Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Watch out for the watch strap style ones if you have hairy arms. Not a pleasant experience 

Also not sure I'd trust a magnet. One moment you're grounded, the next you're not. Then again I did build half the K2 kit with my ground strap plugged into a bench supply which wasn't even plugged into the wall 

[med6753]

This is why I wasn't on Discord. Just got back from picking this up.

Sansui "Classique" A-990 Amplifier. Local Craig's List. Was only $50 USD which is why I jumped on it. And it works. Full demo by the seller. I'm going to make some changes to my audio system.

Peek inside. Dusty but otherwise looks untouched by Gorillas. The 6800uF capacitor on the right is bulging on the top. So a re-cap will be scheduled.

That looks like just the insulating disk is popped up, not a bulging capacitor. I'd leave it alone. A modern capacitor won't last as long as the original.

You might be right concerning that bulge because it did not feel hard. It depressed easily. I guess that capacitor forgot to take it's viagra. 

Not sure I agree with you about replacements not lasting as long. I would replace with 105 C Nichicon's or Panasonic. No cheapies.

[nfmax]

Watch out for the watch strap style ones if you have hairy arms. Not a pleasant experience 

Fortunately I don't suffer(?) from that problem! Hair on the head, however, is a different story. I got caught out by the start of tier 4, already being overdue for a haircut when the barbers all closed. An old school friend recently sent me a class picture taken in nineteen-seventy-mumble (as @tggzz would say). I'll soon be able to look at it and say "didn't we all have short hair back then?"

[med6753]

Watch out for the watch strap style ones if you have hairy arms. Not a pleasant experience 

Fortunately I don't suffer(?) from that problem! Hair on the head, however, is a different story. I got caught out by the start of tier 4, already being overdue for a haircut when the barbers all closed. An old school friend recently sent me a class picture taken in nineteen-seventy-mumble (as @tggzz would say). I'll soon be able to look at it and say "didn't we all have short hair back then?"

Same thing happen to me. I was in need of haircut before everything closed. By the time the barbers re-opened I was looking at a 1990's mullet. 

[bd139]

Yeah got that problem now. I'm starting to look like Father Jack here 

[Specmaster]

Simple, just buy a pair of electric hair clippers from Amazon like these and do your own haircuts for less than the cost of a single normal haircut. I've been doing this now for almost a year now between the three of us, they have saved around £200

[bd139]

Dang it - out of stock on Amazon  . Will keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip. £14 is indeed cheaper than a bloody hair cut around here as well.

[med6753]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

[Specmaster]

Dang it - out of stock on Amazon  . Will keep an eye out. Thanks for the tip. £14 is indeed cheaper than a bloody hair cut around here as well.

Yeah, gone are the days when I had to have a style, just the same all over does me and the boys now and also there is zero daily upkeep involved, winner winner chicken dinner.

TBH I got mine from Lidl when they had them in stock, better than those I showed you, with the lever on the side to allow fine adjustment to depth of cut. Still made by Wahl though but the professional range for similar money with a 3 warranty. Amazon have loads of similar ones in stock though.

[Specmaster]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

[med6753]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

Hey, I need to get out of the house at least ONCE in a while. 

[nfmax]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

That's just the problem - single-person household here 

[Ero-Shan]

Oops I did it again ...

On new year's eve I decided to implement a foldback current limit for my HV supply. While it worked in principle, it had a tendency to turn the supply into a power oscillator, which was not exactly what I had in mind.
After waking (at 5.43 am) on new year's day, I gave up on the foldback - my analog experience is simply not enough to solve the issue. Instead I searched my box for better heat sinks and decided to use 4 pass transistors in parallel. Not because of the current, but because the highest R_th is from case to heat sink. That should cut this crucial value by half (I had also tried mica pad + silicone grease, but that resulted in a 1 K hotter transistor than the sil pad). With that and a reduced max current of 250 mA I supposed a shorted output could be handled.
After hours (mechanical work takes ages with me - there was drilling and thread-cutting involved), I started to test the new arrangement. With a 60 W incandescent lamp as load everything was fine, the transistors got warm.
Then I turned the current limit to zero and shorted the output. That was when the fireworks started (a few hours too late for celebrating the new year). I saw a flash and a heard a sharp bang!
Again, a gate resistor had blown, also the current equalizer at the source, and, of course, the H6N100 had lost a bit of its plastic case. This left me so devastated that I switched everything off and went for a walk (where the shoe tormented the nail of my big toe, getting me a bloody sock). During the walk I tried to think about what might have caused that violent dead of another MOSFET (and why the same shoe that was perfectly fine before created so much pain today!). I just couldn't think of an explanation.
Restless, I returned to my lab later in the evening. I replaced the transistor and the resistors, checked that the others were still OK and tried again with the lamp. No go. There wasn't any current at all. Measuring some voltages, the reason was obvious: the fuse in my 34401 must have blown! I also learned what a dumb idiot I was: When I slung in the 34401 for measuring the current, I connected it to ground instead of the current sense resistor, thus disabling the current limitation altogether. Suddenly, everything fell into place.
I'm such an idiot!
At least my changes saved the rest of the circuit and constrained the carnage.

Happy new year everybody!

[Ero-Shan]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

That's just the problem - single-person household here 

Here also. Until last march, a friend's wife cut mine. Then I tried myself - it takes some contortions, but it can be done. And I simply don't care if my hair-do is less than perfect.

[Saskia]

Essentially, I have been tapping on the shoulder of management, and trying to tell hint to them to listen to the quiet chapesse in the other corner.
That management used to pay attention to what I had to say and now for some reason are no longer listening.
Meanwhile, the chapesse is holding back leaks in a firehose with her fingers, while management is heading down a slippery slope and about to ask me to open up the water main....
She will be the one drowning because of the path taken by management, and most likely she will be the one crapped on afterwards for it.

Any insights or resources on how to best handle this sort of thing?

The first thing I would do is put together all the information you have and write it down.  Make sure it is dated.  Go over it and ensure you have made a note of all the relevant points, implications, resource impacts, personnel issues and anything else that you've winced about.  Include a timeline of events - ones that have already occurred and those that will follow.  This should reflect anything relevant from project issues, responses, information reported to management and directives issued.  Set out what you can remember now, but don't get lost in filling in every detail if you can't remember this second.  You can always come back to it later and add stuff you've remembered.  Add all types of info - positive, negative and neutral (this will make it more objective - and be see as such, rather than written off as a witch-hunt).

Start doing this now.

The second step is working out what to do with this information.  This is the tricky bit - and I will offer one idea. (Since I have no appreciation of the actual situation, it could be completely inappropriate - but it is just to get the ball rolling...)

My thought is to put together a risk analysis assessment - detailing what could go wrong and how bad it could be.  How you phrase things - and who you would distribute such a document to are questions only you could dare answer - and I full appreciate that the distribution list could be rather short.  I could also suggest an "Executive summary" that might be distributed to a higher level audience so that they are made aware of a potential problem.

Whether or not any of this can be done "safely" is another point - and I fully appreciate the distinct possibility that any attempt to "sound the alarm" could result in dire repercussions to your employment.  Only you will have an idea of that risk.

An alternate approach might be to let the "problem management" know you are keeping notes of what you are seeing and would really hate to have to present them at a project post mortem (including why they weren't addressed before things blew up).  ** (Upon re-reading this, I realise how dangerous this would likely be.)

Looking back at the above, I don't know how to proceed - but I would certainly be taking notes.  If such information would have value at some point, it's better to have it on hand - rather than go scrabbling around trying to throw it together.

As for actually speaking out.......
Damned if you do.
Damned if you don't.

Good luck.

speaking up was a career killer for me several times. Well, killer is kind of relative. Our IT management hates me. I am however well respected by our corp's topmost tax lawyer who once phoned my bossboss and told him to leave me in peace.
Guess I must have done something right ...

[Cerebus]

Well, I had another big TEA weekend. Same source as the 575s came from. Picked up a nice 7904 that has all options but known power supply issues and phosphor burns. However, I also got an R7903 which is similarly optioned (both have the high writing rate crt with 0.5cm divisions) so that tube could be a donor. Needless to say I am probably going to go all medieval on recapping this one since it has known problems in the power supply area. Other grabs include a 5103N dual beam scope with plugins, a rackmount 5441 (which may be a parts source), and a 7313 storage scope. All of these I'm going to evaluate for repair and stuff in time.

I *also* got my 428B clip on milliammeter...appears to be in excellent working order. Pics later on as I'm exhausted. 

Now old I freely admit. But medieval? 

What's the problem, Sir Capsalot?

[Saskia]

be silent, lest he invents the scopetable and bestows knighthood upon us all.

[BravoV]

Tallking about medieval, I guess most TEA cult members here already own at least "the lance" ? 

[Robert763]

Fluke 80F-15 (high precision) 80K-6, 80K-40, Tek 6015 and a couple of HP 1137A so I'm good for HV probes.

[med6753]

Tallking about medieval, I guess most TEA cult members here already own at least "the lance" ? 

Damn right. Sir Capsalot never goes anywhere without it.

[0culus]

I need one. I do have a couple of P6015 scope probes but neither have their dialectric fluid charge, so they are limited to the quoted derating.

Here's the 428B. Seems to work great! Needs a good few min for the fire bottles inside to really warm up, but once it does it's accurate and stable. A far cry from modern clamp meters which seem to be affected badly by stray fields.

[Specmaster]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

That's just the problem - single-person household here 

My oldest son lives with his girlfriend, and she refuses to help him, so he cuts his own hair OK, so can you, he does have it almost bald though 

[SilverSolder]

Nope, not gonna try a do it yourself haircut. I'm sure it will look like I took a weed wacker to my head. 

Besides.....my barber, Carol Ann, does excellent work, is easy on the eyes, and smells great. 

Oh come on, I'm perfectly sure that Jo Anne would make a simply perfect job of it for you and also smell good and just as easy on the eye and what attire you chose to wear or not is upto you two and not a mask needed either.

I don't do my own either, my son does mine and I do theirs, simple, quick and easy and laughing all the way to the bank.

That's just the problem - single-person household here 

My oldest son lives with his girlfriend, and she refuses to help him, so he cuts his own hair OK, so can you, he does have it almost bald though 

The one upside to hair loss! 

[mansaxel]

Simple, just buy a pair of electric hair clippers from Amazon like these and do your own haircuts for less than the cost of a single normal haircut. I've been doing this now for almost a year now between the three of us, they have saved around £200

Been doing that on and off for a couple years now. Not seen the inside of a hairdresser's saloon since November 2019 or so. It's about time now, so will probably dig it out tonight.

[mnementh]

Essentially, I have been tapping on the shoulder of management, and trying to tell hint to them to listen to the quiet chapesse in the other corner.
That management used to pay attention to what I had to say and now for some reason are no longer listening.
Meanwhile, the chapesse is holding back leaks in a firehose with her fingers, while management is heading down a slippery slope and about to ask me to open up the water main....
She will be the one drowning because of the path taken by management, and most likely she will be the one crapped on afterwards for it.

Any insights or resources on how to best handle this sort of thing?

The first thing I would do is put together all the information you have and write it down.  Make sure it is dated.  Go over it and ensure you have made a note of all the relevant points, implications, resource impacts, personnel issues and anything else that you've winced about.  Include a timeline of events - ones that have already occurred and those that will follow.  This should reflect anything relevant from project issues, responses, information reported to management and directives issued.  Set out what you can remember now, but don't get lost in filling in every detail if you can't remember this second.  You can always come back to it later and add stuff you've remembered.  Add all types of info - positive, negative and neutral (this will make it more objective - and be see as such, rather than written off as a witch-hunt).

Start doing this now.

The second step is working out what to do with this information.  This is the tricky bit - and I will offer one idea. (Since I have no appreciation of the actual situation, it could be completely inappropriate - but it is just to get the ball rolling...)

My thought is to put together a risk analysis assessment - detailing what could go wrong and how bad it could be.  How you phrase things - and who you would distribute such a document to are questions only you could dare answer - and I full appreciate that the distribution list could be rather short.  I could also suggest an "Executive summary" that might be distributed to a higher level audience so that they are made aware of a potential problem.

Whether or not any of this can be done "safely" is another point - and I fully appreciate the distinct possibility that any attempt to "sound the alarm" could result in dire repercussions to your employment.  Only you will have an idea of that risk.

An alternate approach might be to let the "problem management" know you are keeping notes of what you are seeing and would really hate to have to present them at a project post mortem (including why they weren't addressed before things blew up).  ** (Upon re-reading this, I realise how dangerous this would likely be.)

Looking back at the above, I don't know how to proceed - but I would certainly be taking notes.  If such information would have value at some point, it's better to have it on hand - rather than go scrabbling around trying to throw it together.

As for actually speaking out.......
Damned if you do.
Damned if you don't.

Good luck.

One thing I learned from my momma, who worked most of her life as a RN in one of the worst bastions of bureaucratic double-bind ever to disgrace humanity...

If it isn't written down, it didn't happen.

Document every-fucking-thing you ever spoke with anyone aboot, whom you spoke with, and when. If you can, write down the timestamps from your phone's history. Even in my own on-site business, you have no idea how many times my call log has saved my ass. 

Also, use your head. If you, a mere grunt in the trenches, can see the oncoming train, the collision is a lot closer than you think. It is time to start girding your loins for the inevitable shitstorm, and probably time to update your CV.

When the main breaks, it's not going get water all over that poor chapesse; it's going to spray shit everywhere. And the kind of break you're talking aboot is going to hit anyone who could have known aboot the problem, not just her. You will become the scapegoat, because you tried to warn the pointy-haired boss.

Good luck, and hope your hip-waders are in good chuff; you're gonna need 'em.

mnem
*veteran of a thousand psychic wars*