Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Wolfgang]

The best way to start a war between federal states in Germany is to make inappropriate remarks about the beer of the others and to forget the 

Yes, but at least you'll get your own kind of beer at your funeral.

Definitively. I'm old, so my beer does not have to be. To the worthy cause of fighting camel pee from wherever it comes ! Prost. 

[med6753]

I wonder if it's an early one with the nuvistors in the pre-amp or a later version with FET's in the pre-amp?

Guess I won't know unless I buy it....will I? 

Guess not.  We need to know.  Get to clicking!  Dark blue button to the right of the price.   

-Pat

Complete teardown and analysis will follow and it will answer that burning question.

Yes, I bought it. 

[mnementh]

Metrology is the corona of the TEA virus.

Seems, that my timing couldn't be any better¹:   https://www.ebay.com/itm/113744749751   GPS Time Disciplined Clock PLL-GPSDO      (will hopefully arrive Friday)

¹looking out for some soggy ol' boots from mnem's direction 

no.

mnem
 

Ah. Out of ol' soggy boots error

no. ornery ol' reptile error.
mnem
};=)~~~~<

[tautech]

I wonder if it's an early one with the nuvistors in the pre-amp or a later version with FET's in the pre-amp?

Guess I won't know unless I buy it....will I? 

Guess not.  We need to know.  Get to clicking!  Dark blue button to the right of the price.   

-Pat

Complete teardown and analysis will follow and it will answer that burning question.

Yes, I bought it. 

And what's so special about this particular Tek plugin Med ?
Give us the rundown please.

[Cubdriver]

I wonder if it's an early one with the nuvistors in the pre-amp or a later version with FET's in the pre-amp?

Guess I won't know unless I buy it....will I? 

Guess not.  We need to know.  Get to clicking!  Dark blue button to the right of the price.   

-Pat

Complete teardown and analysis will follow and it will answer that burning question.

Yes, I bought it. 

And what's so special about this particular Tek plugin Med ?
Give us the rundown please.

He doesn't have one.  Don't forget where you are here in the forum!   

-Pat

[mnementh]

It seems the folks at Keysight are interested in making some gear shirts.   https://twitter.com/DanielBogdanoff/status/1232065832357744640

I figured I'd chime in with some designs.      I mean, who doesn't want a 3458a shirt? 

FLUKE sez BAM!!!

mnem
 

[bd139]

Well I'd just like to say FUCK YOU to Samsung's shitty implementation of HDCP. Turns out my shiny new Apple TV 4K won't play any Netflix or Amazon Prime Video content. It works absolutely fine with the PC monitor but not a 5 YO Samsung. Grr. 

TV shopping time! And can you get a non Smart 4K TV? Time will tell.

Edit: now I discover HDMI splitters which stick themselves in the signal path and MITM the certificate.... rabbit hole gets deeper.

So options:

1. Buy a 4K smart TV
2. Find an HDMI splitter that reliably unfucks HDCP and hands it over to the dumb old bastard.

Why is this stuff always so fucking difficult?

[mnementh]

Your TV may ADVERTISE as HDR or Deep Color compliant to the Apple TV box, but not be capable of meeting that standard as the more modern hardware sees it. Try turning them off manually in settings. Also, just for kicks, try several different HDMI cables. You'll be surprised at which ones work and which ones don't work with 4K.

Finally, check to see which of your HDMI ports is ARC and/or CEC capable. My Roku has a shit-fit about HDCP compliance if I try to connect it to any port on my brand-new RCA TV that is NOT ARC-enabled. 

As for which 4K TVs aren't Smart-enabled... pretty much any of the loss-leader no-name 4K TVs will be such. About a year ago I bought a 43" 4K TV from Fry's for $240; it was not Smart-enabled.

mnem
But yeah; even if any of those fixes DOES work, SamSuck still sucks.

[bd139]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

[med6753]

I wonder if it's an early one with the nuvistors in the pre-amp or a later version with FET's in the pre-amp?

Guess I won't know unless I buy it....will I? 

Guess not.  We need to know.  Get to clicking!  Dark blue button to the right of the price.   

-Pat

Complete teardown and analysis will follow and it will answer that burning question.

Yes, I bought it. 

And what's so special about this particular Tek plugin Med ?
Give us the rundown please.

He doesn't have one.  Don't forget where you are here in the forum!   

-Pat

And....it is the first tek plug-in this bright eyed 18 year old used in the college electronics lab. (Was plugged into a 547).

Edit...it's already got a shipping label. Could arrive as early as Saturday but I doubt it. USPS select ground from Portland, Oregon. It would have to be some speedy truck. 

[tautech]

And....it is the first tek plug-in this bright eyed 18 year old used in the college electronics lab. (Was plugged into a 547).

Oh OK, nothing any more special than your first girlfriend then. 

[med6753]

And....it is the first tek plug-in this bright eyed 18 year old used in the college electronics lab. (Was plugged into a 547).

Oh OK, nothing any more special than your first girlfriend then. 

Yep, and it took my cherry. 

[bd139]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

Ok so I had a fuck this shit moment. If they want me to jump through all these little hoops to get content working and buy another television they can, to quote the Scottish: "get tae fuck". Returning the bastard box so they can shove it. Don't have to buy a TV then and get the cash back in my pocket. Not worth the hassle and money for a minor improvement on convenience.

As for the actual content I'm just gonna fucking steal it until they sort this shitball out.

[beanflying]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

Ok so I had a fuck this shit moment. If they want me to jump through all these little hoops to get content working and buy another television they can, to quote the Scottish: "get tae fuck". Returning the bastard box so they can shove it. Don't have to buy a TV then and get the cash back in my pocket. Not worth the hassle and money for a minor improvement on convenience.

As for the actual content I'm just gonna fucking steal it until they sort this shitball out.

You can call me a Luddite but what possible benefit can be had from a 'Smart TV' over strapping a small form factor PC to a Dumb one with a wireless keyboard? My old system was a Logitech K400+ and an Atom 32/2Gb this was starting to struggle thanks to Windoze 10 while it was built for 7

I replaced the box recently with a MITX Ryzen 2400G so plenty of poke under the bonnet now and can erven play Fusion 360 or some older Games

[Specmaster]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

Why can't you see the difference between 4K and 1080p? Have you actually got a 4K signal to feed the TV with? I have a 50" Samsung 4K smart TV and I can see the difference between 4K and 1080p with ease. The TV will also play Amazon and Netflix perfectly, but then I don't have Apple TV connected to it. I find it hard to tell the difference sometimes though between a Bluray and a HDDVD.

Just go and see a demo in the shop of a 4K v 1080P even on a 40" and the difference is night and day, I promise you, no need for thumping great 65" plus TV, that just marketing bullshit.

[Specmaster]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

Ok so I had a fuck this shit moment. If they want me to jump through all these little hoops to get content working and buy another television they can, to quote the Scottish: "get tae fuck". Returning the bastard box so they can shove it. Don't have to buy a TV then and get the cash back in my pocket. Not worth the hassle and money for a minor improvement on convenience.

As for the actual content I'm just gonna fucking steal it until they sort this shitball out.

You can call me a Luddite but what possible benefit can be had from a 'Smart TV' over strapping a small form factor PC to a Dumb one with a wireless keyboard? My old system was a Logitech K400+ and an Atom 32/2Gb this was starting to struggle thanks to Windoze 10 while it was built for 7

I replaced the box recently with a MITX Ryzen 2400G so plenty of poke under the bonnet now and can erven play Fusion 360 or some older Games

Well, believe it or not you actually get a far greater selection when you do a search on YouTube for example and don't seem to get half as many bloody adverts either.

[beanflying]

My Add blocker deals with YouTube and Evilbay easily for adds. So more content or selections how?

Currently paying for a month or two of Amazon Prime to see if it is worth it on the TV front. The shipping savings seem to be the main benefit as an Aussie with cheap or free from the USA and Prime excellent/good/shit ratio tends toward the crappy end.

[Specmaster]

Yep, I have ad blocker on my PC as well, but it just seems to be better on the TV without ad blocker, not sure if there is a routine built into the smart TV interface or not, but content just seems to more ad free. If you enter a search in the search box on the YouTube interface on a PC and then enter the same thing on the smart TV, the TV finds umpteen more hits. That said, I tend to watch far more on the PC with a 24" monitor than I do on the TV because SWMBO takes control of the TV with her soaps and other shit shows 

[beanflying]

Could it just be your PC in conjunction with Google just knows your narrow perversions and proclivities for Old lumps of Test Gear better than the shared Smart TV

[bitseeker]

Well my Gumtree bargain arrived today and it was just as the seller described but with one difference, it came with not one but two thermocouples. As you can see its branded Rapid 85-0716 and it was listed as new for just £15 which whetted my appetite although meters are my weakness  .

...

Would I pay full price for it, no, I'd rather buy another Brymen which would also cost less as well, but then, the Brymen was a really lucky find and has kind of spoilt me for other meters other than perhaps a Fluke, which is what Brymen appear to be competing with. Do I like the Rapid, yes I do like it and it might well find a permanent spot in my meter line up. I now might flip a couple of lower manual ranger meters and maybe a lower auto ranger as well. 

Not too bad, that one. (The snail of a bar graph might be a deal breaker.) Quite a jammy git price you got it for, though.

Added to POI.

[worsthorse]

well, for post number 1000, i had been planning something filled with photos of some new piece of TE or, perhaps, the TDS540 cracked open and being recapped or even just a stack of finished TM500 plugins.

alas, it is not to be. my bench, but for a single lonely task light, has been dark for ten days...



it seems there's a lot of life happening around here right now and none of it involves test leads, PCBs, oscilloscopes, DMMS, or schematics of any kind. i am hoping i will be able to get back to it in the next couple of weeks but who knows so i thought i'd just stop in and say hello.

* worsthorse waves and wanders back out...

[profanum429]

Finally got around to getting my new-to-me TLA714 up and working. I've got a 4GB CF card running Win2K SP4 running it. There is a TLA7N4 and a TLA7E2 card installed; both work pretty good. It's a neat thing to play around with Mostly running it on my desktop with the 5.8 software and it everything seems to be pretty good. I have a few sets of the P6417 probes; looking at possibly building up a set of the TLA7AA4 probes with Mictor to flying lead adapters since the P6810 probes are stupid expensive...

I also just bought a parts-only TLA721 controller card (supposedly the disk is bad, we'll see what happens) to give it a shot at upgrading this guy to TLA715 specs.

[mnementh]

My TV is an ass end samsung dumb TV of the "made in Romania, probably by Cello" variety thus I suspect it's just shite. There are no options to frig in the menus. Also it won't negotiate anything other than 1080p 60Hz SDR with the Apple TV. Have tried both of the HDMI ports and three different cables. All cables work with my Iiyama monitor and the Apple TV so by elimination its the TV.

Will look at no brands. I currently have a 32" which is a little small these days so a cheap 43 inch will do the job. As long as it doesn't have a panel and speakers that suck donkey balls I don't care what it is 

To note I paid £0.99 for this TV as the power supply was munted so I'm not moaning! Will cycle it with the kids' TV as they have a shitty old first gen Full HD Sony Smart TV from the dark ages of around 2006.

Edit: just did calculations. If I get a 43" screen and I'm 9 foot away I can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080p so fuck it, I'll just buy a 43" 1080p non Samshit dumb TV and be done with it. Apparently I need a 65" screen to make a difference there and it won't fit in the hole.

Ok so I had a fuck this shit moment. If they want me to jump through all these little hoops to get content working and buy another television they can, to quote the Scottish: "get tae fuck". Returning the bastard box so they can shove it. Don't have to buy a TV then and get the cash back in my pocket. Not worth the hassle and money for a minor improvement on convenience.

As for the actual content I'm just gonna fucking steal it until they sort this shitball out.

Aaaand was Roku somehow not even in the running...? It's my IPTV box of choice, especially after trying to unfuckerize that 4 year old android box; glad I only paid $10 just to turn it into a PS3 charger. 

I know you're in the UK, so availability of services probably differs... and if you're running a VPN to get out-of-region services, you'll have to install it in your router, as Roku "don't play dat". But still... best return on investment from my experience, and the UI is SO much better/less assache than running from a PC, even using KODI as a launcher. Especially the assache part. 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[beanflying]

Soooo Anybody want to buy a Brand New unused RX560 GPU I now have 'spare' In spite of only a few short months ago making a nice compact Plywood Case for this MITX board I did buy a compact RX 560 GPU with plans to make another larger case for it.

Spotted this Coolermaster 110 Elite case on special last week and thought why not just do it easy this time as I had all the hardware and it would just be PNP fairly much and save the time and muck around with rolling my own.

Take it out of the box and look at the case more closely and go Mmmmm there is a heap of room in here wonder if the RX 580 I should have already sold after replacing it with a 5700XT in my main box and see if it can be squeezed in - NOPE. But with some help from the Nibbler after some careful measuring TWICE. Fits like a Bum in a bucket The case is mesh on the sides and front so plenty of easy airflow.

Maybe I NEED another MITX board and bits to go with the 560 

[Specmaster]

Yeah, I used to run Kodi on a Android platform box. Worked well for a while, had most of the latest films months before they were on Sky or Virgin etc. Then the authorities would down some of the service providers so I'd have to search for new ones. Got fed up of watching a series of programs half way the box set and then the provider was taken down. Threw the add on box away in the end, too frustrating. 😀