Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

I didn't actually. I'm not surprised though. The guy is an all round wizard 

Ediit: found him around voltnuttery. I am not surprised 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Someone going for that Keithley 3930A Multifunction Synthesizer today?

[Saskia]

not me. I would like a spectrum analyzer that starts at 200 Hz though ...

[bd139]

Sound card for 0-50KHz. Dedicated hardware above that?

[BU508A]

Sound card for 0-50KHz. Dedicated hardware above that?

There are some nice projects out there.
Example:
https://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html



Quote:
"Spectrum Lab runs under Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP (home and professional), Linux/WINE, but obviously not under Windows Vista. The reason why it doesn't work under "Vista" is unknown. Since I don't use Vista myself, there's little I can do about this. Use Linux/WINE, or a virtual PC running XP (inside your shiny power-hogging Vista machine). "

[bd139]

And down another rabbit hole I go 

[Saskia]

@bd139 I still have that 4.4 BSD source license ... and a friend of mine worked with the CSRG at Berkeley, currently he is working for me as my delegate and looks after those 700 docker containers that I have deployed ...

[bd139]

Awesome   . And also poor sod for having to deal with docker every day 

[bitseeker]

@Brumby: Extra points for resourcefulness!!! 

*adds line item to "When I am an evil Overlord" list: Indenture all programmers responsible for the Windows HAL. Force them to write new programming language using ONLY EDLIN: BRAINFUCK (Yes, those colors will be part of the name, and REQUIRED in all correspondence and markup notes). Allow them to drink only green tea Chai and snack all they want, but only unbuttered, dry white toast. All shifts will be in Centaurian time.*

mnem
 

Make them write it Wordpad as well. 

Look again; it's worse: EDLIN. 

 

'Nuff said. Carry on.

(Woot for page 2222.)

[bd139]

My second favourite transistor is the 2n2222

[bitseeker]

Found the X201 charger finally in the shite cupboard. It actually powers up. Battery is completely hosed. No disk in it. It's an i5 and has 4Gb of RAM and I had forgotten how amazingly good the keyboard is. It's a unit I custom built a few years ago with no touchpad and IPS display. Now trying to find an SSD. Sure I had a spare one around.

This variety but no horrible touchpad ... (it's buried already under more crap. Photos later if I get around to it):

I like ThinkPads. Apart from the occasional borked DC in jack, they last seemingly forever. Even after all these years and having changed ownership, they're still made pretty well. The only thing that irks me is the location of the Fn key. Given that IBM set the de facto standard for PC keyboard layout, it's a bummer that they broke it on their ThinkPads by putting the Fn key where the Ctrl key belongs. Other laptops did that, too, but still. Grrr. (The keys can be swapped via software.)

[bd139]

Yes that was rather annoying that swap. I really liked the proper thinkpad keyboards mostly because of the real keys and the escape key being separate. Makes it easier to run vi then

[bitseeker]

I don't know what a lot of that stuff is either.  I did a sort of adapters that fit the probes (rear) and all the stuff that doesn't or is unknown. That's the pile in the foreground. I'm going to bag them up and put it in the TEA closest with the rest of the loose Tek parts.

The white things are probe hangers.

The red things are BNC to spring hook adapters (stick into a BNC female, then clip your probe to them).

The funky banana plugs screw onto the probes, then plug into a banana jack or SO239.

Thanks for demystifying those. How do the probe hangers work? It looked like they had contacts that align with the ground ring on the probe. (Med later posted a pic of them in action.)

[mnementh]

now I am thinkin of running DOS on a VM on a Xeon. Anyway, I have a TP600 here which is still operational.

I've got a 1999 vintage Thinkpad 380Z with FreeDOS and OpenBSD. I'm trying to get a Niros / Ericsson radio programming tool to work. So far, no luck. I keep thinking I should swap FreeDOS for real MS-DOS 6.22 and try a bit harder. Also, I should get something a bit more modern to run 10 on. A Toughbook, preferably.

I used a 380Zed for my CCNA schoolwork back in the day; kept it around out of nostalgia (and amazement that the damned thing just WOULD. NOT. DIE.) for far too long after I'd switched to Toughbooks for my field box. Mine went to the Goodwill when I moved to Houston; wouldn't be a bit surprised if somebody has some *NIX variant running on it still as it was maxed out with 160MB EDO RAM and had a new coin cell in it. 

I am surrounded by belly aching and bitching and moaning software engineers.  I think I'll go watch TV. 

mnem
My work here is DONE. 

[Mr. Scram]

I like ThinkPads. Apart from the occasional borked DC in jack, they last seemingly forever. Even after all these years and having changed ownership, they're still made pretty well. The only thing that irks me is the location of the Fn key. Given that IBM set the de facto standard for PC keyboard layout, it's a bummer that they broke it on their ThinkPads by putting the Fn key where the Ctrl key belongs. Other laptops did that, too, but still. Grrr. (The keys can be swapped via software.)

They've got USB C charger ports now.

[bitseeker]

Previously in the TEA forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2995954/#msg2995954

This time I'm presenting you the Keithley 155 Nulldetector Microvoltmeter.

Front and back side:

Cool stuff. Added to POI.

[Wolfgang]

not me. I would like a spectrum analyzer that starts at 200 Hz though ...

Me too. I tried all kinds of soundcards, ... but in the end they are a pest because of line RFI and lousy shielding, as well as a lot
of flicker noise. The solution I found was to homebrew, all battery-powered,  ultra-low noise 60dB preamps (300kHz, see Uwe Beis, or Wenzel, ...), and then a good scope. I use a Keysight S-Series (10Bit), and I can get a reasonable resolution from an FFT then. Its at least good enough to see the flicker noise corner of transistors. I need this for my USO measurements.

Better ideas with less effort would be most welcome.

[bitseeker]

Oohh.. EDLIN.  I used it extensively on my first computer, a 4.77 MHz Compaq Portable.  DOS version 2.something.  I decided to google "EDLIN" to see if anyone on the net these days even remembers it's existance and I was suprised to find that Wikipedia says:

Although superseded in MS-DOS 5.0 and later by the full-screen MS-DOS Editor, and by Notepad in Microsoft Windows, it continues to be included in the 32-bit versions of current Microsoft operating systems.

Really? It's still in Windows?  Problem is that I don't have anything that runs 32 bit Windows.   

Hmm, I thought the full-screen editor, edit.exe, first appeared in DOS 4.something. And I don't recall seeing edlin in 32-bit versions of Windows, not that I was ever looking for it.

[bitseeker]

My other probe rack is full so these guys mounted in another location but readily accessible.

Ah, med answered my previous question about the probe holders.

[mnementh]

My second favourite transistor is the 2n2222

Also commonly known by its ECG nick, the 123Ass-Protector... 

mnem
Hey; it gets the work done and it's cheaper than a fuse.  What's not to love...?

[bitseeker]

I like ThinkPads. Apart from the occasional borked DC in jack, they last seemingly forever. Even after all these years and having changed ownership, they're still made pretty well. The only thing that irks me is the location of the Fn key. Given that IBM set the de facto standard for PC keyboard layout, it's a bummer that they broke it on their ThinkPads by putting the Fn key where the Ctrl key belongs. Other laptops did that, too, but still. Grrr. (The keys can be swapped via software.)

They've got USB C charger ports now.

Yep. The X1 Carbon I use for work is like that. Mighty nice machine it is.

[Wolfgang]

My second favourite transistor is the 2n2222

Mine too. Did you know:

- Its there for more than 50 years now.
- Still manufactured.
- Hard to kill
- One of the parts that is still on the NASA list of space qualified parts (yes, they have it in SMD ceramic packages)
- You can still get it JANS or JANTXV
- When used in USOs, it is a lot less noisy that all kinds of modern RF transistors, especially the modern SiGe or HBT types.
- I use it a lot. There are still better plastic parts (BC337-40) but there is no plastic in space.

My bet:
- I dont know if I will still be there in 10 years, but the 2N2222A will. Reason: No susceptibility to Corona and other crap. 

[bitseeker]

I am surrounded by belly aching and bitching and moaning software engineers.  I think I'll go watch TV. 

  apologies. Unfortunately our jobs lead to mental illness 

Yep, that it does. From software development to product design and now TEA, I'm a total basket case.

[bd139]

Some cross pollination of skills there 

TE/computing hybrid job over the next few days. I’ve got some good and new Panasonic 18650 cells here and a duff X201 9 cell pack. Rebuild time.

Alas I know the difficulties involved in this after much research. Firstly I need to crack it open. Then locate which controller it is. Then try and dump the controller data off using I2C. Then strip the cells out, tag up some new ones (super capacitor weldinator at the ready!). Then cram them in. Then deal with the inevitable suicide fuse. Then reprogram the remaining capacity and cycle count. Then cross fingers and hope it is recognised, fire stays inside and charges!

Probability of all that working: 30% I reckon.

And then I’ll probably never use it 

[mnementh]

@bd: This'll make you (the Ferrite-Master) cringe; I just smashed the fuck out of a perfectly good ~10uH choke getting it off a scrap board. Why? So I could harvest about 6CM of varnished wire to mod my PS3 controllers with micro-USB sockets instead of the OE Mini-USB. Why...? Because I wanted to use magnetic charge cable on them, and NOBODY makes them for mini-USB.

mnem
also because... ewww. Mini-USB.