Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

 

[mnementh]

↑   He looks more to me...

From the "Chalk one up for Bambi" Dept...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/deer-fatally-attacks-hunter-who-shot-him/ar-AAJiNr4
 
mnem
"It's called Karma, bitch." ~Thumper

[worsthorse]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrYmLwfCjcCcIBPbJ0yGA3Q

I didn’t dare click on play... though I do appreciate the shout-out to Doctor Phibes. 

mnem
 

just your standard issue death metal. 

[worsthorse]

...as for the etymology of worsthorse? well that's another story...

mnem
 

the basis for the nickname can be found here:  worsthorse 

as for how i got it, well that is really not that hard to figure out. 

[Specmaster]

One for the UK sparkies; what's wrong with this picture?

That is made up unit from other bits and the problem there is that the breakers are being fed from a top mounted busbar which has Merlin Gerin isolock isolaters with the tabs hanging down with no safety shields in place.

[lowimpedance]

About a weeks worth of pics here...
So the Thurlby 1905a arrived today, and when I opened the case, I had my first 'hmmmm' moment


Then this caught my eye, that's the 200mA current measure fuseholder:

Am I going mad, or is that a MOV paralleled with the fuse? wtf?!?

The missing IC turns out to be quite important. It's one of the eproms, IC208, which holds 'Program E' 
Consequently, after taking it apart, saying "hmmm" a few times, then putting it back together and turning it on, I found it to be somewhat non-functional. I am currently deciding whether to try to get my money back (it was listed as used, none of the pics showed it powered up), or try to source an eprom...

  The MOV appears to be standard on the 1905a !!. see pic below from my unit.
Also attached is the binary dump from the ROM in my unit (plus picture of CPU PCB). The ROM used is a 27C64Q from national semi. ,
and notes a programming voltage of 12.5V. The other ROM position IC208 is not used.
 Not sure what revision yours is ?, as my unit appears to have a rather different PCB than the one in the only online manual I can find.
Good luck.

 PS does your unit have the TRMS module installed ?. If yes could you post a picture of it, thanks.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I would have thought a 'Worsthorse' is when you have all defects on one horse, like:

[mnementh]

   One for the UK sparkies; what's wrong with this picture?

That is made up unit from other bits and the problem there is that the breakers are being fed from a top mounted busbar which has Merlin Gerin isolock isolaters with the tabs hanging down with no safety shields in place.

So... the three conductors of unknown state just hanging outside the box... not a problem...?

mnem
*tzzzt*

[tautech]

   One for the UK sparkies; what's wrong with this picture?

That is made up unit from other bits and the problem there is that the breakers are being fed from a top mounted busbar which has Merlin Gerin isolock isolaters with the tabs hanging down with no safety shields in place.

So... the three conductors of unknown state just hanging outside the box... not a problem...?

mnem
*tzzzt*

No problem at all except for the totally wrong color coding for a single phase installation. 

[beanflying]

Probe Tips back in stock eBay auction: #171084548642 for anyone who missed out and wanted some.



And Also from the bay of evil eBay auction: #254395602790 Orlando area not sure about USA shipping but $0.01 with a few days to go.

[Terry01]

Probe Tips back in stock eBay auction: #171084548642 for anyone who missed out and wanted some.

What are these used for  exactly? I take it there is a specific part or whatever that these were designed for to make probing easier? 

[beanflying]

Use them anywhere you want to hook into a 2mm probe. Generally soldered to another connector/board/wire/pcb or whatever you need. For PCB use wire loops have been used as they are cheap like on the DMM Check plus or these would be a better connection as an example (new version seems to be just a single pin).



Just a well made adapter.

[Terry01]

Use them anywhere you want to hook into a 2mm probe. Generally soldered to another connector/board/wire/pcb or whatever you need. For PCB use wire loops have been used as they are cheap like on the DMM Check plus or these would be a better connection as an example (new version seems to be just a single pin).



Just a well made adapter.

Cool, thanks. I've never seen them before. Handy wee things.

[bd139]

Woohoo just hit the function generator jackpot!



Been after one of them for ages. Was pretty cheap and no knob damage or missing caps as well.

Edit: this is why. These things are top notch engineering even though they are plain on the outside.

[PA0PBZ]

Woohoo just hit the function generator jackpot!

Nice! A bit of soap and a soft brush and it should look as new! Any faults expected?

[bd139]

Power up tested only so unknown. I expect some ganky latching changeover switches and a bit of a clean and that's about it. Possibly toasted output resistors. Nothing unfixable.

[mansaxel]

The other option is that they recycled a tracking # so that somebody somewhere in Sweden actually got something. If you follow the other thread you noticed that this has happened to a few others.

I have asked PostMord (whose 1st line answered with a non-informative standard text) whether the package actually was destined to me. Let's see what happens.

PostMord replied and were very clear that this package had another destination than my mailbox.  Looks like you're right.

Aliexpress dispute opened. Updates to follow. 

[mansaxel]

Ham flea market (SK0QO) tomorrow. Am picking up a 100m roll of Messi & Paoloni 10,3mm coax. (Not, I hope, with rat feces on. ) Sharing it with a former coworker who also needs more for his antennas.   And, as usual, TE starts popping up on the in-country auction site just before (probably just to tease me ). Some of it is _really_ interesting  , and I'm quite tempted to go on a bidding spree. It would be prudent to spend next weeks staycation building new TE shelves over the workbench, instead of creating an even bigger storage problem..

But swedish-built frequency counters are too tempting to resist! 

The 428b recommissioning is slowly progressing. Its meter is properly insensitive to AC, while carrying it to the output connector and further on to a scope. 

[AVGresponding]

   One for the UK sparkies; what's wrong with this picture?

That is made up unit from other bits and the problem there is that the breakers are being fed from a top mounted busbar which has Merlin Gerin isolock isolaters with the tabs hanging down with no safety shields in place.

So... the three conductors of unknown state just hanging outside the box... not a problem...?

mnem
*tzzzt*

No problem at all except for the totally wrong color coding for a single phase installation. 

Tautech wins the prize   

Interestingly, the numpty that installed it decided to use the red in a 3 core as the neutral, under that MC Hammer-esque baggy black sleeving, and what did they do with the yellow conductor? They cropped it at both ends of course, leaving a floating conductor in the cable.   

@Specmaster, all the parts are Merlin, none of that Schneider rubbish    and the reason there are nakey busbars showing is that it's in the process of being decommissioned. The only reason we livened the board back up was to get a temp supply to an area where we needed 240V for a tool tranny.

@mnem, the conductors in question are the temp I was putting in; don't worry, I DID sleeve them with the correct colours, and did NOT leave any floating conductors.   


@lowimpedance, thank you greatly for your post. The plot thickens!
Your processor board looks to be the same rev as mine; the one in the manual is (I believe) an earlier one, with 2x 2114 instead of 1x 6116 SRAM, and a 74LS155 instead of the 156 (although the parts list shows a 155 and not a 156, so maybe a typo? They're both multiplexers anyway).
This EEVBlog thread has a possible clue; post 3 leads me to believe that reseating the ICs is my next logical step, and not forgetting also the first commandment "Thou shalt measure voltages".

[med6753]

I've watched some YouTube videos of British Sparkies and your mains wiring conventions totally confuse me with all the pretty colors.

Over here for typical residential wiring it's:

Black - hot
White - neutral
Red - additional hot conductor
Green or Green w/yellow stripe - ground.

[mansaxel]

I've watched some YouTube videos of British Sparkies and your mains wiring conventions totally confuse me with all the pretty colors.

Over here for typical residential wiring it's:

Black - hot
White - neutral
Red - additional hot conductor
Green or Green w/yellow stripe - ground.

Euro-continent _mostly_ is

Black, Brown, Grey = 3 phases, preferably in that order.
Blue = Neutral
Green/Yellow striped : Protective Earth.

Sweden had red for Protective Earth once; it IIRC ended in the very early seventies.  I think a few of the old cables in the garage are that. Our house is built 1971, and only a few of the cables are red PE.

[med6753]

And DMM calibrations continue. Today the Tek 465B/DM44. This one was calibrated about 7 months ago after a repair so I expected it to be in spec. It was.

Next up tomorrow is Fluke 8600A. I expect that one to be troublesome. It's had numerous issues.



 

[tautech]

I've watched some YouTube videos of British Sparkies and your mains wiring conventions totally confuse me with all the pretty colors.

Over here for typical residential wiring it's:

Black - hot
White - neutral
Red - additional hot conductor
Green or Green w/yellow stripe - ground.

Euro-continent _mostly_ is

Black, Brown, Grey = 3 phases, preferably in that order.
Blue = Neutral
Green/Yellow striped : Protective Earth.

Sweden had red for Protective Earth once; it IIRC ended in the very early seventies.  I think a few of the old cables in the garage are that. Our house is built 1971, and only a few of the cables are red PE.

Downunder in NZ
Single phase
Phase Red
Neutral Black
Earth Green/yellow

3 Phase
Phases Blue, White, Red,
Earth Green/yellow

However Flex cables can be different with Brown and Blue for phase and neutral in single phase leadout cables.

[factory]

   One for the UK sparkies; what's wrong with this picture?

That is made up unit from other bits and the problem there is that the breakers are being fed from a top mounted busbar which has Merlin Gerin isolock isolaters with the tabs hanging down with no safety shields in place.

So... the three conductors of unknown state just hanging outside the box... not a problem...?

mnem
*tzzzt*

No problem at all except for the totally wrong color coding for a single phase installation. 

Tautech wins the prize   

Interestingly, the numpty that installed it decided to use the red in a 3 core as the neutral, under that MC Hammer-esque baggy black sleeving, and what did they do with the yellow conductor? They cropped it at both ends of course, leaving a floating conductor in the cable.   

@Specmaster, all the parts are Merlin, none of that Schneider rubbish    and the reason there are nakey busbars showing is that it's in the process of being decommissioned. The only reason we livened the board back up was to get a temp supply to an area where we needed 240V for a tool tranny.

@mnem, the conductors in question are the temp I was putting in; don't worry, I DID sleeve them with the correct colours, and did NOT leave any floating conductors.   


@lowimpedance, thank you greatly for your post. The plot thickens!
Your processor board looks to be the same rev as mine; the one in the manual is (I believe) an earlier one, with 2x 2114 instead of 1x 6116 SRAM, and a 74LS155 instead of the 156 (although the parts list shows a 155 and not a 156, so maybe a typo? They're both multiplexers anyway).
This EEVBlog thread has a possible clue; post 3 leads me to believe that reseating the ICs is my next logical step, and not forgetting also the first commandment "Thou shalt measure voltages".

Is it just me or are the Live/Neutral markings at the top the reverse of the connections at the bottom of the dual pole switch, i.e. they should be red/brown (live) and black/blue (neutral). 
The other markings for the breakers aren't clear to me.

David

[factory]

Downunder in NZ
Single phase
Phase Red
Neutral Black
Earth Green/yellow

3 Phase
Phases Blue, White, Red,
Earth Green/yellow

However Flex cables can be different with Brown and Blue for phase and neutral in single phase leadout cables.

Much better 3-phase colours than the new dull colours (black/brown/grey) we were forced to change to (though we had yellow instead of white). 
It makes you wonder how many mistakes are made (or will be in future) when cables end up dirty & illegible.

David