Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

    Oscilloscope clock DIY kit with tube     If the wife hears, we all know what time it is...

Time for her to look at her new clock...?   I'm not seeing a downside here...   

Plus, I see lots of excuses to get a 3DP for this project...   


mnem
 

[bd139]

@bd139 Looks like you are not the only one who sends out offers in an attempt to shift some gear, because I'm watching the Windows Advisor books to see if it sells, I received this offer today 

Lets see what happens then 

Works quite regularly

[mnementh]

I went from CP/M & DOS straight to Win98. Have never once regretted the "missed opportunity" of all the intervening versions that looked and ran like they were written in QBASIC.

There was a nicer version of QBASIC called PDS 7, then VB DOS. Those were pretty awesome. I actually had a load of shit wired up in VBDOS to do automated testing once. Gorilla.bas in QBASIC was an insult to the capability of the platform.

I have nothing against QBASIC... for what it was, and the time it was, it did a great many things (some of them it even did WELL) and some really ingenious people made it do a LOT more than it should have ever been able to do. It was when assholes started to EXPECT to do all that magical shit, and started demanding MORE, that things all turned pear-shaped.

A friend of mine as a teen was a software engineer whose entire business revolved around custom-written POS/Ledger software written in BBX/BBX2. Sortof the misbegotten lovechild of HTML, QBASIC & COBOL, it essentially put a shinier coat of varnish on top of both so the finished product didn't look out of place in a Windoze environment.

But it could run either locally in a Windoze client OR as a thin client over WYSE terminals, and BBX kept all the secret sauce that made both work functioning and up to date well into the WinXP years. No idea how.

I suspect that is what a lot of the dev platform for Android felt like for the first 10-15 years... 

mnem
*certified crusty old bastard-dwagon*

[Mr. Scram]

Oscilloscope clock DIY kit with tube 

If the wife hears, we all know what time it is...

Women love a nice big clock. At least that's what I heard.

[Cerebus]

Never heard of Edward Hopper. But then my total knowledge of the art world wouldn't even fit on a thimble. 

Philistine! He was one of the best known American painters of the 20th Century, and from your home state no less. Next you're going to be telling us you've never heard of Norman Rockwell, also from New York.

That makes me a philistine as well because I've never heard of either of them 

The various avenues this thread takes from time can be very enlightening and entertaining, we have a very broad spectrum of intellects on here and that to my mind adds to the huge appeal of this lovely community we have built here, keep it chaps.

Yep, and I guess I can add "philistine" to my list of supposedly undesirable characteristics. If I were on the Titanic I'd barely qualify for 4th class and definitely be sleeping with the fishes. But that's OK. I'd rather be a "Low brow" rather than a "High Brow" with my nose in the air like my shit don't stink. My shit stinks, bad. 

Gee....now I'm gonna have to fight off Saskia with a stick. 

It's a little known thing that many libraries, art galleries and other 'cultural' institutions in the North of England and Scotland were paid for out of the union dues of Miners, Steelworkers  and Dockworkers. In Wales there were the Miner's Institutes that had libraries and were the venues for lectures and other cultural activities. It's quite possible to be cultured, intellectual and still do a job that involves getting mucky from head to foot each day. A good way to discover the perilous state of healthcare in Britain before the advent of the National Health Service would have been to tell a Lancashire Miner or a Consett Steelworker that he was a snob and had his nose in the air because he had an appreciation of culture and contributed part of his union dues towards supposedly 'high brow' activities. My paternal grandfather was a steelworker, he was as proud of his son for winning a County essay competition when he was at school as he was of the same son fighting behind enemy lines in the Commandos in WWII. My maternal grandfather was a humble carpenter, I still have some of his collection of art books. Their generation saw nothing wrong with, and actively encouraged one another to, as they would have put it, "better themselves" by studying culture and other 'intellectual' pursuits.

[SilverSolder]

[...] I doubt it [crude scope] would even really be adequate for Automotive Tech use.

Nothing is too crude for Automotive Tech.  I fixed the A/C in my car over the weekend, using one of these:



Yes, that really is an incandescent bulb!  - and you don't want anything else.  This is all analog, all the time! 

[mnementh]

It's a little known thing that many libraries, art galleries and other 'cultural' institutions in the North of England and Scotland were paid for out of the union dues of Miners, Steelworkers  and Dockworkers. In Wales there were the Miner's Institutes that had libraries and were the venues for lectures and other cultural activities.

It's quite possible to be cultured, intellectual and still do a job that involves getting mucky from head to foot each day. A good way to discover the perilous state of healthcare in Britain before the advent of the National Health Service would have been to tell a Lancashire Miner or a Consett Steelworker that he was a snob and had his nose in the air because he had an appreciation of culture and contributed part of his union dues towards supposedly 'high brow' activities.

My paternal grandfather was a steelworker, he was as proud of his son for winning a County essay competition when he was at school as he was of the same son fighting behind enemy lines in the Commandos in WWII. My maternal grandfather was a humble carpenter, I still have some of his collection of art books. Their generation saw nothing wrong with, and actively encouraged one another to, as they would have put it, "better themselves" by studying culture and other 'intellectual' pursuits.

Yes, well... then we had community. And every generation saw it as their duty to be a springboard to "push their offspring a little further than themselves". Now we have the culture of television... which sells those values by the tick of a clock but hasn't done more than pay lip service for close to a century.




Community...? That's the enemy. We may claim to believe in it, but the lucky few incessantly drum the mantra of our greed-based society into our heads starting before we can even speak; "It's every man, woman, & it for themselves... and that's the way things are supposed to be, because that way we can divide the fruits of your labor among ourselves."

/soapbox

mnem
America eats its young.

[mnementh]

[...] I doubt it [crude scope] would even really be adequate for Automotive Tech use.

Nothing is too crude for Automotive Tech.  I fixed the A/C in my car over the weekend, using one of these:

   Yes, that really is an incandescent bulb!  - and you don't want anything else.  This is all analog, all the time! 

I have several of those... one more than 30 years old, and another with a 10m GND lead. They are not the ONLY diag tool you need nowadays; nor even is a DMM adequate all the time.

There are a lot of scenarios where a scope is actually useful; a lot of LVDS in a modern automobile... sensors which need testing and data paths where you actually need to be able to confirm signal integrity.

I'm not certain the fnirsi would even be useful for THAT. 

And this goes back decades... I've done diag where I needed a real 'scope even back in the days of the K-car.

mnem
 

[BU508A]

[...]
And this goes back decades... I've done diag where I needed a real 'scope even back in the days of the K-car.

You needed a scope to repair ... THIS?      




 

[SilverSolder]

[...] I doubt it [crude scope] would even really be adequate for Automotive Tech use.

Nothing is too crude for Automotive Tech.  I fixed the A/C in my car over the weekend, using one of these:

   Yes, that really is an incandescent bulb!  - and you don't want anything else.  This is all analog, all the time! 

I have several of those... one more than 30 years old, and another with a 10m GND lead. They are not the ONLY diag tool you need nowadays; nor even is a DMM adequate all the time.

There are a lot of scenarios where a scope is actually useful; a lot of LVDS in a modern automobile... sensors which need testing and data paths where you actually need to be able to confirm signal integrity.

I'm not certain the fnirsi would even be useful for THAT. 

And this goes back decades... I've done diag where I needed a real 'scope even back in the days of the K-car.

mnem
 

Yep, I do sometimes dig out more serious equipment, but it is surprising how often you can get away with nothing other than the scan tool and one of these lights...


Did you ever use one of those old Sun ignition scopes, where you could literally see the spark plug voltages?  Now that's a serious oscilloscope...   

[0culus]

[...] I doubt it [crude scope] would even really be adequate for Automotive Tech use.

Nothing is too crude for Automotive Tech.  I fixed the A/C in my car over the weekend, using one of these:

   Yes, that really is an incandescent bulb!  - and you don't want anything else.  This is all analog, all the time! 

I have several of those... one more than 30 years old, and another with a 10m GND lead. They are not the ONLY diag tool you need nowadays; nor even is a DMM adequate all the time.

There are a lot of scenarios where a scope is actually useful; a lot of LVDS in a modern automobile... sensors which need testing and data paths where you actually need to be able to confirm signal integrity.

I'm not certain the fnirsi would even be useful for THAT. 

And this goes back decades... I've done diag where I needed a real 'scope even back in the days of the K-car.

mnem
 

Now here I was thinking that K cars were only good for Red Green to hack on! 


...no actually I used to know someone who drove a Dodge Dynasty...what an epic pile of turd that car was.

[tonyalbus]

Oscilloscope clock DIY kit with tube 

If the wife hears, we all know what time it is...

I have a fully functional 3EP1 CRT which would be perfect for that.

Yes indeed!
There are also only the 2 boards available.... logic + driver..

What about the power supply?

You need to buy seperate..but its 12Volts.. 5 Amp..its using 2 and a bit..

[nixiefreqq]

Never heard of Edward Hopper. But then my total knowledge of the art world wouldn't even fit on a thimble. 

Philistine! He was one of the best known American painters of the 20th Century, and from your home state no less. Next you're going to be telling us you've never heard of Norman Rockwell, also from New York.

That makes me a philistine as well because I've never heard of either of them 

The various avenues this thread takes from time can be very enlightening and entertaining, we have a very broad spectrum of intellects on here and that to my mind adds to the huge appeal of this lovely community we have built here, keep it chaps.

Yep, and I guess I can add "philistine" to my list of supposedly undesirable characteristics. If I were on the Titanic I'd barely qualify for 4th class and definitely be sleeping with the fishes. But that's OK. I'd rather be a "Low brow" rather than a "High Brow" with my nose in the air like my shit don't stink. My shit stinks, bad. 

Gee....now I'm gonna have to fight off Saskia with a stick. 

It's a little known thing that many libraries, art galleries and other 'cultural' institutions in the North of England and Scotland were paid for out of the union dues of Miners, Steelworkers  and Dockworkers. In Wales there were the Miner's Institutes that had libraries and were the venues for lectures and other cultural activities. It's quite possible to be cultured, intellectual and still do a job that involves getting mucky from head to foot each day. A good way to discover the perilous state of healthcare in Britain before the advent of the National Health Service would have been to tell a Lancashire Miner or a Consett Steelworker that he was a snob and had his nose in the air because he had an appreciation of culture and contributed part of his union dues towards supposedly 'high brow' activities. My paternal grandfather was a steelworker, he was as proud of his son for winning a County essay competition when he was at school as he was of the same son fighting behind enemy lines in the Commandos in WWII. My maternal grandfather was a humble carpenter, I still have some of his collection of art books. Their generation saw nothing wrong with, and actively encouraged one another to, as they would have put it, "better themselves" by studying culture and other 'intellectual' pursuits.

one of my ee profs was the smartest human i have ever met in person.

he was scary smart. 

he came back from lunch one day a little drunk and shouted that we were all "technical barbarians" and needed to stop worrying about convolution integrals and go learn something about culture and art.  he then suggested we also at least try to get laid.

he was about 45 and we were pretty sure he had a thing going with the 19 year old red head department secretary.

that man is still a god to me.   (rest in peace doc)

[tonyalbus]

Now some comparisons of the adapter itself, I circled in red some differences but you can probably find a lot more:

Looks you had a very strong case..... that was very thorough i would say...  Thanks!

[jonovid]

wrong thread ...Ops   not exactly test equipment 
re-posted on what did you but today

[Mr. Scram]

not exactly test equipment
just got this aliexpress e-Bike kit  got it all set up on the week end.
forget about hoverboards.
e-bikes are like the power steering & power assisted brakes on your car.
you wonder how you, get along without this. .
must thank Louis Rossmann of Yt for inspiration get one & try it. see his NY e-bike videos.
If you can build a PC than e-Bike kits are no more complicated.
if you can step over the political stuff. there is big savings to be had.  no middleman!

What does such a kit cost?

[Robert763]

For most modern cars even a basic scan tool is not enough. You need proper diagnostics specific to the car just to do routine maintenance. I've seen someone nearly scrap a car because it was not running properly after a cambelt change. The garage didn't know that you had to do a "phonic wheel" (Cam /crankshaft reluctance sensor) re-learn after changing the belt. They wanted £300 to take the head off and look at the valves. Literally 3 minutes with a laptop and CAN interface sorted it.

If the PC diagnostics are not enough Pico Technology's PC based 'scopes do CAN and other serial protocols, even ARINC 429) as standard and their "Automotive" range has comprehensive diagnostic software for anything from poor compression (using just a DC Clamp ammeter on the battery lead, think about it) to suspension and transmission faults by vibration analysis.

[med6753]

he was about 45 and we were pretty sure he had a thing going with the 19 year old red head department secretary.

that man is still a god to me.   (rest in peace doc)

Why is it always the redheads that lead you to drunkenness and debauchery? 

(I met my batshit crazy at work too) 

[mansaxel]

VMS, as such, does not have the 2038 problem (it does, however, have a Y10K problem..). Some applications ported into VMS might have issues if they're using Unixy (mostly related to C code) time_t routines.

PDP-11s don't run VMS. Probably RT-11 in this application. Memories!

Of course. My bad.

[bd139]

he was about 45 and we were pretty sure he had a thing going with the 19 year old red head department secretary.

that man is still a god to me.   (rest in peace doc)

Why is it always the redheads that lead you to drunkenness and debauchery? 

(I met my batshit crazy at work too) 

I met my ex puking over a fence. Should have got the idea right away 

[BU508A]

For comparison, I have taken some hi-res pictures from my fake Agilent 82357B GPIB adapter.

The letter, the CD and the top of the box with the Agilent logo:


Top and bottom of the adapter. There is one TX10 screw in it.


Top side of the pcb:


Bottom side and U8 of the pcb

[bd139]

I went from CP/M & DOS straight to Win98. Have never once regretted the "missed opportunity" of all the intervening versions that looked and ran like they were written in QBASIC.

There was a nicer version of QBASIC called PDS 7, then VB DOS. Those were pretty awesome. I actually had a load of shit wired up in VBDOS to do automated testing once. Gorilla.bas in QBASIC was an insult to the capability of the platform.

I have nothing against QBASIC... for what it was, and the time it was, it did a great many things (some of them it even did WELL) and some really ingenious people made it do a LOT more than it should have ever been able to do. It was when assholes started to EXPECT to do all that magical shit, and started demanding MORE, that things all turned pear-shaped.

A friend of mine as a teen was a software engineer whose entire business revolved around custom-written POS/Ledger software written in BBX/BBX2. Sortof the misbegotten lovechild of HTML, QBASIC & COBOL, it essentially put a shinier coat of varnish on top of both so the finished product didn't look out of place in a Windoze environment.

But it could run either locally in a Windoze client OR as a thin client over WYSE terminals, and BBX kept all the secret sauce that made both work functioning and up to date well into the WinXP years. No idea how.

I suspect that is what a lot of the dev platform for Android felt like for the first 10-15 years... 

mnem
*certified crusty old bastard-dwagon*

Oh fuck I jumped right into the android bandwagon when it first came out and it was much much much worse. Worst thing I ever worked on.

I still miss my BBC master. That thing was glorious. Tempted to buy another one but the prices are a little high now and no an emulator won’t cut it. You need the Alps keys.

[Saskia]

For most modern cars even a basic scan tool is not enough. You need proper diagnostics specific to the car just to do routine maintenance. I've seen someone nearly scrap a car because it was not running properly after a cambelt change. The garage didn't know that you had to do a "phonic wheel" (Cam /crankshaft reluctance sensor) re-learn after changing the belt. They wanted £300 to take the head off and look at the valves. Literally 3 minutes with a laptop and CAN interface sorted it.

If the PC diagnostics are not enough Pico Technology's PC based 'scopes do CAN and other serial protocols, even ARINC 429) as standard and their "Automotive" range has comprehensive diagnostic software for anything from poor compression (using just a DC Clamp ammeter on the battery lead, think about it) to suspension and transmission faults by vibration analysis.

Was scammed by a car sales shithead in Emden. They sold a RR Discovery with a broken air suspension (which would not have been the problem). The real problem was that some italian hot shot managed to put in an ECU which was not programmed to the car, meaning that there was a VIN mismatch in 4 ECUs (the RR Discovery 3 has 23 ECUs in total) and RR does not provide reprogramming. If you try to program in a spare suspension compressor, the ECU will crosscheck the VINs and, if it finds a mismatch, will brick the car by activating the anti theft instant boat anchor program.

RR offered to swap out ALL ECUs (at up to 2500 quid a piece, that would have been a real bargain). To get access to some specific programming options, I would have had to drive the car (with the defunct air suspension) to London to some special RR shop to get some dudes to reflash those microcontrollers with an in system programmer.

Great.
This was a total write off. Either would have been a no go as the costs far exceeded the value of the car.

I am praying to Thor to smite that Emden guy with his hammer (or throw a meteor onto Emden, which ever is easier).

So now I have this specific car tester (Autel MD806) https://www.ebay.de/itm/Autel-MD806-Pro-Profi-Diagnoseger%C3%A4t-f%C3%BCr-45-Fahrzeugmarken-ALLE-SYSTEM-OBD2-MD808/183843777999?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

which I am taking along to every used car I look at. Found a couple of used cars that would have been  real bad deals, so this thing has already paid for itself.

It does to crosschecking of error codes in all ECUs and is vendor specific and multi protocol. It also allows to reset oil change intervals and initiate catalytic converter cleaning cycles.

All in all, highly recommended for quick inspection of used cars and all those things you need advanced diag for. It does not do programming though, the programmers are ten times as expensive.

[Specmaster]

he was about 45 and we were pretty sure he had a thing going with the 19 year old red head department secretary.

that man is still a god to me.   (rest in peace doc)

Why is it always the redheads that lead you to drunkenness and debauchery? 

(I met my batshit crazy at work too) 

Never a good idea having a relationship with anyone from work, let alone a batshit crazy redhead 

[tonyalbus]

For comparison, I have taken some hi-res pictures from my fake Agilent 82357B GPIB adapter.

The letter, the CD and the top of the box with the Agilent logo:


Top and bottom of the adapter. There is one TX10 screw in it.


Top side of the pcb:


Bottom side and U8 of the pcb

Now you guys have shown yours..i now need to show mine 
will open it... later.... just putting together my quick and dirty tinySA review....'i will be back'