Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

So, today I decided to give my wife a Unicorn wearing earmuffs.

One of my friends has sufficiently bad taste that he makes "pony probes" that look like that unicorn.  FFI, if you must, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/anachrocomputer/albums/72157701549708181

Not exactly a new idea... but amusing: https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/this-soldering-my-little-pony-can-put-the-hurt-on-you-1294355/

mnem
*tsssssst*

[mnementh]

I'm thinking about buying a Bosch EasyCut 12:      https://www.bosch-diy.com/gb/en/p/easycut-12-06033c9000-v40066

Here, this should help you decide.

mnem
*de-extradigitation*

[tautech]

I'm thinking about buying a Bosch EasyCut 12:



https://www.bosch-diy.com/gb/en/p/easycut-12-06033c9000-v40066

Perfect......for trimming toenails ! 

[tggzzz]

I still have an occasionally recurring dream where I come in to work to find I'd laid out a whole board in the wrong scale; somehow the project made it all the way thru the first run in board fab before they realized the boards were 2.54 times too large... and I'm not wearing pants.

I was on a project based around some prototype ICs. When it was first powered up, they smoked.

Eventually it was realised they were upside down. Since they were through hole components, the spare set was mounted on the other side of the board and they worked.

Cause? The pin out diagram was from the POV of the semiconductor fan, not the semiconductor users

[mnementh]

...Now how many Stanley 45's do I have, at least a couple and in their original boxes.  Plus a 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 and a few assorted rabbit, block and bullnose planes.

"Rabbet", "rabbet plane" not "rabbit". Rabbit planes are strictly for psychopaths.

mnem

[tautech]

Yeah mnem, we're all barking frothing nut cases here !

Do carry on ! 

[worsthorse]

If it were the amplifier pair directly East on bd's pic of the PCB above, I'd agree. But I see very little objective reason it couldn't have been moved North or South.

I suspect not wanting to move that part once the cramped location was discovered had a lot more to do with time constraints and the "advanced layout & design process" documented above (which I have worked with personally  ). A lot easier to warn the factory techs with an in-house memo than to spend time & man-hours relocating because it turned out to be a bit of a PITA to service.

mnem
*off in search of a better HDMI switch*

mebbe yes, mebbe no, though i was thinking more about the connector than that particular IC.  as for the IC location, it may just have been too expensive and time consuming to re-spin the board if they considered it an issue at all.  and for those that weren't around then, board layout was a very different animal than it is today.  when we were doing 16x18 inch eight layer boards with two traces between pads (1981ish), there were two board houses in the United States that could do the work (and weren't captive). these tek boards, though not as dense or complicated had, i imagine much more stringent characterization requirements.

for me it is fun to see the design choices that were made then. that's why i like the tek 184 so much even though i cant get the damn thing to run. it really pushed the edge for the time.


edit: wish i had watched the tektronix video before i posted... that was two generations before the boards i worked with. i haven't done a board "the tek way" since high school shop.  man, that brought back some memories, thanks for posting it. 

Yup... that was what I was talking about there.  I haven't worked on a board the Tek way since my first gig right out of tech school... they hired me BECAUSE I had training in the multiple cel overlay design process. They were a bit paranoid about having any digital version of anything they made stored anywhere.

I still have an occasionally recurring dream where I come in to work to find I'd laid out a whole board in the wrong scale; somehow the project made it all the way thru the first run in board fab before they realized the boards were 2.54 times too large... and I'm not wearing pants.

mnem
I am not my pants. No, I am not your pants either.

ohmygod this was one of my dreams, only not in metric. 

it made me laugh, as did all the unicorn stuff (what the hell is a bronie?) which is definitely helpful right now. 

[mnementh]

I am not and never will be a bronie 

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks, but "gentleman" is questionable in this context.

That reminds me of this, from back in the day... 

mnem

[worsthorse]

I just noticed this up top...



Some people might use this number to assert that we either (a) have too much time on our hands or (b) need to get out more.   

[bd139]

I am not and never will be a bronie 

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks, but "gentleman" is questionable in this context.

That reminds me of this, from back in the day... 

mnem

Hahaha. Ahhh 4chan. Properly fucked up hole that place. Every time I want to be reminded of how crap the human race is I spend 30 seconds on /pol/ 

[bd139]

I just noticed this up top...

(Attachment Link)

Some people might use this number to assert that we either (a) have too much time on our hands or (b) need to get out more.   

Both? I just went out. And am back now. And that's enough of that going out shit for a week. Back to ebay

[med6753]

I just noticed this up top...

(Attachment Link)

Some people might use this number to assert that we either (a) have too much time on our hands or (b) need to get out more.   

Both? I just went out. And am back now. And that's enough of that going out shit for a week. Back to ebay

Speaking of EvilBay. I gotta stay off it. This lonely and unloved Fluke 8600A was calling to me. And you know I'm a sucker for red LEDS (heads  ). I caved. Here it is.

Has a calibration seal of 1988. Since broken. Like deflowering a virgin.  And of course it's dead nuts after 32 years. It's a Fluke....but NO "fluke".  . And a peek-a-boo inside. Those caps in the upper right will be excised pronto. Going to let it burn-in all night.




 

[med6753]

And BTW....I will be on Discord again Saturday at 2100 hours UTC. I expect to see some British participation or else you'll be permanently branded as complete wankers. 

[bd139]

That's a pretty tidy 8600A. Looking good 

I actually miss mine now  . Back on page 77. August 2017! Bugger had a duff relay in it so I had to patch in a new one.



Got my eye on a suitable replacement bad boy at the moment though 

As for British participation on Saturday, I've got a shitty long day of childrens parties and washing so 50/50 

[med6753]

That's a pretty tidy 8600A. Looking good 

I actually miss mine now  . Back on page 77. August 2017! Bugger had a duff relay in it so I had to patch in a new one.



Got my eye on a suitable replacement bad boy at the moment though 

As for British participation on Saturday, I've got a shitty long day of childrens parties and washing so 50/50 

I replaced all the reed relays in my other 8600A because they developed contact resistance. So far this one looks good so I'll leave them alone and just replace the filter caps, check all cal, and be done with it.

Saturday...BE THERE. 

[Specmaster]

My Thurlby Capacitance meter arrived this evening, brought from a seller on eBay as "for parts or not working" and I won it for the opening bid of just £15 so, I was expecting to have to do some repair work on it which was a bit of a worry as both owners and service manuals for it seem to even rarer than hens teeth.

When I opened the box, I was impressed with the packing, as the unit measures just 23x21x7.5cms and weighs about 300gms and was in a box 50x50x25cms completely swamped by loads of nice new bubble wrap, so far so good.

No power pack was supplied with this (9V with a 2.5mm jack plug) but I have plenty knocking around somewhere that can be pressed into service. Next I did what Dave advocates, "Don't turn it ON, take it aparrrt."

Boy oh boy, it was spotless inside and looked totally mint in every way. It can even be battery operated, 6 C cells. Connected it up my bench supply and switched ON, it promptly sprung to life, so yet another TEA acquisition which needed nothing more than a careful exterior clean up, bugger.

Put some caps to the test and all it appears to do is measure the actual capacitance, just like multimeter does and I thought there has to be more to it than that because on the 200uF to 2,000uF range it warns of increased battery loading, so I scoped the output and discovered that on those two ranges it actually sweeps with frequencies from 50hz all the way up to 1.2Mhz looking for those bad capacitors at higher frequencies. Boy does it find them, took a removed 10uF Tant and tested it 10uF and it read as 10.7 uF on my others checkers with a low ESR. Putting it onto the higher settings and it showed up as  a duff one, popping it back to my testers and it is seen as a 18ohm resistor now, so it was fecking faulty all the time, bastard.  Tried the same test on a new one and it survived perfectly.

Here are the pics as promised when I first mentioned that I had won this tester.

Battery compartment is mint.


It has a zero adjustment which is only required on the lowest ranges


1000uF


470uF


680uF


And finally a 470pF 1% mica cap


So it seems I have yet another addition to my bench which will help to track down dodgy caps that get past other tests OK, winner winner, chicken dinner

[med6753]

That Thurlby is tits! 

[bd139]

That's a pretty damn good win that. Also the first Thurlby thing which has a battery compartment in it that has been mint that I've ever seen 

Last thing was a TM351 I got for £5



Ended up scrapped. Bottom of board was beyond fucked.

[WastelandTek]

I still have an occasionally recurring dream where I come in to work to find I'd laid out a whole board in the wrong scale; somehow the project made it all the way thru the first run in board fab before they realized the boards were 2.54 times too large... and I'm not wearing pants.

I was on a project based around some prototype ICs. When it was first powered up, they smoked.

Eventually it was realised they were upside down. Since they were through hole components, the spare set was mounted on the other side of the board and they worked.

Cause? The pin out diagram was from the POV of the semiconductor fan, not the semiconductor users

I think we've all done it

my most recent was a ribbon cable wrong way around

[Specmaster]

I just noticed this up top...

(Attachment Link)

Some people might use this number to assert that we either (a) have too much time on our hands or (b) need to get out more.   

Both? I just went out. And am back now. And that's enough of that going out shit for a week. Back to ebay

Speaking of EvilBay. I gotta stay off it. This lonely and unloved Fluke 8600A was calling to me. And you know I'm a sucker for red LEDS (heads  ). I caved. Here it is.

Has a calibration seal of 1988. Since broken. Like deflowering a virgin.  And of course it's dead nuts after 32 years. It's a Fluke....but NO "fluke".  . And a peek-a-boo inside. Those caps in the upper right will be excised pronto. Going to let it burn-in all night.




 

Yep, have to agree, all of my Flukes have been dead nuts as well, love em.

[Specmaster]

That's a pretty damn good win that. Also the first Thurlby thing which has a battery compartment in it that has been mint that I've ever seen 

Last thing was a TM351 I got for £5



Ended up scrapped. Bottom of board was beyond fucked.

That sure looks nasty, I was looking at one of them on evilbay but decide that it was going backwards and left it there. I'm loving my other Thurlby units, 7 of them now, 3 of which are TTi branded so I'm getting loads of good English products in my toolkit now which is nice to support home producers like this.

[tautech]

.............
Put some caps to the test and all it appears to do is measure the actual capacitance, just like multimeter does and I thought there has to be more to it than that because on the 200uF to 2,000uF range it warns of increased battery loading, so I scoped the output and discovered that on those two ranges it actually sweeps with frequencies from 50hz all the way up to 1.2Mhz looking for those bad capacitors at higher frequencies. Boy does it find them, took a removed 10uF Tant and tested it 10uF and it read as 10.7 uF on my others checkers with a low ESR. Putting it onto the higher settings and it showed up as  a duff one, popping it back to my testers and it is seen as a 18ohm resistor now, so it was fecking faulty all the time, bastard.  Tried the same test on a new one and it survived perfectly.

That is a really interesting bit of info and makes perfect sense as tants were often used for higher frequency filtering before the days of large value ceramics. Nice find. 

[med6753]

.............
Put some caps to the test and all it appears to do is measure the actual capacitance, just like multimeter does and I thought there has to be more to it than that because on the 200uF to 2,000uF range it warns of increased battery loading, so I scoped the output and discovered that on those two ranges it actually sweeps with frequencies from 50hz all the way up to 1.2Mhz looking for those bad capacitors at higher frequencies. Boy does it find them, took a removed 10uF Tant and tested it 10uF and it read as 10.7 uF on my others checkers with a low ESR. Putting it onto the higher settings and it showed up as  a duff one, popping it back to my testers and it is seen as a 18ohm resistor now, so it was fecking faulty all the time, bastard.  Tried the same test on a new one and it survived perfectly.

That is a really interesting bit of info and makes perfect sense as tants were often used for higher frequency filtering before the days of large value ceramics. Nice find. 

My experience with tants is I find bad ones the old fashion way....ohm meter.....shorted. 

Bastard tants. 

[Brumby]

(That's really where the word "tantrum" came from!)

[tautech]

I don't so much have a problem with tants if they're adequately derated and I'm sure Tek designers won't ever make those mistakes again. I've only ever found 1 shorted one and in a Aussie made BWD CRO where it pulled a 5V rail down and the scope wouldn't go. Pretty simple fix with an electrolytic bypassed with a ceramic then I sold the thing on when the TV tech that previously owned it couldn't fix it.