Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Easier than milk drinks (because there aren't many alcoholic milk drinks) ...

I once worked in a university bar where there was cold milk on tap. You'd be surprised how many alcoholic milk drinks you can invent on a slow night. I can report that Green Chartreuse and milk is a truly vile combination (one of Shab's concoctions, not one of mine).

Vile milk+alcohol drinks are easy to invent.

According to legend, the only good intoxicating milk drinks are to be found in the Korova Milk Bar.

Make mine a Synthemesc. My droogs will have the same.

Whiskey for my men, and beer for my horses.

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

Looking at 4.5 digits max. Not interested in voltnuttery. Yet. Have got a spreadsheet going of all alternatives so far.

How about this nice little Solartron 7050? Been relisted at least once, so should be open to lowball offers with any luck. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Schlumberger-Solartron-7050-Digital-Multimeter-Test-Set/392865350669





As for this, I have no words... except perhaps douche-canoe...   
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-of-Tektronix-Probes-D7/324236373299

[mnementh]

mnem
*toddles off to marinate his meat*

[Cerebus]

As for this, I have no words... except perhaps douche-canoe...   
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-of-Tektronix-Probes-D7/324236373299

 

He's taking offers. I wonder if it's possible to leave a negative offer on eBay?

[mnementh]

Here's my offer:   

mnem
 

[bd139]

I just bought that HP supply off that seller 

[SilverSolder]

As for this, I have no words... except perhaps douche-canoe...   
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-of-Tektronix-Probes-D7/324236373299

 

He's taking offers. I wonder if it's possible to leave a negative offer on eBay?

LOL that's just vandalism...

[Saskia]

quick Kahlua recipe:

6cl pineapple juice
2cl cream of coconut
2cl cream
2cl kahlua
6cl Herradura Reposado.

Did that shortly before participating at a poker tournament in our local casino. Made 3rd. Nobody could read my facial expressions.

As for the mangled probes:
get some soap water, clamps, a sufficiently strong power source, and get to work.

[worsthorse]

I was going to bid on one the other day until it hit stupid prices here 

BD, if the shipping weren't insane, I'd send you one I have sitting here. I am about to put it on CL for $80, tested and calibrated.

[worsthorse]

Decided to visit the hospital earlier. Well apparently minor injury was worse than it looked. Fractured both end of my radius  . Got to go to fracture clinic on Thursday 

There's an easy fix for that:

I did something like shortly after moving to Colorado. The bone doc, who was quite used to fixing people after much more serious rock falls than the one I experienced, told me he could do screws or pins.  I opted for pins, which involved drilling a series of holes through the bone fragments and pinning them together. For the next eight weeks I had nine small rods sticking out of my wrist. 

One day, I went in for a checkup, The doc did an x-ray, declared me healed, and pulled them out one by one with a pair of pliers that looked like they came from home depot.

Yes, it did hurt like hell though the drugs took the edge off.

[Wolfgang]

Looking at 4.5 digits max. Not interested in voltnuttery. Yet. Have got a spreadsheet going of all alternatives so far.

How about this nice little Solartron 7050? Been relisted at least once, so should be open to lowball offers with any luck. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Schlumberger-Solartron-7050-Digital-Multimeter-Test-Set/392865350669





As for this, I have no words... except perhaps douche-canoe...   
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-of-Tektronix-Probes-D7/324236373299

All this incredible pile was appearantly sold by a scotsman.
I suspect the cables will be offered at a separate auction

Scottish jokes:
- How can you tell a scottish ship from other ships ?
Answer: no seagulls.

- The missing wife of a scottish nobleman was found dead at the seashore. The local police wrote:
Corpse of your wife was found on the shore covered with oysters and mussels. How shall we proceed ?
His lordship replied: Sell the oysters and the mussels and reuse the bait, please.

[med6753]

I was going to bid on one the other day until it hit stupid prices here 

BD, if the shipping weren't insane, I'd send you one I have sitting here. I am about to put it on CL for $80, tested and calibrated.

Insane shipping is only the beginning. The customs form will make you want to pull your hair out. Ask me how I know this. 

[bd139]

Yeah nightmare. Thanks for the offer however.

[mnementh]

I was going to bid on one the other day until it hit stupid prices here 

BD, if the shipping weren't insane, I'd send you one I have sitting here. I am about to put it on CL for $80, tested and calibrated.

Insane shipping is only the beginning. The customs form will make you want to pull your hair out. Ask me how I know this. 

Sounds like a job for eBay Global Shipping. 

mnem

[mnementh]

Decided to visit the hospital earlier. Well apparently minor injury was worse than it looked. Fractured both end of my radius  . Got to go to fracture clinic on Thursday 

There's an easy fix for that:   

I did something like shortly after moving to Colorado. The bone doc, who was quite used to fixing people after much more serious rock falls than the one I experienced, told me he could do screws or pins.  I opted for pins, which involved drilling a series of holes through the bone fragments and pinning them together. For the next eight weeks I had nine small rods sticking out of my wrist. 

One day, I went in for a checkup, The doc did an x-ray, declared me healed, and pulled them out one by one with a pair of pliers that looked like they came from home depot.

Yes, it did hurt like hell though the drugs took the edge off.

Yup... the right choice, even if it did take longer to heal. The poor bastard in that x-ray gets to spend the rest of his life with a built-in weather forecaster sporting everybody’s favorite “Here, have a little pain!” UI every time a storm front moves through.

Fun times...

mnem
“Now, it’s time for everybody’s favorite old fart game show... Crepitating for Dollars!!!”

[TorinoFermic]

Ouch, looks like you can't press-fit your boat anchors for now, bd139.
Jeez, this ebay bidding is going to be wild : eBay auction: #254660425571 located in Canada thankfully.

[Saskia]

Amazon brought a gift today, the Mini-PCIE to PCIE adapter.

Now I did some work on my audiophile streamer ...

Relax, I need some information first, just the basic specs, can you show me ...

low power 35W TDP high performance dual core hyperthreading cpu
4GB memory
built in Blue Ray / DVD drive
SSD for booting / Streaming, can stream from network drive or NAS
Gigabit ethernet
high quality audio with 192 kHz Burr Brow DAC, gold plated cinch jacks, 124 db SNR, shielded DAC / Audio out section
external power supply
completely fanless design using heat pipes.

It works, mate.

just tested it after swapping out the old power hungry cpu for a 30W less TDP ...


Here's a photo.

Next: plug it into the wall and check the true power consumption.
It should easily be possible to downsize the external PSU.

Currently: ambient room temperature: 27 degrees.
CPU temp: 36. I think that is excellent.

[mansaxel]

Didn't even have to pay for parking, it is free on Saturday. 

My story on stitches goes like so;

If you are going to go under low bridges on a canal, even if it is in France, watch out. Bridges are harder than people.



An I-beam in the head at a few knots hurts a LOT and there's going to be blood in the scuppers.

Took the french doctor at the hospital in Carcassone 27 stitches and some superglue. Ambulance ride and ER visit cost nothing, taxi back to the boat 20€, drugs about the same. Picture is from the day after, IIRC.

Edit: If you don't get the picture, look at http://vvv.besserwisser.org/Public/Bilder/stitches.jpeg

[Saskia]

bloody hell.
Why do you do this kinda thing ?

The worst thing that happened to us during a boot ride was my taking a 2m wave with 25 knots and Hubby hurting his arse like a pro because he was sitting on that wooden battery box in front of the steering wheel. ...

as for stitches, etc:
tried to clean my Izhmash Molot Vepr and had a brain fart, cuz I used my finger to peel stuff out of the system. Unfortunately the locking lever gave way and the breach came forward and ripped of my finger tip which I later found hanging on the adjacent wall. It cut a couple of nerve endings, but missed the bone, fortunately.

Oops.
washed out the wound, found the missing piece, cleaned it in alcohol and reattached it using extra tight wound dressing which pressed the tip to the rest of the finger for a couple of days.
Miraculously it somehow reattached, even though I did lose all sensitivity in that finger.

Oh well. This was just plain stupid of me, but such is life.

[Robert763]

wrong quote
Re the cut-off pods from scottrade on ebay UK

Don't blame the seller, he knows nothing about the kit he is selling. The tech stuff is allmost all military surplus. As far as I can tell it's coming out of a scrapyard and probably should have been destroyed. I think the source got told off  a while ago for selling complete kit like microwave ESM equipment. That is now "de-milled" hence the RF modules with cut-off SMA cables. Seller also seems to have got an over-iinflated ideas on starting prices in the last couple of years. I'm surprised he hasn't been jumped on for selling stuff like GEN 4 image intensifier tubes. The logic analyser pods will have been hacke of by the scrap yard for copper.

[mnementh]

That REALLY isn't helping any. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

A tale from The Bagel Wars of Ought-Twelve...

*Cue Flashiebackie music*



* Slicing a bagel for my son's breakfast (Once Upon a Time in the Wild, Wild West of Texas) *

"What the...?" *Spots blood dripping on floor* "Oh, fu-u-u-ck..."

*Puts fingertip back roughly where it belongs & wraps with paper towel, then drops bagel back in the baggie & folds it under the stack of bagels with the other hand* (Hey... fresh cinnamon raisin bagels from local bakery )

"Honey, stop what you're doing & load the kids up into the car; I need you to drive me to the emergency room."

"Whaaaa....?"

And please hurry; the feeling is starting to return to my hand."

By the time we get to the ER, that entire hand is just a ball of fire; they get me processed pretty quickly and the ER doc is looking it over. She lifts the loose bit off, and of course the pain increases tenfold and my hand starts to shake & twitch.

"I'm going to need you to keep it still so I can inject it with lidocaine..." she warns, but it is literally all I can do not to snatch my hand away and sit on it... smack it against the wall, anything. The pain isn't quite as bad as the time I got blowed up and 3rd degree burns all down my other arm, but it is much more concentrated.

"I don't think I can..."

"Well, I need to numb the finger before I can stitch the bit back on."

*Cringe* "Doc... is there any medical reason not to apply the lidocaine directly to the raw meat right there? It is sterile, right...?"

"It's sterile... Umm... no, I guess there isn't."

"It won't affect the likelihood of the fingertip healing properly?"

"Not at all. But it's supposed to be injected."

"I get that... but just humor me, and drip a few drops from the needle on that raw meat and see if it helps me get a handle on the pain."

*drip... drip-drip*

I can feel the pain wash away, decreased what felt like easily 50dB as the droplets spread across the exposed flesh. In just a few seconds I'm able to hold the whole hand exactly where she wants it, perfectly still. She is able to get the needle right where it needs to be to deaden the primary nerve in the finger, and less than 5 minutes later I'm looking down at the scene above.

"Pain management." I say with a smile.

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

mnem

[bd139]

I have a hankering for sausages now 

[mnementh]

Dammittt... where's bean...? He should be recounting one of his many mishaps right aboot noow... and suggesting the proper seasoning for my last post.   

mnem
I miss that ozzie reprobate...   

[tautech]

Dammittt... where's bean...? He should be recounting one of his many mishaps right aboot noow... and suggesting the proper seasoning for my last post.   

mnem
I miss that ozzie reprobate...   

Popped him mail last week and he's very tied up with some family stuff to work through but otherwise in fine nick.