Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[FransW]

So my Delta Elecronika 300V PSU arrived today. Very well made custom packing all recycled materials cut to size.
It attracted my attention because the styling is very similar to a small LM317 based 15W supply I made about 30 years ago, even down to the Sifam meter.
However something "felt" loose, so I took the cover off and sure enough the transformer screws are loose. But  there are burn marks, lifted components and looks like missing components! (see photos) This was listed as tested: bullshit:
But I'm a nice person so rather than going  in and  I sent a nice message (not  "not as described" because this automatically opens a case with ebay). I got a nice reply saying they did test it (the seller looks like a house clearance / pawn shop type) " to my best ability, using Ac/Dc mechanical or digital meters ." yeh, right. He did offer a refund though. Anyway got the manual from the maker https://www.delta-elektronika.nl/en/support/discontinued-products.html
I'd buy their kit again, just because they support it, had a recent case on he day job were a maker still has a bit of kit on their website, but not even a spec sheet for it never mind a manual, no kit in stock either.

So this little PSU has an SCR pre-regulator and the blown / missing components seem to be related to that. So What the hell, I plugged it in and it works    Output there, varies with control and matches a DMM on the output. 
OK thinking about it the SCR left in circuit is probably shorted so no pre-regulation but the line regulator is working. Obviously pas transistor will get very hot if unit is loaded at low voltage.
Looks like the seller did do basic checks. I've asked for a £20 partial refund and will be placing an order on Farnell. The SCRs are HS64s, long unobtanium but should be easy to substitute, sensitive gate 600V 4A.

I have several of the low V PSU brother/sisters.
Apart from recapping and resoldering they are nearly indestructible.

Frans

[Cerebus]

No he hasn't that is the part he is painting tomorrow, he said so in his post

Pete: "Yes Dudley, but I think the joke has gone over your head, which isn't entirely surprising in one of your stature. You see, it is obvious to the joker that the jokee has merely paused in his labours, to resume his travails another day. But in the milieu of the British working class man, it is traditional at this point to remark that he 'has missed a bit'. The joke, such as it is, relies on everyone knowing that the situation is both deliberate and temporary."

Dud: "Na, still don't get it."

Pete:"No, you never do. Which reminds me, did you take that young lady from the bacon counter at Sainsbury's to the Lyons Corner House as was your whim? Are you going to finish that sandwich?"

[Specmaster]

No he hasn't that is the part he is painting tomorrow, he said so in his post

Pete: "Yes Dudley, but I think the joke has gone over your head, which isn't entirely surprising in one of your stature. You see, it is obvious to the joker that the jokee has merely paused in his labours, to resume his travails another day. But in the milieu of the British working class man, it is traditional at this point to remark that he 'has missed a bit'. The joke, such as it is, relies on everyone knowing that the situation is both deliberate and temporary."

Dud: "Na, still don't get it."

Pete:"No, you never do. Which reminds me, did you take that young lady from the bacon counter at Sainsbury's to the Lyons Corner House as was your whim? Are you going to finish that sandwich?"

Arh yes, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore sketch eh.

[Cerebus]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

[tggzzz]

Or in quaint British.......a trolley. 

A trolley carries Tea, or cakes, or similar comestibles. A cart has a horse in front of it. A barrow is the human powered equivalent of a cart, so I think that's a barrow; which would make you a Barrow boy.

So what does that make this?

A dog pulling a cart. It even says it in the file name: dogpullingcart.png

The original filename was birdpushingwheelbarrow.png.

[med6753]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

More Captain Obvious......get a Fluke. 

[bd139]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

I’d just buy a Fluke. 62-MAX is fairly cheap on amazon at £75.

[Specmaster]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

Captain Obvious again, you forgot to set the parameters of what range you're looking for, how can we give any suggestions without narrowing the requirements to give anybody a fighting chance 

[tautech]

Good excuse to purchase a FLIR. 

[bd139]

I think I’d be permanently pointing at my bollocks for amusement value.

[Specmaster]

For about £20, when they get them in again in their special purchases section, very similar to the Fluke 62-MAX but with a range of -40C to 220C, with a 3 year warranty.

[Cerebus]

Good excuse to purchase a FLIR. 

Oh, don't think I'm not tempted, but this really does have to live next to the cooker for SWMBO as well as myself, and I really wouldn't want to leave a FLIR sitting around in that environment.

[Cerebus]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

Captain Obvious again, you forgot to set the parameters of what range you're looking for, how can we give any suggestions without narrowing the requirements to give anybody a fighting chance 

Well, around the house and next to the cooker give a fair indication that I'm only really looking at the kind of range that would be sane in the domestic environment. Say -30ºC (freezer temperatures plus a margin) to 300ºC (oven temperatures plus a margin) in round figures. I'd be very surprised if anything on the market didn't include my range requirements. Perhaps down to -200ºC if I really need to measure the temperature of the look SWMBO gives me after a particularly bad pun.

[med6753]

Infrared Non Contact Thermometers - recommendations sought

I've got one that I bought from Maplin years ago in a sale for all of £15. Still works and is still reasonably accurate. Gats used all around the house and sits next to the cooker for those "Is the frying pan hot enough yet?" type measurements. The trouble with it is that as Winter approaches it gets flaky and give readings that are off by ~ -20ºC until it has physically warmed up a bit. Happens every year. My suspicion is that some internal temperature compensation fails below some figure.

Anyway, that's by the by, merely by way of introduction. The flakiness has made me think that it's time to buy a replacement. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond the omnipresent and obvious "Get a Fluke"? Any particularly good "bang for the buck" models or "inexpensive but still good" models. No particular price range in mind beyond the fact that we're probably talking £10-£200 depending on what you get for your money.

Captain Obvious again, you forgot to set the parameters of what range you're looking for, how can we give any suggestions without narrowing the requirements to give anybody a fighting chance 

Well, around the house and next to the cooker give a fair indication that I'm only really looking at the kind of range that would be sane in the domestic environment. Say -30ºC (freezer temperatures plus a margin) to 300ºC (oven temperatures plus a margin) in round figures. I'd be very surprised if anything on the market didn't include my range requirements. Perhaps down to -200ºC if I really need to measure the temperature of the look SWMBO gives me after a particularly bad pun.

Show her some of your bad puns from here and you'll need -300C. 

[Cerebus]

Well, I think we can figure out the next rabbit hole for BD139:

What will you do with your Raspberry Pi 4 this week? RISC it for a biscuit perhaps?

Open-source RISC OS 5.28 brings support for latest ickle 'puter as well as hundreds of fixes
An update for open-source Arm operating system RISC OS at the weekend features stable support for the Raspberry Pi 4 computer.
...

[Cerebus]

Show her some of your bad puns from here and you'll need -300C. 

I save those for youse guys. She suffers enough already, she can actually see me when I'm talking ...

[Saskia]

you asked for it.

[McBryce]

Or in quaint British.......a trolley. 

A trolley carries Tea, or cakes, or similar comestibles. A cart has a horse in front of it. A barrow is the human powered equivalent of a cart, so I think that's a barrow; which would make you a Barrow boy.

So what does that make this?

A dog pulling a cart. It even says it in the file name: dogpullingcart.png

The original filename was birdpushingwheelbarrow.png.

An unlikely story indeed. A quick google search for birdpushingwheelbarrow, returns this:

https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/vintage-greetings-pc-bird-pushing-wheelbarrow-full-of-flowers-airbrush-1910/19295715

McBryce.

[Saskia]

as to the original question: what do you want to use it for ? Household ?

Different applications call for different thermometers.

[Mr. Scram]

An unlikely story indeed. A quick google search for birdpushingwheelbarrow, returns this:

https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/vintage-greetings-pc-bird-pushing-wheelbarrow-full-of-flowers-airbrush-1910/19295715

McBryce.

I was going to argue a bird has no hands to push a wheelbarrow with, but I suppose a dog does neither.

[bd139]

Well, I think we can figure out the next rabbit hole for BD139:

What will you do with your Raspberry Pi 4 this week? RISC it for a biscuit perhaps?

Open-source RISC OS 5.28 brings support for latest ickle 'puter as well as hundreds of fixes
An update for open-source Arm operating system RISC OS at the weekend features stable support for the Raspberry Pi 4 computer.
...

I'll pass on that. As much as I love Acorn stuff, RISC OS is dead and people should really stop flogging the bastard thing even more. It's 2020, it doesn't even have memory protection and still uses cooperative multitasking. It was fine on resource constrained systems but Acorn even suggested it was dying by trying desperately and failing to write a replacement for it (ARX).


As for the Pi, my last raspberry pi, a 2, was subjected to execution with a hammer. I hate the infernal things with a passion for so many reasons I ran out of fingers enumerating them a minute ago. They're a fine example of a terrible British product in so many ways.

Really if someone makes an ARM board which has:

1. NOTHING i repeat NOTHING curled out of the anus of Broadcom on it.
2. A proper SATA or NVMe interface
3. A properly thought out form factor, not just based on wherever the parts landed in Altium that afternoon after a pub.
4. Proper power distribution, not the brown out mess that is the Pi.
5. Proper HDMI or preferably DisplayPort output
6. A decent ethernet NIC
7. No sign of an micro SD socket or any SD interface at all.
8. A propensity to run Debian properly without that cranky as fuck feeling you get on most boards.

Until then they can quite frankly get to fuck and I'd rather have a NUC or a mini PC of some sort.

Sorry for the rant. I feel fairly strongly about that one


On the rancid old software front the gopher client is working pretty well. I can now browse across servers quite happily and download files. It has a back stack. Still missing handlers for Veronica etc.



SDF is still around!

[Cerebus]

as to the original question: what do you want to use it for ? Household ?

Different applications call for different thermometers.

Already asked and answered here.

[Saskia]

My apologies, it did not register on my feverish brain.
Just get a Fluke. At under €100 it seems to be an ok deal.

[tggzzz]

Or in quaint British.......a trolley. 

A trolley carries Tea, or cakes, or similar comestibles. A cart has a horse in front of it. A barrow is the human powered equivalent of a cart, so I think that's a barrow; which would make you a Barrow boy.

So what does that make this?

A dog pulling a cart. It even says it in the file name: dogpullingcart.png

The original filename was birdpushingwheelbarrow.png.

An unlikely story indeed. A quick google search for birdpushingwheelbarrow, returns this:

https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/vintage-greetings-pc-bird-pushing-wheelbarrow-full-of-flowers-airbrush-1910/19295715

I refer you to the famous Humpty Dumpty quote, core point: https://www.bartleby.com/73/2019.html
and in more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#Lewis_Carroll%27s_Through_the_Looking-Glass
and in context: http://sabian.org/looking_glass6.php

Now, what did I mean by "bird", "pushing", "wheelbarrow"?

[mnementh]

Well, I think we can figure out the next rabbit hole for BD139:

What will you do with your Raspberry Pi 4 this week? RISC it for a biscuit perhaps?

Open-source RISC OS 5.28 brings support for latest ickle 'puter as well as hundreds of fixes
An update for open-source Arm operating system RISC OS at the weekend features stable support for the Raspberry Pi 4 computer.
...

I'll pass on that. As much as I love Acorn stuff, RISC OS is dead and people should really stop flogging the bastard thing even more. It's 2020, it doesn't even have memory protection and still uses cooperative multitasking. It was fine on resource constrained systems but Acorn even suggested it was dying by trying desperately and failing to write a replacement for it (ARX).


As for the Pi, my last raspberry pi, a 2, was subjected to execution with a hammer. I hate the infernal things with a passion for so many reasons I ran out of fingers enumerating them a minute ago. They're a fine example of a terrible British product in so many ways.

Really if someone makes an ARM board which has:

1. NOTHING i repeat NOTHING curled out of the anus of Broadcom on it.
2. A proper SATA or NVMe interface
3. A properly thought out form factor, not just based on wherever the parts landed in Altium that afternoon after a pub.
4. Proper power distribution, not the brown out mess that is the Pi.
5. Proper HDMI or preferably DisplayPort output
6. A decent ethernet NIC
7. No sign of an micro SD socket or any SD interface at all.
8. A propensity to run Debian properly without that cranky as fuck feeling you get on most boards.

Until then they can quite frankly get to fuck and I'd rather have a NUC or a mini PC of some sort.

Sorry for the rant. I feel fairly strongly about that one


On the rancid old software front the gopher client is working pretty well. I can now browse across servers quite happily and download files. It has a back stack. Still missing handlers for Veronica etc.

   SDF is still around!

I have stayed away from Raspberry in droves for just that reason. If I wanted to run a version of *NIX even more castrated than android, on essentially a 10-year-old android Pwn without all the portability or a decent screen or usable touch interface... well, okay, I've never actually gotten past the "10-year-old android Pwn" part, so...

I just don't see the excitement; get a 10-year-old Dell PC at the Thrift for $10 and you have the same thing and another $30-50 in your pocket. 

mnem
*couch-tuber-time widda fam*