Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

My UT210E was dispatched from Southall, ...

I recall joeqsmith did a mod on his a few years ago to increase its bandwidth and add a BNC so he could use it for his scope. Seemed to work pretty well.

Ah, yes. Starts about here, https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/a-look-at-the-uni-t-ut210e/msg901539/#msg901539, in case you're curious.

There's also info on the forum about all the EEPROM parameters.

[VK5RC]

I would have loved to have gone to bean's Cafe - the coffee, the bread and everything would have been fantastic - enough to make me consider a move to the state of Victoria (for OS guys - a long standing rivalry exists between my state - South Australia and Victoria)
Rob
PS have acquired an electronic readout height guage for the surface plate. Nothing fancy - i nearly needed resuscitation when I priced a mitutoyo height guage.

[bitseeker]

Well look like I'm also a lucky winner. I started coughing today, then muscle pain and chest pain. Now I got a fever.

Really frustrating since I was home for the last 2.5 weeks, only went out once for grocery. And got food deliver once. 

Wow sorry to hear that. You got no clue how you contracted it? Maybe from things you touched from a store? 

I'm pretty sure I didn't touch my face and washed my hands with Hand sanitizer once I was in the car and washed again once I got home. So it was the delivery guy (and I was wearing gloves) or one of the kids got it and she is asymptomatic. 

But I should be fine though, I'm in an age bracket where the risk is minimal.

Glad to hear you've got the odds in your favor. Speedy recovery, Kosmic!

[beanflying]

(I was waiting for that.)  For initial pics - refer to the eBay listing.

I have a couple of others, but have spent the "free" time I had sneaking in the things that I've already posted about.

I should really change the fuse to a 125mA slow blow, but I don't have any of those - yet.   

Got to post glory shots or it didn't happen 

I would have loved to have gone to bean's Cafe - the coffee, the bread and everything would have been fantastic - enough to make me consider a move to the state of Victoria (for OS guys - a long standing rivalry exists between my state - South Australia and Victoria)
Rob
PS have acquired an electronic readout height guage for the surface plate. Nothing fancy - i nearly needed resuscitation when I priced a mitutoyo height guage.

Nothing wrong with 'most' South Australians certain Red Headed Female Marion ex Pommie residents are one of those exceptions  NFI what is for dinner tonight but something will emerge from this afternoons grocery run.

[McBryce]

Here's a picture for you. My Fluke 8060A arrived last night. It's like new, the LCD is still sharp and measures spot on too. Now I've got no reason to open it
I now own the two main test devices I used in my university days, this and a Tek 2465

McBryce.

Edit: It looks kind of yellowed in the picture, but that's just crap lighting. In reality it's not yellowed at all.

[med6753]

Nothing wrong with 'most' South Australians certain Red Headed Female Marion ex Pommie residents are one of those exceptions  NFI what is for dinner tonight but something will emerge from this afternoons grocery run.

Read heads from any part of the English speaking world are bad news. 

Doing a grocery run myself this morning. 0600 hours to 0700 hours is old farts only in the store and this old fart will be there. 

[BU508A]

Well look like I'm also a lucky winner. I started coughing today, then muscle pain and chest pain. Now I got a fever.

Really frustrating since I was home for the last 2.5 weeks, only went out once for grocery. And got food deliver once. 

Take care and get well soon.

Best wishes from Germany.

[tggzzz]

Bugga  I think I will keep sticking to home brew Junk Food rather than some sweaty Cook and Delivery driver coughing over it.

My attitude is that I will get it one way or another. The only hope of avoiding it is a vaccine, which is a year away.

In the past I chose a course of treatment for PCa based on the chance of getting serious side effects from a different course. When I get covid-19 I will have a similar chance of dying from it.

I'm stopping my GAS[1], to reduce the number of treasures my daughter bins Pleasingly I offloaded a working 2445B recently

Meanwhile my new old Cropico voltage reference is within ~5uV of my Fluke 515A.

[1] there's one in the pipeline, due to be delivered by Herpes within a few weeks.

[bd139]

Ok got to play with the UT210E finally. After RTFM it’s surprisingly accurate on the bench! 1-2 counts out from the Flukes on DC current. I don’t have an AC test setup. Colour me impressed. Only negative is the continuity is just total shit but that’s always true on Uni-T meters.

Yes, thats the same finding as most of us who have one, has found. For the money they are a bit of a bargain but certainly no substitute for a decent bench or handheld meter but are wonderful at quick tests, an ideal tool to slip in your pocket if your going to be doing some work away from the bench and that DC current clamp is a real boon to have and saves so much time when measuring current providing you can get the particular wire into the jaws.

Yeah that was use case B for it. No more having to break into the circuit or install a sampling resistor for current measurements. That's not an issue in prototype or low power circuits but gets pretty unweildy when you get to a few hundred mA and don't want to lose any volts anywhere.

I took the UT210E out this morning and did some playing much to the dismay of the curtain twitching neighbours watching me coughing my guts up all over the car. Jumped the car off a cheap ass jump starter pack. Can see charge current going into the battery once it's up but the battery is not holding it and after 2 minutes is just getting warm. Then low voltage alert goes on car and ECU shuts the whole thing down. Fortunately it's a tiny little thing and only £65. Ordered.

[bd139]

Well look like I'm also a lucky winner. I started coughing today, then muscle pain and chest pain. Now I got a fever.

Really frustrating since I was home for the last 2.5 weeks, only went out once for grocery. And got food deliver once. 

Wow sorry to hear that. You got no clue how you contracted it? Maybe from things you touched from a store? 

I'm pretty sure I didn't touch my face and washed my hands with Hand sanitizer once I was in the car and washed again once I got home. So it was the delivery guy (and I was wearing gloves) or one of the kids got it and she is asymptomatic. 

But I should be fine though, I'm in an age bracket where the risk is minimal.

Just be careful. I'm in a minimal risk bracket and usually get over stuff considerably quicker than most and it is still a vicious ride. I keep picking things up I would normally just not even notice and nothing happens! Fatigue and weakness last a long time apparently as well.

Interesting local story on this. My father-in-law, in his mid 60's, is in hospital now. He's a construction worker and is quite frankly hopeless and basically lives on McDonalds, KFC and tea and absolutely nothing else. So McDonalds and KFC were closed down and he had to diversify a bit. This I suspect involved switching to a diet of biscuits and he got clogged up and ended up in severe pain. So waltzed into local hospital, got X-rayed, found he was jammed up like a Hermes van, and got an impaction plan and then put on a ward to use his word "full of old people". His brother had to remind him that he is old too. So a couple of days later he has now tested positive for Covid-19 and has spent two days coughing on the other old people in the ward  . Bit of a failure that generally both from his perspective and the hospital's.

Today's task: locate another T470 on ebay as the kids are all getting home learning stuff to do.

[Ice-Tea]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

[beanflying]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

So did you kick TEA or drop TEA on the TOE ?

[Specmaster]

Now to rebuild the bench to accommodate it.   

Don't forget it has 4 rifa capacitors inside that you might like to check / replace. 2 by the power switch and 2 more by the power inlet socket

[Ice-Tea]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

So did you kick TEA or drop TEA on the TOE ?

Oh, both. Several times. But it was the edge of the bath that broke my toe. 

[Specmaster]

Ok got to play with the UT210E finally. After RTFM it’s surprisingly accurate on the bench! 1-2 counts out from the Flukes on DC current. I don’t have an AC test setup. Colour me impressed. Only negative is the continuity is just total shit but that’s always true on Uni-T meters.

Yes, thats the same finding as most of us who have one, has found. For the money they are a bit of a bargain but certainly no substitute for a decent bench or handheld meter but are wonderful at quick tests, an ideal tool to slip in your pocket if your going to be doing some work away from the bench and that DC current clamp is a real boon to have and saves so much time when measuring current providing you can get the particular wire into the jaws.

Yeah that was use case B for it. No more having to break into the circuit or install a sampling resistor for current measurements. That's not an issue in prototype or low power circuits but gets pretty unweildy when you get to a few hundred mA and don't want to lose any volts anywhere.

I took the UT210E out this morning and did some playing much to the dismay of the curtain twitching neighbours watching me coughing my guts up all over the car. Jumped the car off a cheap ass jump starter pack. Can see charge current going into the battery once it's up but the battery is not holding it and after 2 minutes is just getting warm. Then low voltage alert goes on car and ECU shuts the whole thing down. Fortunately it's a tiny little thing and only £65. Ordered.

Has the car got stop-start system installed, if so then make sure that your battery is properly rated for this or it prematurely fail?

[Specmaster]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

Yep, you certainly don't wont to go to hospital if it can be avoided while this crisis is at large or else you will end up with at best, sub-standard care, and worst, Covid-19

[bd139]

Has the car got stop-start system installed, if so then make sure that your battery is properly rated for this or it prematurely fail?

Nope it's not stop-start. It's got a radio control car sized engine in it instead.  . Old battery is date coded 2013 so I reckon it's original battery.

Just got my RS delivery and found I ordered DFN packaged part instead of SOT ffs  . Thrown it away. I'm not even going to attempt to solder to that with the shakes  Was only a couple of quid so not end of world.

[beanflying]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

So did you kick TEA or drop TEA on the TOE ?

Oh, both. Several times. But it was the edge of the bath that broke my toe. 

So becoming less dirTEA then 

[Specmaster]

Broke a toe a week ago. Because I have no desire to go to a doctor or hospital atm I taped it and moved on. Albeit slowly 

So did you kick TEA or drop TEA on the TOE ?

Oh, both. Several times. But it was the edge of the bath that broke my toe. 

So becoming less dirTEA then 

LMAO

[Specmaster]

4503 has departed the Thurrock depot and is on its way to my local courier, so could be with me today, then we can tear it down for pictures.

[med6753]

Back from grocery shopping. Was not crowded at all. Managed to get everything I needed except one item.

That one item would be TP. Yep.....there's not one roll in the store. I heard the store manager say that the paper truck did not arrive last night. But that shouldn't really matter. So apparently the sheep are still hoarding TP. I only wanted ONE roll. I keep one in use and two in reserve. I'm down to one in reserve. So buy one....not happening. 

[bd139]

Do you have a lawn sprinkler or three seashells available? 

I'd mail you a roll or two but it'll take a couple of weeks to get there 

[tggzzz]

But it was the edge of the bath that broke my toe.

Ouch. I presume you are certain it is broken rather than the ligaments being strained. If broken you don't want it to set in the wrong position.

Many decades ago I slipped on a step and my foot slammed down onto the step beneath. I howled with pain. The next day there was soreness and bruising, so to spread the load and avoid moving the bruised parts, I wore hiking boots with a solifd wooden sole, and continued as normal.

A week later the bruising was disappearing, but the minor pain wasn't, so I decided to go to the hospital A&E. That was in the middle of nowhere, I didn't have a car, so I push cycled the 5 miles there.

It turned out I had a 1 inch spiral fracture in my fifth metatarsal. Treatment: since the boots were as good as a cast, continue wearing the boots and cycle home Perfectly satisfactory.

While still booted up, I went to a job interview in a suit and boots. I expected them to ask me the reason for the non-standard dress sense, but they didn't. So I finally told them, they said they were wondering why, and offered me a job. I really enjoyed working at that fun zany place, and learned a lot

The other time I wore suit and boots was to go to Palo Alto on business. That was in the wake of PanAm 103, so there was enhanced security. The staff relaxed after I told them my ordinary shoes were in my case, and I preferred that they were lost rather than my walking boots

[med6753]

I'd mail you a roll or two but it'll take a couple of weeks to get there 

Don't bother. US Customs would probably send it back. 

[tggzzz]

Do you have a lawn sprinkler or three seashells available? 

I'd mail you a roll or two but it'll take a couple of weeks to get there 

OK, I'll nibble. Why three seashells?

And now med is beginning to understand why people hoard keep a stock for emergencies.

As somebody pointed out, CV19 gives you the sniffles not the bum's rush. Hence nose tissues are probably more important.