Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Sounds like a wind up to me because there is no way to get your email address from Ebay unless you have given it in the listing, which you haven't.

[BillB]

Nigeria!  That's no problem.  I'm a long lost relative of a prince that recently died there.  I'm expecting a sizable inheritance to arrive any day now... 

Do you use the same alias for paypal?  I also use separate aliases as well and have noticed that ebay keeps my ebay email address pretty secure, but the paypal address that I use for paying for auctions seems to be more easily accessible.
 

[med6753]

Fucking eBay dicks. Just had this via direct email not via eBay for Tek 465.  Not sure how they got my email but it was from eBay as I have a dedicated alias for that.

Lagos. Seriously. Get fucked

———

Hello,
My cousin in Lagos, NIG. love it.
I will pay for it plus £25 for shipping via post office Royal Mail International Standard Signed For:.
Please reply if it is OK by you for payment by PayPal.
Thanks

Is this yours?

[Specmaster]

No thats not it.

[bd139]

In front of a proper computer now so looking at the headers.

Sender is: mrssmth44@hotmail.com and the sender is verfied outlook.com. I'm in the recipient list, DKIM, SPF and DMARC pass.

My paypal address is the same - well spotted BillB. Must have been via that. Definitely targeted.

One to watch out for!

[Specmaster]

In front of a proper computer now so looking at the headers.

Sender is: mrssmth44@hotmail.com and the sender is verfied outlook.com. I'm in the recipient list, DKIM, SPF and DMARC pass.

My paypal address is the same - well spotted BillB. Must have been via that. Definitely targeted.

One to watch out for!

never do a deal or anything outside of the Ebay and then you should be protected anyway. I had a bloke doing to do a deal with me outside of Ebay, kept telling me that Ebay would let him make an offer, even though my listed was BIN or MAO. I just kept referring him to make me Ebay listing and telling him to make me an official offer via the link and he declined. There's always someone out there looking to fleece us if were not vigilant, bastards they are.

[bd139]

I do deals outside eBay all the time. But BACS or cash or fuck off

The ones that really get me are the dicks who buy something and expect you to send it even though it’s pick up only. Annoyingly you can’t leave negative feedback as a seller now so you have no way of dealing with it other than cancel it and relist. I rarely sell anything other than BIN and instant payment as that gets rid of the idiots instantly due to the negotiation or delay window being non existent.

Also I’m not fucking Argos. If you buy something pay for it right away.

[Specmaster]

I do deals outside eBay all the time. But BACS or cash or fuck off

The ones that really get me are the dicks who buy something and expect you to send it even though it’s pick up only. Annoyingly you can’t leave negative feedback as a seller now so you have no way of dealing with it other than cancel it and relist. I rarely sell anything other than BIN and instant payment as that gets rid of the idiots instantly due to the negotiation or delay window being non existent.

Also I’m not fucking Argos. If you buy something pay for it right away.

Whole heartedly agree with you, anything big is always BIN  and instant payment with me as well.

[bd139]

Decided not to go to Newbury radio rally today for TEA hunting goodness.  Woke up this morning way too late with a can’t be bothered attitude and a hankering for bacon

[mnementh]

[Random Mode]



https://misfit.com/products/misfit-command

We took the whole gaggle out tonight for dinner at a local family restaurant and then to see Incredibles 2; do yourself a favor and watch the first one again before you go. They did it justice; you will not be disappointed.   

I got to wear my wife's Father's Day present to me; a shiny new Misfit Command. I've been wearing a Misfit Shine as part of my diet and fitness "lifestyle change" for about 6 months now; I liked the idea of the Command as a "dress watch" which also kept the fitness tracking, but while I drooled over it more than once, I just couldn't make myself spend the money. This thing is actually a marvel of miniature robotics; the hands are all servo motors, and time/day/date are set from your phone. Different alerts make the hands move differently, as do day/date.

I have an awesome wife.   




The schwartz is strong with this one...

After the little monsters were all in bed, I completed preliminary setup/leveling and am currently in the middle of my first print; the ubiquitous 2020 cube for dimensional accuracy. Yes, I am using my light saber to hold up the filament; if the 2020 prints successfully and anywhere close to proper dimensions, my next project will be the spool holder also on the card. 

This has all been entirely too easy... I'm really a bit concerned.


[/Random Mode]



mnem
Do not taunt Happy Fun Cube.

[bd139]

Incredibles 2 is on my film watch list  . As an unsociable bugger with children that can’t not talk all the way through a film I tend to go on my own on Friday mornings when there are literally zero people in the cinema and it’s £6 a go. Joy to being on a contract break now with freedom to schedule my own hours. Did deadpool 2 a couple of weeks back

I’m amazed at how much integration you can get in a watch now. The LCD screen equipped smart watches I feel are cheating. That’s pretty damn cool that one. I don’t do watches any more though myself. Just never have a need for them. Plus the phone does the health stuff for me passively.

I’m collecting 3d printer points at the moment. Whenever I see a disaster it’s -5 and whenever I see a nice setup it’s +5. When I get to 50 I’m going to buy one and work out where to put it later. That’s a +5 

[tggzzz]

Is this yours?

Your main picture makes sure people realise it is a 465! The trace picture is neat as well. Why haven't you shown a step response?

[tggzzz]

This has all been entirely too easy... I'm really a bit concerned.

Don't worry. Either it will need fettling, or you will invent a reason to fettle with it.

After all, you have TEA/GAS/etc, and it is a 3D printer.

[bd139]

Is this yours?

Your main picture makes sure people realise it is a 465! The trace picture is neat as well. Why haven't you shown a step response?

Apathy

I nicked the LT1073 out of the power supply for my Jim Williams pulse generator and can’t be bothered to find it and put it back in again. Think it got used as a negative rail generator but can’t rememeber what for. Didn’t fancy paying £5 for another one.

[mnementh]

Incredibles 2 is on my film watch list  . As an unsociable bugger with children that can’t not talk all the way through a film I tend to go on my own on Friday mornings when there are literally zero people in the cinema and it’s £6 a go. Joy to being on a contract break now with freedom to schedule my own hours. Did deadpool 2 a couple of weeks back

I’m amazed at how much integration you can get in a watch now. The LCD screen equipped smart watches I feel are cheating. That’s pretty damn cool that one. I don’t do watches any more though myself. Just never have a need for them. Plus the phone does the health stuff for me passively.

I’m collecting 3d printer points at the moment. Whenever I see a disaster it’s -5 and whenever I see a nice setup it’s +5. When I get to 50 I’m going to buy one and work out where to put it later. That’s a +5 

That is my general feeling towards watches as well; though after 42 years as a "gainfully employed member of society", most of it as an hourly wage slave, I have grown accustomed to something being there and feel a little naked without. For that, the Shine serves very nicely; it serves an important purpose (helping me make sure I exercise more), it weighs almost nothing, and if I need more precision in a timepiece than it can provide, I need to give up being semi-retired. Or reach for my big pocket watch.

This has all been entirely too easy... I'm really a bit concerned.

Don't worry. Either it will need fettling, or you will invent a reason to fettle with it.

After all, you have TEA/GAS/etc, and it is a 3D printer.

...and there's the 2020 all done; took 40 minutes. The slubs were purely superficial; rubbed right off. Filament is Inland PLA+; settings on the Tevo Tornado all stock, printer is bone stock out of the box. I'm gonna call that pretty fettling close; time to make a spool holder.    I think I'll use the purple this time. 

bd139; that should be a solid +20 now. 


[UPDATE]

https://youtu.be/IYy5cD8xN_Y


[/UPDATE]



mnem
*toddling off to ded*

[Specmaster]

@ mnementh,
I just love all singing and dancing watches as my main goto watches but every now and then a nice dress watch is OK too and yours fits that bill nicely.

[Specmaster]

Incredibles 2 is on my film watch list  . As an unsociable bugger with children that can’t not talk all the way through a film I tend to go on my own on Friday mornings when there are literally zero people in the cinema and it’s £6 a go. Joy to being on a contract break now with freedom to schedule my own hours. Did deadpool 2 a couple of weeks back

I’m amazed at how much integration you can get in a watch now. The LCD screen equipped smart watches I feel are cheating. That’s pretty damn cool that one. I don’t do watches any more though myself. Just never have a need for them. Plus the phone does the health stuff for me passively.

I’m collecting 3d printer points at the moment. Whenever I see a disaster it’s -5 and whenever I see a nice setup it’s +5. When I get to 50 I’m going to buy one and work out where to put it later. That’s a +5 

That is my general feeling towards watches as well; though after 42 years as a "gainfully employed member of society", most of it as an hourly wage slave, I have grown accustomed to something being there and feel a little naked without. For that, the Shine serves very nicely; it serves an important purpose (helping me make sure I exercise more), it weighs almost nothing, and if I need more precision in a timepiece than it can provide, I need to give up being semi-retired. Or reach for my big pocket watch.

This has all been entirely too easy... I'm really a bit concerned.

Don't worry. Either it will need fettling, or you will invent a reason to fettle with it.

After all, you have TEA/GAS/etc, and it is a 3D printer.

...and there's the 2020 all done; took 40 minutes. The slubs were purely superficial; rubbed right off. Filament is Inland PLA+; settings on the Tevo Tornado all stock, printer is bone stock out of the box. I'm gonna call that pretty fettling close; time to make a spool holder.    I think I'll use the purple this time. 

bd139; that should be a solid +20 now. 


[UPDATE]

https://youtu.be/IYy5cD8xN_Y


[/UPDATE]



mnem
*toddling off to ded*

That printer looks awesome 

[mnementh]

@ mnementh,
I just love all singing and dancing watches as my main goto watches but every now and then a nice dress watch is OK too and yours fits that bill nicely.

I bought a couple of the cheap Android smart watches; they require too much charging, constantly do the wrong thing due to too small a touchscreen, and the only really cool thing about them was that my 2nd one would actually serve as a standalone cellphone with Skype video chat. After wishing for one since I was 8 years old, I FINALLY have Dick Tracy's 2-Way Wrist TV. The shameless scifi nerd in me of course is all kinds of proud of that; in the same way he's proud of me finally having a "pocket laser" on my person, and a green one which is actually capable of doing some physical damage at that. 

But yeah; the Command is first a nice dress watch, and second a marvel of miniature robotics with fitness tracking. The nice thing is that they held true to that aesthetic from beginning to end and did not compromise on it; a truly rare accomplishment anymore. I just discovered while watching some of the longer adverts that on top of all this awesomeness, it's supposed to have a year battery life! 


mnem
*Fettling about with my 3D Printer til 5AM again*

[Specmaster]

The "all singing and dancing" was not a reference to so called smart watch  To me that means a smart and clever watch that offers sensible things that a watch should do and do very well without needing to partnered by a bloody phone, or a plug in charger, nor should it need to be charged on a daily basis.

It needs to be a good timekeeper, automatically adjusts for different time zones, stopwatch with lap timer function, slide rule (in case you ever feel the urge to do some maths and your calculator is at home and your smartphone has a flat battery), have a power system that never needs a battery replacement because its solar powered.

A watch thats tied to a smartphone isn't that smart after all 

[bd139]

Hey ho. Been playing today. Back at university I was basically a dick through the entire control theory stuff with the intention of “skipping that shit and hanging around in the digital domain with the cool kids”. Turned out that was boring and I was an idiot. Oops. So decided to drag myself through the Learning the Art of Electronics chapter on the matter which consists of building and tuning a PID control loop. I’ve built PID loops before but did not understand what he hell I was doing and went for trial and error rather than understanding phase margin etc. Book is extremely enlightening.

Uses a simple Alps motorised volume control as the “plant” and a diff amp, integrator and differentiator summing into a motor driver to kick it off. Pretty good fun it was. Really like the book. Considering running through some of the earlier stuff to see what I missed. Have an application for this: a 2m antenna rotator!

TEA? Well it’s an excuse to exercise the 6237B and the Rigol which are wonderful for this. The rigol allows rolling display at 1 second per div, depicted below and the HP due to the analogue metering allowing quite a lot of current damping (not depicted but it’s up on the shelf).

Yes it’s a rats nest and yes it’s on a solderless breadboard. Highest frequency here is less than 3Hz though so meh

Quick video:

https://youtu.be/YzMVD22Nz0I

Now to camp on eBay to find more toys to play with. Problem doing the above is it drives the kit purchasing addiction hard.

[Specmaster]

Haha, I thought that you mentioned control, you meant proper control as in plant etc with huge great motor control centres etc 

[bd139]

Same principles just a lot smaller and less dangerous to play around with

Think thermal control loops etc. Can use the same thing in your T12 iron as well. Left pot sets temperature and the circuit keeps it there if you replace the right pot and motor with an element and a thermistor.

[tggzzz]

Yes it’s a rats nest and yes it’s on a solderless breadboard. Highest frequency here is less than 3Hz though so meh

Until something starts oscillating at 10MHz due to parasitic inductance

Solderless breadboards are the work of the devil (even more than homebrew 3D printers); you spend more time debugging the breadboard than your design. Dead bug + manhattan rulez

[bd139]

Note the decoupling caps everywhere. This wasn’t precautionary but reactive after there was some oscillation in the integrator stage.

I could have done it dead bug to be honest, got enough parts stock, but I want this to go nuts. Diagnosing stability problems and oscillation was one of the points of the exercise. At one point it was going mental and slinging it’s shit all over the place but now I know why and how to squash those problems.

As a point it is now stable, on a breadboard with shitty wiring

[tggzzz]

Note the decoupling caps everywhere.

Life's too short to watch most videos; they don't even appear in my default browser settings.

This wasn’t precautionary but reactive after there was some oscillation in the integrator stage.

Tee hee. Never doubt my judgement

I could have done it dead bug to be honest, got enough parts stock, but I want this to go nuts. Diagnosing stability problems and oscillation was one of the points of the exercise. At one point it was going mental and slinging it’s shit all over the place but now I know why and how to squash those problems.

Debugging problems with your design is fun and laudable. Debugging problems with an avoidably shitty implementation of your design is simply perverse.

But then you are a softie in financial services, so that's probably standard operating practice in your day-to-day "professional" environment Me a cynic? Shurely shome mishtake.