Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Good to see ya back, yoo oopstate Noo Yawkah riff-raff, you.

mnem
*tosses a soggy ol' boot south of the border, just on GP*

[mnementh]

welcome back.
Only a short detour into politics and guns which thank god Odin could be stopped short.

And 'tweren't even my fault this time!!! 

mnem
Seriously... I have no idea how that happened either...

[med6753]

There was word Sunday that bd seemed to be MIA. Has he been on and if not, has someone tossed him a "what's up?" PM?

[BU508A]

There was word Sunday that bd seemed to be MIA. Has he been on and if not, has someone tossed him a "what's up?" PM?

He is busy with some serious personal things but he is watching us from the backyard and will haunt us when we do not expect it. 

Message from him:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3571697/#msg3571697

[Vince]

HP scope : seller just replied to me. Said it would be silly to ship the scope to me, given what part of the country I live in, for recycling !!!

I guess what that means is that he did not put it up for sale thinking someone would restore it, but was rather thinking someone LOCAL would pick it up to recycle the metallic chassis or something ?!  So he must have thought it would be silly, counter productive, to recycle it, yet pollute like hell to transport it to me at the other end of France. Makes sense when you see it that way !

So, I replied to him that I meant to restore it, not recycle it !!! And that I dared to think that prolonging the life, resurrecting, a device, is much better for the planet that destroying it to recycle its metal !!!

I don't know if he will bother replying to that... probably not.... oh well, I tried my best ....

[mnementh]

Hello all. tautech prodded me via email directly. Life turned upside down here. Don't want to detail on public forum so will reply to PMs / post something on discord. I am not going insane and haven't killed anyone

Also I don't get forum PM notifications because I'm using outlook.com and the forum email is borked to any outlook.com recipients. Argh. Also I didn't put the eevblog forum password in keepass so it didn't make it over to the mac when I migrated. Have just fixed that mess and logged in quick.

Here ya go med... It kindof got buried in all the on topic stuff over the last few daze... 

mnem
 

[med6753]

Hello all. tautech prodded me via email directly. Life turned upside down here. Don't want to detail on public forum so will reply to PMs / post something on discord. I am not going insane and haven't killed anyone

Also I don't get forum PM notifications because I'm using outlook.com and the forum email is borked to any outlook.com recipients. Argh. Also I didn't put the eevblog forum password in keepass so it didn't make it over to the mac when I migrated. Have just fixed that mess and logged in quick.

Here ya go med... It kindof got buried in all the on topic stuff over the last few daze... 

mnem
 

OK, thanks. I hope he works it out.

[mnementh]

HP scope : seller just replied to me. Said it would silly to ship the scope to me, given what part of the country I live in, for recycling !!!

I guess what that means is that he did not put it up for sale thinking someone would restore it, but was rather thinking someone LOCAL would pick it up to recycle the metallic chassis or something ?!  So he must have though it would silly, counter productive, to recycle it, yet pollute like hell to transport it to me at the other end of France. Makes sense when you see it that way !

So, I replied to him that I meant to restore it, not recycle it !!! And that I dared to think that prolonging the life, resurrecting, a device, is much better for the planet that destroying it to recycle it's metal !!!

I don't know if he will bother replying to that... probably not.... oh well, I tried my best ....

Keep the faith, brutha.   

mnem
Re-use is the highest form of recycling.

[med6753]

HP scope : seller just replied to me. Said it would silly to ship the scope to me, given what part of the country I live in, for recycling !!!

I guess what that means is that he did not put it up for sale thinking someone would restore it, but was rather thinking someone LOCAL would pick it up to recycle the metallic chassis or something ?!  So he must have though it would silly, counter productive, to recycle it, yet pollute like hell to transport it to me at the other end of France. Makes sense when you see it that way !

So, I replied to him that I meant to restore it, not recycle it !!! And that I dared to think that prolonging the life, resurrecting, a device, is much better for the planet that destroying it to recycle it's metal !!!

I don't know if he will bother replying to that... probably not.... oh well, I tried my best ....

Better to write it off and mark the seller as "asshole" rather than aggravate yourself any further.

Besides, if it's an old scope with tubes he probably pulled them all out anyway.

[Vince]

Besides, if it's an old scope with tubes he probably pulled them all out anyway.

The scope is free, he clearly says that he did pull all the tubes out of it, hence why he is giving it away for free.

I have all the required tubes in my numerous spare Tek scopes, so it would not cost me anything to try to bring it back to life...

[AVGresponding]

So the Solartron has lived a life of travel it seems. Made in the UK, Calibrated in Washington State @ Fluke, Worked in South Australia for Defense Research, Moved to Western Australia followed by a 4000km move to me. Time for a life of luxury and semi retirement.

Wonder if it left Oz for work in the USA after DRCS or before and then came back 

As long as you don't want to measure small currents or resistances, they are nice meters. I know it's popular to retrofit blazingly bright white LEDs, but I rather like the subtle orangey-yellow backlight.

Oh my dear Bean, there is no problem there.

As I was settling it into the car, she put in an order for me to make her a jig saw puzzle.  I told her it wouldn't be big, showing the working area and she replied "That's OK, you could still get 500 pieces in that".

My response was silence.  I knew there was only one way this would play out.

My response would just get me in trouble; I'd make the jigsaw 500 square pieces...

[mnementh]

...and paint all of it bloo... on both sides...

mnem
*agitating-ily*

[Cerebus]

There was word Sunday that bd seemed to be MIA. Has he been on and if not, has someone tossed him a "what's up?" PM?

Yeah, several people did. He's got things going on that are serious enough to require his complete attention, but not serious enough that we ought to worry about him

[Specmaster]

There was word Sunday that bd seemed to be MIA. Has he been on and if not, has someone tossed him a "what's up?" PM?

Yes indeed, I did and so has Tautec and I think BU508A did as well. Its also good to have you returning safe and well again to the fold and we are keeping our fingers crossed for your safe return tomorrow with a clean bill of health.

[Saskia]

I decided that I really need the Midway classic arcade from Arcade1up ...
600 Pesos. FFS ...

[tggzzz]

Well, fleabay has found a new way to irritate me. Many, but not all, of my standard searches now display the image shown below at the top of the results. Given how relevant their "we thought you might like this similar thing" suggestions aren't, do they really think I'll trust them to determine what I'm not interested in?

[Robert763]

Yeah, that's not so new.
They tend to remove the private sellers and lower priced items.
At least you can bypass it with a click.

[kj7e]

Question for the group;

I have a very nicely optioned and fully functional HP 8920A I picked up a few years back.  It measures surprisingly close to my other test equipment and the display is not in too bad of shape, only a bit of burn in and reasonably bright.  I've done the periodic cal, but I was interested in the full all parameters cal and adjustment, turns out, Keysight will still perform the full production cal and adjustment.  This morning I packed it up and sent it off to Roseville.  I bet I will be the only kid on my block with a fully factory calibrated HP 8920A!  Ill report back on the cal data once its returned.

Side note.  I lost track of the custom molded foam shipping box I received the 8920A in.  The UPS store wanted an insane amount of $ to package it and ship.  Then checked at a FedEx store and they offered the foam molding packaging.  The box and molding cost me $22, they packaged it right in front of me and its solid.

The full cal from Keysight is worth it to me, I have been using mine for work recently and want to get it done before Keysight decides not to offer this service anymore.  So, this got me thinking about replacing the display, just to make it nearly like new again.  The new CRT's are getting hard to find, but I am considering the LCD retrofit kit offered by Simmconnlabs.

http://www.simmconnlabs.com/1401/10001.html

Has anyone had any experience with the New Scope Jr LCD kits they offer?

[tautech]

There was word Sunday that bd seemed to be MIA. Has he been on and if not, has someone tossed him a "what's up?" PM?

Private email sent Med.

[xrunner]

So, this got me thinking about replacing the display, just to make it nearly like new again.  The new CRT's are getting hard to find, but I am considering the LCD retrofit kit offered by Simmconnlabs.

http://www.simmconnlabs.com/1401/10001.html

Has anyone had any experience with the New Scope Jr LCD kits they offer?

I don't, but that looks like something I might do for my hp 8594E. Might get one of those kits for a project this year. 

[tautech]

With a wee road trip planned to deliver some gear and visit family it was time to sort out a few annoying things with the wheels as some months ago the radio started beeping irrespective of whether it was ON or OFF.   

Pulling the Aux fuse was the only way to stop it  but that also killed the clock and the cig lighter socket which is always reserved for the radar detector and GPS. 

Under the passenger seat was also TV/GPS unit installed in Japan but inoperable here in NZ so in case that had something to do with the radio fault that needed to get yanked out while I was at it.
Front seat removed and door sill molding to expose the many wires some of which connected to the dashboard radio that is also the head deck for the 12 CD stacker in the rear compartment. 

After a couple of hours carefully stripping out all unnecessary cabling and HW and now with part of the center console removed and radio/head deck hanging on wires  it was time to find out why this furking radio was playing up.
Tautech checks work and tidies up remaining wiring only to find a rear loom connector with a fancy retaining clip wasn't locked completely home with a very satisfying clack. 

Fuse installed ......NO beeps ! 
Radio ON...tune to fav station ....you little beauty. 
CD mode selected and Pink Floyd noises emerge. 
  
Another hour to reinstall radio, console and all the other stuff ripped out to gain access.

Then another hour to pack away all the TEA readied to do battle with the beeping radio that I've been postponing for months until a relatively free day.

Findings.....main rear loom partly unplugged and radio not being able to connect to speakers went into fault mode.

[Specmaster]

Well, fleabay has found a new way to irritate me. Many, but not all, of my standard searches now display the image shown below at the top of the results. Given how relevant their "we thought you might like this similar thing" suggestions aren't, do they really think I'll trust them to determine what I'm not interested in?

Never seen that before, but looking at it, I can't help but wonder if you have some international searches set up? If so I'm kinda wondering if this is an attempt at stopping eBay having to act as VAT collector on imported items? Are the "most relevant listings" all UK ones by any chance?

[mansaxel]

Yes, exactly my thinking. Everything T&M sits on a dedicated remote switch, so does my ham transmitter gear plus shackPC. The third group is my "experiments/building table". The latter one also has a local big red emergency power off button.

Better safe than 🚑🧯

Wilko

I have a self-hold-connected contactor for the machine shop, with emergency BRS at critical places. The self-hold circuit also controls the AUTO mode of the electronics workbench which is on a separate contactor. This contactor can also be actuated by switching to HAND on the control panel, or it can be blocked by switching to 0.



On the bench I've got both fixed and controlled outlets, because I want to have things like battery chargers running even without main power available.  I've liberated a couple 1HE mains PDUs from the skip at work, which have rear-mounted individually fused IEC outlets and a mains inlet with Neutrik Powercon. One of those serves all of my switched TE. 

[tggzzz]

Well, fleabay has found a new way to irritate me. Many, but not all, of my standard searches now display the image shown below at the top of the results. Given how relevant their "we thought you might like this similar thing" suggestions aren't, do they really think I'll trust them to determine what I'm not interested in?

Never seen that before, but looking at it, I can't help but wonder if you have some international searches set up? If so I'm kinda wondering if this is an attempt at stopping eBay having to act as VAT collector on imported items? Are the "most relevant listings" all UK ones by any chance?

Conceivable, don't know, but I'll keep an eye out.

Isn't VAT etc the whole justification for their global selling programme and its charges?

[Kosmic]

Question for the group;

I have a very nicely optioned and fully functional HP 8920A I picked up a few years back.  It measures surprisingly close to my other test equipment and the display is not in too bad of shape, only a bit of burn in and reasonably bright.  I've done the periodic cal, but I was interested in the full all parameters cal and adjustment, turns out, Keysight will still perform the full production cal and adjustment.  This morning I packed it up and sent it off to Roseville.  I bet I will be the only kid on my block with a fully factory calibrated HP 8920A!  Ill report back on the cal data once its returned.

Side note.  I lost track of the custom molded foam shipping box I received the 8920A in.  The UPS store wanted an insane amount of $ to package it and ship.  Then checked at a FedEx store and they offered the foam molding packaging.  The box and molding cost me $22, they packaged it right in front of me and its solid.

The full cal from Keysight is worth it to me, I have been using mine for work recently and want to get it done before Keysight decides not to offer this service anymore.  So, this got me thinking about replacing the display, just to make it nearly like new again.  The new CRT's are getting hard to find, but I am considering the LCD retrofit kit offered by Simmconnlabs.

http://www.simmconnlabs.com/1401/10001.html

Has anyone had any experience with the New Scope Jr LCD kits they offer?

I heard it's working fine. I don't have one myself but I was thinking about it for my 8566b. In the end it was too expensive for me. Was not making a lot of sense to invest that kind of money on an old SpecAn.