Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

Tahiti has nicer surf than Canadia, but they speak the same strange language (at least in parts of that country).
I wonder how a texan may adjust to some quebec'ian turbo speaker who can push out strange syllables faster than you brain can decode them ...

[cyclin_al]

News flash: They're here.    We're expecting 5-10cm today. 



This is the scene from my back door. We spent all afternoon down in that yard blowing/bagging the last of the leaves yesterday. Just in time is the word of the day!

mnem
nice pants.

Ouch!  They were forecasting 10-15 cm of snow here too but along with above zero temperatures, if that makes any sense.  The end result's been rain all day which would be great for working downstairs in the shop except I'm on midnights and I know not to try to fight with any projects when I'm on midnights because it never goes well for myself or the project involved.  Worse, one of the window regulators on my truck malfunctioned and one of the windows is stuck down.  It's got a garbage bag taped over it to keep the rain out until I can get that and another thing that broke fixed once midnights are over.  Poof.  There goes the lab budget for the next while.

Similar situation here.  I am a bit further east, so that weather is just starting.  It is definitely snow in my area though.  Here, the leaves did not get bagged; about 12 lawn tractor sweeper loads were collected.  That was enough to make 3 kids and 2 adults disappear...  The leaves are a bit scattered in good fun and I did not get around yet to using a pitch fork to heave them onto the compost pile.  No sense in bagging here.  What, what do you mean you can't send 2 collection trucks just for my compost and recycling?

At least the snow tires are on the vehicles.  Oh right, it is snowing now because I did go out and get the tires done.  Sorry everyone for invoking the snow.   

Likewise, there are projects that I should not be touching at the moment.  Unfortunately, family pressures are a bad thing.  I was up till 3am working on computer troubleshooting, and increasing the number of problems, instead of fixing things.    I suspect computer parts are going to consume the TEA budget and then some into the near future 

[cyclin_al]

Tahiti has nicer surf than Canadia, but they speak the same strange language (at least in parts of that country).
I wonder how a texan may adjust to some quebec'ian turbo speaker who can push out strange syllables faster than you brain can decode them ...

Thanks!  It was very nice of you to acknowledge that we do actually have surf in Canada.  Locally, there is no real surf.  You can find a bit on the coasts or in certain large lakes.  I find it amazing what some people can do with a standing wave in the Ottawa river.  Yes, I have seen surfing without moving.  By that I mean a ground speed of zero.  Water speed was very different though    I am also more amazed at what  the temperature is when these people are out there.  I find it necessary to stay dry to survive such temperatures.

I can vouch that the texan New York dragon from Texas adjusted just fine to some quebec'ian!  He and I have met in person, after all.  Truthfully, I avoided using strange syllables for the most part (I caught myself using some), and my brain does not produce syllables (in any language) anywhere near as fast as the best of them.  Different personalities; very different people, but still found a ton on things in common. 

[25 CPS]

It's now aboot twice that deep, and they've revised the estimate to 10-15cm here as well. Temps around 1, dropping to -2 overnight. Warming in the AM, high of 5.

As we have no need to go anywhere, plan is to hide out in our little cave overnight and see how bad things still are tomorrow during the "heat of the day".

If need be, I'll drag the snowblower out... but really not ready for that particular "change of seasons" waypoint to be here YET. 

mnem

That sounds like a plan.  There's no point going to work shovelling it or blowing it if the snow's just going to melt the next day anyways, especially if nobody has to venture out in it right away.  It's still a couple of degrees above zero here and still raining which is a bonus since the more of it that comes as rain, the less there'll be as snow to deal with later.  Fingers crossed we scrape by without any snow at all this time but I'll see what it looks like when I get home from work in the morning.

Similar situation here.  I am a bit further east, so that weather is just starting.  It is definitely snow in my area though.  Here, the leaves did not get bagged; about 12 lawn tractor sweeper loads were collected.  That was enough to make 3 kids and 2 adults disappear...  The leaves are a bit scattered in good fun and I did not get around yet to using a pitch fork to heave them onto the compost pile.  No sense in bagging here.  What, what do you mean you can't send 2 collection trucks just for my compost and recycling?

At least the snow tires are on the vehicles.  Oh right, it is snowing now because I did go out and get the tires done.  Sorry everyone for invoking the snow.   

Likewise, there are projects that I should not be touching at the moment.  Unfortunately, family pressures are a bad thing.  I was up till 3am working on computer troubleshooting, and increasing the number of problems, instead of fixing things.    I suspect computer parts are going to consume the TEA budget and then some into the near future 

I was able to get all my yard work done right before the weather turned too.  It isn't going to be computer parts that kill the budget for me, it's the truck.  Two nights ago when I drove to work when it was a nice, warm, dry 16 degrees, I took the slow roads with all four windows down and some music playing and enjoyed the trip in.  That is, until I got into the underground parking garage and only three of the windows went back up.  I find out on Wednesday what the damage from that's going to be but it's going to hit the budget for a while.  Then in January when the full slate of payroll deductions starts up again...  I don't know if you heard but CPP contributions are going up $268 and EI about $33, so we're worse off by about $300 once the new year starts on those alone.

I worked overnight shift (8 PM to 4:30 AM) for 10 years until I retired. If you live alone like I did it's OK. Sleep when you want. Work on stuff when you want (except outdoor if it's dark). But if you have a live in significant other or a family it mucho sucko. I thought you mentioned you lived with your parents, right? Doesn't that give you a certain amount of freedom to do what you want, when you want...as long as you don't disturb them?

Now if you are on a rotating shift schedule then all bets are off. You'll never adjust properly to one set schedule. I'm glad I never did it.

I'm on rotating shifts and they're horrible.  Thankfully, I live alone, it's just me and the cat - definitely no parents! - so nobody else is disturbed by my erratic comings and goings at all hours.  Several of the guys I work with live with wives and in some cases kids so when they're on the back hour shifts, it's an awful game of tiptoe so they don't disturb other family members and vice versa for the family trying not to disturb them when they're trying to sleep in the middle of the day.  At least none of that's a concern for me since I'm on my own but it does have its downsides too though.

[tautech]

All this talk of cold  and I'm sweating like a rapist after the first trailer load of firewood for the summer. 
6-8 loads to go.....

[shakalnokturn]

Missed a HP 3245A in good condition for 50€ yesterday, depressed and irritable today... Such good opportunities turn up once every 5 years over here.

[mnementh]

Tahiti has nicer surf than Canadia, but they speak the same strange language (at least in parts of that country).
I wonder how a texan may adjust to some quebec'ian turbo speaker who can push out strange syllables faster than you brain can decode them ...

Ummm.... I am NOT a Texan... my kids are, and will bear that shame for the rest of their lives. But I actually live now within a few minutes latitude of the town in New York where I grew up, so no surprises here weather-wise. 

As for learning the local Quebecois, I'm pretty certain it'll be no harder than the machine-gun Mexican Spanish I managed to get a grip on living 20 years in Dumbfuckistan.

mnem
Vaya con huevos! 

[mnementh]

<SNIP>

Perfect time for some home cookin'. 4KG pork shoulder roast; my usual Holy Trinity spice rub. Onions, carrots, celery and lots of 'shrooms. Asparagus spears and broccoli florets for da dwagon; kidzz and wife won't touch 'em. 

Doin' it raw this time instead of searing it first as I usually prefer; been feeling a bit congested since yesterday so the flame's gone quite anemic, and our new gas range (hooray gas cooktop!) is a cheap IKEA POS with a worthless broiler and no browning element. 

   Gas-ceramic radiant heaters have been around for a century; why the fuck aren't those elements the standard broiler in all gas ovens...?   

mnem
*back to the kitchen*

Probably because they are too susceptible to contamination by oils and fats from cooking in the oven when the grill is not on. They are used for commercial grills and kebab rotissaries but that is different.

Hmmm... my last BBQ had one on the side, not in the main chamber; so maybe that is so... but it was mounted directly underneath the grates/rotisserie area, specifically for searing meat, according to the destruction manual. Seems to me that figuring out this very fundamental problem would be a much better expenditure of engineering prowess than halogen cooktops and mood lighting in your range hood.   

The broiler isn't the only part that sucks bunge. This whole range is the appliance manifestation of the manufacturing race to the bottom; cut every corner to minimize production costs and all the end-user gets is "Oh, it's a gas range; you shouldn't expect a broiler that actually works." 

mnem

[mnementh]

Welp, I just came in from making a pilgrimage out to the new shed for some HDMI cables... and I'm pretty certain that unless some magic happens tomorrow morning, I'm really gonna regret not having dug the snowblower out of the backyard shed yesterday, even tho my back was just screaming at me. 

mnem
*hums a dirge on his way out to the kitchen to check on that roast*

[med6753]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

 

[med6753]

I worked overnight shift (8 PM to 4:30 AM) for 10 years until I retired. If you live alone like I did it's OK. Sleep when you want. Work on stuff when you want (except outdoor if it's dark). But if you have a live in significant other or a family it mucho sucko. I thought you mentioned you lived with your parents, right? Doesn't that give you a certain amount of freedom to do what you want, when you want...as long as you don't disturb them?

Now if you are on a rotating shift schedule then all bets are off. You'll never adjust properly to one set schedule. I'm glad I never did it.

I'm on rotating shifts and they're horrible.  Thankfully, I live alone, it's just me and the cat - definitely no parents! - so nobody else is disturbed by my erratic comings and goings at all hours.  Several of the guys I work with live with wives and in some cases kids so when they're on the back hour shifts, it's an awful game of tiptoe so they don't disturb other family members and vice versa for the family trying not to disturb them when they're trying to sleep in the middle of the day.  At least none of that's a concern for me since I'm on my own but it does have its downsides too though.

Sorry, I must of gotten you confused with someone else with regards to living arrangements.

I feel for you. Rotating shifts are a killer...sometimes literally.   

[mnementh]

News flash: They're here.    We're expecting 5-10cm today. 



This is the scene from my back door. We spent all afternoon down in that yard blowing/bagging the last of the leaves yesterday. Just in time is the word of the day!

mnem
nice pants.

10PM - Still snowing 10 hours later. Almost 3X as deep.

mnem
*toddles off to ded, filled with impending dread*

[cyclin_al]

News flash: They're here.    We're expecting 5-10cm today. 



This is the scene from my back door. We spent all afternoon down in that yard blowing/bagging the last of the leaves yesterday. Just in time is the word of the day!

mnem
nice pants.

10PM - Still snowing 10 hours later. Almost 3X as deep.

mnem
*toddles off to ded, filled with impending dread*

Only 5 hours snowing here and we already have as much as you.  The puppy has no idea how to handle this.  It is the second time in her life she has seen snow.  She was quite bewildered when she went from a full speed run to full stop when she reached the snow bank I shovelled.... and time to shovel it all back again!

[0culus]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but the video intro turned me off. 

[tautech]

Hey Med, a question was asked in a Repair thread about Tek paint and I dug out this post that bitseeker put in POI's on P1 here in TEA where IIRC you posted a pic of a Krylon Gloss Bahama Sea aerosol:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2427477/#msg2427477
Trouble is the pic of the aerosol is gone ! 

Reckon you can fix it ?

[med6753]

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but the video intro turned me off. 

From one curmudgeon to another.......Ditto. It's stupid. 

[med6753]

Hey Med, a question was asked in a Repair thread about Tek paint and I dug out this post that bitseeker put in POI's on P1 here in TEA where IIRC you posted a pic of a Krylon Gloss Bahama Sea aerosol:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2427477/#msg2427477
Trouble is the pic of the aerosol is gone ! 

Reckon you can fix it ?

Interesting. Somehow my ImageShack got hacked or something and my picture deleted and that whatever that is put in it's place. I deleted it out of my files. I took a new pix. Feel free to pass on as needed.

[tautech]

Interesting. Somehow my ImageShack got hacked or something and my picture deleted and that whatever that is put in it's place. I deleted it out of my files. I took a new pix. Feel free to pass on as needed.

As bitseeker made that post of yours a POI you should really fix the pic then we can easy find it in the POI's and link it all over the place. 

[med6753]

Interesting. Somehow my ImageShack got hacked or something and my picture deleted and that whatever that is put in it's place. I deleted it out of my files. I took a new pix. Feel free to pass on as needed.

As bitseeker made that post of yours a POI you should really fix the pic then we can easy find it in the POI's and link it all over the place. 

Fixed. 

[URI]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

Oh boy, that video is hard to stand.   

Perhaps he thinks modern DSOs are superior because they have an "Auto" button?   
That would explain the erratic use of the controls..   

[BU508A]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

I suppose that's him:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=133418

Remembered his avatar seen here in the EEVBlog.

[bd139]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

I’m not going to watch the video because quite frankly watching things like that make me want to eviscerate people with a spade these days. There are so many people without a clue. Occasionally also things magically turn into guitar amplifiers which pisses me off even more. Only Curious Marc and The Signal Path cut the mustard IMHO. Curious Marc actually had a jab at the idiots recently suggesting that only measurement was the way to work out what the pixies were up to and he’s right.

But I’m going to be honest. While the 465B is not unserviceable it is really badly designed on the maintenance front. Getting at certain bits is a royal bastard. The worst thing is the cruel wire trick where it appears to have a modular construction an the next thing you know is you find one solitary undocumented soldered wire across the entire chassis, usually when you’re about to take either the timebase or the vertical amplifier blocks out. Then there’s the rampant stupid location of the multiplier assembly and connector which requires you to take the tube out to get the thing past a pinch point. Ugh that’s what killed Tek for me.

Then again I can’t quite a single analogue scope which isn’t a complete wanker in one way or another when it comes to maintenance. Surely we could have done better?

My favourite design so far has to be the TDS210 though. That’s really nice to work on. Shame there are no schematics although it’s fairly simple so easy to trace out.

[tggzzz]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

The starting point with yootoob vids is that Sturgeon was an optimist.

[tggzzz]

Somehow my ImageShack got hacked or something and my picture deleted and that whatever that is put in it's place. I deleted it out of my files. I took a new pix. Feel free to pass on as needed.

"Dead links" have been a problem for decades, doubly so when companies decide to "monetise their assets" that are within a walled garden. Photobucket, flickr, instagram, farcebook, PlaysForSure^TM (sic), etc ad nauseum.

That's why I, on principle, upload my photos to the same server as the text.

[vk6zgo]

Opinions of this guy? First time for me watching him. Frankly, I'm not overly impressed. Seems to me that it took him forever to get to rule #1 when faced with dead TE, no matter what it is. "Thou shalt check the power supply voltages first"

He fusses about how the 465B is constructed and unserviceable. I'll give him that. But he fails at RTFM and it would have told him how to isolate the boards to track down the short.

He mentions how superior modern DSO's are but he fumbles with the controls of his Tek DSO like it was the first time operating it.

Am I off base and perhaps just jaded or something?

Nope!
By pure luck, he found a S/C tant, then didn't follow it up, although the likelihood of a tant having a DC short across it by design is vanishingly small.

Had I been so lucky, I would have disconnected one lead of the cap right then & there, & if everything had come back OK, replaced it, had a quick look at a few of the others, & called  it good!

But, then, I fixed stuff for a living!

That said, I probably would have looked at the manual upfront, anyway, found what supply rails the thing had, found an easy spot to check them, & chased down the problem that way.

I do agree, some Tektronix gear is hard to access, but they don't have that all to themselves.
R&S are no picnic, or just about anything HP, Marconi, or Thomson.

Devices having extender boards are great, if you have them, but few of us do, making them no easier to fault find than those with a similar configuration to the 465B.

Currently, I am digging through a 1970s Yaesu HF transceiver, which has nice little modular PCBs, meant for use with extender boards.
Without such boards, howver, they are quite difficult to fault find, which is not made any easier by the occasional
board which isn't like that.

I like the way he rabbits on about how cheap Rigols are, but his DSO is far from "modern" being an old "Tedious" series, maybe a generation newer than the TDS 210 & the like.