Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Nice catch, Greg. Bad sticker paid off.

[tautech]

Hou want a link to my ebay, don 't you?

DONT YOU?

Of course ! 
You must wear it like a TEA enablers badge of honor embedded somewhere in your profile info. 
Do it, do it now !

[med6753]

I dunno... I'm with SpecMaster on this one. Painting that barrier wall grey, especially in today's batshit crazy world of constant stress, electronic leashes and jobs where they expect you to keep in touch and actually complete tasks while driving... It's like deliberately placing a booby-trap on the side of a busy highway. Sooner or later some booby is going to come along and get caught in it; the busier the highway, the sooner and more often. 

Look at the scene from this smaller perspective; at first glance, it looks like just a shoulder on the highway. We paint curbs on divided highways yellow for the same reason; I see this as being no different.
 
If too many distracted drivers hit it like that guy, the owner could be sued for creating a public safety hazard. People are going to hit that camouflaged wall, and no matter whose fault each individual accident is, that retaining wall is going to get smashed until it caves in.

Bottom line is it was a fuckwit stupid poor choice of color, but it won't be especially expensive to fix. Much less expensive than rebuilding the retaining wall.

mnem
*ignorant asshole*

Mnem, no disrespect but that one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard to justify distracted driving.  Are you the guys lawyer? 

It's pretty simple to me. See the double yellow line? Yep. See the edge white line? Yep. Drive in between them and you'll have no problem. Wander outside of them and you'll hit something, regardless of what color it's painted.   

[mnementh]

In Other News...

  Aaaand the joy keeps on coming. Got everything set up to print; things actually went quite well. Set the printer up on my bench, leveled it, put up a curtain rod with my spool of filament since I knew I was printing a tall object... all before my first cuppa coffee. Then I put the card with my object in the printer and it all turned to shit.

The build volume in the firmware in my printer is still set to the generic stock figures of 300 x 300 x 400; the Tornado will actually do 310 x 320 x 400, and the difference between the two is the "margin" that Cura REFUSES to slice anything 300mm wide otherwise. Evidently Cura includes that margin on the finished GCODE; as the printer says the file dimensions are too big.  Of course you can't reset the build volume from the front panel; that would be too easy.  I have to plug the damned thing into a USB on my PC and learn how to use the freaking Marlin control panel... or do everything from the control line in the Arduino console like they did in the stone age. 

mnem
*Feeling like I'm the dead horse smoothee* 

       

I'm a complete 1D10T.   

After beating my head against the wall all day trying to understand all the permutations that this 3D Printer which has only been in existence for a freaking YEAR has already gone through (to be sure I'm getting the right version of Marlin with the right options and configuring it right), then getting sidetracked with fixing a heat sink that had fallen off of a stepper drive... then going down the stepper current rabbit-hole, clawing my way back to the surface, putting the controller back together and going back to change one minor detail... 

...I discover that while I had rafts and supports disabled in Cura, it still had adhesion brim (an extra ~3mm around the perimeter of the print that prints paper thin so it can easily be deburred off) enabled. Turned that off, and everything sliced without issue. 

Now I'm two hours into what was supposed to be a 2 hour 14 minute print; we've got the first 3 layers down. I thought it was a bit optimistic as I'm using a 0.1mm layer height fine profile, which I want as I intend for this to be on my bench a good long time, and I wanted to see just how good quality this thing can do stock.

Went back to Cura to check and...  2d 14h 51m... 


 


Well, I've got a good excuse to be elsewhere for the next 2 days... 

mnem
"Domo origato, Mr Roboto..."

[tautech]

... then going down the stepper current rabbit-hole, clawing my way back to the surface, putting the controller back together and going back to change one minor detail... 
mnem
"Domo origato, Mr Roboto..."

Have a look at the mods Defpom did on his stepper drivers:

https://youtu.be/S75meJJm9Kw

Dunno if yours uses the same ones though. 

[Specmaster]

I dunno... I'm with SpecMaster on this one. Painting that barrier wall grey, especially in today's batshit crazy world of constant stress, electronic leashes and jobs where they expect you to keep in touch and actually complete tasks while driving... It's like deliberately placing a booby-trap on the side of a busy highway. Sooner or later some booby is going to come along and get caught in it; the busier the highway, the sooner and more often. 

Look at the scene from this smaller perspective; at first glance, it looks like just a shoulder on the highway. We paint curbs on divided highways yellow for the same reason; I see this as being no different.
 
If too many distracted drivers hit it like that guy, the owner could be sued for creating a public safety hazard. People are going to hit that camouflaged wall, and no matter whose fault each individual accident is, that retaining wall is going to get smashed until it caves in.

Bottom line is it was a fuckwit stupid poor choice of color, but it won't be especially expensive to fix. Much less expensive than rebuilding the retaining wall.

mnem
*ignorant asshole*

Mnem, no disrespect but that one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard to justify distracted driving.  Are you the guys lawyer? 

It's pretty simple to me. See the double yellow line? Yep. See the edge white line? Yep. Drive in between them and you'll have no problem. Wander outside of them and you'll hit something, regardless of what color it's painted.   

My suggestion to paint the wall in another colour was just that, a suggestion. From the angle the photo was taken the wall is a different colour but only just.

What we don't know is how does it appear from the drivers viewpoint, nor do we know the circumstances, was the sun in the drivers eyes etc etc.

Fact is it has been hit before so there may be other things at work here. If it was my wall I'd paint it to aid visibility to the drivers, cheaper then repairing it if the driver did not stop etc.

[mnementh]

I dunno... I'm with SpecMaster on this one. Painting that barrier wall grey, especially in today's batshit crazy world of constant stress, electronic leashes and jobs where they expect you to keep in touch and actually complete tasks while driving... It's like deliberately placing a booby-trap on the side of a busy highway. Sooner or later some booby is going to come along and get caught in it; the busier the highway, the sooner and more often. 

Look at the scene from this smaller perspective; at first glance, it looks like just a shoulder on the highway. We paint curbs on divided highways yellow for the same reason; I see this as being no different.
 
If too many distracted drivers hit it like that guy, the owner could be sued for creating a public safety hazard. People are going to hit that camouflaged wall, and no matter whose fault each individual accident is, that retaining wall is going to get smashed until it caves in.

Bottom line is it was a fuckwit stupid poor choice of color, but it won't be especially expensive to fix. Much less expensive than rebuilding the retaining wall.

mnem
*ignorant asshole*

Mnem, no disrespect but that one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard to justify distracted driving.  Are you the guys lawyer? 

It's pretty simple to me. See the double yellow line? Yep. See the edge white line? Yep. Drive in between them and you'll have no problem. Wander outside of them and you'll hit something, regardless of what color it's painted.   

I'm not justifying. 

But the reality is that the world is full of dumbasses. They outnumber non-dumbasses easily 10:1, so like it or don't they get their way. (See supply-side economics, Resident Chump, Brexit, etc) And like it or not, they're allowed to drive too. I'm all for dumbasses winning the Darwin award in general, but this particular case really is on the wrong side of the line. EVERY DAMNED ONE OF US takes our turn being the dumbass at some time or another... every damned one of us has been distracted at the wheel at some time.

That retaining wall is literally camouflaged; your pic shows that plain as day. It IS an accident waiting to happen.  AND it will happen, over and over again.

Arguing whose fault it is... what the eff difference does that make to the wall as it cracks and crumbles and the house slides down a hilll? Or to the passenger who may die needlessly? Whose fault is it? Those who were smart enough to see the accident-waiting-to-happen, and still did nothing to prevent it, that's who.

And NO... the white line does NOT mean "you're going to hit something". It means "This is where the highway ends, the other side of this is either a shoulder, or something less driveable." It is NOT a "warning" it is a "guide line". There are parts of the country where the shoulders of the roads are specifically used as an extra lane for rush hour traffic.

mnem
*3D-ed out*

[neo]

Going to another hamfest this Friday and Saturday, it is 250 miles away but it appears to be a big one and just so happens to be on my birthday. Anyone wondering how much crap valuable treasures i'll drag back this time?

[mnementh]

... then going down the stepper current rabbit-hole, clawing my way back to the surface, putting the controller back together and going back to change one minor detail... 
mnem
"Domo origato, Mr Roboto..."

Have a look at the mods Defpom did on his stepper drivers:
[DEFPOM RepRap Mod Video]
Dunno if yours uses the same ones though. 

He's modding an MKS-Base board with integrated stepper drivers. Mine is a MKS- Gen L; it has socketed drivers. The mod he's talking appears to be a pseudo "silent-step" mode popular with TMC2208 stepper drivers; the MKS Gen-L supports them, and it has jumpers under the sockets to do that.

I'm amazed he's spending that kind of time on a freaking $15 controller... I'd have chunked it and spent the $25-30 on a loaded Gen-L or RAMPS 1.4. I mean yeah, I get it... "the knowing's the thing"... but man, that's a LOT of microsurgery for what is still an inferior stepper controller.  And he's still gotta do it on at least two, preferably 4 of them...

mnem
*Says a prayer to Ifni for neo that he makes it home without a hernia*

[bitseeker]

Anyone wondering how much crap valuable treasures i'll drag back this time?

Nope, just patiently awaiting the pics.

[bitseeker]

"Tales of Cerebus" has now been added to the Potpourri part of the Points of Interest section for easy access to all the parts.

Thanks to mnem for the help locating all the relevant posts.

[GregDunn]

Going to another hamfest this Friday and Saturday, it is 250 miles away but it appears to be a big one and just so happens to be on my birthday. Anyone wondering how much crap valuable treasures i'll drag back this time?

I'm going to the Louisville fest Saturday.  I don't know whether to hope they don't have anything I want, or that I have enough money for everything that I find...

[mnementh]

"Tales of Cerebus" has now been added to the Potpourri part of the Points of Interest section for easy access to all the parts.

Thanks to mnem for the help locating all the relevant posts.

I just tracked them all down... You somehow managed to fit all that meandering [Random Mode] mental fulminate into a single line item; I couldn't have done better. Bravo!     

mnem
Oooh! random small packages from Asia!!!

[bitseeker]

Glad to be of service.

[mnementh]

In Other News...

       

It would appear that after 5 hours... I've printed an envelope.     However, the slow boat from China finally docked with lots of goodies... LM723s, sockets & 10-turn pots to fix that monster 25A linear power supply, and breadboards & pin header to make that precision resistor array. w00t!

[EDIT]

Just as I was toddling off, it started printing the first layer of infill; we should now be at ~0.8mm of 150mm. A new kind of hypnotic... yet a familiar pattern, woven into my very DNA after 50 years...

A little Tholian Web, anyone? 

[/EDIT]

mnem
I think I hear a bed calling my name...

[bitseeker]

Funny, I was thinking of the Tholian Web, too.

Let me know how you like those Bourns-like pots. I've only tried one. Works fine, but take a bit more torque to rotate than a genuine one. Not sure about durability.

[bd139]

Durability is very very poor from experience. I tried using them for varactor based tuning controls due to the scarcity and price of air variable capacitors. They got dicky very quickly and the end stops break easily.

Ended up swapping them out for Bourns ones at £16 a pop. Stings but worth it.

At this point though a shit but useable encoder, AVR, LCD and Si5351A cost less than a damn pot 

[Cerebus]

I've had better success with the Chinesium multiturn pots. I haven't broken the end stop off any of them. Then again, I don't have penis fingers which might be a contributory factor.

One thing I will say against them is that, although their set-ability is good, it isn't as good as the genuine article. You'll get a good 11 to 11.5 bits of set-ability out of the Chinese pots, closer to 12 bits out of the genuine article from Bourns.

[bd139]

Depends on how you use them as well. When you’re band scanning with them they get whipped hard into the end stops quite regularly. Especially from those of us who switch back and forth between them and continuous rotation encoders.

I wonder if there’s a market for one piece optical encoder, DAC and display devices. Reckon you could mass produce them for less than a Bourns pot and get 14-bits or better.

[mnementh]

I'm using them in the monster 25A Phase III 5-15V power supply from my   PSA: Situational Awareness!!!   post a couple months ago.

I'm pretty sure they'll still be an upgrade from the cheap-ass plain-Jane 1/4W 1Kohm linear carbon-film pot that came in it. 

It was a case of "a lot of 5 is cheaper than Qty 2". Not sure yet what I'll do with the extras. Probably stick a couple of 'em in a baggie along with some LM723s and 2SD1049s and stash it all in a corner of the PSU against future "incidents".

mnem
That pic makes me feel a little teste.

[mnementh]

Depends on how you use them as well. When you’re band scanning with them they get whipped hard into the end stops quite regularly. Especially from those of us who switch back and forth between them and continuous rotation encoders.

I wonder if there’s a market for one piece optical encoder, DAC and display devices. Reckon you could mass produce them for less than a Bourns pot and get 14-bits or better.

Isn't that pretty much what they did with the T-12 OLED controller and the DPS-xx-xx series CC/CV power supply modules? 

Where the value in such a thing would come would be in the form of an easily-understood setup script that permits an editable definition on the screen, editable voltage range, and editable scale for the output. Maybe have a % of full-scale bar graph simultaneously.  One of the bi-color OLED displays would be ideal.

mnem
*Software-deficient*

[Cerebus]

Some of the old Philips 'scopes have encoders with an LCD next to them for things like timebase or vertical sensitivity. I always rather liked that.

The difficulty with a pre-built control with encoder and display in one would be finding a form factor that didn't need a custom front panel punch to make a cutout for it.

Found a picture:

[mnementh]

AAAARRRGGH!!!



I just realized... now that I have some coffee in me... that I don't have a workbench for the next 2 days.   

mnem
D'OH!!!

[mnementh]

    Some of the old Philips 'scopes have encoders with an LCD next to them for things like timebase or vertical sensitivity. I always rather liked that.

The difficulty with a pre-built control with encoder and display in one would be finding a form factor that didn't need a custom front panel punch to make a cutout for it.

Not difficult at all. Just make it so the encoder is separate from the display module with a short pigtail. Then the display module can be used in an existing panel or built into a standard-size bezel like all the panel meters on fleaBay.  Could actually cover pretty much every contingency with that version and another version with the encoder built into the bezel; maybe make the bezel symmetrical so the encoder can be on the left or right side, or sell the module and separate bezels for common layouts like left, right, over or under the display.

Other options could be the encoder and voltage reference in one unit, and the display/driver in a separate module so the device could be really flexible. The display could be a universal meter module, the encoder a programmable scalar voltage reference.

We already do something similar to this for flight controllers used with FPV quads; we have HUD with battery V/A draw/mAH consumed among other variables superimposed on the FPV video stream. All is done with simple shunts & voltage dividers.

mnem
*fulminating at the mind*

[bd139]

Depends on how you use them as well. When you’re band scanning with them they get whipped hard into the end stops quite regularly. Especially from those of us who switch back and forth between them and continuous rotation encoders.

I wonder if there’s a market for one piece optical encoder, DAC and display devices. Reckon you could mass produce them for less than a Bourns pot and get 14-bits or better.

Isn't that pretty much what they did with the T-12 OLED controller and the DPS-xx-xx series CC/CV power supply modules? 

Where the value in such a thing would come would be in the form of an easily-understood setup script that permits an editable definition on the screen, editable voltage range, and editable scale for the output. Maybe have a % of full-scale bar graph simultaneously.  One of the bi-color OLED displays would be ideal.

Good point.  Not sure I trust OLED to last very long. That is a proper power supply you have there. Could do with something like that here

Exactly what I was thinking with the editable parameters. It'd have a programming port you could load min, max, fast, slow steps and units unto it before installing it. Give it an 8 character LCD module and sorted. Available in SPI or analogue format

AAAARRRGGH!!!



I just realized... now that I have some coffee in me... that I don't have a workbench for the next 2 days.   

This is my biggest fear of 3d printing. Then it fucking up the last 10 minutes of the print 

Some of the old Philips 'scopes have encoders with an LCD next to them for things like timebase or vertical sensitivity. I always rather liked that.

The difficulty with a pre-built control with encoder and display in one would be finding a form factor that didn't need a custom front panel punch to make a cutout for it.

Found a picture:

That's almost what I was thinking. Actually from that manufacturer. The PM3295 has modularised display units which is what was in my head: