Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

Don't worry, I do not plan on adding "darkroom" to my lab.  Maybe for actual photography someday, but not for taking scope photos. 

Ahem....you don't need a darkroom for polaroid film. 

Ah - that brings back memories...

One of my first summer holiday jobs was working the photographic counter of a local chemist - and I remember having to put in an order for Polaroid film packs.  This was a bit of an ask from a guy who'd never been involved in supply chain operations, but I put in my best guess.  They dutifully arrived in a couple of days when the manager asked if we had more than we needed as there was another branch that was asking for more.  I hesitantly said no, hoping that I wasn't going to end up with excess stock which, fortunately, didn't happen.

I also remember ordering the Polaroid flash bars.....

[mnementh]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...    (SNIP)

PCB repair is underway with resin curing as we speak...

mnem

   

Done... and tested. 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[0culus]

This is why the Tek Scope-Mobile carts have a method for restraining the scope.  Glad you were able to fix it!

[mnementh]

Thanks... still saying "I can't fucking believe I did that..." to myself about every 15 minutes...

And still  on how to fix the plastic. This part is structural and clips into the metal chassis, so no room to layer anything like epoxy & matting on the inside for strength.

Also, very visible... so I'm gonna get one chance to do the job right or I'll be looking for a donor unit.

EDIT: I'm leaning towards Plastruct Bondene: https://plastruct.myshopify.com/pages/technical-info-msds-sheets I think it's what I used to use for my big ship and plane models where you had to hold multiple parts together at once and let the glue wick between. Now trying to find a local supplier.

mnem
 

[uski]

Hi,

I have to admit that I just joined the TEA club today.

After being frustrated of not being capable of finding any used gear at a decent price, probably because of other inmates like you all, I just placed the first order of what is probably going to be a long serie.

I just ordered, brand new straight from Tektronix, a Keithley DMM6500 6 1/2 digit multimeter with 1 MS/s sample rate, and a Keithley 2280S-60-3 power supply with integrated 6 1/2 digit readings, graphing capability, 60V 3A output.

More to come... next in line is probably a Rigol MSO5074 (err I mean a MSO5354) oscilloscope.

[BravoV]

Hi,

I have to admit that I just joined the TEA club today.

After being frustrated of not being capable of finding any used gear at a decent price, probably because of other inmates like you all, I just placed the first order of what is probably going to be a long serie.

I just ordered, brand new straight from Tektronix, a Keithley DMM6500 6 1/2 digit multimeter with 1 MS/s sample rate, and a Keithley 2280S-60-3 power supply with integrated 6 1/2 digit readings, graphing capability, 60V 3A output.

More to come... next in line is probably a Rigol MSO5074 (err I mean a MSO5354) oscilloscope.

Welcome to the mad house ...  

... mission accomplished ... 

[Brumby]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...     ...I had pulled out the cart it was sitting on to get a tool that fell off my bench behind it and just backed right into it, knocking it off onto the floor. 

Oh my.... Bumblebutt strikes!

[Brumby]

I feel your pain.

[Brumby]

Welcome to the mad house rabbit hole ...  

FTFY

... mission accomplished ... 

Indeed.   

[bd139]

Following on from earlier, I rebuilt and reinstalled that DPS8 simulator and fired up Multics on it:

cerebus@shu:~$ telnet localhost 6180
Trying ::1...
telnet: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
HSLA Port (d.h000,d.h001,d.h002,d.h003,d.h004,d.h005,d.h006,d.h007,d.h008,d.h009,d.h010,d.h011,d.h012,d.h013,d.h014,d.h015,d.h016,d.h017,d.h018,d.h019,d.h020,d.h021,d.h022,d.h023,d.h024,d.h025,d.h026,d.h027,d.h028,d.h029,d.h030,d.h031)?
Attached to line d.h000

Multics MR12.6f: Installation and location (Channel d.h000)
Load = 5.0 out of 90.0 units: users = 5, 10/20/20  1432.3 pst Tue
login Repair.SysAdmin
Password:
You are protected from preemption.
Repair.SysAdmin logged in 10/20/20  1432.5 pst Tue from ASCII terminal "none".
Last login 10/20/20  1416.7 pst Tue from ASCII terminal "none".

r 14:32 0.221 31

who -all -long

Multics MR12.6f; Installation and location
Load = 6.0 out of 90.0 units; users = 6, 1 interactive, 5 daemons.
Absentee users = 0 background; Max background absentee users = 3
System up since 10/20/20  1431.8 pst Tue
Last shutdown was at 10/20/20  1426.2 pst Tue

    Login at      TTY  Load   User ID

10/20/20  14:31  cord  1.0   IO.SysDaemon
          14:31  bk    1.0   Backup.SysDaemon
          14:31  prta  1.0   IO.SysDaemon
          14:31  ut    1.0   Utility.SysDaemon
          14:31  vinc  1.0   Volume_Dumper.Daemon
          14:32  none  1.0   Repair.SysAdmin

r 14:32 0.063 2

logout
Repair.SysAdmin logged out 10/20/20  1432.7 pst Tue
CPU usage 0 sec, memory usage 0.1 units, cost $0.03.
hangup
Multics has disconnected you
Connection closed by foreign host.

Note the 'utility' origins show up in the dollar charge for the session shown there at the end.

Now I'm really going to have fun and try booting from an MST (Multics System Tape) and setting up a whole system from scratch (Running a sysgen in IBM terms). Wish me luck, I may be some time... He said, tackling a mainframe system from 40 years ago that he's never sysadmined. <- There's another thing, we all talk about sysadmins, look above for the project (group) name in bold - all this old Multics stuff is a pervasive underpinning of much that we use, do and say in computing, even to this day

Oh very cool. I may have to go and play with that as well. It's pretty amazing that we can simulate this stuff now. I like the charging - that's better than acct on Unixy things. 

[bd139]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...     ...I had pulled out the cart it was sitting on to get a tool that fell off my bench behind it and just backed right into it, knocking it off onto the floor. 

I think those scopes are just suicidal. They all seem to have been dropped 

Massive win here from Amazon this morning. There's a flaw in Amazon's supermarket ordering system which means that if they don't deliver one part of a consignment it assumes that the whole consignment is missing as this appears in your order history:



Well some kind of circuit breaker or order timeout triggered at about 2AM and I just got a refund email per item for the ENTIRE order. All £70 of it 

[vk6zgo]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...    (SNIP)

PCB repair is underway with resin curing as we speak...

mnem

   

Done... and tested. 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

A much neater job than most of my board repairs.
The compatibility of FR4 with expoxy is one of  the things I like about it.

My most profound epoxy PCB repair was the power supply of a Sony BVM1410 picture monitor.

The PSU components not only cooked, but some unusual rectifiers with two diodes in the package burnt holes the diameter of my thumb in the board. 

I found some small single sided round boards which had been intended to use in microphones & repurposed them.
With all the charring removed, the small PCBs epoxied in place, individual pairs of diodes wired in place of the combined ones, & any other cooked components replaced, it worked, was "fit for purpose", but still looked like a "bodge".

[vk6zgo]

So I got a deal on a Tek C-12 oscilloscope camera recently. My plan for it is to remove the polaroid camera and retrofit a digital camera of some sort. Possibly one of those cameras for microscopes. Ideally, a reversible retrofit, but since the particular film for those cameras is unobtainium, perhaps it's not so important.

If it were me I'm modify the C-12 mount as required without regards to making it reversible. After all, where are you going to find B/W polaroid film packs? (And the fixer agent that you needed to spread on the picture so it wouldn't fade)

Edit, another thought. Rather than mounting a full size digital camera how about a small pinhole camera connected to a PC?

Yes, certainly the film is unobtainable short of finding a whole bunch in the kind of place I got that 519 and 577D1. I will probably experiment a bit; definitely want something connected to the computer for ease of grabbing and editing images. The only thing that won't likely be easy to achieve, that film allows, is taking multiple exposures.

Even if you do find the film unless it has been stored under ideal environmental conditions it's probably NG. And even then I wouldn't bet on it.

The film might work, but the fixer agent will almost certainly be dried out-----they used to do that sometimes, even back in the old days.

Of course, you wouldn't need fixer, anyway, you can scan the "unfixed" photo into your PC, using your printer.
Or, if you only want a paper "hard copy" you could just copy it.

[mansaxel]

There's another thing, we all talk about sysadmins, look above for the project (group) name in bold - all this old Multics stuff is a pervasive underpinning of much that we use, do and say in computing, even to this day

Everything, almost, in CS was invented or named by one of:

• A Danish professor who never wrote in anything less portable than a No. 2 pencil
• IBM, as an afterthought, during System/360 development
• Turing
• Someone in Manchester
• A team of model railroaders at MIT

Ok, this is an exaggeration, but only slightly so.

[med6753]

Hi,

I have to admit that I just joined the TEA club today.

After being frustrated of not being capable of finding any used gear at a decent price, probably because of other inmates like you all, I just placed the first order of what is probably going to be a long serie.

I just ordered, brand new straight from Tektronix, a Keithley DMM6500 6 1/2 digit multimeter with 1 MS/s sample rate, and a Keithley 2280S-60-3 power supply with integrated 6 1/2 digit readings, graphing capability, 60V 3A output.

More to come... next in line is probably a Rigol MSO5074 (err I mean a MSO5354) oscilloscope.

My, my......top shelf stuff you bought there. That must have set you back a few pesos. 

When you get them would love to see some stripped down inside porn but of course you would have to break the cal seals and risk your warranty. So don't be brave, or stupid, like I did when I purchased a Siglent SDM 3055. That cal seal is long gone. 

And welcome to our band of lunatics.   

[Robert763]

Thanks... still saying "I can't fucking believe I did that..." to myself about every 15 minutes...

And still  on how to fix the plastic. This part is structural and clips into the metal chassis, so no room to layer anything like epoxy & matting on the inside for strength.

Also, very visible... so I'm gonna get one chance to do the job right or I'll be looking for a donor unit.

EDIT: I'm leaning towards Plastruct Bondene: https://plastruct.myshopify.com/pages/technical-info-msds-sheets I think it's what I used to use for my big ship and plane models where you had to hold multiple parts together at once and let the glue wick between. Now trying to find a local supplier.

mnem
 

Hi,
For the bezel you need a solvent adhesive like the Plastruct bondene. I use the similar EMA Plastic weld.  Both are basically just methylene chloride.
They are literally solvent and leave no trace on glass. The meallic coating is  bit of an issue. Uses a sharp blade at 90 degrees to the inside corner of the edge tt slightly chamfer it, removing the coating. Tis is just a fraction, "breaking the edge" in engineering terms). Hold the parts together with tape, not covering the crack. Make sure the bit fit tight together. If there are several breaks you may have to do it in stages. Using a small screwdriver or similar apply small drops at regular intervals to the inside of the crack were you removed the metallic coating. Just enough to wet it. Capillary action will draw it into the crack. Leave somwere warm for several hours. You are tyrying t just get a wet, not dripping, track of solvent allong the inside. I use a pippete made from small bore PTFE sleeveing to drop the solvent. If you get it right there will be an invisible join on the outside.  A bit too much (not a bad thing) will leave a "flash line" that can be trimmed back. If there are gaps trim a few scraps of plastic from the inside and dissolve in the solvent to make a filler paste. Apply from inside only.

[med6753]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...     ...I had pulled out the cart it was sitting on to get a tool that fell off my bench behind it and just backed right into it, knocking it off onto the floor. 

I think those scopes are just suicidal. They all seem to have been dropped 

Massive win here from Amazon this morning. There's a flaw in Amazon's supermarket ordering system which means that if they don't deliver one part of a consignment it assumes that the whole consignment is missing as this appears in your order history:



Well some kind of circuit breaker or order timeout triggered at about 2AM and I just got a refund email per item for the ENTIRE order. All £70 of it 

Gee, I wish Amazon had that service here. I wouldn't mind getting groceries for free either. 

[nfmax]

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. Some further time killed dropping in on Tony that bought a SA from us a few weeks ago. (thanks mate for a great afternoon....hic  )

A Song for Tautech - the enabler!

To the melody strain of Tom Lehrer's 'The Old Dope Peddler':

The Old 'Scope Peddler

    When the shades of night are falling,
    Comes a fellow everyone knows.

    It's the old ‘scope peddler,
    Serving TEA wherever he goes.

    Every evening you will find him,
    Around our neighborhood.

    It's the old ‘scope peddler,
    Doing well by doing good.
 
    He shows the kids neat circuits,
    Because he knows full well

    That today's young innocent faces
    Will be tomorrow's clientele.

    Here's a cure for all your troubles,
    And your circuits in distress.
    It's the old ‘scope peddler

    With his Chinese happiness.

(Original version, complete with the dots, available at https://tomlehrersongs.com, courtesy of the great man himself!)

[tggzzz]

There's another thing, we all talk about sysadmins, look above for the project (group) name in bold - all this old Multics stuff is a pervasive underpinning of much that we use, do and say in computing, even to this day

Everything, almost, in CS was invented or named by one of:

• A Danish professor who never wrote in anything less portable than a No. 2 pencil
• IBM, as an afterthought, during System/360 development
• Turing
• Someone in Manchester
• A team of model railroaders at MIT

Ok, this is an exaggeration, but only slightly so.

Less of an exaggeration if you add Xerox PARC!

[Specmaster]

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...     ...I had pulled out the cart it was sitting on to get a tool that fell off my bench behind it and just backed right into it, knocking it off onto the floor. 

I think those scopes are just suicidal. They all seem to have been dropped 

Massive win here from Amazon this morning. There's a flaw in Amazon's supermarket ordering system which means that if they don't deliver one part of a consignment it assumes that the whole consignment is missing as this appears in your order history:



Well some kind of circuit breaker or order timeout triggered at about 2AM and I just got a refund email per item for the ENTIRE order. All £70 of it 

And then that bumblefuck driver from Morrisons will deliver it with already very kindly poured over the items for you...AGAIN 

[bd139]

And then that bumblefuck driver from Morrisons will deliver it with already very kindly poured over the items for you...AGAIN 

It was actually a normal grey Amazon van that delivered it. Looks like Morrisons just hand them over. They were using Ocado to do deliveries here and that never happens.

Amazon just can't do last mile logistics very well because they cost cut everything. So what you end up with is destroyed shit chucked in a pile in the back of a normal amazon van 

[Robert763]

And then that bumblefuck driver from Morrisons will deliver it with already very kindly poured over the items for you...AGAIN 

It was actually a normal grey Amazon van that delivered it. Looks like Morrisons just hand them over. They were using Ocado to do deliveries here and that never happens.

Amazon just can't do last mile logistics very well because they cost cut everything. So what you end up with is destroyed shit chucked in a pile in the back of a normal amazon van 

Interesting, I wonder how they get around the legal requirement to maintain temperature control on chilled and frozen items during transportation? I guess they just ignore it.

EDIT: Reference
https://iceotemp.co.uk/what-are-the-current-uk-laws-on-chilled-food-transportation/

[bd139]

Amazon's entire business, as I think I mentioned earlier, is cost cutting until it becomes non profitable to keep apologising. Thus I suspect this issue is going to be loopholed away until it costs something.

[Microdoser]

      

All righty then... Today was a crappy day for the ol' TinkerDwagon; I've murdered my 54645A. Well, my clumsy fat ass did, anyways...     ...I had pulled out the cart it was sitting on to get a tool that fell off my bench behind it and just backed right into it, knocking it off onto the floor. 

Did exactly the kind of damage it had when I bought it... even in the same areas of the front panel... only worse. Oh, and cracked the corner of the control PCB that somehow escaped destruction the first go-round.

PCB repair is underway with resin curing as we speak; however the front panel is another story. I need to cement these two chunks back in place, and I don't know what type of cement to use, so I'm calling for a lifeline from any of you chemistry freaks.

I do know that ordinary consumer-product cyanoacrylate doesn't work; I tried it the first go-round with a bunch of support tabs I found broken loose. It started out looking good, etching into the material just like regular model-plastic ABS; but it just turned the plastic crumbly and never set up like CA & ABS usually does. As you can see in the 2nd pic, it is marked as a ABS/polycarbonate blend, so I'm sure that's the cause. I just don't know what WILL work.

Anyhoo... I have the parts placed and the outer surface masked off with tape to seal the edges of the crack. This is my preferred method; I've used it more times than I can count to repair cracked VCR/CD/DVD/Audio gear fascia made of ABS. This tactic usually yields as close to a invisible repair as you can get, however it requires a watery consistency cement that will infiltrate into the cracks like CA does.

I would prefer an actual brand or product known to work with this stuff; ideally one which can be ordered off Amazon.

EDIT: I'm leaning towards Plastruct Bondene: https://plastruct.myshopify.com/pages/technical-info-msds-sheets I think it's what I used to use for my big ship and plane models where you had to hold multiple parts together at once and let the glue wick between. Now trying to find a local supplier.

Thanks,

mnem

https://www.thistothat.com/

If you know what the materials are,  this is a great site

[tautech]

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. Some further time killed dropping in on Tony that bought a SA from us a few weeks ago. (thanks mate for a great afternoon....hic  )

A Song for Tautech - the enabler!

To the melody strain of Tom Lehrer's 'The Old Dope Peddler':

The Old 'Scope Peddler

    When the shades of night are falling,
    Comes a fellow everyone knows.

    It's the old ‘scope peddler,
    Serving TEA wherever he goes.

    Every evening you will find him,
    Around our neighborhood.

    It's the old ‘scope peddler,
    Doing well by doing good.
 
    He shows the kids neat circuits,
    Because he knows full well

    That today's young innocent faces
    Will be tomorrow's clientele.

    Here's a cure for all your troubles,
    And your circuits in distress.
    It's the old ‘scope peddler

    With his Chinese happiness.

(Original version, complete with the dots, available at https://tomlehrersongs.com, courtesy of the great man himself!)

Noses right up to nfmax with an indignant and offended look in his eye.....A little less of the OLD you ahole !