Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[FransW]

Yes,
I have quite a collection of from the PM661x, PM665x and PM666x series.
It all started quite by accident or denial of TEA symptoms.

[tonyalbus]

Yes,
I have quite a collection of from the PM661x, PM665x and PM666x series.
It all started quite by accident or denial of TEA symptoms.

it starts with acceptance, for a peace of mind.... but thats where it also ends, i have not seen any of us cuered 

 

[mnementh]

Yeah I'm drawing them up in Kicad at some point over next couple of days and will post on here. At the moment it's on bits of paper with annotations and scribbles in pen all over it 

As any properly enginerded project will be. Carry on!

mnem

[mansaxel]

Yeah I'm drawing them up in Kicad at some point over next couple of days and will post on here. At the moment it's on bits of paper with annotations and scribbles in pen all over it 

As any properly enginerded project will be. Carry on!

mnem

My current brain dump is easier, so I could skip ahead. A drawing mostly made to see if my brain is too broken to cram one lamp, one start, one stop button together into a 5-conductor cable to have a pump start and stop button where it's convenient. 5-conductor mains cable (Romex, NYM-J, EKK, et c) is much easier to buy cheap than say 7-core.

One set of switches goes where the skimmer sits, so one can start and stop the pump from there.

One set goes right by the filter. The old regulation central is there already, and has a rotary switch for the motor contactor (of course three-phase, only countries where Edison had too much influence run 1-phase mains to homes) , but I'm planning to replace that with a new one, up on a wall, with some new-fangled control and monitoring (acoustic cavitation monitoring, for instance) and therefore I need convenient start/stop controls where the operator can reach them.

Edit 1: This is for a pool. Forgot to write that.

Edit 2: I don't like the lack of a NC pushbutton in the KiCad library.

[battlecoder]

I am still trying to remember what exactly inspired me.
PM6613, 250MHz. Externally referenced.

A thing of beauty.
That's the kind of counter I ""need"".

[nixiefreqq]

And large electricity bill 

Forgot to mention. I have SINNED hard. I bought a non-RPN calculator. A TI-85. Forgive me.

Well what on hell happened there then eh? It is as it happens a pretty good calculator, I have 2 of them personally 

he has still not proven ownership to my satisfaction.

maybe a pic of it on a local newspaper with the banner headline and date showing? 

(try to make it a classy newspaper.....not something with a half naked girl on page 3) 

[bd139]

And large electricity bill 

Forgot to mention. I have SINNED hard. I bought a non-RPN calculator. A TI-85. Forgive me.

Well what on hell happened there then eh? It is as it happens a pretty good calculator, I have 2 of them personally 

he has still not proven ownership to my satisfaction.

maybe a pic of it on a local newspaper with the banner headline and date showing? 

(try to make it a classy newspaper.....not something with a half naked girl on page 3) 

Initial proof 



Anyway for my sins, the new power supply has arrived and it works perfectly:



I will say that in the insides are a bit of a mess (dirt) so I'll have to clean it out. But it works nicely.

[Cerebus]

Busy as hell today being an enabler and thank gawd it's drawing to a close as tiring but nice to get away overseas  to Waiheke island (ferry ride) where one of our dear friends had a knees up for her 60th.

It's alright for some [nationalities]. 

We're still waiting to have a delayed 'big birthday' of a friend from back at the beginning of the year. It was originally supposed to have happened before lockdown started. But with hints of what might be coming, and with quite a few old folks expected to be involved we all decided (Without any Governmental 'help' or 'advice', thank you very much.) to postpone in an abundance of caution.

[Cerebus]

On other notes:
Which concert costs only 45 Cent?

50 Cent feat. Nickelback


       

"Reservations"

"Hi, I need to book a round trip to German and I'm going to need a luggage allowance, I have to take some very large, very heavy boots with me."

[tonyalbus]

And large electricity bill 

Forgot to mention. I have SINNED hard. I bought a non-RPN calculator. A TI-85. Forgive me.

Well what on hell happened there then eh? It is as it happens a pretty good calculator, I have 2 of them personally 

he has still not proven ownership to my satisfaction.

maybe a pic of it on a local newspaper with the banner headline and date showing? 

(try to make it a classy newspaper.....not something with a half naked girl on page 3) 

Initial proof 



Anyway for my sins, the new power supply has arrived and it works perfectly:



I will say that in the insides are a bit of a mess (dirt) so I'll have to clean it out. But it works nicely.

Ah yes..much nicer then the older ET30/2 i have..

[FransW]

Tony,

Herewith a detail from the 9927 service manual.

Frans

[tonyalbus]

Tony,

Herewith a detail from the 9927 service manual.

Frans

so the Xtal will just go along with the external ref??   cool, very simple solution, Thanks

[FransW]

Connect and / or dis-connect with a switch.
The manual (in French):
https://elektrotanya.com/racal_dana_model_9926_and_9927_frequency_meters_up_to_1%2C3_ghz.pdf/download.html#dl

I can assist with translating relevant parts.
Frans

[PA0PBZ]

Tony,

Herewith a detail from the 9927 service manual.

Frans

so the Xtal will just go along with the external ref??   cool, very simple solution, Thanks

That's strange, because the chip has an external oscillator input (pin 33), I wonder why they didn't use that:

External Oscillator Enable - In this mode, the signal at EXT OSC INPUT is used as a timebase instead of the on-board crystal oscillator (built around the OSC INPUT, OSC OUTPUT inputs). This input can be used for an external stable temperature compensated crystal oscillator or for special measurements with any external source. The on-board crystal oscillator continues to work when the external oscillator is selected. This is necessary to avoid hang-up problems, and has no effect on the chip's functional operation. If the on-board oscillator frequency is less than 1MHz or only the external oscillator is used, THE OSC INPUT MUST BE CONNECTED TO THE EXT OSC INPUT providing the timebase has enough voltage swing for OSC INPUT (See Electrical Specifications). If the external timebase is TTL level a pullup resistor must be used for OSC INPUT. The other way is to put a 22MΩ resistor between OSC INPUT and OSC OUTPUT and capacitively couple the EXT OSC INPUT to OSC INPUT. This will bias the OSC INPUT at its threshold and the drive voltage will need to be only 2VP-P. The external timebase frequency must be greater than 100kHz or the chip will reset itself to enable the on-board oscillator.

https://www.renesas.com/eu/en/www/doc/datasheet/icm7226a-b.pdf

[Specmaster]

Update on the PL310, while working my way through the control section of the main board on Saturday evening, hence why I missed discord , I had either lifted a leg of the components, or in some cases removed them altogether and one such thing was 200K resistor. This resistor on re-installing it decided that it would jump out of the tweezers, because where it was located, it was impossible to fit any other way, and it jumped over the back of the bench never to be seen again, so will be making an order to Bitbox soon.

I found that the parts in both the voltage control and the current control all checked out OK, removed the multiplexer (CD4052) and it had zero effect on the controls. Just wondering if its possible that I somehow managed to get a batch of faulty LM324's as this is the means of control???

Had a chat with the technical dept at Aim TTi today, and they kindly emailed me a copy of the service manual as parts of the one I found online are missing, sadly the one they sent me was of a real old PL310 and the one that I require  Hopefully they will find the correct manual and send it me. They also said that were going to pop in the post to me tomorrow a pair of the shorting links that are missing on the PL310

[tonyalbus]

Tony,

Herewith a detail from the 9927 service manual.

Frans

so the Xtal will just go along with the external ref??   cool, very simple solution, Thanks

That's strange, because the chip has an external oscillator input (pin 33), I wonder why they didn't use that:

External Oscillator Enable - In this mode, the signal at EXT OSC INPUT is used as a timebase instead of the on-board crystal oscillator (built around the OSC INPUT, OSC OUTPUT inputs). This input can be used for an external stable temperature compensated crystal oscillator or for special measurements with any external source. The on-board crystal oscillator continues to work when the external oscillator is selected. This is necessary to avoid hang-up problems, and has no effect on the chip's functional operation. If the on-board oscillator frequency is less than 1MHz or only the external oscillator is used, THE OSC INPUT MUST BE CONNECTED TO THE EXT OSC INPUT providing the timebase has enough voltage swing for OSC INPUT (See Electrical Specifications). If the external timebase is TTL level a pullup resistor must be used for OSC INPUT. The other way is to put a 22MΩ resistor between OSC INPUT and OSC OUTPUT and capacitively couple the EXT OSC INPUT to OSC INPUT. This will bias the OSC INPUT at its threshold and the drive voltage will need to be only 2VP-P. The external timebase frequency must be greater than 100kHz or the chip will reset itself to enable the on-board oscillator.

https://www.renesas.com/eu/en/www/doc/datasheet/icm7226a-b.pdf

Thanks!

[bd139]

Scope ball schematics attached. Disclaimer: not used to build anything yet. May be annotation errors.

[25 CPS]

I may have to mug you for that HeathKit. 

mnem

Heh.  Heh heh.  Heh.  I'm either going to be mugged for that Heathkit or I'm going to get home from work in the middle of the night and find a whole bunch of empty shelves in the basement where my technical equipment used to be.

Car Electronics is also Electronics,
and about the t-shirt... we know what it is... but the wife thinks it are the nazca lines 

I just watched the video now, and speaking of the basement, I do have a dashboard from a trolleybus that was scrapped almost 30 years ago somewhere down there and the spedometer's set up the same way with a bias voltage and some sort of pulse train from a sensor on one of the wheels.  I've never done anything with it but now I'm thinking I should drag it out and put it on the bench and see if I can get the dash instruments to come to life.

[mnementh]

And large electricity bill 

Forgot to mention. I have SINNED hard. I bought a non-RPN calculator. A TI-85. Forgive me.

Well what on hell happened there then eh? It is as it happens a pretty good calculator, I have 2 of them personally 

he has still not proven ownership to my satisfaction. maybe a pic of it on a local newspaper with the banner headline and date showing? 

(try to make it a classy newspaper.....not something with a half naked girl on page 3)

Ummm... why...? 

mnem
Where's the fun in that...?

[Cerebus]

I just watched the video now, and speaking of the basement, I do have a dashboard from a trolleybus that was scrapped almost 30 years ago somewhere down there and the spedometer's set up the same way with a bias voltage and some sort of pulse train from a sensor on one of the wheels.  I've never done anything with it but now I'm thinking I should drag it out and put it on the bench and see if I can get the dash instruments to come to life.

The speedometer in my car perversely works it the other way around. The mechanical [eddy currents in a disk] speedometer sends pulses from the rotating magnet to the ECU to supply it with an indication of road speed.

[bd139]

Scope ball schematics attached. Disclaimer: not used to build anything yet. May be annotation errors.

First error found. Decoupling capacitor bus not grounded 

[Specmaster]

TTi update time, they did manage to find me a far better copy of the correct schematic this time after I sent them photos of the boards. Turns out that this is not a "brown" one after all but a "grey" one and as such is much newer. When they introduced the newer model, they decided to use up the old stock of the brown cases while the new grey ones were being made.
If anyone else has downloaded the manual and discovered the missing information for revision 4 boards, I attach the scan of that schematic below for your records.

[Specmaster]

I just watched the video now, and speaking of the basement, I do have a dashboard from a trolleybus that was scrapped almost 30 years ago somewhere down there and the spedometer's set up the same way with a bias voltage and some sort of pulse train from a sensor on one of the wheels.  I've never done anything with it but now I'm thinking I should drag it out and put it on the bench and see if I can get the dash instruments to come to life.

The speedometer in my car perversely works it the other way around. The mechanical [eddy currents in a disk] speedometer sends pulses from the rotating magnet to the ECU to supply it with an indication of road speed.

The speedometer on some buses works differently, being driven by a three-phase supply generated by a small three-phase generator driven from the gearbox output shaft.

[bd139]

PCB fun. Getting there. Routing is painful on this 



40 minutes later:



3d view:



Fixing all the little niggles now ...

[FransW]

That's strange, because the chip has an external oscillator input (pin 33), I wonder why they didn't use that:

Can't think of anything else but "competitive pricing" as a spin-off of more sophisticated and priced models.
Compare with the HP5315, also no ref input.
On-site usage?