Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

On the flip side, doing the sensory deprivation "dead-man float" is one of my favorite meditation experiences. 

The "dwowned dwagon" surely?

*snerk*

No, I said the FLIP side so I can keep my snout above water.   Tits upward, not tits up.   

Not much to show for the "purchase" today in real terms but sort of satisfying from the TEA viewpoint
Down the rabbit hole of volt-nuttery I go   

*waves bye-bye* 

mnem
I have plenty of crazy already, thanks. 

A dwagon whose fire has been doused ceases to be a dwagon, just a rather large reptile then

[GreyWoolfe]

Yeah.... you'll probably be better with just a huge regular tub; one of the ones with relatively low sides for easy in/out. I've seen a few really nice setups with a sunken tub; you just sit on the floor and there's a ladder attached to the wall to help you pull yourself vertical. Not sure she could do that with her arthritis, though.
mnem
“On a scale of 1 to 'Stepping on a Lego’; how much pain are you in?”

We actually have a fairly deep but short soaker tub.  She is 5'3" so the tub is a truly immersive experience for her.  Besides the arthritis, she has back issues that the Dr believes may be part of her foot pain, they are exploring treatment avenues.  She gets in the tub fine, sometimes she needs some help getting out.  Unfortunately, she has a fair level of pain all the time but there are times that her feet hurt so bad, it is past stepping on a Lego, it's stepping on a bag full of loose legos with punji sticks sticking out of them.

[mnementh]

On the flip side, doing the sensory deprivation "dead-man float" is one of my favorite meditation experiences. 

The "dwowned dwagon" surely?

*snerk*  No, I said the FLIP side so I can keep my snout above water.   Tits upward, not tits up.   

mnem
I have plenty of crazy already, thanks. 

A dwagon whose fire has been doused ceases to be a dwagon, just a rather large reptile then

We call that state "married with children". 

mnem
*Toddles off in search of some iron for his fire*

[mnementh]

Yeah.... you'll probably be better with just a huge regular tub; one of the ones with relatively low sides for easy in/out. I've seen a few really nice setups with a sunken tub; you just sit on the floor and there's a ladder attached to the wall to help you pull yourself vertical. Not sure she could do that with her arthritis, though.
mnem
“On a scale of 1 to 'Stepping on a Lego’; how much pain are you in?”

We actually have a fairly deep but short soaker tub.  She is 5'3" so the tub is a truly immersive experience for her.  Besides the arthritis, she has back issues that the Dr believes may be part of her foot pain, they are exploring treatment avenues.  She gets in the tub fine, sometimes she needs some help getting out.  Unfortunately, she has a fair level of pain all the time but there are times that her feet hurt so bad, it is past stepping on a Lego, it's stepping on a bag full of loose legos with punji sticks sticking out of them.

*cringes*

I had bone spurs in both heels and one arch caused by a growth spurt as a juvenile; the accompanying tendonitis was pure unadulterated evil. I lived on Motrin and Tylenol for almost a year; took up a PT regimen revolving around bicycling for exercise too, because walking more than a few minutes at a time was excruciating but the different pressure points made cycling not hurt at all. Eventually normal bone growth engulfed the spurs, but man... for the first couple months I was ready to go under the knife.

On the flip side, I got pretty trim... could bench 250 and leg press a ton. I remember getting stranded with my little VW Rabbit up on jackstands when the guy whose jack I borrowed went home without telling me... I leg-crunched the thing off onto the ground.

Of course, stupidity like that probably contributed to the lower back injury that had me bedridden for 6 months in my 30s... 

mnem
Remember when you were young and strong and 10 feet tall and bulletproof?

[med6753]

Today we have a meeting with my Mother's health care providers to determine her overall progress and potential release date. Should be an interesting meeting.

Tomorrow morning I head back to NY.

TEA related: I have purchased a pre-retirement gift to myself which will place me right at the cusp of the rabbit hole that Alice just fell into. And chances are I'll fall right in.  It will arrive next week at which time I will make the reveal. 

[Kosmic]

Not much to show for the "purchase" today in real terms but sort of satisfying from the TEA viewpoint
Down the rabbit hole of volt-nuttery I go   

Ho man ... I wish I was your neighbour! 

[mnementh]

Dude... you're drooling so hard, it's getting all over MY keyboard... cut it out!!!     

mnem
Fortunately I follow the advice of the HHGttG, and I ALWAYS know where my towel is.   

[Ice-Tea]

Going to put it here just in case: I have an HP8664A I scored at an auction that I can't realistically ship to the EU. Shipping to CA (boat anchor or not) would not be too terrible. I should be able to offer it pretty cheap. If anyone's up for it: shoot me a PM.

[tautech]

Yeah.... you'll probably be better with just a huge regular tub; one of the ones with relatively low sides for easy in/out. I've seen a few really nice setups with a sunken tub; you just sit on the floor and there's a ladder attached to the wall to help you pull yourself vertical. Not sure she could do that with her arthritis, though.
mnem
“On a scale of 1 to 'Stepping on a Lego’; how much pain are you in?”

We actually have a fairly deep but short soaker tub.  She is 5'3" so the tub is a truly immersive experience for her.  Besides the arthritis, she has back issues that the Dr believes may be part of her foot pain, they are exploring treatment avenues.  She gets in the tub fine, sometimes she needs some help getting out.  Unfortunately, she has a fair level of pain all the time but there are times that her feet hurt so bad, it is past stepping on a Lego, it's stepping on a bag full of loose legos with punji sticks sticking out of them.

*cringes*

I had bone spurs in both heels and one arch caused by a growth spurt as a juvenile; the accompanying tendonitis was pure unadulterated evil. I lived on Motrin and Tylenol for almost a year; took up a PT regimen revolving around bicycling for exercise too, because walking more than a few minutes at a time was excruciating but the different pressure points made cycling not hurt at all. Eventually normal bone growth engulfed the spurs, but man... for the first couple months I was ready to go under the knife.

On the flip side, I got pretty trim... could bench 250 and leg press a ton. I remember getting stranded with my little VW Rabbit up on jackstands when the guy whose jack I borrowed went home without telling me... I leg-crunched the thing off onto the ground.

Of course, stupidity like that probably contributed to the lower back injury that had me bedridden for 6 months in my 30s... 

mnem
Remember when you were young and strong and 10 feet tall and bulletproof?

Yeah dicky back here too. 
We were all once 'young dumb and full of cum !'

...................
Back on the pills.....or anything that helps.

[Kosmic]

Dude... you're drooling so hard, it's getting all over MY keyboard... cut it out!!!     

mnem
Fortunately I follow the advice of the HHGttG, and I ALWAYS know where my towel is.   

Of course I am! 

At some point I tried to buy a 18$ 34401a plastic bezel from Keysight. In the end it was too expensive for me 

[Cerebus]

For no good reason at all, a Schlock Mercenary themed All Hallows Eve pumpkin post:

[Specmaster]

That's very neat 

[bd139]

Indeed it is.

Well I spent the entire evening here fixing a software fecked ipad air. No TEA time for me today 

Edit: reading some glorious revk goodness though at the same time: https://www.revk.uk/2018/10/unicode-dicks.html

[Specmaster]

eBay strikes again, with sellers that overclaim and embroider the truth when writing descriptions. My 2nd TEAC CR-240 receiver arrived today, described as being in full working order apart from the volume sometimes adjusts itself. Ok, I thought, the photos look respectable, comes in its original box with manual and remote, so I went for it.

Arrived today, plugged it in and tried it out, volume seems to be OK, but the sound is awfully distorted, CD tray opens and promptly closes again, FM and AM work and DAB, nah its fecked.

Popped top off and looked at power supply, bulging and leaking caps abound, checked all connections, plugged in and switched on sound still distorted, cd and DAB still fecked, some major work there then. Contacted the seller and told him that the unit was NOT as described, told him what was wrong and promptly got the reply that it must have been damaged in transit as it all worked before, yeh like hell it did.

Explained that it was doubtful that it happened during transporting it as the cardbox and also the unit self has zero external damage done to it so it must have been like it before sending it. At the point I was fully expecting that I'd have to raise an official claim but the seller came back and asked me what I thought was a reasonable price to pay for it then, so I told him.

Many hours later I get a message asking for my paypal address and he agreed to my price and I promptly got a refund so I ended up paying just half the original price, so now I'm ordering up a load of capacitors ready to re-cap the power supply at least and now it seems that I'm again looking for DAB module to fit but this time I require 2 of them, the other for the Tuner unit I repaired   

Plugged headphones in and the sound is crystal clear so I reckon its down to those caps in the power supply as headphones don't draw as much current so the caps manage that till the blow wide open.

[Cerebus]

Edit: reading some glorious revk goodness though at the same time: https://www.revk.uk/2018/10/unicode-dicks.html

Why am I completely unsurprised that it was Adrian who brought this to the world's attention?

Although the forum software has been well behaved with UTF8 since the server move, it doesn't seem to cope with Unicode characters that high in the code table. I was going to post some hieroglyphs, but it broke. 

[Brumby]

If there was ever a place for this product, it would be here - so I thought I'd share this with you....



Seriously .... even the font for the ETi runs true to one of the variants that was used for the magazine.

[bd139]

Edit: reading some glorious revk goodness though at the same time: https://www.revk.uk/2018/10/unicode-dicks.html

Why am I completely unsurprised that it was Adrian who brought this to the world's attention?

Although the forum software has been well behaved with UTF8 since the server move, it doesn't seem to cope with Unicode characters that high in the code table. I was going to post some hieroglyphs, but it broke. 

Because he tackles the tasks that are always worth solving! 

It's PHP/MySQL isn't it which the unicode support is quite frankly comedic on. Or windows if you're using it as a client. Then again my current task is trying to work out how to go from a fucked up legacy codepage SQL Server database to postgresql utf8. Ugh kill me. Money is worth it though.

Plugged headphones in and the sound is crystal clear so I reckon its down to those caps in the power supply as headphones don't draw as much current so the caps manage that till the blow wide open.

Think you're on to a winner there. Can't moan at that!

Not going well here:

1. No time to look at that 475A today. Boo hiss.
2. Yodel stole my new shoes and I'm having to charge back them because the supplier doesn't understand my rights.
3. That Fluke 87IV guy hasn't even responded to my claim against him yet.
4. Shutl (ebay post wankers) charged me twice for my invoice this month.
5. UV box arrived and it was photographed carefully not to show the rusty as feck bits. It works though and has clearly done some time so I'm not complaining.
6. Halloween. I hate halloween. I only want people knocking on my door if it's to deliver stuff or the Jehovas witnesses (I like winding them up). My youngest went out with SWMBO. Other two had the right idea and stayed at home with their earphones in shitposting memes on the internet.

If there was ever a place for this product, it would be here - so I thought I'd share this with you....



Seriously .... even the font for the ETi runs true to one of the variants that was used for the magazine.

That's pretty cool. I used to buy ETI here. Mainly for the free PCBs to make FM bugs 

[bd139]

Random and definitely TEA related post.

Slightly depressed looking at my recent list of failures so LTspice time. LTspice playing always makes me happy.

So for the scope collectors, it's a little boring when the scope isn't doing anything and we can't all afford one signal generator per scope.

Ergo scope bouncy ball thing:



circuit (no those wont be LT1097's - I can't afford that many. Probably whatever I've got around that doesn't latch up):



I might build this tomorrow and see if it actually works or not in real life. Will dredge my supplies for some low bias opamps. 741/324s might cut it. Might not. 324 would be nice as I have bazillions of them.

Should be able to make it run off a couple of 9v batteries.

[mnementh]

eBay strikes again, with sellers that overclaim and embroider the truth when writing descriptions. My 2nd TEAC CR-240 receiver arrived today, described as being in full working order apart from the volume sometimes adjusts itself. Ok, I thought, the photos look respectable, comes in its original box with manual and remote, so I went for it.

Arrived today, plugged it in and tried it out, volume seems to be OK, but the sound is awfully distorted, CD tray opens and promptly closes again, FM and AM work and DAB, nah its fecked.

Popped top off and looked at power supply, bulging and leaking caps abound, checked all connections, plugged in and switched on sound still distorted, cd and DAB still fecked, some major work there then. Contacted the seller and told him that the unit was NOT as described, told him what was wrong and promptly got the reply that it must have been damaged in transit as it all worked before, yeh like hell it did.

Explained that it was doubtful that it happened during transporting it as the cardbox and also the unit self has zero external damage done to it so it must have been like it before sending it. At the point I was fully expecting that I'd have to raise an official claim but the seller came back and asked me what I thought was a reasonable price to pay for it then, so I told him.

Many hours later I get a message asking for my paypal address and he agreed to my price and I promptly got a refund so I ended up paying just half the original price, so now I'm ordering up a load of capacitors ready to re-cap the power supply at least and now it seems that I'm again looking for DAB module to fit but this time I require 2 of them, the other for the Tuner unit I repaired   

Plugged headphones in and the sound is crystal clear so I reckon its down to those caps in the power supply as headphones don't draw as much current so the caps manage that till the blow wide open.

Nahhh... they usually run the finals on those bookshelf units BTL, so the headphones, having common GND, are tapped off the preamp. Sometimes driven off their own LM4558 or somesuch.



Any chance of hacking a generic module like this in those dead tuners?

In Other News...



I survived another Parade of Greed Day with my son; he went as Beach Bum Thanos (I actually have no idea why he's in shorts and sneakers)  and I went as The First Jedi. Hey, you wander around the galaxy for 75 million years fighting the dark side, you'll pack on a few pounds too. 

Baby grrl was an adorable little witch, and she filled her pumpkin basket to overflowing... we had to grab it away to make sure there was nothing peanut in it. Boi filled that shopping bag 3/4 full.   

Hope you and yours managed to hit a good party or three,

mnem
"THOOOOM!!!"  is the sound I want on my doorbell.

[Brumby]

"THOOOOM!!!"  is the sound I want on my doorbell.

I've always imagined a nice healthy "BZZZZAATTTT!!!" supported by a ground rumbling subwoofer.  You know - the sort of music you get when an 11KV feeder out in the street finds a current path that was not intended.  For bonus points, I would have half a dozen scream clips that would get cycled for each button press.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Well penis fingers strikes again. I have just blown the fucking power supply up 

Dropped a probe on it. Large bang! Think it may have just cost me a new bridge rectifier or two 

Sad news. 
The lesson here is not to work on low impedance circuits late in the day !

The Lab deserted.
Ka-Zap! No witness for
The death of a probe.

[Neomys Sapiens]

My latest cockup was when working on a solartron 7075 7.25 digit DVM. I wanted to use my Solartron 7081 8.25 digit DMM to measure the stability of the 7075's reference.

No problems - except that I left the cable connected to the 7075's  input, thus shorting out the reference. Swear words were emitted.

.......

You should be more careful. Are you aware that the remainder of Schlumberger is into seismic exploration? They have those large vibrating trucks....
Your plumbing is good?

[Neomys Sapiens]

No need for Halloween here - I get my daily creeps at work.
How can ONE company have SO MANY cadavers in the closets?
They are stuffed like the ossuary in Verdun.

I have never seen the device before. All business units try to weasel out of it's ownership.
The CTO drops it at my feet and orders me to assure it's continued wellbeing, because, well, YOU ARE HWDev now!

Customers bring hidden penetration tester to the FAT.

Oh, and there is a SWDev hidden into this job, because 100 software experts can't be bothered to touch a PIC and plain C.

I should RUN to my office on arrival, slam the door and immediately clip the test lead from the HV to the doorknob. But all quiet on the TEA front because of CROFT (Critical Recurring Obsession with Fine Tools)
and CACA (Compulsive Aquisition of Coaxial adaptors)
Got my Wiha/Bernstein System4 Kits stuffed to the brim (Nutdrivers down to 1.5mm, Torx to T1) with Spares for the standards, Degussit files, QMA adaptors/terminators/cables, a super rare Belzer stubby bit handle (NON-magnetic) and some positioners (the very affordable ones, from Daniels, you know?)

And sometimes it is even fortunate having to read up a few pages here. So I was not prematurely congratulating bd139 on that super-easy Tek repair.

On the topic of gliders: any time I see one the image of a pulsejet strapped to the back of it comes to my mind.

[Specmaster]

Well penis fingers strikes again. I have just blown the fucking power supply up 

Dropped a probe on it. Large bang! Think it may have just cost me a new bridge rectifier or two 

Sad news. 
The lesson here is not to work on low impedance circuits late in the day !

The Lab deserted.
Ka-Zap! No witness for
The death of a probe.

Haha, this one has risen from the dead and lives on....... The truth is out there..... 

[bd139]

Fortunately just the fuse although I’m surprised.

WRT and skeletons this is why I do contract work. It’s easier to shuffle away quickly from a horror show.