Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[neo]

Little bit of TEA news from me. With my server rack mounter 608C it always was missing the frequency knob, finally i tried to find a knob. HP orignal, 50 bucks  , chinese "industrial control switch rotary  knob" (trying to hit all the keywords me thinks) 5 bucks. I try the chinese option and it is ugly, worked though until it feel off due to lack of access to set screws. Just recently i ordered a shaft coupler and a brass shaft from china and just now i got them. I made a little adapter to turn a 3/8 shaft into a 1/4 inch shaft, or at least close enough to fractional inches with metric and with it i attached the spinner knob i got thrown in with the Joplin tube tester to it.

Works and looks so much better than the clunker of a knob i tried first.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Now where'd I put the remote to my suborbital crowbar launcher...

I keep mine next to the Widlarizer.

I had to stop doing that; I reached for the ol' thumb-detecting nut-fucker one time without looking and started mahhering away at a stuck optical drive... by the time I realized the hard "WhaM! WhaM! WhaM!" I expected was actually a dull "whudd! whudd! whudd!", I'd wasted half a magazine of crowbars somewhere in the Ukraine. 

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to reload that damn thing? 

mnem
"What doesn't kill you... makes me pissed off." ~ DM Mnementh, the Adventurer's Bane

The people of Charkov oblast say thanks for the gratuitous tool delivery. The more discerning people of Charkov oblast politely ask you to use Stanley next time, da?

[Brumby]

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of old meters, rising up through the air
....

... it's a work in progress.

That's dangerously close to Filk. Let me send you something to help. Just enter your GPS co-ordinates on this form https://suborbital-delivery.net/targetting.cgi.

I can say it felt a bit weird - and it certainly had all the markings to become a time sink.

Think I'll step away...

[orin]

I used to work in the public transport sector and honestly things were far better before deregulation, fares, more buses/trains, they were cleaner, better maintained, better time keepers more routes even in the country

I was visiting my sister in England the last couple of weeks and went down to London from Macclesfield by train (Prom concert in Hyde Park).  Quite a pleasant trip on the Virgin trains and much faster than BR used to be back in the 80s when I left... I was quite surprised it only took 1:45 and no sulking outside Euston before being let in!

 

[bitseeker]

Little bit of TEA news from me. With my server rack mounter 608C it always was missing the frequency knob, finally i tried to find a knob...

Works and looks so much better than the clunker of a knob i tried first.

Looks pretty good, neo. New, modern plastic just wouldn't work or look the same.

[neo]

Little bit of TEA news from me. With my server rack mounter 608C it always was missing the frequency knob, finally i tried to find a knob...

Works and looks so much better than the clunker of a knob i tried first.

Looks pretty good, neo. New, modern plastic just wouldn't work or look the same.

Thanks, you are definitely right on that. Even this isn't a complete match and is held off the chassis a little too far to be perfect it is as good as i can get short of the rare and expensive original.

[tkamiya]

THAT picture of HP608 brings back memories.....  That was the first RF generator I've owned in 80s.  A kind gentleman gave it to me so it will be used.

I don't remember the exact model.  Top frequency ended at 420Mhz.  A bit shy of 70cm Ham Radio band.

…… heads out to eBay.... 

[mnementh]

*Frantically rummaging around for a 9V battery*

Alternatively, you can rummage around for a compatible AC adapter.

Shut your dirty, dirty mouth!!! 

   

dammit... waited till after dinnertime for my wife to bring me a battery from work and... 

I gave up and robbed a battery from one of my other meters; it's late & I'm freaking exhausted so I'm just going to leave you with a little TEA pr0n...


mnem
*Toddles off to ded*

[tautech]

 

so I'm just going to leave you with a little TEA pr0n...


mnem
*Toddles off to ded*

Very tidy mnem. 
Nighty night !

[bitseeker]

Looks like your meters are ready to wrap it up for the day in their new bed. A happy ending.

[Specmaster]

Its looking good, still can't help thinking that there's a bit of red needed in that rack 

Hmmm...batten down hatches and wait a while before reappearing   

[med6753]

More tantalum exorcism on the Tek 465B. This time the Trigger board. So now almost all the 15uf “blue bombs” are changed except for 1 or 2 on the Interface board.  For now they have a reprieve.

And the most important one. The notorious 47uf on the primary side of the HV transformer. Don't have to worry about that one any more. 

[bd139]

Good good. Nice job. Now take them outside with a hammer and teach them a lesson 

[Wolfgang]

... or insert them in a vise and sqeeze them slowly.
But seriously : These crappy tantalum caps have probably caused more damage to otherwise perfect equipment than electrolytics. Avoid them wherever you can !

[bd139]

Not sure about that one. The capacitor spooge in that D83 managed to entirely destroy a whole chunk of the power supply. Totally BER.

Modern tants are quite good. The AVX TAJ ones are virtually impossible to set fire to. I have considered using those as a replacement for the TH ones as they fit the pads nicely and I got some reels of them for bugger all on ebay (less than £3 a go - £500 a roll on RS!)

[SeanB]

Wasn’t it SAPO that said that “99% of packages delivered” which only accounts to a few tens of millions missing?

My motto for them is
"We Deliver, Whatever We don't take".

Actually during the hiring process there there is no actual test or actual specification that, to work there, you actually have to be able to read, at least more than how to recognize your own name.

[Cerebus]

Wasn’t it SAPO that said that “99% of packages delivered” which only accounts to a few tens of millions missing?

My motto for them is
"We Deliver, Whatever We don't take".

Actually during the hiring process there there is no actual test or actual specification that, to work there, you actually have to be able to read, at least more than how to recognize your own name.

SAPO sounds like one of those African insurgent militias that were always in the background of the news in the 1960s - SWAPO, FNLA, ELF, UNITA et al. To someone who was waiting for a parcel I suspect that it still sounds like one of those militias - "My package was taken captive by SAPO, my only hope of seeing it again is a surgical commando strike."

[Wolfgang]

I meant the ones in the picture. I know that its not so much of a problem nowadays.

[mnementh]

You know, when they put those things in there they were "the new wonderful"; capacity of an electrolytic in the space of a epoxy ceramic, crazy high ripple tolerance/low ESR, and AT THE TIME they expected them to be just as stable as ceramics.    It isn't their fault the projections were SO wrong.

Hating them for being what they are isn't a healthy way of looking at anything.

mnem
I used to be new and wonderful... *Sigh* wonder how folks will hate me for being old and busted when I'm old.... and busted....

[Specmaster]

In the same way that they hate tants now.

[bd139]

TBH they're pretty good still. Most of the problems we see are in devices way past their expected lifespan.

Edit: btw powerpoles rock. I've installed them on nearly everything now.

[Wolfgang]

I cannot help liking old equipment that has been made without planned obsolescence in mind more than new gadgets that will hardly survive the guarantee period.

[bd139]

Shame it cost 20x what it does now though!

[mnementh]

In the same way that they hate tants now.

https://youtu.be/rd3QQYqFtS4

Why do you keep saying "tants" so much?!? 

TBH they're pretty good still. Most of the problems we see are in devices way past their expected lifespan.

Edit: btw powerpoles rock. I've installed them on nearly everything now.

You only think that because you haven't used XT60s. The way you feel right now? You'll feel that way again when you upgrade to XT60s/XT90s. Word.

I cannot help liking old equipment that has been made without planned obsolescence in mind more than new gadgets that will hardly survive the guarantee period.

...or outlive the ez financing... 

I believe we need to declare war on 9V batteries; let them die like those stupid 15V 411/208 cells. No, actually, we need to kill them OFF. I tried to buy one for my DE-5000, and all I could find at Squalid-Mart was a 4-pack for $14-effing dollars. 

mnem
"Squalid-Mart: Help spread the squalor around."

[Specmaster]

I believe we need to declare war on 9V batteries; let them die like those stupid 15V 411/208 cells. No, actually, we need to kill them OFF. I tried to buy one for my DE-5000, and all I could find at Squalid-Mart was a 4-pack for $14-effing dollars. 

mnem
"Squalid-Mart: Help spread the squalor around."

I was beginning to wonder why we had not seen anything about your DE-5000, no fecking power man. You can't ban 9v batteries, how the feck will I power up my Fluke 27's and my 2 chinese component testers etc NNNNoooooooooooooooooooo