Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[TheDefpom]

I recently purchased a broken Datron 4700 calibrator... it hasn’t arrived yet.... I keep checking the tracking, even though I need to pay tax on it at customs first...

[beanflying]

I think I belong here.

You have remained strong for way to long 

[med6753]

Roadtrip @Med @Nixiefreq others? eBay auction: #293945475353 Only a few miles and some snow likely to be in the way  Some other goodies from the same seller too....





Also a stash of HP feet  eBay auction: #363037725383

Utica, Michigan.....way too far. That would be an over night trip. Now if it said Utica, New York that's a different story. About 2.5 hours one way.

[med6753]

I think I belong here.

Absolutely. About time you showed up. 

[BU508A]

I think I belong here.

Welcome to the nuthouse. Have a seat. Wanna TEA? Biscuits? 

[Specmaster]

I think I belong here.

You certainly do, a hearty welcome to you, I frequently watch your YT channel as well  So have you come here to learn 

[Ice-Tea]

I think I belong here.

What kept you 

[TheDefpom]

What kept you 

Denial

[Cubdriver]

What kept you 

Denial

Welcome to the nut house.  We have cookies!  (And boat anchors...)

-Pat

[bd139]

Welcome to the jungle 

[Specmaster]

@bd139
It seems that there is something to Hermes after all, although it has to be said that personally I have had nothing but good service from them but as always YMMV. So if anybody is wondering whatever happened to their parcels, wonder no more, and you will be astonished at the reasons given for parcels going astray.

[capt bullshot]

What kept you 

Denial

Welcome to the nut house.  We have cookies!  (And boat anchors...)

-Pat

Yes, kind of ...



Sorry, the cookies are all gone ATM

[bd139]

@bd139
It seems that there is something to Hermes after all, although it has to be said that personally I have had nothing but good service from them but as always YMMV. So if anybody is wondering whatever happened to their parcels, wonder no more, and you will be astonished at the reasons given for parcels going astray.

It's always YMMV. Very few people work for couriers and deliver services as a career choice. It's because they are fungible and available and have little choice but to take the first thing that comes along. That means you get a nice mix of people who either accept, like and resent doing it. The latter is inevitable regardless of which courier you use. Objectively they are usually removed from organisations because they are fungible but there's go guarantee that they will be replaced with someone who isn't worse or the same.

tl;dr: some people are dicks. I get the feeling Morlocks were modelled on the evolutionary outcome of this.

[Specmaster]

Yes, it was much same story with Amazon returns that included actual customer returns and also packages that still had not been delivered because the driver claimed that there was no actual delivery address on them, which was true on some but most did have.

[Saskia]

Xmas brake is over, now quarantene because I was in USA.
And of course, internet in my apt is down.
thank you fuckdafone.

After 35min on the phone listening to stupid music t whopping 3KHz bandwidth, they opened a ticket.
I already know it will take 3 days to repair it....

orrr..... plot twist, my modem is somehow toasted and do not detect the DSL carriere anymore....

ONE thing is totally obvious: it is neither recommended nor acceptable for a member of this community not to be able to support his main communication technology by robust test-and-measurement capabilities.
1.) you need a DSL tester
2.) you need a DSL simulator/device tester
3.) you need a backup in the form of a DSL signal presence indicator plug
 

P.S.: my tip would be to throw in some special tools and adaptors for good measure.

Totally wrong. He needs a backup solution in form of a high powered pulse laser to do WAN over laser morse.

It has to be strong enough to do error correction when a pigeon (or similar strays into the beam (i.e. roast it).



One enabler struck and gifted me 2 scopes which I intend to put to some use.
Thank you very much indeed for the kind gift.

Had a lot of fun and games yesterday and several apparantly not so easy to fix boards.

3 dead ITX boards.
Bloody hell.
<-- not happy.

In other news, had a long call with my new boss. Seems that I can get a promotion if I can get that xDNN to work on FPGAs and deploy some cNNs or rNNs.

[capt bullshot]

Wonder why there's a free space under the shelves 
The day before yesterday there's been sitting a TDS 420.



Noticed a Hameg leaving the house too ...

BTW
A "small" laser to keep pigeons out of the garden ... Sounds interesting

[capt bullshot]

Attending some lengthy teams meeting ... Three party development workshop (Us, some contractor and the customer). Our and the contractors' managers really like to talk a lot. Yawn. Nothing new since 9 o'clock (it's 20 to noon here). I'm supposed to stay there the whole afternoon and two more days. Boring.

Tempted to replace the audio channel with my favourite radio station as it is too distracting when trying to multitask

[syau]

I recently purchased a broken Datron 4700 calibrator... it hasn’t arrived yet.... I keep checking the tracking, even though I need to pay tax on it at customs first...

You will need lots of tant caps 

[med6753]

Attending some lengthy teams meeting ... Three party development workshop (Us, some contractor and the customer). Our and the contractors' managers really like to talk a lot. Yawn. Nothing new since 9 o'clock (it's 20 to noon here). I'm supposed to stay there the whole afternoon and two more days. Boring.

Tempted to replace the audio channel with my favourite radio station as it is too distracting when trying to multitask

[capt bullshot]

A nice graph for my distraction:



No, that isn't the wasted power into that meeting, it's solar power generation and total house power consumption here.
Trying to code some grafana / timescaleDB stuff (the data ingress side from my CAN bus based house "automation"). Oh no, it's not too difficult, but the audio channel is too distracting.

Oh, nice, lunch break is announced for 12:30 (but still discussed if 12:15 or 12:45 would be more appropriate)

[Ice-Tea]

I think I belong here.

Quite funny you decided to show up now. Just dusted of a stack of Datron and watching some of your content right now

[mnementh]

What kept you 

Denial

Oh, admit it... you've been lurking in here for years. Whether you knew it or not. Welcome to the nuthouse, DP; you'll fit right in. 

We have a Neverending Taco Truck in the corner, beanflying comes and goes but his coffee bar pretty much runs on autopilot (his secrets guard themselves), and the crusty old Aardvark in the corner is mostly harmless, except when polishing his conversational cutlery. Beware; we have a slight smurf infestation; if you hear the sound of a rattle-can, best run unless you want your (insert body part here) painted bloo. 

Just be aware that the pervy little dwagon fancier role is filled. That's my character flaw; get your own. 

mnem

[Saskia]

Tempted to replace the audio channel with my favourite radio station as it is too distracting when trying to multitask

you might try the HD Radio Network Blues Stream or Perihelion Classic Rock, Cincinatti.

Pretty decent music, no ads. Those are my 2 favs.

[mansaxel]

ONE thing is totally obvious: it is neither recommended nor acceptable for a member of this community not to be able to support his main communication technology by robust test-and-measurement capabilities.

I've got my signal source and optical power meter ready, together with the inspection and cleaning utensils required to make a connection. I'm quite happy having left DSL behind.

[mnementh]

Cheap Arb Heads-up: UNI-T UTG962E Crappy BNC Jacks

      

I posted this in the UTG962E thread; but I felt feel obligated to reiterate this warning here for my fellow TEA enthusiasts (and all those lurkers) who might be considering this little arb as a entry-level or even as a second or portable signal source.

While overall this little thing packs huge bang/buck, it has some truly horrible cheap-arse BNCs on (well, at least those which came on mine) it; as you can see, the center contact is not the usual machined bit, but rather just rolled sheet metal, and not very carefully rolled at that.

I noticed this when I was tinkering with it during the photo session for the wedge base under my 54645A I showed off in here; it had a finicky contact on one of the BNCs that would drop out if you wiggled the cable at all laterally. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the RG58/U cables I'd just made up from leftovers. But then I noticed that it did the same thing with the brand-new factory-made BNC jumper which came with the thing, and always on the same BNC jack.

Further inspection revealed the horror seen above; but worse, inspection of the cable showed this connector was actually shaving metal off the center pin of those BNCs. I took many pics, but this was the best of them... unfortunately it doesn't well show the actual shaving of the metal which is visible to the eye under magnification. This is a brand-new BNC plug with maybe 6 mating cycles on it.

Yes, these things are built to a price; but I feel that having connectors which damage your expensive interconnect cables is definitely on the wrong side of the too fukkin' cheap line; be forewarned.

So... while this generator is a great value function-wise, I advise you not to use any cables or probes with it that you care aboot... and that you probably should consider replacing these little horrors with a set of decent BNC jacks as part of the cost of ownership on this little beast; I'm planning to add them to my next BOM.

It might be okay with cables using a stainless steel BNC or maybe with a decent stainless BNC right angle as a intermediary connector; but I've only ever seen those in 75Ω.

EDIT:   

Disassembly and measurement shows these are clones of Amphenol 031-5486; the version with solid round (not forked) pins in white Valox. These are ~$7 each at Mouser or DigiKey. Any of the above Low-Profile receptacles should be a suitable replacement, however.

Datasheet attached below.

mnem