Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

Yep, I thought Dave said $10 should do it.. You'll go to the wall for that $4 over spend[emoji16]

I went for a couple of extras: A 1m flexible coax with fittings and a SMC to BNC adapter.  That's what bumped the spend up.

[Brumby]

@Brumby about time 

... said one of the enablers.

[beanflying]

@Brumby about time 

... said one of the enablers.

It was only a gentle prod you were already over the point of no return by reading this thread

[Brumby]

Indeed, you only gave me a prod ... but there was another.  Another who gave me the taste.

However, it must be understood that, due to the dearth of suitable sources of gear in Australia, this might be a temporary state in which I find myself.


My wallet whimpered at this hope.

[beanflying]

Freight is a necessary evil for us unfortunately unless you get very lucky in Oz. Quick guesstimate 75% of my TEA is ex USA cheap until you load in the freight

[bd139]

I think if I lived out in your part of the world I’d just build stuff

[Specmaster]

I have had a bit of a look at the option of doing Calibration and $50-200k would get you going if you want to do it properly The old individual bits even kept in careful calibrated condition will be painfully slow compared to the semi automated options used in a modern Lab so you would be at a major disadvantage.

Offering to conduct traceable measurement and data logging is potentially a different matter and is worth further investigation (at least I think it is).

@Brumby about time 

Does that also cover the cost of getting certification?

[beanflying]

I think if I lived out in your part of the world I’d just build stuff

We used to once. 

Made in Melbourne only $300 AU pesos to play eBay auction: #263889125989

[bd139]

Cor that's an oldie. Crows foot too.

You had BWD as well. Had a couple of theirs scopes floating around when when I did work experience at Cossor back in the dark ages.

[beanflying]

Does that also cover the cost of getting certification?

A lot of it is akin to setting up a QA company and as a one man band I suspect you would drown in the paperwork without good automation and a system before you turn the key. Having all of your gear Traceable and with known uncertainties backed up with Good sadistics is the start point for the working bits.

So other lower barrier options certainly initially seem to make sense.

[beanflying]

We get plenty of BWD but a lot of tossers load it up because made in Oz 

Only $200 for this relic eBay auction: #183635283789



Or only $500 for this one 

[Brumby]

Australia could open up TEA treatment spas.

Yup - the TEA scene here is full of nothing, with the occasional wildly overpriced tidbits.

[bd139]

Yeah I wouldn't pay that for either of them!

Got a few businesses rip off merchants here who crank up prices similarly. Bashed up 20 year old E3631 we didn't even bother to clean or check - £1000. New one is only £1157.

[Specmaster]

I think if I lived out in your part of the world I’d just build stuff

We used to once. 

Made in Melbourne only $300 AU pesos to play eBay auction: #263889125989

Now that is interesting because I used to have one of those that was called a Hartley 13A and supposed to be made by Hartley in Shrewsbury and was in fact made for the military with 4 thumping great transformers in it and the thing weighed in at 75lb (34kg) and also Erskine Laboratories also claimed that they made it in Scarborough so I suspect that one of them was the original manufacturer and the other made it under license.

I even had the full service manual for it as well.

Heres some info on it https://www.thevalvepage.com/testeq/hartley/13a/13a.htm

[med6753]

Looks like we are back. Did Dave forget to pay the electric bill? 

[gnavigator1007]

Looks like we are back. Did Dave forget to pay the electric bill? 

Certainly was weird not receiving a million email notifications for threads I follow. I spend way too much time lurking around here

[Specmaster]

Certainly been a very quiet day  , not to mention dull and boring 

[bd139]

nginx 502 = whatever was serving the site fell on its arse. Apart from nginx.

[tautech]

nginx 502 = whatever was serving the site fell on its arse. Apart from nginx.

Yeah ~9hrs was a big one.
We used to get more but shorter ones before Dave swapped servers to another provider.

[med6753]

I was busy all day. Gonna post up in a few minutes.

[Specmaster]

@mnem, you might want to ignore this one  That said, I suppose every once in a while everybody makes a rogue product, nonetheless an interesting review and as a matter of interest, only the KSGER one has a 5 pin system and also just happens not to have a grounded tip, but looking at the connection diagram, it should be grounded so that might explain some of the other findings on that unit. Both of my stations use the 4 pin system and have the same PSU as the other three in this review. A good review of the chinesium T12 soldering stations 

[bitseeker]

He spent about 45 mins playing with the HP Nixie DC units and found three good mainframes and one working DC Input units, so he was stoked.

Yep, he looks pretty happy alright. It's so great you were able to have a meet up. Is this the first one for TEA in the US?

I think some TEA folks in UK or AU/NZ have met before, yes?

I glad he liked playing with them and wanted to get them back to life.

That's what neo would do. Yes sirree!

[bitseeker]

Wow, so many injuries lately: backs, hands, and more (ahem). I just got a measly cold sore. No comparison to you guys. Hope y'all recover soon. It's like it's going around.

You forgot food poisoning with projectile vomiting WHILE fighting off a post-op infection topped off with a 3-day migraine for garnish.

Yes, too many maladies to remember. On to happier things, hopefully. Well, maybe after tax season is over. At least the daylight hours in the northern hemisphere are getting to be somewhat reasonable in length now.

[med6753]

Decided to check the compensation on the Tek 465B. Months ago after I completed all the repairs I basically just did some quick waveform checks and called it good. So today more extensive testing.

Channel 1 was OK. No adjustments needed. Channel 2 on the other hand was exhibiting noisy switch contacts again so I tore it down to clean it.

First pix is the attenuator cover removed and the attenuator blocks pulled off. I sprayed all the contacts with deoxit then worked the switch back and forth. Let it sit for a few minutes then hosed it down with 100% IPA to flush out the Deoxit. Then dry with a blow dryer.



Close up of the attenuator board with the blocks removed.



Reinstalled the attenuator blocks and fired it up. Surprisingly the compensation looked OK. And everything was going well until I started inputting high frequencies such as 1MHz. The deck went completely noisy again with what looked like poor contact. But when I went back down to 1KHz it was rock stable. After working on this for a while and thinking it through I've come to the conclusion that the transmission lines in this attenuator assembly are just plain worn out and is causing roll off or have been damaged somehow by high voltage. Seems replacement is the only solution. Unfortunately the 465 parts mule I have uses a different attenuator assembly. So until I find a replacement channel 2 on this scope essentially useless. Oh well, have plenty of alternative scopes and this guy will just be a 1 channel scope.

All was not lost though. I also calibrated the DM44. 

[0culus]

Man I had a TEA withdrawal due to the site downtime.