Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[capt bullshot]

I know that Neomys Sapiens has a Tec 460 or 465 waiting for me to pick it up.

I am still tempted, but horribly out of space.

You could help me with my space and pick up a TDS420 (pimped up to TDS460) from me. All the problematic SMT electrolytics are replaced.   

[Ero-Shan]

Whooops, bought the last MASTECH MS8911 offered... 74 sold now.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/283341251476

Zero left at the moment. ...curious... when will the next last one appear..?   

edit: Hmm. Seems automated: Just before I paid I reloaded the page: 74 sold, 0 left. Directly after I had paid I reloaded the page again: 74 sold, 1 left. 

If your's was the last, mine will be the "lastest". 

[Ero-Shan]

HP in the 1980s and microprocessors were 1st introduced, brought in a problem tracing solution that involves putting the device into signature mode. Various test points would produce a known digital signal or signature, which when analysed by a 'signature analyzer' and compared against known good or fault codes in the manual would 'simplify' problem solving!
If you are fault tracing one of these vintage TEs they can be helpful - I am not sure how much a modern Salea type device can take it's place.
Rob

Back in the ninetes when we still developed lots of digital circuitry, a colleague championed a project to implement this on our boards. We also had such an analyzer, but the whole thing never took off.
Though I'd really like to know what became of that analyzer ...

[BU508A]

Whooops, bought the last MASTECH MS8911 offered... 74 sold now.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/283341251476

Zero left at the moment. ...curious... when will the next last one appear..?   

edit: Hmm. Seems automated: Just before I paid I reloaded the page: 74 sold, 0 left. Directly after I had paid I reloaded the page again: 74 sold, 1 left. 

If your's was the last, mine will be the "lastest". 

What have I done ... 



 

[Ero-Shan]

Time for a break with my high voltage MOSFET killer lab supply tomfoolery.

Back to the core values of this little corner of EEVblog's forum.

It is no secret that I still have a penchant for Philips test equipment, despite their fondness for brittle plastics.
The analog/digits meter relation of my collection is also rather small. So it is no wonder I couldn't help but bid enough to get me a couple of meters with pointers, most of them bearing the beloved old Philips logo:



Rest assured, one of them shows that they are made of genuine Philips plastic.



The Siemens instrument is also interesting: A true RMS meter, with a whopping 33.3 Ω/V in the lower ranges! My first moving-iron movement handheld meter, complete with manual. Until now, I saw them as panel meters only.
And my first current clamp.

Not exactly a snap, but with less than 20 € apiece still a fair deal IMO.

[factory]

If anyone is considering these 2 go with the 2465A. Stay away from the 2445B even though it's cheaper. Why? Well other than the greater B/W of the 2465A (350MHz) vs the 2445B (200MHz) there are design issues.

The 2465A will have it's cal data in a memory chip employing an external battery which is easy to change out with an external power source attached during the removal/install process. My 2430 has the same arrangement and I've done the battery change successfully. The 2445B will have a Dallas chip with an internal battery which is a real PITA to deal with and finding a replacement Dallas chip or an equivalent is a nightmare.

The 2465A will have a pin-thru-hole A5 processor board which has NO tants on it. The 2445B will have an SMT A5 processor board full of leak prone tants which will ruin the board. Stay away if it hasn't already been re-capped.

This is probably the best advice on the Internet these days. So much less hassle. Why I jumped on that 2445A a while back too 

Or hold out for an older 2465/2445 (No suffix). No cal battery at all. Non-volatile EAROM stores the cal data. But supposedly the EAROM has a finite access life cycle which is probably why my 2465DMS takes checksum errors on boot up in the option board EAROM. Luckily you can bypass and boot successfully and everything appears OK but I suspect the ACV accuracy on the DMM is FUBAR.

How do you tell before buying one? (not that I need to buy another), as my 2465B has the A5 board with the separate battery, none of that Dallas module rubbish. 

Having said that there are some Dallas modules in a pair of Tek TV waveform monitor, sorry for the crap picture they are currently in storage, no longer in my Dad's shed as he wanted the space back.


David

[med6753]

How do you tell before buying one? (not that I need to buy another), as my 2465B has the A5 board with the separate battery, none of that Dallas module rubbish. 


David

You can't unless you pull the covers and look. Some early 2465B's are as you describe and I don't know off hand at which S/N was the change to the internal battery Dallas chip.   

[AVGresponding]

In spite of some far less than stellar packaging the Fluke arrived unharmed  I was dreading mega crustiness but it seems to have never had batteries fitted 

Now for the bad bit seems to be stuck regardless of press buttons reading 1999 with the decimal point changing with the range selected. To tired to read the manual tonight if anyone knows of a likely cause feel free 

Other than that fairly clean and tidy on the outside.

Ugh that may be toast. This is a well known symptom of the analogue IC being bust. The 5V rail runs comedically high voltage as it's actually unregulated and was made in days when the mains voltage was a lot lower so it can burn out the unobtainium ASICs. Check the power supply voltages first on mains power. Watch out because live mains runs the entire board so be damn careful. Then check the clock is running at C14. Should be a 220nF film cap which controls the integrator time constant. if the voltages are ok then clean the switches and check all the tants for shorts if they bothered to fit them in yours.

Really not a fan of the 8000A if I'm honest. It's either that or the display board burns up 

So a quick test of the rails shows them being pulled low at around +-12V (should be 15) and the 5V rail is 3.3 so Cap/Tant testing/replacement seems to be a reasonable start point. Switches seem to be clean and switching correctly (thanks @med  ).

I have way less than zero need for it regardless but I didn't have one 

I'm not surprised. I've had several Flukes of same vintage (8600A, 8800A) with shorted electrolytics in the PSU. I did re-cap my 8000A even though PSU was OK. But the 8000A does drift quite a bit because of PSU design. So once you get yours sorted out if you want my PSU modification let me know.

I am seriously considering putting Batteries in it as I have 4 spare D Cells. This maybe should sort out some of the drift issues? Quick look at the circuit of the power supply is it is maybe a bit too simple for its own good.

Putting batteries in doesn't help; they just get cooked by the horribly unregulated charger (yes that is personal experience speaking).

Mine remains in the unfeasibly long repair queue until I can be arsed to design a charger mod to go with a 5V regulator mod.

I'm tempted to go the dwagon route and use some 18650's and some off the shelf regulator modules; at least this way if it cooks the batteries, they'll make sure I no longer have a meter to put back in the repair queue...

[URI]

Time for a break with my high voltage MOSFET killer lab supply tomfoolery.

Back to the core values of this little corner of EEVblog's forum.

It is no secret that I still have a penchant for Philips test equipment, despite their fondness for brittle plastics.
The analog/digits meter relation of my collection is also rather small. So it is no wonder I couldn't help but bid enough to get me a couple of meters with pointers, most of them bearing the beloved old Philips logo:


[snip]
The Siemens instrument is also interesting: A true RMS meter, with a whopping 33.3 Ω/V in the lower ranges! My first moving-iron movement handheld meter, complete with manual. Until now, I saw them as panel meters only.
And my first current clamp.

Not exactly a snap, but with less than 20 € apiece still a fair deal IMO.

Oh, the Siemens A-V-Meters with moving iron are nice quality meters that are still nice to have on the bench.
You can consider a price of below 20€ as a very good price. 

I have three of them and use them for long-term controlling of AC and also DC currents regularly.

They're also nice in old fashioned installations like relay-based automation systems with mixed DC and AC IT-networks and a large network bringing together quite substantial earth-bound capacitances (part of my work..). In those environments modern high-input-impedance voltmeters often read high capacitive voltages (with virtually no power) unlike these low impedance moving iron meters that give you a correct reading.   

[beanflying]

In spite of some far less than stellar packaging the Fluke arrived unharmed  I was dreading mega crustiness but it seems to have never had batteries fitted 

Now for the bad bit seems to be stuck regardless of press buttons reading 1999 with the decimal point changing with the range selected. To tired to read the manual tonight if anyone knows of a likely cause feel free 

Other than that fairly clean and tidy on the outside.

Ugh that may be toast. This is a well known symptom of the analogue IC being bust. The 5V rail runs comedically high voltage as it's actually unregulated and was made in days when the mains voltage was a lot lower so it can burn out the unobtainium ASICs. Check the power supply voltages first on mains power. Watch out because live mains runs the entire board so be damn careful. Then check the clock is running at C14. Should be a 220nF film cap which controls the integrator time constant. if the voltages are ok then clean the switches and check all the tants for shorts if they bothered to fit them in yours.

Really not a fan of the 8000A if I'm honest. It's either that or the display board burns up 

So a quick test of the rails shows them being pulled low at around +-12V (should be 15) and the 5V rail is 3.3 so Cap/Tant testing/replacement seems to be a reasonable start point. Switches seem to be clean and switching correctly (thanks @med  ).

I have way less than zero need for it regardless but I didn't have one 

I'm not surprised. I've had several Flukes of same vintage (8600A, 8800A) with shorted electrolytics in the PSU. I did re-cap my 8000A even though PSU was OK. But the 8000A does drift quite a bit because of PSU design. So once you get yours sorted out if you want my PSU modification let me know.

I am seriously considering putting Batteries in it as I have 4 spare D Cells. This maybe should sort out some of the drift issues? Quick look at the circuit of the power supply is it is maybe a bit too simple for its own good.

Putting batteries in doesn't help; they just get cooked by the horribly unregulated charger (yes that is personal experience speaking).

Mine remains in the unfeasibly long repair queue until I can be arsed to design a charger mod to go with a 5V regulator mod.

I'm tempted to go the dwagon route and use some 18650's and some off the shelf regulator modules; at least this way if it cooks the batteries, they'll make sure I no longer have a meter to put back in the repair queue...

I have plenty of LiPos hanging around too and charge boards to suit and I hadn't looked at the charge side of it but that is easy to tweak too. Rather than get it lost here I will start a thread "Fluke 8000A Power supply Fix and mods" or similar when I get some bits.

[Saskia]

Great Scott, umm Short !


Put an M2 NVME drive into a Fujitsu Mainboard, turned power on and saw flames.

This is the first time ever that I saw something like that happen ...

I am not going to check the M.2 port if it is still ok ...

The M.2 drive definitely is not. Carbonized ...

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky ...

[AVGresponding]

Great Scott, umm Short !


Put an M2 NVME drive into a Fujitsu Mainboard, turned power on and saw flames.

This is the first time ever that I saw something like that happen ...

I am not going to check the M.2 port if it is still ok ...

The M.2 drive definitely is not. Carbonized ...

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky ...

   hey stop that, it's bd's job to set things on fire!   

[Brumby]

Time to add some burley to the waters and bait a Ganged Hook in Brumby's Backyard  eBay auction: #265006750399 Of course you NEED another Scope .....

Nice try.  If I had the space, I might be tempted

 ... but, then again, I don't have a mainframe/plug-in scope.      Damn you, Bean.


On the Fluke 1900A front, after a week of nothing there is bidding activity with less than 12 hours to go.  Not sure if it will end up within my budget.  We will see.

[med6753]

Great Scott, umm Short !


Put an M2 NVME drive into a Fujitsu Mainboard, turned power on and saw flames.

This is the first time ever that I saw something like that happen ...

I am not going to check the M.2 port if it is still ok ...

The M.2 drive definitely is not. Carbonized ...

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky ...

[DC1MC]

Great Scott, umm Short !


Put an M2 NVME drive into a Fujitsu Mainboard, turned power on and saw flames.

This is the first time ever that I saw something like that happen ...

I am not going to check the M.2 port if it is still ok ...

The M.2 drive definitely is not. Carbonized ...

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky ...

How is this even possible, with whatever sort of short-circuit I can think of  ?!?!?
I did have a shorted M.2 (tantalum mounted vice-versa), the power supply was just shutting down in a couple of seconds, and the capacitor was becoming hot and gently smoking after 2-3 attempts to power-on, but not bursting in flames, it seems tat modern "optimized" power supplies are scary 

[Brumby]

On the Fluke 1900A front, after a week of nothing there is bidding activity with less than 12 hours to go.  Not sure if it will end up within my budget.  We will see.

Price continuing to go up - and just under 7 hours to go.



Methinks this flight of fancy is heading towards a flame-out.

[Saskia]

I sent them an RMA request. Error description: burst in flames upon initial power on.
This was a brand new Adata SSD ...

This takes dead on arrival to entirely new levels ...

[med6753]

I sent them an RMA request. Error description: burst in flames upon initial power on.
This was a brand new Adata SSD ...

This takes dead on arrival to entirely new levels ...

Someone say D.O.A. ? 

[bd139]

I sent them an RMA request. Error description: burst in flames upon initial power on.
This was a brand new Adata SSD ...

This takes dead on arrival to entirely new levels ...

Adata stuff is junk. Avoid. Won't touch anything other than Samsung these days.

  hey stop that, it's bd's job to set things on fire!   

Bingo! Saskia's job is to blow it up

[capt bullshot]

Great Scott, umm Short !


Put an M2 NVME drive into a Fujitsu Mainboard, turned power on and saw flames.

This is the first time ever that I saw something like that happen ...

I am not going to check the M.2 port if it is still ok ...

The M.2 drive definitely is not. Carbonized ...

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky ...

How is this even possible, with whatever sort of short-circuit I can think of  ?!?!?
I did have a shorted M.2 (tantalum mounted vice-versa), the power supply was just shutting down in a couple of seconds, and the capacitor was becoming hot and gently smoking after 2-3 attempts to power-on, but not bursting in flames, it seems tat modern "optimized" power supplies are scary 

Was that tantalum correctly labelled "C4"?
It's an old running gag from a former job, where some tants blew up, and they had the designator "C4" in the silkscreen

[AVGresponding]

Does anyone have any recommendations for W10 compatible software for USB to GPIB?

Mine's a Keithley KUSB-488A, supposedly it shouldn't matter though.

[kleiner Rainer]

Ero-Shan,

nice catch. I scored some Philips Multimeters during a cupboard-clearing action preceding a departmental move. Both of them work, and the PM2517E even has its external power supply. Next step: calibrate (following the next Metrology Meeting in Stuttgart).

I suspect that they will meet their LCD cousin soon. It is still hiding in a Cupboard in our department...

Greetings,

Rainer

[mnementh]

Whooops, bought the last MASTECH MS8911 offered... 74 sold now.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/283341251476

Zero left at the moment. ...curious... when will the next last one appear..?   

edit: Hmm. Seems automated: Just before I paid I reloaded the page: 74 sold, 0 left. Directly after I had paid I reloaded the page again: 74 sold, 1 left. 

If your's was the last, mine will be the "lastest". 

What have I done ... 



 

Looks to me like you helped "sell" the same meter 7 times. Are you sure you don't work in government...? 

mnem

[mnementh]

I sent them an RMA request. Error description: burst in flames upon initial power on.
This was a brand new Adata SSD ...

This takes dead on arrival to entirely new levels ...

Adata stuff is junk. Avoid. Won't touch anything other than Samsung these days.

  hey stop that, it's bd's job to set things on fire!   

Bingo! Saskia's job is to blow it up

And it's my job to bitch about it loquaciously and blame it on the human race to the bottom...!

mnem

[mnementh]

I sent them an RMA request. Error description: burst in flames upon initial power on. This was a brand new Adata SSD ...

This takes dead on arrival to entirely new levels...

Smoke 'em if you got 'em. 

mnem