batteries. Preferred are Lithium AA but none on hand. Put in alkaline as a temporary measure until I get some.

Just had a nasty storm blow through. Lost power for a few minutes. Police/fire scanner switched over to battery backup. Now the low battery alarm is sounding. That takes 8 - D batteries. No gots.

It's an obvious conspiracy by the battery industry. I had no choice but be forced to use all these portable devices so they could continue to profit off me and control my mortal soul.   

[Specmaster]

@mnem, You took the words out of my mouth (well almost), I was going to pen a reply along broadly similar lines and over here in the UK, even growing your own vegetables and fruit is not really a viable option for most people, especially the poorest of the population who either like me live in social housing or if you can afford your own home, generally it is going to be at the bottom of the market because land prices are so high that only the wealthiest can afford to buy a house with sufficient land to grow your own crops on. City dwellers fare even worse as many are forced to live in a flat with no garden space at all.

When it comes to shopping many people are forced to look for the special deals such as BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) and other similar deals which 99% of the time are always on highly processed foods stuffed full of salt, sugar and nasty chemicals to help preserve it and other cheap fillers to bulk the food up, such as onions etc.

This also hits the retired folk hard with low pensions for instance, I know from personal experience that approx 82% of my monthly pension is gobbled up paying rent on the house, council tax, water and sewage rates alone meaning that I have to dip into my savings to meet the other monthly expenses and shopping. I can't get any benefits because my savings are over the limit to permit that so until my savings are depleted, I'm stuffed, and even when I will be able to claim benefits, I'll have to cut back on everything that I currently enjoy as benefits will not support my current lifestyle which is very basic.

So at the moment I'm having to spend my savings and my kids inheritance to keep going and things are very likely to get even tougher after Brexit because most of the working class voted to leave after falling for the untruths of the pied pipers leading the Brexit campaign, things like when we are on WTO terms we can enjoy cheaper food, shoes, clothing etc as a result of being free of the EU tariffs etc 

[Specmaster]

Earlier today the remote on the Fire Stick quit working. Dead batteries. No problem. Have 2 - AAA on hand. Fixed. Then the outside temperature sensor for the digital thermometer quit. Again, dead batteries. Preferred are Lithium AA but none on hand. Put in alkaline as a temporary measure until I get some.

Just had a nasty storm blow through. Lost power for a few minutes. Police/fire scanner switched over to battery backup. Now the low battery alarm is sounding. That takes 8 - D batteries. No gots.

It's an obvious conspiracy by the battery industry. I had no choice but be forced to use all these portable devices so they could continue to profit off me and control my mortal soul.   

Yep and so many of these things that are normally driven from the grid could have had charging circuits built in and fitted with rechargeable batteries. It seems to me that its a conspiracy not to do this so that the battery manufacturers can take their toll from us as well. 

[bitseeker]

Do try it, even if it is only a "bucket list" activity.

Definitely on that list, but hopefully I don't have to wait too long.

I waited too long.

Check local height/weight/medical limits.

Good point. And thanks for the vids!

[bitseeker]

OK, I did this test and mine are both slightly above 3K, matched the same.  My 427A has very low (microamps) short circuit current in ohmmeter mode.

Cool. The full test, as I understand it, will indicate if they're too far apart to be compensated with the onboard adjustment screws.

I haven't looked, yet, but it'd be nice to get a connector to securely attach the thermistor to the test rig. Putting clips on the pins makes me nervous with 29 volts going to it.

I need to bite the bullet and buy another thermistor...even an unknown one for cheap. That way perhaps I can learn how to fix them on one that I didn't spend a mint on.

Yeah, probably a good idea. It seems pretty easy to damage, especially when trying this operation for the first time. But now I can kind of understand why the "for parts" listings still sell. Many of them probably are recoverable to some extent. However, you then need to calibrate it or at least have a calibrated source to be able to plot out general compensation points across the mount's range.

[bitseeker]

Yeah can’t moan for £3 at all. An afternoon of debugging fun is a pretty cheap exercise.  I’d be annoyed if I’d spent £10 on it. 

And once you've taken the parts you need from it, it's a nice enclosure for another project...for a measly £3!

[bitseeker]

Never been much of a breakfast eater. Just give me my coffee...which I am drinking right now. 

Typical American breakfast. Mostly starch and carbs. No wonder we're fat. 

A balanced breakfast covering all four oh-so-bad-for-you-but-oh-so-tasty food groups: sugar, salt, fat, and cholesterol.

[bitseeker]

Well, yesterday, instead of working on my TEA stuff (namely my power meter), I was visiting relatives and had to make use of my TEA to fix a physical therapy mat. It has a cable that goes to a control module that administers some kind of pulses to the mat. The controller couldn't detect it.

It appeared that the cable had gotten badly pinched at some point, but didn't break through the outer sheathing. No service manual, of course, but checking continuity on the pins indicated that only one of two pins was connected to the mat and on the mat end, both wires were shorted. You can't make a loop that way.

After cutting into the middle of the kinked portion of the cable, I was horrified to discover that not only had the sheathing of the two inner wires been breached, but about two inches (five centimeters) of the stranded conductors of each wire had been exposed and twisted up into a bundle (the short circuit) and one of the wires had been completely severed (the missing loop).

Cutting away all the mess, splicing everything back the way it should be, and plenty of heat shrink tubing and everything was working again. Nothing too exciting, but it's always fun to bring something back to life.

Sorry, I didn't take photos. It was surprising how much damage was concealed inside the outer sheathing that only looked like it was moderately distressed.

[mnementh]

Every day I eat a can of green beans or 1/2 can of corn to keep regular. My balanced dinner was a package of Hormel Hard Salami (lots of salt but zero carbs) 1/2 pint of cottage cheese (6 grams) and 1/2 a head of romaine. My "couch tuber time" snack is 1/2 a brick of Philly cream cheese and  8-ish grape tomatoes and  (3-5 grams total, depending on how many/how big).

Keeping the carbs low I have figured out, in general... even on a budget. It's raising my activity level when my back is killing me half the time that's hard.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[Specmaster]

Its my feet that tend to do me in, needing size 15 shoes and they are not as you can imagine too plentiful and then they tend to be ever a tad too tight in the width or so wide then walking on uneven surface, my feet slide from side to side and then causes skin to peel off soles leading to very sore spots etc 

[bd139]

Damn it. Just outbid on a broken Fluke 87 

[BU508A]

Damn it. Just outbid on a broken Fluke 87 

Just out of curiousity: why do you insist on a Fluke 87 and do not take for example a Brymen BM869s?

https://www.welectron.com/Handheld

[bd139]

I had an 867s actually.  Reasons I don't have one now: the backlight was annoying on both the turning off and quality front, the thing remembering which subrange you are in was annoying as hell, the thing is huge and weighs a lot, the user interface is crap, dual measurement is uselessly slow, local cal place won't cal/align them, can't see the screen when it's flat on the bench.

87 fits me like a glove.

This was the DMM line up:



This is now the DMM line up (plus an 8012A and 8010A)



Was hoping for a 3rd 87.

[BU508A]

87 fits me like a glove.

Well, in this case I'd advise you to buy another 87.     

Good luck with the hunting.

[bd139]

Thank you. The prey always escapes me 

There is a problem here and that is people are paying too much for stuff. I'm not inclined to pay too much for stuff so I always lose. It's not that I'm being cheap either; just a simple risk assessment suggests people are basically insane!