Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Ebay has gotten my cash again. Been looking for one of these for months. Looks to be in great shape. It will complement the Type 191 Signal Generator and the Type 114 Pulse Generator.

[Ice-Tea]

What the hell are those connectors?

[Neomys Sapiens]

What the hell are those connectors?

GR874, as frequently used on the older Tek devices.

[med6753]

What the hell are those connectors?

GR874, as frequently used on the older Tek devices.

I have one GR874 to BNC female adapter. They are available on Ebay but demand stupid prices.

[Saskia]

@Neomys Sapiens
do you have a better photo of the battery victim ? What is the size of the PCB ? Should I send you an ultrasonic  cleaner ?

[Cubdriver]

What the hell are those connectors?

They're actually pretty clever, if bulky - they're hermaphrodites - there's no male and female - clock them 90 degrees and they intermesh.  Some patience on the bay of evil will get you adapters - patience being the key as some sellers seem to think they're worth their weight in gold.  I've managed to get a few for not crazy $$, but it has taken a few years to do so.

-Pat

[bd139]

I missed a whole bag of those connectors at a hamfest here for £5. Should have bagged them. Alas I was already heavily burdened with crud and my arms were about to fall off.

[Specmaster]

Hermes update, neighbour has come home and just brought the parcel round to me, so all is well in that dept. The meter had a miniscule amount of bubble wrap, roughly A4 sized  , then the meter was packed inside one half of the original RS cardboard box with one end open. In the bottom of the box was a number of screws, nails, broken car bulb, connecting strip and other crap and the lot wrapped in a carrier bag and tapped up. It is a miracle that the meter arrived in one piece.

Meter was in a filthy state, I knew that from the photo, however considering the previous owner was a retired electrical engineer I'm amazed to see that the AC volts range is just way out of spec, AC mains measures 237v on my other meters but 252 on the Avo so that requires some investigation as do the supplied grabbers on the probes, all bent out of shape, just as well I only paid £15 for it then.

I have no doubt that all can be sorted out with some TLC spent on it. 

[Ice-Tea]

Worst packaging I've seen in a while

[mnementh]

Ummm... can I have the barrier strip and busted light bulb...?

mnem
 

[bd139]

That's totally lame that. I've seen some shit in my time but that was 100% CBA and nothing else. 

[Specmaster]

@mnem, of course you can have them, I have no use for them myself 

[nfmax]

Meter was in a filthy state, I knew that from the photo, however considering the previous owner was a retired electrical engineer I'm amazed to see that the AC volts range is just way out of spec, AC mains measures 237v on my other meters but 252 on the Avo so that requires some investigation as do the supplied grabbers on the probes, all bent out of shape, just as well I only paid £15 for it then.

Possibly not a calibration issue - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/show-us-your-mains-waveform!/msg3086674/#msg3086674

[AVGresponding]

I have no idea what this is but it looks interesting (not interesting enough for me to buy it though):


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ELECTRONIC-DEVELOPMENTS-Three-Field-Tachistopscope-JN-653/373070582481

[Specmaster]

That's totally lame that. I've seen some shit in my time but that was 100% CBA and nothing else. 

I must admit, I knew I was taking a gamble buying anything on Gumtree without seeing it first but at the price, I thought it was well worth a punt, but that packaging shocked me and it also says that despite the crap protection, Hermes did take good care of it apart delivering it to the wrong house. SWMBO did say that she saw a van pull up and a man jumped out and dropped it at the neighbours. This explains why it went there and was not correctly delivered, because our usual driver is lady, driving her own car. I therefore deduce that she was not available today 

It also came with a RS 150A clamp-on add-on for DMM's part no. 610-203 but it is an old part number and of course, no available data on it. If I can find some data for it, it would possibly be a useful add-on for the bench meters as the plug spacings are the right pitch for them.

[Specmaster]

I have no idea what this is but it looks interesting (not interesting enough for me to buy it though):


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ELECTRONIC-DEVELOPMENTS-Three-Field-Tachistopscope-JN-653/373070582481

There you go, https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co535272/3-field-tachistoscope-for-use-in-psychological-ex-tachistoscope

[Cubdriver]

I missed a whole bag of those connectors at a hamfest here for £5. Should have bagged them. Alas I was already heavily burdened with crud and my arms were about to fall off.

The first time I saw them in person was at the TRW Swap Meet out in Lawndale, CA a few years back.  At that point I had no use for them, so while regarding them as a curiosity, I had no reason to buy any.  Two hours later at Apex Electronics, I bought a Tek 191 Signal Generator and 106 Square Wave Generator, both of which have GR-874 connectors.  Of course the next two or three times a trip coordinated with the swap meet, the guy who had the connectors wasn't there.   

I eventually found some on ebuy.

-Pat

[bitseeker]

Decided to go back to RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall yesterday as the weather forecast was good and the wind direction also was favourable in order to get some top shots of the F15's as they fly towards the group of photographers, some pilots will tip a wing to us those to give sought after top shots brilliantly lit in the early morning sunshine...

Some gorgeous shots there Spec. Thanks for taking the time to share. 

Indeed! Spec, you keep posting 'em and I'll keeping adding 'em to the POI Potpourri.

[bitseeker]

What the hell are those connectors?

GR874, as frequently used on the older Tek devices.

I have one GR874 to BNC female adapter. They are available on Ebay but demand stupid prices.

I, too, have just one such adapter, which came with my 191. What will come next? Another adapter or another device that needs it? Hmm...

[Specmaster]

Meter was in a filthy state, I knew that from the photo, however considering the previous owner was a retired electrical engineer I'm amazed to see that the AC volts range is just way out of spec, AC mains measures 237v on my other meters but 252 on the Avo so that requires some investigation as do the supplied grabbers on the probes, all bent out of shape, just as well I only paid £15 for it then.

Possibly not a calibration issue - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/show-us-your-mains-waveform!/msg3086674/#msg3086674

Nah, it is 100% a calibration issue, just checked it with other Avo's, they read it as 240V, fair enough, but the Mk5 now reads it as nearer to 260V which means that R18 is too low. It should be 400K. According to the service manual, the same resistor is also used on the 30Vdc range and if that reads high, it also means R18 is too low. Measuring 32V output of bench power supply reads 50V, so its a strip out and measure all the resistors for tolerance and replace as required. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

That's totally lame that. I've seen some shit in my time but that was 100% CBA and nothing else. 

I must admit, I knew I was taking a gamble buying anything on Gumtree without seeing it first but at the price, I thought it was well worth a punt, but that packaging shocked me and it also says that despite the crap protection, Hermes did take good care of it apart delivering it to the wrong house. SWMBO did say that she saw a van pull up and a man jumped out and dropped it at the neighbours. This explains why it went there and was not correctly delivered, because our usual driver is lady, driving her own car. I therefore deduce that she was not available today 

It also came with a RS 150A clamp-on add-on for DMM's part no. 610-203 but it is an old part number and of course, no available data on it. If I can find some data for it, it would possibly be a useful add-on for the bench meters as the plug spacings are the right pitch for them.

This current clamp is almost certainly identical to either the Metrawatt WZ-11/WZ-12A (current output. old /new designation) or the WZ-12B (voltage output, new desig.) There was also a Gossen and a Siemens designation for it. The newest versions have fixed leads, but this is the most seen type. All the current output variants are 1000:1, the voltage output would be 100mV/A.

[mnementh]

@mnem, of course you can have them, I have no use for them myself 

I'll collect them next time I'm in Derbyshire on... bidness. 

mnem
*makes mental note to pack extra NATO 7.62 this time*

[worsthorse]

I missed a whole bag of those connectors at a hamfest here for £5. Should have bagged them. Alas I was already heavily burdened with crud and my arms were about to fall off.

rarely does BD give me a chance to gloat. very very very rarely...



from the last hamfest i attended, now a year ago. twenty dollars for the whole lot. the best part is that i actually use the damn things. 

[worsthorse]

fate is a cruel mistress...

ten hours after boxing up the parts mule 184 i promised to another forum member, i found a working 184 for less than a hundred bucks shipped. which i bought, of course, because i am still annoyed at myself for trashing my first one and it is the missing piece in my 106/114/191/184 calibration setup. 

after he gets the parts mule, i hope i don't have to send him an email asking him to send a couple of parts from it back to me. 

[Cubdriver]

fate is a cruel mistress...

ten hours after boxing up the parts mule 184 i promised to another forum member, i found a working 184 for less than a hundred bucks shipped. which i bought, of course, because i am still annoyed at myself for trashing my first one and it is the missing piece in my 106/114/191/184 calibration setup. 

after he gets the parts mule, i hope i don't have to send him an email asking him to send a couple of parts from it back to me. 

That's fate smiling smiting you for gloating over that box of GR connectors.   

 

-Pat

<edit - stooped autocorrect!>