Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

My B does very nicely on the DVM front 

Oh, wow! That is quite nice. Better than I was expecting and 5-1/2 digits! Now I have to get one. You know that, right? Evil, evil man.

Can't imagine why I have been called a Pimp and Enabler  Those voltage checks were uncalibrated or tweaked from when it arrived from the USA but it did come from a good home.

I think most of us in this thread (at least the regulars) should be sporting brightly colored velvet Zoot suits and feathered pimp hats, wearing big HP, Fluke or Tektronix emblems on chains around our necks and using giant test probe walking sticks.  That's likely how any noobs that enter here imagine us as we push test gear on them.  "Come on, take a hit of e-bay - you'll love it.  No, no, it's perfectly safe!  I've been doing it for years now!  What are you afraid of?" subtly turns on dynamic signal analyzer in hopes that the loud fan masks creaking noises of floor joists

-Pat

Now, how do I get these pictures out of my head? 

Turn on your counter and stare at the warm orange glow of the nixies.  Your troubles will fade into an amber haze.

-Pat

[Saskia]

@edavid could not get the ECP port to work with Virtualbox
@Neomys Sapiens well, I was annoyed. However Husband wants to have access to the bench to start cleaning his tools of trade (in Glock we trust)
@bd139 I can see your point. Without external power supply the parallel port driven gizmos are flakey at best, unusable at worst
@Kosmic good point. Will get a USB driven kit, I just hate to throw stuff away that may be remotely useful. Good thing about this is that I learned a bit about those virtualizers yesterday.

[beanflying]

More Nixie Pimpin with 9 whole tubes. Freight to Oz is to much so waiting on the Street Corner for the USA mob  eBay auction: #254564357775

[Cerebus]

I was trying similar strategies against squirrels couple years ago. I ended up using a cage, was working quite nicely. I reckon, in your case, you would probably need to increase the size of the cage and that would probably attract neighbours attention.

* For the record, I relocated all the squirrels I caught in a park far far away.

Needs mo' powah! Didn't even make it to the fence.

Yeah, but the rumbling big block V8 might scare the squirrels off.

[BU508A]

I think most of us in this thread (at least the regulars) should be sporting brightly colored velvet Zoot suits and feathered pimp hats, wearing big HP, Fluke or Tektronix emblems on chains around our necks and using giant test probe walking sticks.  That's likely how any noobs that enter here imagine us as we push test gear on them.  "Come on, take a hit of e-bay - you'll love it.  No, no, it's perfectly safe!  I've been doing it for years now!  What are you afraid of?" subtly turns on dynamic signal analyzer in hopes that the loud fan masks creaking noises of floor joists

-Pat

Edit: better Logo image

[URI]

Thanks for the offer, it's not necessary since I rarely use that scope. Otherwise, a teardown would be interesting anyway. I guess there's some kind of micro involved, since I don't know of a way to connect a battery backed SRAM through a SUB-D 9 connector without one. Or maybe some shift registers? This SUB-D 9 isn't a RS232 at all AFAIR.

Possibly an I2C battery backed up RAM? PCF8570/8571? Or RTC PCF8583?

Rainer

I was curious myself and pulled the settings-saving-plug of my PM3065:


Bingo! It is indeed PCF8570-based. I reverse-engineered it, so here's the schematic. Use at your own risk.   

[med6753]

The grab bag of Tek probes is making excellent progress cross country via FedEx truck.  Passed thru Illinois overnight and projected delivery is Saturday. 6 days to go cross country truck not bad at all. USPS should get a clue. It took them 6 days to go 120 miles.   

[Specmaster]

Just ordered a load of caps to do a full recap of the Black Star 4503 and another mem battery. Battery and the bulk of the caps should be tomorrow from RS and the odd few ones are coming from BitBox and should here in 2 to 3 days, fingers crossed, lets see what happens shall we? 

[bd139]

Bitsbox are still working nicely. Had a delivery last week. Took 3 days though.

[Specmaster]

@bd139, How are feeling now? better I hope? I'm awaiting the arrival of a heating engineer to service my boiler as it is overdue and keeps going to limp mode 

[bd139]

Absolutely fine now and completely back to normal . First symptoms on 18th March so 4 weeks it took for normality to completely resume

That's a shitter with the boiler. At least it didn't crap itself in the middle of winter!

Edit: looking back it was 15th of march so that's 3 weeks 4 days and i couldn't add when I worked out 4 weeks above 

[med6753]

@bd139, How are feeling now? better I hope? I'm awaiting the arrival of a heating engineer to service my boiler as it is overdue and keeps going to limp mode 

Does the boiler also provide your hot water or do you have point of use heaters?

[Specmaster]

Arh, thats good news to hear that you're back to normal again. Yeah, the boiler was meant to be serviced just after Christmas but the HA never booked it in and automatic program on the programmer, after so many weeks etc, automatically drops into limp mode with an error message if the boiler isn't serviced and the counter reset. It did crap itself 4 weeks ago and they came and put a bypass code in and today they are doing the service.

[Specmaster]

@bd139, How are feeling now? better I hope? I'm awaiting the arrival of a heating engineer to service my boiler as it is overdue and keeps going to limp mode 

Does the boiler also provide your hot water or do you have point of use heaters?

Yeah, the boiler does both.

[bd139]

Arh, thats good news to hear that you're back to normal again. Yeah, the boiler was meant to be serviced just after Christmas but the HA never booked it in and automatic program on the programmer, after so many weeks etc, automatically drops into limp mode with an error message if the boiler isn't serviced and the counter reset. It did crap itself 4 weeks ago and they came and put a bypass code in and today they are doing the service.

That sounds about right. If it's ours the remote thermostat packs in once every two years without fail requiring both ends being replaces for 100 quid or so plus labour (I should just do it but I can't be arsed). I have to take it to bits every 6 months as well because the membrane keyboard on it starts going wonky and needs a clean out. Can't set the objective temperature then 

Edit: I remember living in HA property in Islington as a kid. It took them 9 months to fix the heating and we had blankets pinned on the windows all winter. Sounds like things have improved since then at least 

[Specmaster]

Arh, thats good news to hear that you're back to normal again. Yeah, the boiler was meant to be serviced just after Christmas but the HA never booked it in and automatic program on the programmer, after so many weeks etc, automatically drops into limp mode with an error message if the boiler isn't serviced and the counter reset. It did crap itself 4 weeks ago and they came and put a bypass code in and today they are doing the service.

That sounds about right. If it's ours the remote thermostat packs in once every two years without fail requiring both ends being replaces for 100 quid or so plus labour (I should just do it but I can't be arsed). I have to take it to bits every 6 months as well because the membrane keyboard on it starts going wonky and needs a clean out. Can't set the objective temperature then 

Edit: I remember living in HA property in Islington as a kid. It took them 9 months to fix the heating and we had blankets pinned on the windows all winter. Sounds like things have improved since then at least 

Is the thermostat one of those wireless jobbies? There fricking useless they are.

Edit, nope, our HA are really good.

[bd139]

Honeywell wireless turd. Absolutely nothing but trouble. But as the gas guy said "they're all shit. this one is just marginally less shit than the other ones"

[tggzzz]

Arh, thats good news to hear that you're back to normal again. Yeah, the boiler was meant to be serviced just after Christmas but the HA never booked it in and automatic program on the programmer, after so many weeks etc, automatically drops into limp mode with an error message if the boiler isn't serviced and the counter reset. It did crap itself 4 weeks ago and they came and put a bypass code in and today they are doing the service.

Which manufacturer is that boiler?

The two recommended brands are Worcester-Bosch, and Vaillant. Heating technicians I know prefer the servicability of Vaillant.

[BU508A]

Bingo! It is indeed PCF8570-based. I reverse-engineered it, so here's the schematic. Use at your own risk.   

 

Your "6" is suspiciously looking like a "8" 

[Kosmic]

Cheap (45$) Power Designs 2020 on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/402057708269

[capt bullshot]

I was curious myself and pulled the settings-saving-plug of my PM3065:
Bingo! It is indeed PCF8570-based. I reverse-engineered it, so here's the schematic. Use at your own risk.   

Thanks, looks simple enough to give it a try in case I get my hands on a PCF8570

[Specmaster]

@bd139 Yeh, same here Honeywell shit.

@tggzzz, yep boiler is Worcester.

Engineer has been, all serviced and now, hopefully no more problems for a year at least 

[Specmaster]

Had confirmation, all orders from Bitbox and RS are now dispatched. Just realised that tomorrow is Good Friday so no post tomorrow, hopefully it will all be here Saturday then 

[jxjbsd]

 :-+Beautiful machine!

[Ero-Shan]

More Nixie Pimpin with 9 whole tubes. Freight to Oz is to much so waiting on the Street Corner for the USA mob  eBay auction: #254564357775

I'd say the price is acceptable, even if its for parts only. 9 digits, 18 GHz.
There's lots of offers of 'parts only' 1 channel 10 MHz CROs that have higher prices (no, not sought after antiques, just crap).

If I'd lived in the US, I'd certainly tried to get it.