Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

RaspberryPi!   

mnem
nice pants.

[SoundTech-LG]

Love those colors...

[mnementh]

...I was expecting my parts today from DigiKey, being as it was sent Express yesterday; one of the benefits of paying the moosefucker tax is you get premium shipping built-in, so I NEEDED those heat-sinks ASAP!

It was horrible to have to order that coax crimping kit just to get same-day-shipping on all of it, but I took one for the team.     Total cost: US$33, including PayPal's little markup on the exchange rate.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

And it would have been here yesterday at 11:18AM if I hadn't transposed the first two numbers of my address when updating my account. 

mnem

[Specmaster]

Meanwhile I have had a strange eBay result, I was looking to order a 15V battery for an analogue multimeter and I clicked on the BIN button for a battery from a seller called "jlsbatteries" based in Shropshire, and got this message on screen.



Strange because I have never dealt with this seller before I can only assume that it must be one of these Chinese companies that uses a load of aliases in the UK to sell on eBay from UK warehouses and is most likely linked directly to that seller that I had the issue with over that ultrasonic cleaner and that they did not like having to pay for the return of their mis-sold item.

On the other hand I ordered some 1% resistors from another seller called "msgraphics", yesterday and today the seller popped them personally through my front door with a nice note.

Edit. I decided to see if my son could order the battery me, so I popped into his room, and he logged and tried to buy it and bingo, it's on its way to me. So question for you IT and coding freaks, would my son have a different IP address to me or are all computers etc, after the main router seen as one address?

[Specmaster]

...I was expecting my parts today from DigiKey, being as it was sent Express yesterday; one of the benefits of paying the moosefucker tax is you get premium shipping built-in, so I NEEDED those heat-sinks ASAP!

It was horrible to have to order that coax crimping kit just to get same-day-shipping on all of it, but I took one for the team.     Total cost: US$33, including PayPal's little markup on the exchange rate.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

And it would have been here yesterday at 11:18AM if I hadn't transposed the first two numbers of my address when updating my account. 

mnem

You Dumb ass 

[mnementh]

thank you sir; may I have another!   

mnem

[AVGresponding]

Meanwhile I have had a strange eBay result, I was looking to order a 15V battery for an analogue multimeter and I clicked on the BIN button for a battery from a seller called "jlsbatteries" based in Shropshire, and got this message on screen.



Strange because I have never dealt with this seller before I can only assume that it must be one of these Chinese companies that uses a load of aliases in the UK to sell on eBay from UK warehouses and is most likely linked directly to that seller that I had the issue with over that ultrasonic cleaner and that they did not like having to pay for the return of their mis-sold item.

On the other hand I ordered some 1% resistors from another seller called "msgraphics", yesterday and today the seller popped them personally through my front door with a nice note.

Edit. I decided to see if my son could order the battery me, so I popped into his room, and he logged and tried to buy it and bingo, it's on its way to me. So question for you IT and coding freaks, would my son have a different IP address to me or are all computers etc, after the main router seen as one address?

The seller would have blocked your ebay account from buying form them.

I can't see any way they could know your IP, ebay might know it but they aren't going to be allowed to forward that info.

If you want to test the theory, just try to buy from them by connecting to your ebay account through a VPN, I expect the same result; he no like you...   

[Robert763]

I've had a seller block me because I (nicely) pointed out to them that an item they were listing as used and working was obviously  and a missing vital bits just from the photo. Their loss because I would have bought other kit from them. It is linked to your username not IP etc. On he other hand ebay's anti schill bidding is linked to IP addresses at least.

[Cerebus]

Strange because I have never dealt with this seller before I can only assume that it must be one of these Chinese companies that uses a load of aliases in the UK to sell on eBay from UK warehouses and is most likely linked directly to that seller that I had the issue with over that ultrasonic cleaner and that they did not like having to pay for the return of their mis-sold item.

The other plausible explanation is that you have an ebay username that is 'one typo' away from someone else's and that this vendor has tried to bar that person, had to type the username in (as opposed to just clicking a button or such similar) and typed yours instead.

I suspect that your putative explanation is more likely to be right, except that it requires someone to be together enough to manage a whole bunch of accounts in a coordinated fashion which requires a level of efficiency that I've never seen in a business bigger than 3 people.

[McBryce]

   Currently abusing myself with Frustion360; working on a insert to organize all my favorite drivers in this little SS box. In theory they should all go; in practice...

We will pray for you.....   Nah.  Who am I kidding....    Somebody please thrown him a rope - I think in 3 or 4 days.

Currently printing at 20% infill and 0.28mm layer height. It's like watching firehose laid down after printing Tiny Toothless at 0.06mm.

Still a 17 hour print. 

mnem

Seriously? You're making a holder where the handle is downwards??

McBryce.

[Specmaster]

   Currently abusing myself with Frustion360; working on a insert to organize all my favorite drivers in this little SS box. In theory they should all go; in practice...

We will pray for you.....   Nah.  Who am I kidding....    Somebody please thrown him a rope - I think in 3 or 4 days.

Currently printing at 20% infill and 0.28mm layer height. It's like watching firehose laid down after printing Tiny Toothless at 0.06mm.

Still a 17 hour print. 

mnem

Seriously? You're making a holder where the handle is downwards??

McBryce.

Uses less material that way, so I guess that is the reason why and also because it allows him to be able to see the blade to aid quicker selection?

[AVGresponding]

Seriously? You're making a holder where the handle is downwards??

McBryce.

It would certainly make for an unfortunate accidental cushion

[Robert763]

On Raspberry Pi's I've been working on one to act as a front panel for one of my GPSDO's. It will have a 5" touch screen and run Lady Heather on raspian. The GPSDO is a Trimble Thunderbolt. Just need to get the RS232 link up and running. It's just getting time to work on it and I've not used Linux a lot.
For this application a Pi is ideal, cheap and low power. I've various industrial PC cards that would fit but they use a lot more power.   

[mansaxel]

Edit. I decided to see if my son could order the battery me, so I popped into his room, and he logged and tried to buy it and bingo, it's on its way to me. So question for you IT and coding freaks, would my son have a different IP address to me or are all computers etc, after the main router seen as one address?

IP address is not likely the determining issue here, but simply user id. You must keep in mind that in parts of the world, entire villages can be hid behind one IP address, and the "unique" part of an IP address is a very diluted illusion.

[mnementh]

Seriously? You're making a holder where the handle is downwards??

McBryce.

Uses less material that way, so I guess that is the reason why and also because it allows him to be able to see the blade to aid quicker selection?

Yup. The business end is the end I care about; much quicker to find the one I want than poking and turning and trying to read numbers inscribed in a dozen different locations on a tool. And before you say that's silly; I have enough turnover in my tools (because I'm not afraid to abuse... err, push one to its limits ) that memorizing them is not feasible, and the "favorite tools" selection varies on a nearly weekly basis on my bench.
Also, I have a a terrible memory... that's why I buy/make organizers. 

mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Received today some tools from Wiha.

A side cutter, because the one I have already suffered a little bit from *cough* abusing *cough*.

Ahem. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?
Signed: Der Ohrenbevollmächtigte der Werkmittel-Missbrauchskommision

*mumbling*

Not sure. Just found a dent in the blades the other day. Must have cut something not suitable which I wasn't aware of...

*protect his ears with his hands*

Not pulling ears, please!

Not until proven. Was that a Wiha too?

On a unrelated note, the Texscan Attenuator is in and a cursory test says it is fine. Will take it to the VNA tomorrow and try out all stages. That will be a bit tedious, so I will probably not try all combinations.

[mnementh]

On Raspberry Pi's I've been working on one to act as a front panel for one of my GPSDO's. It will have a 5" touch screen and run Lady Heather on raspian. The GPSDO is a Trimble Thunderbolt. Just need to get the RS232 link up and running. It's just getting time to work on it and I've not used Linux a lot.For this application a Pi is ideal, cheap and low power. I've various industrial PC cards that would fit but they use a lot more power.

http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=the-thunderbolt-monitor-kit#new

http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=thunderbolt-monitor-android-app

Anything here of use to you...?

mnem
 

[tonyalbus]

Wow... was offline for a bit...busy at the office and night in the DC......needed to catch up 10 pages... @med is rebuilding his lab, but not blue... was i out that long..

was a nice day out with the wife and dog... some rain.. but we got a nice present from nature..

arriving home the mailman with my new score.....yeah!
last week i wanted to sell my HP 3478A... now i have 2  ......... for sale...
also scored a nice PSU ... but omg its huge.   video ccoming

[tonyalbus]

Restoring an older triple output PSU Mashtech YH3003D-3 ,
found it on the local ebay , a lot bigger then i though.. bit very nice after the cleanup.

[Saskia]

good news. my esteemed colleague (the one who worked at Bell Labs) got a contract extension and will continue to work for me.
 

[bd139]

Good to hear. My contractors are fucking of on Friday.

[mnementh]

Restoring an older triple output PSU Mashtech YH3003D-3 ,
found it on the local ebay , a lot bigger then i though.. bit very nice after the cleanup.

*mugs tony for his PSU*

mnem
Let that be a lesson tooya!!!

[bd139]

Oh the classic Mastech tap switching nukatron power supply. Make sure you use a crowbar with it for anything you care about.

The tap switch relay controls the total PD of the pass transistor (Ic*(Vc-Ve)) by switching the input voltage to a lower tap when the output voltage is low. Alas it usually ends up with sticky or knackered relays that fail unsafe to the higher voltage. This causes the pass transistor to exceed its SOA and blow C-E short resulting in lots of glorious volts flying into your DUT.

Annoyingly though when they're not failing like this they're actually fairly good.

I have fixed a few of these over the years since the design landed in the late 1990s and it's always a duff relay and pass transistor and someone crying.

[McBryce]

Seriously? You're making a holder where the handle is downwards??

McBryce.

Uses less material that way, so I guess that is the reason why and also because it allows him to be able to see the blade to aid quicker selection?

Yup. The business end is the end I care about; much quicker to find the one I want than poking and turning and trying to read numbers inscribed in a dozen different locations on a tool. And before you say that's silly; I have enough turnover in my tools (because I'm not afraid to abuse... err, push one to its limits ) that memorizing them is not feasible, and the "favorite tools" selection varies on a nearly weekly basis on my bench.
Also, I have a a terrible memory... that's why I buy/make organizers. 

mnem
 

Maybe I just don't swap my screwdrivers as often as you guys, but I can recognise the type and size of my screwdrivers from their handles.

McBryce.

[Saskia]

something TEA related. My 2002A now reports increased bandwidth (200 MHz). Plus a couple of options it did not have before. Still need to do some tinkering. LAN card is sitting here ...