Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[djos]

Absolutely fine as long as you don’t drain them flat in situ and don’t buy Duracell’s (I use GP). Looking at my rapid order history I’ve bought well over 1000 GP AA’s in the last three years and not had a single leak.

100% of the destruction I see is stuff that has been left for months in low drain (soft power switches), Duracell’s and stuff that has been sitting there for years and the batteries out out of date.

Duracell’s are fine in medium to high drain devices, but I've now had too many of them leak in lower power long life scenarios to trust them - they've really gone down the shitter in recent years.

[mnementh]

2 years is pretty good for a lipo in regular use. I get rid of anything within 18 months before it becomes a liability.

As long the safety protocol handles there being a sudden unexpected rocket engine added to the flight controller PID loop...

I have LiPos that are several years old. Still fine for planks.

PID controllers are so last decade.  Quaternion math is the new wonderful; "One angle to rule them all, and in the darkness, bind them."

In Other News...



My $20 order from Radidio Shack arrived today. Pretty quick for free shipping.

mnem
I feel... juicy.

[neo]

I guess also there is no big demands now, especially for the new generation that grew up starting with crappy game controller's buttons up to current touch screen which basically their finger sensitivity can not be compared to older generations that used to type on mechanical type writer which have such a wide dynamic range of sensitivities.

Anyone remember how it feel like by soft touch at the left shift button to disengage the capslock latch and can feel the faint soft click ? While at the same time the whole 10 fingers capable of sensing and pushing hard enough to get the consistent darkness when the ink was drying up at the ribbon. Youngster these days will never get this, its like they have 10 dumb n numb rods at their palm. 

Put that fist away, grandpa. Mechanical keyboards are sold in bigger numbers than they ever have been and youngsters are a big part of that. We should rejoice that we have both $10 and quality keyboards.

I'm somewhat young and i have a typewriter. Love that thing, matter of fact i got two.

Completely unrelated to typewriters, page 665 neighbor of the beast! 

[Specmaster]

@mnementh, and not a 9v among them? Were all awaiting your thoughts and findings on this much awaited DE-5000, beginning to wonder if it's not quite as good as first thought, what's the delay, dead batteries or what?

[mnementh]

Working on it; been busy all day with me and my son being sick. Truth is, it does a lot more than I expected; I'm still learning how to use it.

Right now I have to go put my car back together.

Ciao,

mnem
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

[bitseeker]

It can happen. I did have a 9V battery leak and ruin a Fluke 77. I don't recall the brand of battery but it had to be either Duracell or Energizer.

Yup. I almost had a 9V leak inside a device. Instead, it blew out the bottom of the battery by several millimeters. Fortunately, the device's enclosure was wide enough to accommodate the increased length.

[bitseeker]

That battery is supposed to be flat and only 3mm thick instead of the bulging 14mm item shown here. I don't like to think what might have happened if I hadn't spotted it and removed it both from power and from the the tablet.

Phew that bugger was reall close to letting fly with horrible consequences. What drew your attention to them in the first place, where they distorting the tablet?

My laptop LiPo pack did the same, but I caught it a bit earlier. I noticed that the corners of the screen no longer made contact with the palm rest when closed and opened up the body to investigate. The battery was warping the keyboard, hence causing the screen not to sit flush anymore. The pack still worked fine and had more than 90% of its original capacity.

At least it didn't leak, pop, or worse.

[Cubdriver]

It can happen. I did have a 9V battery leak and ruin a Fluke 77. I don't recall the brand of battery but it had to be either Duracell or Energizer.

I'd put my money on Corrodacell err, I mean 'Duracell'.  They've REALLY gone to shit over the past fifteen-twenty years now.  They USED to be very good, but not any more.  I've seen them leak unused, still in the package and well before their 'best by' dates.

-Pat

[mnementh]

This Pleases Me on a Visceral Level...



As much as it pleases me to have a charger full of nice shiny new high-capacity AA & AAA cells; it pleases me even more to toss several years' accumulation of "barely usable" rechargeables with 30-50% capacity in a baggie to recycle.    

Also, Franken-Cruiser's AC now blows ice cubes... so even with being sick, a much better day than yesterday. 

Working on some of the other DE-5000 pics now. I should have a few up tonight before I lose all reason to Hypnos' embrace.

mnem
*koff-wheeze*

[Cerebus]

It can happen. I did have a 9V battery leak and ruin a Fluke 77. I don't recall the brand of battery but it had to be either Duracell or Energizer.

I'd put my money on Corrodacell err, I mean 'Duracell'.  They've REALLY gone to shit over the past fifteen-twenty years now.  They USED to be very good, but not any more.  I've seen them leak unused, still in the package and well before their 'best by' dates.

-Pat

Alternatively, they've been very heavily counterfeited recently and you're just not getting the genuine product you were 15 to 20 years ago. The counterfeits are very good appearance wise and there are a lot of them out there; seizures have been in numbers as big as a million batteries in a single seizure.

When I've bought Duracells I've always bought the industrial/professional versions - they are sold in bulk only, so are cheaper and I suspect don't attract counterfeiters the way the consumer products do. I've found the industrial versions to be just as good now as they always were. But, like bd139, I prefer Gold Peak if I can get them when I want them.

[Cerebus]

When I've bought Duracells I've always bought the industrial/professional versions - they are sold in bulk only, so are cheaper and I suspect don't attract counterfeiters the way the consumer products do.

Quoting myself - I know bad form but I realized I'd missed a point.  Duracell changed the branding of their professional range from Procell to Industrial fairly recently. I don't know if this was a pure marketing move - the marketers do seem to like dumping well established, well recognized brand names for new ones just for the sake of it - or whether it was to cut short an encroachment of counterfeiting into the Procell line.

[mnementh]

$88 DE-5000: First Impressions

      

I know I've posted the first one before; it shows the battery bay and nice bronze threaded inserts for the battery door screws, and the little foam cover over the IR comms window. This design is IR OUT only; there is no provision in the hardware for control input via IR even though there are two windows which would suggest otherwise. Pretty sure any generic IR-Serial adapter used for remote control, etc can read the output; later I'll see what shows up on my 'scope with my little IR decoder module.

Having looked over MacBoy's teardown comparison, I don't have much to add as far as the tech side. Inside it is still the LCR VER:8, and has all the same omitted decoupling caps and clamping diodes as shown in his post from 2014. The only difference I see now is that as has been asked, YES the RPP diode has also been omitted / moved to C10 location. It does appear there is a rudimentary polarized battery bay, but it is very obvious the design does NOT prevent contact if the battery is inserted backwards.    Already have a 10A schottkey couple switching diodes to drop in there. I wonder if the diode was omitted due to mikropure's experience with one that came pre-shorted... 

I've found that it draws 12-15mA during testing without the BL on; 10.1mA idling, and with BL on those numbers jump to 15.3mA idling / 21.4ma max during testing. I could get pretty fair life even out of a carbon-zinc battery if I didn't use the BL; with BL that would probably be on the low side of acceptable life. On the other hand, I can usually get them at the dollar store...

There is oodles of wasted space; as you can see, more than enough to stash a couple 18650s inside the unit. I'm probably going to look into building some 18650 cells in and increasing the BL brightness; it's pretty close to worthless driven at 5mA. More just so they can say it has one than to actually serve as proper illumination.

Aside from these already known caveats, construction appears overall pretty good quality; much better than I'd expect for the price.

I have a number of other pics I intend to show as well, plus some testing.

L8ers, I'm vapor.

mnem
*This space For Rent*

[Cubdriver]

It can happen. I did have a 9V battery leak and ruin a Fluke 77. I don't recall the brand of battery but it had to be either Duracell or Energizer.

I'd put my money on Corrodacell err, I mean 'Duracell'.  They've REALLY gone to shit over the past fifteen-twenty years now.  They USED to be very good, but not any more.  I've seen them leak unused, still in the package and well before their 'best by' dates.

-Pat

Alternatively, they've been very heavily counterfeited recently and you're just not getting the genuine product you were 15 to 20 years ago. The counterfeits are very good appearance wise and there are a lot of them out there; seizures have been in numbers as big as a million batteries in a single seizure.

When I've bought Duracells I've always bought the industrial/professional versions - they are sold in bulk only, so are cheaper and I suspect don't attract counterfeiters the way the consumer products do. I've found the industrial versions to be just as good now as they always were. But, like bd139, I prefer Gold Peak if I can get them when I want them.

That may be the case, but if so they're getting into the supply chain to major retailers such as Home Depot and Lowes.

-Pat

[BravoV]

As you opened it up .. just fyi regarding LCR using Cyrustek ES51919 and ES51920 chip set on checking the vref or calibration adjustment if needed.

Quote ...

For those who would like to perform unit calibration, here is the information and it is also works on Mastech MS5308, UNI-UT612 or whatever using Cyrustek ES51919 and ES51920 chip set.

For DE-5000, adjust DC 500mV between TP1 and TP2.

For others, adjust DC 500mV between pin 26 and pin 28 on ES52920.

Source -> Voltage reference adjustment

[Mr. Scram]

It bothers me to see how they shave a few cents on parts that would actually help things. I know it's common, but come on.

[Cerebus]

That may be the case, but if so they're getting into the supply chain to major retailers such as Home Depot and Lowes.

-Pat

Modern supply chains can get quite convoluted and often aren't as clean as we'd all like. If major consumer electronics companies can get fake ICs dropping through their doors, despite taking pains to avoid it, then I don't hold too much hope up for the Homeless Despot.

[Cerebus]

It bothers me to see how they shave a few cents on parts that would actually help things. I know it's common, but come on.

Yeah, but it's the old "He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" line isn't it? I always go down the route of always adding the little things, reverse protection, perhaps a pair or resistors in series somewhere where a 'fail short' would end the equipment's life, etc.

I never do see the sense of scrimping to reduce yourself to producing another "just adequate" product. I like to be thought of as solid, reliable, witty, handsome, debonair, not "just adequate". Who wants themselves or their work to be "just adequate".

[bitseeker]

There is oodles of wasted space; as you can see, more than enough to stash a couple 18650s inside the unit. I'm probably going to look into building some 18650 cells in and increasing the BL brightness; it's pretty close to worthless driven at 5mA. More just so they can say it has one than to actually serve as proper illumination.

Very interesting!

[bd139]

Has anyone actually tried measuring very low capacitance and inductance on these yet? I’m interested to see if you can zero off a fixture and then measure 200nH - 3uH effectively.

[bitseeker]

I recall that for very small capacitance, you need to zero the tweezers so that they're positioned with a gap that's the same size as the component that you'll be measuring. Otherwise, you'll get an offset. Not sure what the best practice is for small inductance.

[Mr. Scram]

Has anyone actually tried measuring very low capacitance and inductance on these yet? I’m interested to see if you can zero off a fixture and then measure 200nH - 3uH effectively.

There was a thread on single pF measurements.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/de-5000-lcr-meter-measurement-accuracy-of-small-capacitors/

[bd139]

Excellent thanks for that.

WRT measurements I’d probably make my own rigid static fixture and zero that while open each measurement. Tweezers are no good for low pF. Inductance you usually short the fixture and then zero it.

[tautech]

Has anyone actually tried measuring very low capacitance and inductance on these yet? I’m interested to see if you can zero off a fixture and then measure 200nH - 3uH effectively.

Also, I EFFING LOVE SMD.

How much ?
Really how much ? ?

If you're to properly embrace it you need SMD Smart Tweezers.............yes they can measure to 1nH too !
pF's, no problem. 

The set I bought 10+ years ago ceased the need to purchase a poultice of other equipment and I use them on everything. At the time the $ $ hurt but I've long since learnt good tools cost !

[Cerebus]

Waiting...

...for someone to beat me to the first post on page 666, and they didn't!

[Cerebus]

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath
understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a page;
and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.