Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[xrunner]

The Kikusui COS 5020 oscilloscope is completed. I finally got all the noise to go away by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors and cleaning the wafer switches. I did a complete cosmetic job on the old girl and she looks great now. I checked the bandwidth and measured ~21 MHz. The amplitude calibration is acceptable. Completely acceptable for low frequency troubleshooting.

My friend said he was planning on a new place on his bench for it and wanted to start using it a lot more. I think he needs a refresher course in oscilloscope use so I'll invite him over to pick it up and we'll have a mini-course and go over the controls while observing some test signals.

By the way, I constructed a brand new riser shelf for my bench yesterday using my table saw. I already had all the wood parts except for the top piece. Came out great. Plan to add a new set of LED strip lights as soon as they arrive.

[med6753]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

The Israelis have the most air victories with the F-15 because Syria keeps testing them and sacrificing their MIG's. And the Israelis are the only one's to have a pure gun kill with no missles.

[Kosmic]

Do you deal with them directly or through fleabay?  Not having dealt with them before, I went through fleaBay and made an offer which was instantly rejected.  My offer was a bit on the low side.  I assume a seller can set a reserve price in fleabay for that sort of thing?  Probably I will sit back and wait for a better deal to come along...

Via Ebay mostly since they don't post their new stuff elsewhere. They asked me if I wanted to do the tour of their warehouse at some point and just said no since I was buying too much already and was trying to limit my TEA consumption 

[Cerebus]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

So 2.4 air-to-air combat kills per year against 4 non-combat losses per year. Like I said, for any other category of tool that's a pretty poor ratio. Imagine you needed 1.7 hammers for every nail you drove home, I think you'd probably be a bit miffed, especially if the hammers came in at $31.1 million each. I make that roughly $51 million to shoot down one enemy aircraft just in 'new from the factory' costs, excluding years of fuel, training, maintenance, ammo and all the other sundries.  That makes the 1/2 million you pay for the missile you used to shoot down the enemy seem positively cheap by comparison.

[nixiefreqq]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

So 2.4 air-to-air combat kills per year against 4 non-combat losses per year. Like I said, for any other category of tool that's a pretty poor ratio. Imagine you needed 1.7 hammers for every nail you drove home, I think you'd probably be a bit miffed, especially if the hammers came in at $31.1 million each. I make that roughly $51 million to shoot down one enemy aircraft just in 'new from the factory' costs, excluding years of fuel, training, maintenance, ammo and all the other sundries.  That makes the 1/2 million you pay for the missile you used to shoot down the enemy seem positively cheap by comparison.

not saying you are wrong........but that there is some real bean counting.

[Saskia]

Sorry can't resist. That's a door bell.

[KrudyZ]

Good way to enforce social distancing.

[Cubdriver]

The Kikusui COS 5020 oscilloscope is completed. I finally got all the noise to go away by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors and cleaning the wafer switches. I did a complete cosmetic job on the old girl and she looks great now. I checked the bandwidth and measured ~21 MHz. The amplitude calibration is acceptable. Completely acceptable for low frequency troubleshooting.

My friend said he was planning on a new place on his bench for it and wanted to start using it a lot more. I think he needs a refresher course in oscilloscope use so I'll invite him over to pick it up and we'll have a mini-course and go over the controls while observing some test signals.

By the way, I constructed a brand new riser shelf for my bench yesterday using my table saw. I already had all the wood parts except for the top piece. Came out great. Plan to add a new set of LED strip lights as soon as they arrive.

Damn, X - that looks brand new!  Excellent work!

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

So 2.4 air-to-air combat kills per year against 4 non-combat losses per year. Like I said, for any other category of tool that's a pretty poor ratio. Imagine you needed 1.7 hammers for every nail you drove home, I think you'd probably be a bit miffed, especially if the hammers came in at $31.1 million each. I make that roughly $51 million to shoot down one enemy aircraft just in 'new from the factory' costs, excluding years of fuel, training, maintenance, ammo and all the other sundries.  That makes the 1/2 million you pay for the missile you used to shoot down the enemy seem positively cheap by comparison.

not saying you are wrong........but that there is some real bean counting.

The Eagle is a pretty amazing bird.  Here's one that probably SHOULD have been a write-off.  Guy probably soiled his flight suit when he realized what he'd been flying after getting it back on the ground...

https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/15/f-15-lands-with-one-wing/

-Pat

[AVGresponding]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

The Israelis have the most air victories with the F-15 because Syria keeps testing them and sacrificing their MIG's. And the Israelis are the only one's to have a pure gun kill with no missles.

It's also worth bearing in mind that air superiority comes from more than just pilots and the aircraft they fly.
Integral, and arguably key, to US, UK, and NATO generally having air superiority is radar.

[Saskia]

and the Russian pilots, at least back in those days, not, what I would call sober.

[mnementh]

Yesterday installed Ubuntu on USB drive to salvage data on a broken Mac HDD and copy them to a FAT32 windows external drive.   It was funny.

Funny...?   

*plops a traffic cone on Zucca's head*

Go stand in the corner and think about what you've done here.   

I feel like a beaten dog and I don't see the big dragon in the room. Help me I want/need to learn!

Problem: a friend's Mac  is gone kabum because of spilled water, it is an old one with the keyboard destroyed. No sense to become Louis Rossmann...
Yes the data are valuable for her, she gave me an external drive she is using with all the other Windows laptop. She does not want a Mac anymore...
Plugged the Mac HD Drive in my win box with a SATA/USB adapter, Win:"Do you want to format the drive?" No thanks.
Google it, found some $$ win software to read the Mac HD on a win mashine. So I know Ubuntu can do Mac HD and of course FAT32 one and got the job done for free.

 

No, no no... it wasn't the workaround itself... when you're up against a client's machine that's fuckerized, you do what you have to do to get their shit off of it. Props for the creativity!

It was the part about calling it FUNNY... THAT was a capital sin.

Found some cheap LCR Tweezers on ebay. MASTECH MS8911, 1-3% accuracy (46$).   

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MASTECH-MS8911-Smart-SMD-Tester-Auto-Range-Auto-Scanning-6000-counts-SMD-Tester/202567452638

Was reviewed on Elektor magazine some time ago. Supposed to work fine.https://www.elektormagazine.com/news/review-mastech-ms8911-smart-smd-tester

They DO work, and they ARE reasonably accurate (provided you can get a decent grip on the DUT); the problem is that for the primary purpose of debugging PCBs or sorting random parts, they are effing SLOW and will have you in short order.

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

For sorting parts you can make them work considerably quicker by presorting your components by type; but still they're a lot slower and more finicky about a good connection.

For the price, still worth having... just make sure you have realistic expectations.

mnem

[Kosmic]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit.

Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

[mnementh]

The Kikusui COS 5020 oscilloscope is completed. I finally got all the noise to go away by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors and cleaning the wafer switches. I did a complete cosmetic job on the old girl and she looks great now. I checked the bandwidth and measured ~21 MHz. The amplitude calibration is acceptable. Completely acceptable for low frequency troubleshooting.

My friend said he was planning on a new place on his bench for it and wanted to start using it a lot more. I think he needs a refresher course in oscilloscope use so I'll invite him over to pick it up and we'll have a mini-course and go over the controls while observing some test signals.

By the way, I constructed a brand new riser shelf for my bench yesterday using my table saw. I already had all the wood parts except for the top piece. Came out great. Plan to add a new set of LED strip lights as soon as they arrive.

Damn, X - that looks brand new!  Excellent work!

-Pat

Ditto... well done. I'm proud of you for resisting the urge to try and un-yellow those knobs.    A lot more hassle than it's worth; just part of the machine's character, IMO. 

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

So 2.4 air-to-air combat kills per year against 4 non-combat losses per year. Like I said, for any other category of tool that's a pretty poor ratio. Imagine you needed 1.7 hammers for every nail you drove home, I think you'd probably be a bit miffed, especially if the hammers came in at $31.1 million each. I make that roughly $51 million to shoot down one enemy aircraft just in 'new from the factory' costs, excluding years of fuel, training, maintenance, ammo and all the other sundries.  That makes the 1/2 million you pay for the missile you used to shoot down the enemy seem positively cheap by comparison.

That's right, C... every tool's a hammer. 

Now take a moment to compare those figures against the non-combat flight hours on those airframes. THAT is where they earn their keep; being PREPARED and keeping 3 generations of pilots prepared to destroy the enemy is just as important as DOING it.

And remember; unlike a hammer, if the operator drops one of THOSE on the ground it's done for.

mnem

[mnementh]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

[Kosmic]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

Yeah I was expecting a go/no-go type of tool. Already got a benchtop LCR meter when accuracy is needed.

[tautech]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

Yeah I was expecting a go/no-go type of tool. Already got a benchtop LCR meter when accuracy is needed.

I got the Mastech outta curiosity as I already had a ST3 and then gave it away !
IIRC they were only ~$23 at that time.

ST3 is going to my grave with me !

[Kosmic]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

Yeah I was expecting a go/no-go type of tool. Already got a benchtop LCR meter when accuracy is needed.

I got the Mastech outta curiosity as I already had a ST3 and then gave it away !
IIRC they were only ~$23 at that time.

ST3 is going to my grave with me !

Are you sure it was not the MS8910 ? look similar, cost around 23$ and is not a LCR meter. Only C and R.

[Zucca]

My VPN issue is moving on, fixed some DNS stuff and now, see here... 

I will not poison this TEA Thread anymore.

[Zucca]

Rare and tempting TTi puppy, here



120V of happiness

[tautech]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

Yeah I was expecting a go/no-go type of tool. Already got a benchtop LCR meter when accuracy is needed.

I got the Mastech outta curiosity as I already had a ST3 and then gave it away !
IIRC they were only ~$23 at that time.

ST3 is going to my grave with me !

Are you sure it was not the MS8910 ? look similar, cost around 23$ and is not a LCR meter. Only C and R.

Maybe it was as it was a few years ago so the MS8910 may not have been around then. 

[Kosmic]

Also, their effectiveness IN CIRCUIT tends to be pretty poor compared to the Ideal/Siborg Smart Tweezer; lots more erroneous or just plain non-results.

Did you try at 0.1Vrms ? apparently working better in-circuit. Also, I don't think you can really compare them to the more expensive LCR tweezers.

Yeah, but slow and low resolution. Better for quick go/no-go testing tho.

That's exactly where I was going with that; you really can't compare them. It's the difference between industrial and hobbyist grade; I've used both and I own the MasTech. Just have realistic expectations was exactly what I meant.

mnem
 

Yeah I was expecting a go/no-go type of tool. Already got a benchtop LCR meter when accuracy is needed.

I got the Mastech outta curiosity as I already had a ST3 and then gave it away !
IIRC they were only ~$23 at that time.

ST3 is going to my grave with me !

Are you sure it was not the MS8910 ? look similar, cost around 23$ and is not a LCR meter. Only C and R.

Maybe it was as it was a few years ago so the MS8910 may not have been around then. 

the MS8910 is really cheap (25$) and easy to find. It's mostly a capacitor and ohm meter put together.

The MS8911 on the other hand is a real LCR meter with 4 test frequencies (up to 10Khz). It's harder to find since it look like Mastech is the OEM of other brands and probably have trade agreement with their clients. Like the Global Specialities LCR-58, exactly the same product for more than twice the price (105$ on digikey).

I was watching a video of the ST-5 and MS8911. Seriously I don't see a lot a difference in speed and resolution. Both take around 2sec to take a measurement.

Anyway, will see when I receive mine.

[wolfy007]

The Kikusui COS 5020 oscilloscope is completed. I finally got all the noise to go away by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors and cleaning the wafer switches. I did a complete cosmetic job on the old girl and she looks great now. I checked the bandwidth and measured ~21 MHz. The amplitude calibration is acceptable. Completely acceptable for low frequency troubleshooting.

My friend said he was planning on a new place on his bench for it and wanted to start using it a lot more. I think he needs a refresher course in oscilloscope use so I'll invite him over to pick it up and we'll have a mini-course and go over the controls while observing some test signals.

By the way, I constructed a brand new riser shelf for my bench yesterday using my table saw. I already had all the wood parts except for the top piece. Came out great. Plan to add a new set of LED strip lights as soon as they arrive.

WOW nice work, looks great.

[mnementh]

I’ve been up to my ass in alligators with my current 3DP project for most of a week now... almost there, maybe...  if I can reprogram Marlin so the bed dimensions are correct.

Anyhoo... tonight on the way home from the grocery, I picked up a 42” Samsung TV off the curb... hope I survive this one. *looks across the room at The Dark Lord Regza*

mnem
Pray for me. *wibble*

[wolfy007]

That's an F-15E ...
 Last I have heard the air superiority variants (A, B, C, D) have a combined record in combat of 104 kills and 0 losses. Pretty incredible.

Yeah, but they've clocked up 175 non-combat losses. For any other category of Widlarizer that would be a pretty poor ratio of "does the ultimate job it was designed for" to "fails catastrophically" ratio. Still, better than the F35's final record will probably be: "90% of all aircraft produced were lost during in-flight software upgrades".

The F-15 has been in service for 44 years. 1976. Take those 175 non-combat losses and spread it out over that time and it's approx 4/yr. It's a high performance aircraft that will bite you big time if you make a mistake.

So 2.4 air-to-air combat kills per year against 4 non-combat losses per year. Like I said, for any other category of tool that's a pretty poor ratio. Imagine you needed 1.7 hammers for every nail you drove home, I think you'd probably be a bit miffed, especially if the hammers came in at $31.1 million each. I make that roughly $51 million to shoot down one enemy aircraft just in 'new from the factory' costs, excluding years of fuel, training, maintenance, ammo and all the other sundries.  That makes the 1/2 million you pay for the missile you used to shoot down the enemy seem positively cheap by comparison.

The hammer analogy is a bad one (ie. apples and onions comparison), also need to differentiate ratio between design issue or maintenance fail thats caused the non-combat losses.