Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

This just crossed my RADAR...

I've been researching Manitoba as it is one of the regions our lawyers suggested as being easier on immigration. 




https://nationalpost.com/news/gimlis-piles-of-stinking-fishfly-corpses-smell-like-money-for-some-in-the-manitoba-town

Mmmmokay... Year after year of "I've never seen them in these numbers..." videos. Because you know, global warming is a liberal conspiracy. 

*blerk*

mnem
 

[bd139]

Yup 37.8 oC here today (100 oF in dumbass units  )

[Cerebus]

Agreed however... most non-ceramic capacitors, especially electrolytics, are livestock. They start dying of old age the minute they roll off the assembly line.

Eh? Polymer film capacitors, provided that they are operated within their design parameters, have an essentially unlimited life, so do air, vacuum, well made mica capacitors (there are specific failure modes for older mica capacitors that were less than carefully made). They are all just as long lived as ceramic caps (which remember are relatively brittle, and so can undergo failure for mechanical reasons). I think you can only place electrolytics (of all flavours) into the livestock category, and a suitably de-rated, well cared for, well made one can still last a very long time. You'll be worrying about electromigration in today's chips well before you'll be worrying about failures in a 1970s PTFE film capacitor.

[bd139]

Agreed however... most non-ceramic capacitors, especially electrolytics, are livestock. They start dying of old age the minute they roll off the assembly line.

Eh? Polymer film capacitors, provided that they are operated within their design parameters, have an essentially unlimited life, so do air, vacuum, well made mica capacitors (there are specific failure modes for older mica capacitors that were less than carefully made). They are all just as long lived as ceramic caps (which remember are relatively brittle, and so can undergo failure for mechanical reasons). I think you can only place electrolytics (of all flavours) into the livestock category, and a suitably de-rated, well cared for, well made one can still last a very long time. You'll be worrying about electromigration in today's chips well before you'll be worrying about failures in a 1970s PTFE film capacitor.

Indeed. This little excerpt from Experimental Methods in RF design is a good one which explains my point earlier:



Measurement tool: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/5-transistor-esr-meter-design/msg2327025/#msg2327025

Capacitor is 1950-something.

[med6753]

Under the "I can't believe what I just found" file.


I opened up the 5248L to verify a few things and discovered that all the aluminum electrolytic capacitors are RIVETED in place. Are you fucking kidding me?  The only way to get them out is to drill them out. Which also means that unless I drill additional holes to mount terminal strips for the replacement capacitors I can't mount them on the underside and leave the cans in place. What a dumb ass thing to do. The re-cap of this unit is off. It will run to fail and maybe I'll just let it burn. Fuck HP.   

[bd139]

Just drill them out and screw the cans back in?

[tautech]

Yup 37.8 oC here today (100 oF in dumbass units  )

Yep, that's getting up there ! 

Nuthing like walking out of an airport into that sort of suck !
Might be some time before we can again downunder.

[med6753]

Just drill them out and screw the cans back in?

No way am I going to do that and risk getting metal shavings everywhere. I'll do it only if it requires replacement of a defective unit....or the POS burns to cinders....whichever occurs first.   

Fuck HP. 

[mnementh]

Agreed however... most non-ceramic capacitors, especially electrolytics, are livestock. They start dying of old age the minute they roll off the assembly line.

Eh? Polymer film capacitors, provided that they are operated within their design parameters, have an essentially unlimited life, so do air, vacuum, well made mica capacitors (there are specific failure modes for older mica capacitors that were less than carefully made). They are all just as long lived as ceramic caps (which remember are relatively brittle, and so can undergo failure for mechanical reasons). I think you can only place electrolytics (of all flavours) into the livestock category, and a suitably de-rated, well cared for, well made one can still last a very long time. You'll be worrying about electromigration in today's chips well before you'll be worrying about failures in a 1970s PTFE film capacitor.

Indeed. This little excerpt from Experimental Methods in RF design is a good one which explains my point earlier:   

Measurement tool: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/5-transistor-esr-meter-design/msg2327025/#msg2327025

Capacitor is 1950-something.

Uh-huh. WTFE. Did I say ALL?

Lots of qualifications there, none of which invalidate my statement that most of the non-ceramic caps you'll run into IRL are livestock. 

Sod off, both of ye. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Urrgh. Just came in from the suck, doing what I hope will be the last bit of repair on the Juki sewing machine.    *knock on wood*

It was just replacing the socket on the desklamp built into the thing so it had a working switch; but fuck! It evolved into a long-term hand-fabrication campaign involving soldering, masking tape, Dremel work and multiple chemical attacks to get dried-on/baked on crud off of regions I needed to work with.

Next I need to dig out my industrial-size spool of khaki-colored thread and actually try to SEW something with it... I think I'm going to wait until after dark. 

In OTHER News:
 
My order of moving boxes from local web vendor usedboxestoronto.com still hasn't shipped yet after 3 days, even tho they promise free delivery in 4 days or less... nor has my 54645A or my HP Mug. I was hoping to see them at least on their way before we celebrate my one-year-closer-to-worm-food day (Date changed to protect the innocent ) on Sunday.

mnem
*grumpity-grump-mumble-grumble*

[mnementh]

Just drill them out and screw the cans back in?

No way am I going to do that and risk getting metal shavings everywhere. I'll do it only if it requires replacement of a defective unit....or the POS burns to cinders....whichever occurs first.   

Fuck HP. 

Take the tubes out, nip the wires and knock the caps out of the chassis with a short sledgehammer. 

mnem
Alternately, small amounts of primacord wrapped around the base of the offending can...

[Cerebus]

Lots of qualifications there, none of which invalidate my statement that most of the non-ceramic caps you'll run into IRL are livestock. 

Sod off, both of ye. 

Well, some of us offer the odd qualification to ensure that we're not making broad-brush talking-out-of-our-arses generalizations like "most of the non-ceramic caps you'll run into IRL are livestock". Now, if you'd qualified that with some caveats like, for instance, strictly off the top of my head you understand, ", after the Dragon's got his claws on them" then you'd have no argument from any of us.

Sod off yerself!

Now I've got to go and re-organize the contents of the freezer to make room for extra ice and ice-cream...

[mnementh]

Well, if any of us actually LIVED IN Mr. Carlson's Lab, the proportion of these caps in question might actually be more than the bell ends. As I'm pretty sure most of us live IRL (except maybe Pat  ), I'm not going to make such qualifications for what I consider to be barely more than "margin of error" outliers when I make a casual "most of" statement.

So  Pppppppppptttttppppbbbblllllbbbbpppppppppp!!!

mnem
Now as to exactly where a certain TinkerDwagon and Earth-pig might actually live... that is a point for some future debate. 

[mnementh]

*Peeks in on the bay of E-ville*

Welp... my HP mug now shows shipped; that makes 3 items purchased since my 54645A that have gone out, yet it still lingers in the queue like a fart in a phone booth. 

mnem
moo!

[25 CPS]

Finally I have some time in the workshop.

Let’s see where I get putting the balky 3478A through its paces.





Lies!



I picked up an assortment of fuses for my multimeters and a couple of other things.  I’ll get to the C9
Christmas light in a later post.  First order of business is to see if I can get the current function on that 3478A working again with a simple fuse replacement.

[0culus]

Got some stuff for my HP-65 in the mail today. Gummy wheel repair kit and the EE Pac 1 programs pack. the repair kit contains plenty of parts for different calculators, whether you want to go the tubing or the O-ring route. The caps are for the HP-67. Now I need to create a plan of attack for getting into the HP-65 case without causing damage. 

[xrunner]

Now I need to create a plan of attack for getting into the HP-65 case without causing damage. 

Please post pics! 

[0culus]

Now I need to create a plan of attack for getting into the HP-65 case without causing damage. 

Please post pics! 

I will definitely be documenting the process. 

[25 CPS]

Alright, now I’m getting somewhere.  I installed the correct replacement fuse in the 3478A that wasn’t measuring current and it appears to have done the trick.



AC



DC

Somehow I think I should really have the music blasting while I do this.



And some vintage HP calculator action for calculating one of the expected measurement results.  For sake of my sanity later, I’m putting all three meters through their paces pretty thoroughly.  I also ragged out some bad out of the package banana plug leads that seriously screwed me during a recent project.  I guess the hard learned lesson there is to ring out all the connector wires.  I’m going to have to buy more good quality cabling the next time I get paid and be less dependent on the made-in-you-know-where garbage the local bricks and mortar electronics supply shop sells.

[bitseeker]

In OTHER News:[/b][/i][/color]
 
My order of moving boxes from local web vendor usedboxestoronto.com still hasn't shipped yet after 3 days, even tho they promise free delivery in 4 days or less... nor has my 54645A or my HP Mug. I was hoping to see them at least on their way before we celebrate my one-year-closer-to-worm-food day (Date changed to protect the innocent ) on Sunday.

mnem
*grumpity-grump-mumble-grumble*

Gee. Everyone's a sleepin' up there. It's not even winter, yet.

[bitseeker]

On the page 2525

Original by: Zager & Evans - In the Year 2525
Songwriter:  Richard Lee Evans
Video

Lyrics modified by BU508A and with a little help from some friends
...

Added to the TEA songs section of the OP.

[0culus]

Now I need to create a plan of attack for getting into the HP-65 case without causing damage. 

Please post pics! 

I will definitely be documenting the process. 

I can happily report success. I took photos, but I'm too tired to go through them and post tonight. I'll get them up this weekend. It was a very concentration-demanding process, but I didn't lose any of the springy parts, had no parts leftover when I reassembled it (other than the two under label screws which I'm putting in a small baggie and putting in the calculator box), and it passed both self test program cards in the standard pac. 

[TERRA Operative]

Hmm, any of you lads got a spare Tek BNC, 28JR200-1 Tek P/N: 131-0955-00?

Giving a FG502 TM500 Function Gen a once over and found the centre contact is broken, so I'm looking for an original replacement if I can get one relatively easily.

[tonyalbus]

Wife says i need to play first with the toys i have now, before more is bought....
my excuse i also sell does not work anymore coz she has been in my cave 




And why is that UltrasonicCleaner you gave me so big, i don't have that much juwelry 

[tonyalbus]

Yes Yes!!      Won both cases against the Ali guy, who send 3 separate orders with one shipping code...... first refund is allready in 
oof, this was a tight one... first it was rejected... but the pictures saved me.
No spare part unit this time 
to bad i lost some discount vouchers (and time) but now able to order again the  FA-2  and when other refund is in the 10Mhz distributer..