Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Having not heard any news after submitting a couple of reports about errors saving changes to the TEA thread's OP, I didn't some debugging on my own and discovered that the post reaches its size limit in 51 more characters.

ez24 ran into the same OP size issues here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/dd/
Wisely he started another thread and reserved the first 3 posts so to allow room for growth.
Maybe you can link to a later reply of yours and place additional info there.....oh hang on, you already have the 2nd post to grow into. 

Yep, have a little room to grow. Never ran into the post length limit before.

Time to start spilling over and expanding post #2?  (Use some of those 51 remaining characters to say "continued below in post 2".)  If only you'd have anticipated how this thread would take on a life of its own, and put in three or four placeholder posts at the start...  Ahh, hindsight.  Always soooooo clear! 

-Pat

Yeah, a couple more "reserved" posts would've been handy. Who knows, maybe I'll have to one day set up a website for all our info, ramblings, and whatnot. (Foresight activated!)

[bitseeker]

My B does very nicely on the DVM front 

Oh, wow! That is quite nice. Better than I was expecting and 5-1/2 digits! Now I have to get one. You know that, right? Evil, evil man.

LOL - no TEA addict's bench is complete without at least one!  I just looked, and have a 26A, a 26B and a 27B.  Guess I need to look for a 27A and C models of both to get the whole set!  (At least these are relatively compact compared to a lot of what piques my interests gear-wise...)

Gotta catch 'em all! 

[bitseeker]

More Nixie Pimpin with 9 whole tubes. Freight to Oz is to much so waiting on the Street Corner for the USA mob  eBay auction: #254564357775

I wonder who ended up getting it. There was no interest in it the previous time around.

Earlier, I looked around a bit for some docs, but it's hard finding info on gear from these industrial/military-oriented manufacturers.

[Cubdriver]

My B does very nicely on the DVM front 

Oh, wow! That is quite nice. Better than I was expecting and 5-1/2 digits! Now I have to get one. You know that, right? Evil, evil man.

LOL - no TEA addict's bench is complete without at least one!  I just looked, and have a 26A, a 26B and a 27B.  Guess I need to look for a 27A and C models of both to get the whole set!  (At least these are relatively compact compared to a lot of what piques my interests gear-wise...)

Gotta catch 'em all! 

...and of course there are grey versions and tan versions, so I suppose for a truly complete set one would wind up with an even dozen of them...  (Note that I'm not saying this is a BAD thing, mind you...   Just time consuming and painful to one's bank account.)

-Pat

[tautech]

Having not heard any news after submitting a couple of reports about errors saving changes to the TEA thread's OP, I didn't some debugging on my own and discovered that the post reaches its size limit in 51 more characters.

ez24 ran into the same OP size issues here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/dd/
Wisely he started another thread and reserved the first 3 posts so to allow room for growth.
Maybe you can link to a later reply of yours and place additional info there.....oh hang on, you already have the 2nd post to grow into. 

Yep, have a little room to grow. Never ran into the post length limit before.

Yep but that's not to say one of the mods can't help, I dunno.
Wonder if it's possible to insert another blank post for you or might that break the forum linking ? 

[bitseeker]

I was trying similar strategies against squirrels couple years ago. I ended up using a cage, was working quite nicely. I reckon, in your case, you would probably need to increase the size of the cage and that would probably attract neighbours attention.

* For the record, I relocated all the squirrels I caught in a park far far away.

Needs mo' powah! Didn't even make it to the fence.

Yeah, but the rumbling big block V8 might scare the squirrels off.

LOL! V8? Sacrilege!

This is mo' powah: 8 lb. (3.6 kg) pumpkin, 600+ ft (180+ m)

[Neomys Sapiens]

now that you mentioned it ..
found another rocket building kit in the basement ...
some motor mounts
a damaged yagi antenna, a handheld receiver and some beacons

*hmmmm*

in unrelated news I just had my annual discussion on objectives and stuff with my boss.
Decided, that my development plan should contain blurps regarding deep learning and fpga skill advancement.

And got a 2% raise.

Mine is upcoming too. My former boss(same position) was a mechanical engineer originally, then in IT and by that way coming to radiolocation and surveillance systems. He knew at least how to talk with me about my area of responsibility. My actual boss has more of a SW background. It is no fun when you have to make someone understand that supportable, reliable and performant RF hardware is not 'some COTS stuff and our IP' and that I can't 'download or compile' a new preamplifier out of thin air. It  is not that he does not try, but the world where you spend weeks getting a variant of a connector defined, agreed, specified and subsequently procured, is utterly foreign to him.

Like I had once allowed them to witness me pulling a device out of EMC trouble with generous application of nearly 1 kg of ferrites and then they wondered why i would want to do a proper EMC-priented design with analysis of coupling and dimensions and orientation and wwhatever if it could be done in that way.
 
I think I pushed the momentary limit last year. They give anyone a 500.- special payment and said already that the 'Gehaltsrunde' will be skipped this year. I'm AT, so I will start to talk about the topic with my boss towards the end, unhurriedly.

Reminds me of that incident where a guy located in Atlanta wanted to trade me a GE J79 for some R+S radio gear.
I should have taken him up on that offer, but it would most likely have meant to deal with ITAR.

Don't get me started. My company again. When that question came up, I had been just starting there. But when they heard that the new engineer had done defence systems, someone approached me with the idea that I have to know how our gear should be classified. It is a very untidy system.
And a J79? Not really. A thirsty and noisy stinker, it is.

[bitseeker]

Cheap (45$) Power Designs 2020 on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/402057708269

Get it! It's been in my watch list too long.

Seriously, though, I already have a 2010, 2020B and 5020. I think I'm covered for now.

[beanflying]

Having not heard any news after submitting a couple of reports about errors saving changes to the TEA thread's OP, I didn't some debugging on my own and discovered that the post reaches its size limit in 51 more characters.

ez24 ran into the same OP size issues here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/dd/
Wisely he started another thread and reserved the first 3 posts so to allow room for growth.
Maybe you can link to a later reply of yours and place additional info there.....oh hang on, you already have the 2nd post to grow into. 

Yep, have a little room to grow. Never ran into the post length limit before.

Yep but that's not to say one of the mods can't help, I dunno.
Wonder if it's possible to insert another blank post for you or might that break the forum linking ? 

You would need to do it at the database level as all posts are numbered sequentially for each thread (you would need to renumber each subsequent post  ), so it could be done but it also might go horribly wrong  . The Easy/safe way out would be to get  Rob and Pat and then even you to mod your first posts to take in chunks of the opening posts if needed to keep it reading in order.

[beanflying]

More Nixie Pimpin with 9 whole tubes. Freight to Oz is to much so waiting on the Street Corner for the USA mob  eBay auction: #254564357775

I wonder who ended up getting it. There was no interest in it the previous time around.

Earlier, I looked around a bit for some docs, but it's hard finding info on gear from these industrial/military-oriented manufacturers.

I did see it last week get no bids but this time around one bid so far so only five more days to punch the button 

[worsthorse]

*sigh*

lost out on a 53310A that I didn't really want until I didn't get it.   

the seller ended up getting less for it at auction than i offered him for it a couple of weeks ago.  oh well...

spend a couple of hours working on the S38B. the chassis is drilled and punched for the fuse and isolation transformer (metal work is not my strong suit. i guess i just don't do enough of it. the chassis survived, no blood was spilled). tomorrow i decrease its DTP (Death Trap Potential) by installing the transformer and fuse.

i am waiting on the last part of the capacitor order. and i found a NOS speaker to replace the water-damaged speaker currently install. 

i figure this project will cost me no more than three times what i might get for it on ebay once its done.   

[bitseeker]

More Nixie Pimpin with 9 whole tubes. Freight to Oz is to much so waiting on the Street Corner for the USA mob  eBay auction: #254564357775

I wonder who ended up getting it. There was no interest in it the previous time around.

Earlier, I looked around a bit for some docs, but it's hard finding info on gear from these industrial/military-oriented manufacturers.

I did see it last week get no bids but this time around one bid so far so only five more days to punch the button 

Oh, woops. I thought it had ended already. Very tempting. Going to close my eyes again.

[bitseeker]

LOL - no TEA addict's bench is complete without at least one!  I just looked, and have a 26A, a 26B and a 27B.  Guess I need to look for a 27A and C models of both to get the whole set!  (At least these are relatively compact compared to a lot of what piques my interests gear-wise...)

Gotta catch 'em all! 

...and of course there are grey versions and tan versions, so I suppose for a truly complete set one would wind up with an even dozen of them...  (Note that I'm not saying this is a BAD thing, mind you...   Just time consuming and painful to one's bank account.)

Similar with the HP 3456A. I have one in the original color scheme and thin bezel, a blonde one with thin bezel, and an original color one with thick bezel, all with soft buttons. Then, there are the blue-faced ones and the clicky button ones. Fortunately, I'm not too keen on the blue color scheme.

[bitseeker]

*sigh*

lost out on a 53310A that I didn't really want until I didn't get it.   

the seller ended up getting less for it at auction than i offered him for it a couple of weeks ago.  oh well...

That one was fully loaded, IIRC, right? Bummer. There will be another.

My "big one that got away" story is a working 53310A that sold for $10. Ten bucks! I doubt the seller knew what it was. I messaged him to see if there were any more. Alas, that Jammy Git was not meant to be.

[bitseeker]

Wonder if it's possible to insert another blank post for you or might that break the forum linking ? 

You would need to do it at the database level as all posts are numbered sequentially for each thread (you would need to renumber each subsequent post  ), so it could be done but it also might go horribly wrong  . The Easy/safe way out would be to get  Rob and Pat and then even you to mod your first posts to take in chunks of the opening posts if needed to keep it reading in order.

It's OK. We'll manage. I'll think about a new arrangement and put my second post to work.

I wish I could put an iframe in. Then, I could pull in content from another location in the thread or elsewhere.

[Cubdriver]

*sigh*

lost out on a 53310A that I didn't really want until I didn't get it.   

the seller ended up getting less for it at auction than i offered him for it a couple of weeks ago.  oh well...

That one was fully loaded, IIRC, right? Bummer. There will be another.

My "big one that got away" story is a working 53310A that sold for $10. Ten bucks! I doubt the seller knew what it was. I messaged him to see if there were any more. Alas, that Jammy Git was not meant to be.

Ohhhh...  Now THAT hurts!!!   

-Pat

[Brumby]

Having not heard any news after submitting a couple of reports about errors saving changes to the TEA thread's OP, I didn't some debugging on my own and discovered that the post reaches its size limit in 51 more characters.

ez24 ran into the same OP size issues here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/dd/
Wisely he started another thread and reserved the first 3 posts so to allow room for growth.
Maybe you can link to a later reply of yours and place additional info there.....oh hang on, you already have the 2nd post to grow into. 

Yep, have a little room to grow. Never ran into the post length limit before.

Yep but that's not to say one of the mods can't help, I dunno.
Wonder if it's possible to insert another blank post for you or might that break the forum linking ? 

I was working with ez24 when that problem came up.

Originally, the post limit was 20kB, but Dave upped it to 50kB for the resources thread.  Then, as the content grew beyond that, I made the suggestion he start a new thread and reserve the first few posts for future expansion.  The spreadsheet I put together to help organise the data and generate the code was changed to break up the output so it could be pasted across 3 tables.

In that case, the new thread made sense as the only thing that was "lost" were the posts that provided the input up until that point.  Those posts are still available in the original thread, archived as it were.

However, such an approach would not work too well for this thread as value content lies all through it.

Adding a new post at the beginning would, in theory, be possible - BUT the potential for stuffing things up would be extremely high, unless you had someone with intimate knowledge of the database architecture.  This is not something I would advocate.

My suggestion would be:
 1. to continue with the second post while there is room and
 2. consider breaking out any of the material that has the potential to demand more and more bytes into a separate thread, where the first 10 or 20 posts have been reserved for expansion.  Of course, any such material would have high visibility, descriptive links in the current locations so people could jump there within minimum effort.

[Brumby]

*sigh*

lost out on a 53310A that I didn't really want until I didn't get it.   

the seller ended up getting less for it at auction than i offered him for it a couple of weeks ago.  oh well...

That one was fully loaded, IIRC, right? Bummer. There will be another.

My "big one that got away" story is a working 53310A that sold for $10. Ten bucks! I doubt the seller knew what it was. I messaged him to see if there were any more. Alas, that Jammy Git was not meant to be.

Ohhhh...  Now THAT hurts!!!   

-Pat

Agreed.

*whimper*

[Brumby]

On the subject of my 3478, I will be ordering some NEW RIFA caps and a couple of other things this weekend.  I also did a bit of cleaning and have removed labels and the residue on the front panel.  The area under that residue now looks slightly better than the rest of the panel which now looks slightly brown.  It's not too bad, but I'm going to be noticing it for a while.

What did come as a surprise is when I went to clean off some dirty marks on the metal front chassis/bezel with IPA, my cloth ended up getting clogged with thick grey stuff.  Upon a closer look, I've removed some paint and uncovered the bare metal underneath.  This explains a few chips I noticed in some of the edges - just damage to the paint, not the metal, which was a relief.

The colour difference between the paint and the aluminium is not much - the metal having a very slight golden tinge.  I'm going to remove all the paint (seeing that process has already been started) and see how it comes up.  I may leave it like that or I may re-spray it in a satin silver (Sorry Med, no Smurf colours for this one).

[VK5RC]

Post no 2 vacated👍, bitseeker its all yours.
I am not sure how you can add to it, other than PM me with the addition and I will add it.

[URI]

On the subject of my 3478, I will be ordering some NEW RIFA caps and a couple of other things this weekend.  I also did a bit of cleaning and have removed labels and the residue on the front panel.  The area under that residue now looks slightly better than the rest of the panel which now looks slightly brown.  It's not too bad, but I'm going to be noticing it for a while.

What did come as a surprise is when I went to clean off some dirty marks on the metal front chassis/bezel with IPA, my cloth ended up getting clogged with thick grey stuff.  Upon a closer look, I've removed some paint and uncovered the bare metal underneath.  This explains a few chips I noticed in some of the edges - just damage to the paint, not the metal, which was a relief.

The colour difference between the paint and the aluminium is not much - the metal having a very slight golden tinge.  I'm going to remove all the paint (seeing that process has already been started) and see how it comes up.  I may leave it like that or I may re-spray it in a satin silver (Sorry Med, no Smurf colours for this one).

Interesting!   
I just tried that on a broken front frame of an HP 5359A and was able to remove a part of a aluminium-coloured coating down to the metal...
Interesting though -the surface in the crack and the coating have such a similar look and colour I didn't suspect the frame to be colour coated.

[Ice-Tea]

Pretty weird,this. Chirps everytime it starts a new sweep (or stops an old one). Not very willing to tear it apart, as it has a recent cal. Never seen anythin like it... 

http://photos.app.goo.gl/UwfZZGhiEsmAFnQq8

[med6753]

The Tek probes arrived in Jersey a half hour ago from posting this. Definitely should be delivered tomorrow. 

[bd139]

Fingers crossed for you 

Queueing for supermarket here again today. The locusts have eaten all the good stuff again 

Spent some time this morning working out stuff to do and have decided that I’ve got a house full of junk so I better use all this shiny test gear to make something. So I’ve set myself a challenge: Build something from scratch without buying a single bit of gear or any parts. Scoping the crap collection now for ideas.

[med6753]

Queueing for supermarket here again today. The locusts have eaten all the good stuff again 

My local grocery store is limiting occupancy to 140 customers maximum at a time. But I don't know if that's causing a queue outside the store since I go during the old farts hour from 6 AM to 7 AM.