Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tggzzz]

34410A has a fan if that bothers you.

If fan noise bothered me, my life would be radically improved.

[bd139]

Under any circumstances, I've contrived a bodge that gets the old RIFA back in circuit mostly safely so I could put the scope back to standby duty instead of the repair queue; no, I'm not going to post pics of that crime.    Just know that I've admitted my guilt here and now; if Karma catches up with me, I can greet Murphy with a clear conscience. 

mnem
 

  I share my bodges for the entire group to criticize and laugh at. What makes you special? 

Because it's WORSE than this one, which, thankfully, did NOT fit in place. 

mnem
 

 

[tonyalbus]

Tony, when you professionally dis-assembled the counter to clean it, did you take some high resultion pictures of the different PCB's?

Were the IC's and processors (if any) identifiable?

Toyocom OCXO type?

i am afraid that would be a do-over...
and you did tell me ... take some samples of PSu etc.. test-points... totally forgot .. after cleaning i just wanted to fire it up.

[med6753]

34410A has a fan if that bothers you.

If fan noise bothered me, my life would be radically improved.

Over my working career several times I worked either a 2nd shift or 3rd shift and it involved trying to sleep during the day. To drown out ambient noise I used a box fan year round and do this day I still use it. So fan noise does not bother me. Even the big honker fan in the Type 535A. Until now. There's nothing wrong with this fan. The bearings are fine. No screeching or rough running. But for some reason it drives me up the wall. Does that "HP" on the front panel have anything to do with it? 

[Mr. Scram]

Over my working career several times I worked either a 2nd shift or 3rd shift and it involved trying to sleep during the day. To drown out ambient noise I used a box fan year round and do this day I still use it. So fan noise does not bother me. Even the big honker fan in the Type 535A. Until now. There's nothing wrong with this fan. The bearings are fine. No screeching or rough running. But for some reason it drives me up the wall. Does that "HP" on the front panel have anything to do with it? 

It depends on the device and fan. Big fans can often be okay but the little ones are often much worse. I don't mind the fans in various oscilloscopes too much but the one in the DMM annoys me as it cuts through other noise.

[Cerebus]

Does anyone have opinions about the relative merits and problems of an Agilent 34410a vs an HP or Agilent 34401a?

The 34410A was the first of the current "TrueVolt" range, using the fine/coarse ADCs and very fast charge balancing. The AC performance (accuracy) is better than the 34401A, also generally it will do more readings/sec (up to 10,000). Has a 50k logging memory. Adds capacitance and temperature measurements. Has GPIB, USB and Ethernet connectivity, 34401A only has GPIB.

[med6753]

Did Dave forget to pay the server bill? 

[TorinoFermic]

The bid for the 34401A went way beyond my budget at 267 Pounds, luckily I backed out. 
Shame, I would let tonyalbus play with it before shipping to me ( paid by me of course ) if I won this bid.

[tautech]

Did Dave forget to pay the server bill? 

Maybe but it made it easier to catch up on the overnight affairs/ramblings. 

[Mr. Scram]

Did Dave forget to pay the server bill? 

It turns out your air con is on the same circuit and tripped the breaker. Please be considerate and don't turn it on again.

[Mr. Scram]

The bid for the 34401A went way beyond my budget at 267 Pounds, luckily I backed out. 
Shame, I would let tonyalbus play with it before shipping to me ( paid by me of course ) if I won this bid.

I'm not surprised, they're quite popular. You can get a better one for that money.

[Kosmic]

Does anyone have opinions about the relative merits and problems of an Agilent 34410a vs an HP or Agilent 34401a?

The 34410A was the first of the current "TrueVolt" range, using the fine/coarse ADCs and very fast charge balancing. The AC performance (accuracy) is better than the 34401A, also generally it will do more readings/sec (up to 10,000). Has a 50k logging memory. Adds capacitance and temperature measurements. Has GPIB, USB and Ethernet connectivity, 34401A only has GPIB.

The 34401a also has rs232.

For the same price I would definitely take a 34410A.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Regarding these thermal wire strippers:

I've found this one in the bay and bought it for 5 Euro plus 4 for shipping:



It is called a "Mentor-Strip", no idea if it is any good.

That is the line-powered thermal stripper which I have. In contrast to the Weller, it was only used once for proof of function, so I can't say much about it. It bothered me a bit that it is unregulated, but maybe I would have found out that this is no problem.
I have a datasheet somewhere, will dig it out for you as soon as possible.

[Neomys Sapiens]

question:
which self adhesive copper tape / foil /... do you use to repair traces ?

Most of the time I use copper wire (blank or tefzel insulated) or silvered copper wire or in some cases even stranded wire. If not, CIRKIT.

[Kosmic]

Hot strippers are the best.

I also like hot strippers.

[Brumby]

.... waiting for it ....

[Neomys Sapiens]

That's OK, you Brits can fuss all you want.

Today's date is 08/10/20.

Only the UK and former colonies, plus the Japanese, have right hand drive.

I'm cool as cucumber in my A/C while you Brits bake.

 

US is still member of NATO, yes? I have just as much sympathies for the both types of datecode abominations, whether dd/mm/yy(yy) or mm/dd/yy(yy).
It is YYYYMMDD as it is HHMMss. Anyone objecting now will be provided with a big pack of disparate message queue printouts to be sorted manually.

[TorinoFermic]

Quote from: TorinoFermic on Today at 19:40:28

The bid for the 34401A went way beyond my budget at 267 Pounds, luckily I backed out. 
Shame, I would let tonyalbus play with it before shipping to me ( paid by me of course ) if I won this bid.

I'm not surprised, they're quite popular. You can get a better one for that money.

Care to enlighten me, please ? The closest to this price is a Keithley 196 on ebay, and I am sure it wasn't that.

[Mr. Scram]

Care to enlighten me, please ? The closest to this price is a Keithley 196 on ebay, and I am sure it wasn't that.

Let me rephrase that to "I see better 34401As go for similar money."

[TorinoFermic]

Quote from: TorinoFermic on Today at 21:23:23

Care to enlighten me, please ? The closest to this price is a Keithley 196 on ebay, and I am sure it wasn't that.

Let me rephrase that to "I see better 34401As go for similar money."

Ah yes, how silly of me. I shall keep looking for a better 34401a.

[tggzzz]

Big fans can often be okay but the little ones are often much worse.

True at larger scales too. Consider Concorde's Olympus engines vs modern high-bypass fanjets. It is low-volume-high-velocity vs high-volume-low-velocity.

[BU508A]

Regarding these thermal wire strippers:

I've found this one in the bay and bought it for 5 Euro plus 4 for shipping:



It is called a "Mentor-Strip", no idea if it is any good.

That is the line-powered thermal stripper which I have. In contrast to the Weller, it was only used once for proof of function, so I can't say much about it. It bothered me a bit that it is unregulated, but maybe I would have found out that this is no problem.
I have a datasheet somewhere, will dig it out for you as soon as possible.

Thanks for that.
How is the Weller? It is looking interestingly (and I have to admit, I'm a bit of a Weller fanboy).

[Ero-Shan]

Antritsu MF1603A .. its allready in... yeah... PSU..what?
even 1 more digit more then i thought..
Still no luck on the manuals, so if someone has, please DM...

i love the LSD button.... peace!   

Congrats. A very nice counter!

[Ero-Shan]

I prefer

Not just upside down!

[Specmaster]

[...] When in Dublin last year I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the traffic on the wrong side of the road. [...]

I find that driving on either side is fine, I can do it on autopilot...  as long as there are other cars on the road!  -  if there is no traffic, the internal autopilot sometimes gives up and asks the pilot to take over...   leaving me to suddenly wake up and have no idea about what side of the road I should be on!   

yeps... but lonely roads and small roundabouts... might still be tricky... i remember.. 

Right hand drive once, on a vacation in Scotland. I put about 300 miles on a rental. It was a Vauxhall sedan. Didn't make any stupid mistakes but it was exhausting because you had to be constantly aware, especially at roundabouts. And even though I'm a southpaw I found shifting the 5 speed gearbox with the left hand a little perplexing. 

No more so then we Brits visit your countries is it