Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

We’ve been 10% here + PayPal for a long time. And then there’s the risk of selling high value items where the seller never wins.

[ElektroQuark]

I have been selling my used stuff there from year 2000, but I can't feel it's a good place to sell nowadays.

[tggzzz]

I have been selling my used stuff there from year 2000, but I can't feel it's a good place to sell nowadays.

What are the alternatives?

[bd139]

There aren’t any. It’s a monopoly.

I’ve been on eBay about the same amount of time. It’s a pretty terrible place to sell now. The problem is they are a monopoly really and are quite abusive. For example fee gouging, disallowing sellers to leave feedback, monopolising private ads in the UK (they also own gumtree), zero customer support, siding unintelligently with the buyer (which is why I have to sell everything spares/repair), mandatory PayPal integration (again a monopoly), focus on storefront versus auction house.

Sellers are treated like dairy cows. I’m going to kick the farmer in the face. Prime space to be disruptive.

[beanflying]

For test gear and or electronics here makes sense. Even giving a few % to paypal and zero to the evilbay arm isn't a bad alternate.

On the news front the 740B has according to 'important information' moved from the SE side of the Kentucky International airport to the NW side of the airport in the last day 

[bd139]

Back to TEA. Just picked up my broken 465, a day later than anticipated. As always it seems that this was taken home from work 30 years ago and has been sitting there doing nothing for that time. Seller suggested it nearly went to the tip. Looks immaculate as do most of the probes that come with it. I’m currently awaiting chips and then will drive home and meddle with it.

Calibrator and fan are working and all rails look like they’re coming up so this is probably the HT oscillator bypass capacitor that has gone short or some dicky switches. Fingers crossed. Hopefully nothing higher up the HT chain. All repairable but irritating.

I expect it to blow up again within a couple of hours of burn in still.

[Mr. Scram]

Yes rigol gone.

I would have sold it for the same price elsewhere. Apathy took over though. I had an offer £5 less  elsewhere.

What did it end up going for?

[Specmaster]

There aren’t any. It’s a monopoly.

I’ve been on eBay about the same amount of time. It’s a pretty terrible place to sell now. The problem is they are a monopoly really and are quite abusive. For example fee gouging, disallowing sellers to leave feedback, monopolising private ads in the UK (they also own gumtree), zero customer support, siding unintelligently with the buyer (which is why I have to sell everything spares/repair), mandatory PayPal integration (again a monopoly), focus on storefront versus auction house.

Sellers are treated like dairy cows. I’m going to kick the farmer in the face. Prime space to be disruptive.

That is the trouble, there did used to be some others but they all squeezed out or taken over by eBay. With all the millions of items sold on that platform across to globe then 10% is really a bit on the excessive side. They must be one the wealthiest companies out there like Google, Microsoft etc.

[Specmaster]

Back to TEA. Just picked up my broken 465, a day later than anticipated. As always it seems that this was taken home from work 30 years ago and has been sitting there doing nothing for that time. Seller suggested it nearly went to the tip. Looks immaculate as do most of the probes that come with it. I’m currently awaiting chips and then will drive home and meddle with it.

Calibrator and fan are working and all rails look like they’re coming up so this is probably the HT oscillator bypass capacitor that has gone short or some dicky switches. Fingers crossed. Hopefully nothing higher up the HT chain. All repairable but irritating.

I expect it to blow up again within a couple of hours of burn in still.

Good news then, it really looked a minter in the photo and it must be worth the money just for those probes alone. No doubt with your track record you'll soon have it singing in tune again and taking pride of place on your bench now that the Rigol has finally vacated the bench for good, welcome back to the world of real scopes and lower noise floors. Yes the DSO's have some really nice party tricks but they also have software bugs, none of these exist in a real CRO 

[bd139]

Yes rigol gone.

I would have sold it for the same price elsewhere. Apathy took over though. I had an offer £5 less  elsewhere.

What did it end up going for?

270 cash

There aren’t any. It’s a monopoly.

I’ve been on eBay about the same amount of time. It’s a pretty terrible place to sell now. The problem is they are a monopoly really and are quite abusive. For example fee gouging, disallowing sellers to leave feedback, monopolising private ads in the UK (they also own gumtree), zero customer support, siding unintelligently with the buyer (which is why I have to sell everything spares/repair), mandatory PayPal integration (again a monopoly), focus on storefront versus auction house.

Sellers are treated like dairy cows. I’m going to kick the farmer in the face. Prime space to be disruptive.

That is the trouble, there did used to be some others but they all squeezed out or taken over by eBay. With all the millions of items sold on that platform across to globe then 10% is really a bit on the excessive side. They must be one the wealthiest companies out there like Google, Microsoft etc.

Indeed. Also they only charge small volume sellers 10%. If you are a business you get sales discounts. That turns it into a platform for larger sellers.

Back to TEA. Just picked up my broken 465, a day later than anticipated. As always it seems that this was taken home from work 30 years ago and has been sitting there doing nothing for that time. Seller suggested it nearly went to the tip. Looks immaculate as do most of the probes that come with it. I’m currently awaiting chips and then will drive home and meddle with it.

Calibrator and fan are working and all rails look like they’re coming up so this is probably the HT oscillator bypass capacitor that has gone short or some dicky switches. Fingers crossed. Hopefully nothing higher up the HT chain. All repairable but irritating.

I expect it to blow up again within a couple of hours of burn in still.

Good news then, it really looked a minter in the photo and it must be worth the money just for those probes alone. No doubt with your track record you'll soon have it singing in tune again and taking pride of place on your bench now that the Rigol has finally vacated the bench for good, welcome back to the world of real scopes and lower noise floors. Yes the DSO's have some really nice party tricks but they also have software bugs, none of these exist in a real CRO 

Fingers crossed. Might be full of rats yet

Right chips eaten. Driving home

[Specmaster]

Ok, when you get in then switch the bastard on and fry the rats arses 

No I bet its a simple fix and you'll have another winner on your hands, take your mind of the eBay situation a bit and sweeten the pill slightly 

[bd139]

Got it home. We have 5 Tektronix probes. One is definitely broken, others unknown. HT doesn’t power up. Cracked it open. As suspected earlier the HT protection fuse is popped and the tant is short. Going to swap it out for an elec and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

This is number one failure mode for these.

Inside it is as new!

[bd139]

Well that was boring. Fixed it already. Some pots are a bit cranky but they're cleaning up with some exercise.

Was exactly the tant and fuse I predicted. I was sure enough that I bought replacements from RS just after I won it


As unpacked - HT dead. No crackle or high pitch note when I first start it up.



Two minutes with the DMM finds this bugger:



2x value electrolytic goes in instead. Nice Panasonic M one. Note how clean it is inside. They're usually black from HT dust attraction. Looks like it's barely been used.



New fuse which had popped:



WIN



There are a few more suspicious looking tants lurking which I will replace tomorrow.

[Specmaster]

Haha, thats a really good find, its a minter all over that one is, its a keeper that one is.

[bd139]

Indeed. Mega happy with this. I checked the rails and they’re all spot on and no sign of ripple either. I’ve got it back together now and it’s whirring away quite happily. No sign of any problems or noise now.

Even the feet and rear grille material are 100% intact.

I haven’t checked cal yet. Will do this when the kids are in bed.

[Mr. Scram]

Indeed. Mega happy with this. I checked the rails and they’re all spot on and no sign of ripple either. I’ve got it back together now and it’s whirring away quite happily. No sign of any problems or noise now.

Even the feet and rear grille material are 100% intact.

I haven’t checked cal yet. Will do this when the kids are in bed.

"Time for bed!"
"Dad, it's 11:30 in the morning."
"TIME FOR BED!"

[bd139]

Hahaha yeah it is a bit like that.

Moving next week so I’ll have my own space. Woohoo!

[Specmaster]

So the trip to Hayling Island paid off. I've just won not 1 but 2 Flukes 27s on the evilbay, scruffy looking on the outside but seeing how solidly they are built I'm not expecting any problems at all and should clean up reasonably well.

Got my eye on a few other things as well, postman bought me another 907 handle assembly complete for the old Hakko 936 clone as well.

[bd139]

Ah I saw them. They’ll scrub up nicely. Bathroom cream cleaner works wonders

[Ero-Shan]

I was looking for a PG50x (preferably one of the faster ones, of course), but never found one with an acceptable price tag. TM500 plugins are rather scarce in Germany.

(Just a few days busy with other things, and the thread has grown several pages ... catching up takes a lot of time, and replies come latish.)

So now it consists of (updated):

Here's my stock:
Mainframe, 5 slot portable TM515
Mainframe, 4 slot   TM504
Mainframe, 4 slot   TM504
Mainframe, 3 slot   TM503
Mainframe, 1 slot   TM501
Extender for TM500-Series   097-0645-02
Accessory compartment 016-0362-01
Power Supply, Precision   PS501-1
Power Supply, Dual   PS503A
Generator, Pulse, High Voltage PG505
Generator, Pulse, 50MHz; dual Output   PG507
Generator, Function, 3MHz     FG503
Generator, Function, 40MHz   FG504
Generator, Leveled Sine; 0.05...250MHz   SG503
Counter/Timer, universal 125MHz 8Digit   DC503A
Delay, Digital   DD501
Latch, Digital   DL502
Multimeter, Digital; 4.5Digit RMS   DM501A
Amplifier, Operation   AM501
Amplifier, Differential   AM502
Amplifier, Current Probe   AM503
Oscilloscope, 15MHz 2Ch Analog Storage SC503

BTW, both generators arrived and are working to spec!

So you've got them all! 
What I should have said is: TM500 plugins are rarely offered in Germany.

And my reply is again 5 pages late ...

[Specmaster]

Given that it would appear the seller of the T-Con board via Aliex is a bit suspect, I have now ordered another from another seller on Aliex who assures me that the board is the correct one and identical to the photo I sent so hope they are right and it arrives, cheaper as well.

As for the other one I opening up a dispute directly with Aliex I think, I'm fed up dealing with the seller directly as every-time I contact them I have a feeling of no confidence and it looks like I'm being lied to and have been all along I think.

[Specmaster]

Ah I saw them. They’ll scrub up nicely. Bathroom cream cleaner works wonders

That's what I thought, not that I really wanted 2 of them though but the newer one had a chunk of the front panel missing, not too sure how far that goes, it might be fallible so they were going cheaply for the quality of the meter so I thought why not.

Now my Philips PM 2521 bench meter has decided to play up in protest, all ranges default to 20000 decimal point will move according to the range selected and the range indicator works and thats it, no wait the bloody frequency range still works...don't if I can be bothered to try and fix it TBH.

[Mr. Scram]

So the trip to Hayling Island paid off. I've just won not 1 but 2 Flukes 27s on the evilbay, scruffy looking on the outside but seeing how solidly they are built I'm not expecting any problems at all and should clean up reasonably well.

Got my eye on a few other things as well, postman bought me another 907 handle assembly complete for the old Hakko 936 clone as well.

Thanks for writing Flukes instead of Fluke. I didn't want to learn what I did when I selected and searched that.

[Specmaster]

Why, what did you learn then?

[Mr. Scram]

Why, what did you learn then?

Why don't you have a look-see yourself? Don't forget to look at the images tab.

https://www.google.com/search?q=flukes