Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

FWIW... For several years, growing up in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Peesborgh, I did in fact partake of "the guv'mint cheese". While called American Cheese, it most resembled a very mild cheddar. Ingredients were cow's milk, rennet and salt. You could still buy the same cheese from Giant Eagle when we left Peesborgh; it was sold under their generic white label product line, and it still had those same 3 ingredients.

I do like, and make no apologies for liking, a nice sharp Wisconsin Cheddar (especially with a hot slice of apple pie) or a dryer-than-average Monterey Jack. The kids won't touch cheddar; I think that's mommy's genes. Closest I can get them to eat is the local Colby-Jack which at least is a 4-ingredient cheese.

You can keep all your "ripe" cheeses with the possible exception of a properly stinky Bleu Cheese salad dressing. 

mnem
 

I'm very fond of an Italian '3-ingredient cheese', which is called Cravanzina and is made of the milk from cows, sheep, and goats. So if you have '4-ingredient cheese', I wonder what the fourth component is.I have my suspicions. Oink.

No, 4 ingredients as in milk, rennet, sodium chloride and calcium chloride.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

I am truly amazed at the stories I've heard about what Americans call cheese. 

Much of it scares me.

The very cheapest hot-melt glue sticks you can get from McMaster-Carr $10.24 per lb, Velveeta 'murican cheese $7.36 for two pounds from Wally-Mart. There you go, a biodegradable packaging adhesive at under 1/2 the price of PVA.

Velveeta markets themselves as proudly not American cheese but rather Velveeta, as if that were somehow superior to other "products" which legally cannot even be called cheese, but instead have to be called a "cheese product" or a "cheese food"; as in something which contains trace amounts of cheese, but not in dietetically significant amounts.

Once upon a time, Velveeta was supposedly a blend of real cheeses. Of course, once upon a time, you could shame a politician or a business owner into doing the right thing, too.

mnem
 

[med6753]

Got your Tek bits yet Med ?

Yep, delivered at mid-day as typical for UPS. But it's still a giant fail because it's a day late.

So now I have to clean off bench 2 again and lay the Type 547 on it's side. Trouble is at the moment I lack the ambition to do that. 

[AVGresponding]

I am truly amazed at the stories I've heard about what Americans call cheese. 

Much of it scares me.

The very cheapest hot-melt glue sticks you can get from McMaster-Carr $10.24 per lb, Velveeta 'murican cheese $7.36 for two pounds from Wally-Mart. There you go, a biodegradable packaging adhesive at under 1/2 the price of PVA.

As I understand it, artisan cheese is is growing apace in popularity in the 'States.

[GreyWoolfe]

Similar resistors "Rheostats" where commonly used for stage light dimming before the advent of semicondutor dimmers. It got pretty hot up on the lighting control deck with banks of those. Would not pass modern safety tests either.
Just reminded me of one production where there was a scene of dancing skeletons comprising a group of girls in black body suits fluorescent paint and black lights. We told the girls before the dress rehearsal to wear black underwear. Needless to say the didn't listen and when the black lights came on the skeletons were wearing bras and panties 

I was just going to say that there were similar resistors used as stage dimmers, I remember seeing them at various theatres back in the day.

I once got complained at by the director for dimming the house lights too quickly at the start of the performance (of a G&S operetta, IIRC). Too much smoke was coming out the rheostat for my liking

Brings back memories of my college theater days.  The lighting booth was horrible on the best of days.  On the bigger shows where we needed follow spots, we inevitably rented super trooper carbon arc follow spots and they would increase the heat quite a bit. My clothing would be soaked at the end of the show.  During my time running lights, we never had smoke come out of the rheostats but did have one of the modules in the power banks for the lights catch fire during testing before a show.  Heat and flame were enough to crystalize the Bakelite fuse holder. Thankfully, someone was using the room were all that equipment was to change into costume and came running out yelling fire, otherwise I shudder to think what damage could have been caused.  There was enough time to haul out the big A frame ladder with the extension up the middle and reroute power to the light and disconnect the module from the bus bars.

[AVGresponding]

Found a non-TE TE thing to bid on...



Currently at $20 (a sawbuck?), Loki only knows where the shipping costs will end up though.

[Cerebus]

Wrong god to invoke if you want a mug of mead's chance in Valhalla of things going your way.

"It's unpleasantly like getting drunk."
"What's unpleasant about getting drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."

[SilverSolder]

I am truly amazed at the stories I've heard about what Americans call cheese. 

Much of it scares me.

The very cheapest hot-melt glue sticks you can get from McMaster-Carr $10.24 per lb, Velveeta 'murican cheese $7.36 for two pounds from Wally-Mart. There you go, a biodegradable packaging adhesive at under 1/2 the price of PVA.

Velveeta markets themselves as proudly not American cheese but rather Velveeta, as if that were somehow superior to other "products" which legally cannot even be called cheese, but instead have to be called a "cheese product" or a "cheese food"; as in something which contains trace amounts of cheese, but not in dietetically significant amounts.

Once upon a time, Velveeta was supposedly a blend of real cheeses. Of course, once upon a time, you could shame a politician or a business owner into doing the right thing, too.

mnem
 

Nowadays, the highest court in the land is the "Facebook oversight board"  which today upheld Trump's ban...

[mindcrime]

You can have my Velveeta when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

[AVGresponding]

Wrong god to invoke if you want a mug of mead's chance in Valhalla of things going your way.

"It's unpleasantly like getting drunk."
"What's unpleasant about getting drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."

I think he got an unfairly bad press.

In any case, the Murphy that "Murphy's Law" refers to was not happy about it being applied to trivial things, though apparently he could be a bit of a curmudgeon.

[SilverSolder]

You can have my Velveeta when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

Might not take long, depending on the LD50 of Velveeta? 

[bd139]

Found a non-TE TE thing to bid on...



Currently at $20 (a sawbuck?), Loki only knows where the shipping costs will end up though.

I actually nicked one of them from work once. Got one of them, a Mentor Graphics and Sun mug. It’s all generic ikea and amazon mugs now

No idea what happened to it.

Edit: I think I worked it out. Left it at my ex gf’s flat when we split.  . Perhaps I should go find her on Facebook and ask for it back 

[ch_scr]

Ok, did a check on my DE5000. Shows about 4.311nF on every range, but can't accurately measure the low dissipation factor / high parallel R, would need to do that with ESR I guess. Reports a lower Rp on the highest frequency (as expected from these units).
All in all I'm pretty happy!

[mnementh]

Wrong god to invoke if you want a mug of mead's chance in Valhalla of things going your way.

"It's unpleasantly like getting drunk."
"What's unpleasant about getting drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."

I think he got an unfairly bad press.

In any case, the Murphy that "Murphy's Law" refers to was not happy about it being applied to trivial things, though apparently he could be a bit of a curmudgeon.

I just wish he/she/it hadn't taken such a personal interest in my life... 

mnem
Murphy's a bitch. And she has puppies.

[Cerebus]

You can have my Velveeta when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

Might not take long, depending on the LD50 of Velveeta? 

Beat me to it. 

[Robert763]

I am truly amazed at the stories I've heard about what Americans call cheese. 

Much of it scares me.

The very cheapest hot-melt glue sticks you can get from McMaster-Carr $10.24 per lb, Velveeta 'murican cheese $7.36 for two pounds from Wally-Mart. There you go, a biodegradable packaging adhesive at under 1/2 the price of PVA.

Velveeta markets themselves as proudly not American cheese but rather Velveeta, as if that were somehow superior to other "products" which legally cannot even be called cheese, but instead have to be called a "cheese product" or a "cheese food"; as in something which contains trace amounts of cheese, but not in dietetically significant amounts.

Once upon a time, Velveeta was supposedly a blend of real cheeses. Of course, once upon a time, you could shame a politician or a business owner into doing the right thing, too.

mnem
 

Apparently a stick of Cracker Barrel makes a reasonable facsimile for CeeFour, to the extent that the bad guys have used it for dry runs   

[tggzzz]

Nowadays, the highest court in the land is the "Facebook oversight board"  which today upheld Trump's ban...

As I understand and it, farcebook wanted an external body that would enable zuck to say it wasn't his responsibility, he was only following their orders.

The bodies took large salaries, agreed with the ban but said it shouldn't be permanent. Plus, amusingly, chucking the live grenade straight back into zucks lap by stating Trumpf should be held to farcebooks standards in the same way as other people - and it is up to farcebook to clearly state the standards and then uphold them.

Tee bloody hee.!

[factory]

@factory on <radiomuseum>:
I sincerely hate this website! Had to cope with that too.
A bit faster if we help:

Thank you for adding those  , next group of three pages are 2133266 2133267 2133268.

Should I add the six I've downloaded here, or wait & see if they can be combined into one pdf?

Think this is the first time I've needed something that is only on RM, I never joined because of the personal info they want to share with everyone, why they couldn't give the choice to PM this info as other forums etc. if/when actually needed I don't know. 

David

[factory]

Similar resistors "Rheostats" where commonly used for stage light dimming before the advent of semicondutor dimmers. It got pretty hot up on the lighting control deck with banks of those. Would not pass modern safety tests either.
Just reminded me of one production where there was a scene of dancing skeletons comprising a group of girls in black body suits fluorescent paint and black lights. We told the girls before the dress rehearsal to wear black underwear. Needless to say the didn't listen and when the black lights came on the skeletons were wearing bras and panties 

I was just going to say that there were similar resistors used as stage dimmers, I remember seeing them at various theatres back in the day.

In the pile of junk I got from a very damp shed was a few dimmer versions in a steel case and open type, can't remember but some may be open circuit due to corrosion or damage, the wire used is a lot thinner.
Really need to sort them out and get rid of the buggered ones.

David

[mindcrime]

You can have my Velveeta when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

Might not take long, depending on the LD50 of Velveeta? 

Bah! I eat a tub of the stuff a day, and I'm a model of perfect heal%^#^##&#$ GDFWV@%^@C(&#@^H NO CARRIER

[Cubdriver]

Nowadays, the highest court in the land is the "Facebook oversight board"  which today upheld Trump's ban...

As I understand and it, farcebook wanted an external body that would enable zuck to say it wasn't his responsibility, he was only following their orders.

The bodies took large salaries, agreed with the ban but said it shouldn't be permanent. Plus, amusingly, chucking the live grenade straight back into zucks lap by stating Trumpf should be held to farcebooks standards in the same way as other people - and it is up to farcebook to clearly state the standards and then uphold them.

Tee bloody hee.!

If Farcebook didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.  Hope that grenade castrates Zuck.

-Pat

[AVGresponding]

Wrong god to invoke if you want a mug of mead's chance in Valhalla of things going your way.

"It's unpleasantly like getting drunk."
"What's unpleasant about getting drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."

I think he got an unfairly bad press.

In any case, the Murphy that "Murphy's Law" refers to was not happy about it being applied to trivial things, though apparently he could be a bit of a curmudgeon.

I just wish he/she/it hadn't taken such a personal interest in my life... 

mnem
Murphy's a bitch. And she has puppies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_A._Murphy_Jr.

[Cerebus]

Nowadays, the highest court in the land is the "Facebook oversight board"  which today upheld Trump's ban...

As I understand and it, farcebook wanted an external body that would enable zuck to say it wasn't his responsibility, he was only following their orders.

Perhaps he should have checked with this lot before assuming that was an effective defence:



Somehow I suspect his eventual demise won't be as dramatic as theirs.

[Saskia]

well, those PoS got pierrepointed. And rightly so. Even tho the US hemp holder was eminently unqualified and botched it.

Nevertheless, good riddance.

[factory]

Huh... The whole frontend of that thing is just SO cheap & cheesy looking... but still, I find something about it endearing.

Maybe it's the fact it is so shamelessly lowest-possible BOM GREEN LED (even the linear scale)... it doesn't try to hide the Hulk-juice, it OWNS IT.



Except I'll bet the current side of that scale is even cheesier RED LEDs, isn't it...? 

mnem
*maybe it's memories of prehistoric Drake and Uniden C-Band receivers on the shelf*

Been a while since I took these pictures, teardown of the Sorensen XPD60-9 (made by Xantrex) PSU, made in 2009 judging from various datecodes. I did briefly have the Xantrex version, but as it was DOA it got returned & replaced with this Sorensen version, I preferred the binding posts on the Xantrex version.



Inside with space for optional GPIB and RS232 boards.


Mains filter & switch board, this contains a couple of WIMA MP3 paper caps, will probably need replacing in a few years before they explode.


Front panel output board with the digital meters & bar graph for voltage/current, no surprises for finding a pair of ICL7107 DPM IC's.


Next board contains what looks to be an auxillary switching supply, lots of analog & logic ICs, some hidden LEDs for AC fail, SP, OVP (over voltage protection), OTP (over temperature protection) and analog programming connector at the back.


Separating the main power switching section there is a sheet of insulation and a PCB.


The main switching supply with lots of filtering, trio of thermal sensors, compact sized fan, an Omron mOron relay (wonder how long that will last?) and there are several more WIMA MP3 paper caps.


The two sub-boards attached to the main switching supply board.



And finally the cooling fan.


David