Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[DH7DN]

Ahh, yes... I saw this Type 547 laying around in nature. It was quite a chonker! 

[cyclin_al]

If a certain colour of conductor is typically used for the neutral over here, never call it neutral based on its colour.
You can only call it neutral if you trace it back to the mains supply cabinet and you know it is actually neutral. 
Conductor colours mean absolutely nothing in north american building wiring.
The worst circuits are lighting circuits with 3-way or 4-way switches, along with very "inventive" ways of using minimal copper to get the switches and light sockets working as intended. 

Exactly. Even though 99% of the time white is neutral in 120V wiring never assume that it is unless you verify it. It could be a loop circuit for a wall switch. According the code if a white wire is hot the sparky is SUPPOSED to mark it at termination with black marker but if you rely on that you be dead. 

The discussion on Fiber: I think it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon ever installs fiber in my area. So I'm stuck for now with my over priced cable TV ISP.

I have NEVER seen a sparky mark anything.  I have seen loop circuits for switches and sockets with no way to know which is which, unless you take the house apart. 

Come to think of it, I have different circuits off of different breakers running into the same box.  A serious no-no in the code, but they (someone before I moved in; was not found on the electrical inspection) did it anyway.
The only reason I have not gone to fix that myself, is that it would involve taking down most of the gyp rock in the house...

We had a wind & thunder storm around here last night.  I was not home; out on a 12 hour road trip to pick up something that was not even TE, but at least it floats in a flood situation.
Anyways, internet service went down.  SWMBO and the kid were not happy.  This morning, spent a few way too many hours trying to convince the Bell ISP support person that my computers and settings were the problem.  He finally did a line test and then fiddled with something.  He tells me everything is fixed and running amazingly well and I should be very happy with 0.35 Mbps 
He said it would get a tiny bit better with fiber.  Of course, he failed to mention it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon Bell ever installs fiber in my area.

[capt bullshot]

While looking at the usual suspects on youtube, I stumbled across Photonicinductions latest one:



120yr old Nernst lamp

I remembered quite instantly this old book:



Something like The Art Of Electronics, but dated 1902. There's a schematic and description of how these things work. Amazing to see one in real.

[Specmaster]

Not quite TE but electronically interesting, is this Mk 3 Cortina prototype from the 1970s with a factory digital dash:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154544120839

Well if that is immaculate then my car is factory fresh  Seriously though it is rather interesting with that prototype interior.

[med6753]

If a certain colour of conductor is typically used for the neutral over here, never call it neutral based on its colour.
You can only call it neutral if you trace it back to the mains supply cabinet and you know it is actually neutral. 
Conductor colours mean absolutely nothing in north american building wiring.
The worst circuits are lighting circuits with 3-way or 4-way switches, along with very "inventive" ways of using minimal copper to get the switches and light sockets working as intended. 

Exactly. Even though 99% of the time white is neutral in 120V wiring never assume that it is unless you verify it. It could be a loop circuit for a wall switch. According the code if a white wire is hot the sparky is SUPPOSED to mark it at termination with black marker but if you rely on that you be dead. 

The discussion on Fiber: I think it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon ever installs fiber in my area. So I'm stuck for now with my over priced cable TV ISP.

I have NEVER seen a sparky mark anything.  I have seen loop circuits for switches and sockets with no way to know which is which, unless you take the house apart. 

Come to think of it, I have different circuits off of different breakers running into the same box.  A serious no-no in the code, but they (someone before I moved in; was not found on the electrical inspection) did it anyway.
The only reason I have not gone to fix that myself, is that it would involve taking down most of the gyp rock in the house...

We had a wind & thunder storm around here last night.  I was not home; out on a 12 hour road trip to pick up something that was not even TE, but at least it floats in a flood situation.
Anyways, internet service went down.  SWMBO and the kid were not happy.  This morning, spent a few way too many hours trying to convince the Bell ISP support person that my computers and settings were the problem.  He finally did a line test and then fiddled with something.  He tells me everything is fixed and running amazingly well and I should be very happy with 0.35 Mbps 
He said it would get a tiny bit better with fiber.  Of course, he failed to mention it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon Bell ever installs fiber in my area.

When I did wiring I never used the loop method for switches. Too sketchy IMHO and the extra copper to do it right wasn't all that much. I also never used the "push in" connectors for outlets. Always proper screw termination. I've seen those push in's fail many times and in fact start the burn. I think they should be banned.   

[AVGresponding]

The steering wheel is on the wrong side. No wonder it never got passed the prototype stage. 


And if anyone cares the Type 547 is back on it's feet and my nuts are intact. 

No, the steering wheel is on the right hand side.

I have NEVER seen a sparky mark anything.  I have seen loop circuits for switches and sockets with no way to know which is which, unless you take the house apart. 

Come to think of it, I have different circuits off of different breakers running into the same box.  A serious no-no in the code, but they (someone before I moved in; was not found on the electrical inspection) did it anyway.
The only reason I have not gone to fix that myself, is that it would involve taking down most of the gyp rock in the house...

I take issue with this statement. We mark EVERYTHING.

Sounds like you haven't met any real sparkies, only cowboys.

Well if that is immaculate then my car is factory fresh  Seriously though it is rather interesting with that prototype interior.

To be fair I think he's referring to the body/chassis. If you look in the engine bay it looks like it just rolled off the production line. These old things were seriously prone to the tinworm, it must have lived its entire life in a dry garage more or less.

When I did wiring I never used the loop method for switches. Too sketchy IMHO and the extra copper to do it right wasn't all that much. I also never used the "push in" connectors for outlets. Always proper screw termination. I've seen those push in's fail many times and in fact start the burn. I think they should be banned.   

Loop-in is mostly used by house-bashers, the lowest level of skill in the sparky world. We almost always bring the feed to the switch. The occasional fuck-knuckle brings the neutral to the switch as well, but then there's always going to be people that like to make more work for themselves.

[Cubdriver]

If a certain colour of conductor is typically used for the neutral over here, never call it neutral based on its colour.
You can only call it neutral if you trace it back to the mains supply cabinet and you know it is actually neutral. 
Conductor colours mean absolutely nothing in north american building wiring.
The worst circuits are lighting circuits with 3-way or 4-way switches, along with very "inventive" ways of using minimal copper to get the switches and light sockets working as intended. 

Exactly. Even though 99% of the time white is neutral in 120V wiring never assume that it is unless you verify it. It could be a loop circuit for a wall switch. According the code if a white wire is hot the sparky is SUPPOSED to mark it at termination with black marker but if you rely on that you be dead. 

The discussion on Fiber: I think it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon ever installs fiber in my area. So I'm stuck for now with my over priced cable TV ISP.

I have NEVER seen a sparky mark anything.  I have seen loop circuits for switches and sockets with no way to know which is which, unless you take the house apart. 

Come to think of it, I have different circuits off of different breakers running into the same box.  A serious no-no in the code, but they (someone before I moved in; was not found on the electrical inspection) did it anyway.
The only reason I have not gone to fix that myself, is that it would involve taking down most of the gyp rock in the house...

We had a wind & thunder storm around here last night.  I was not home; out on a 12 hour road trip to pick up something that was not even TE, but at least it floats in a flood situation.
Anyways, internet service went down.  SWMBO and the kid were not happy.  This morning, spent a few way too many hours trying to convince the Bell ISP support person that my computers and settings were the problem.  He finally did a line test and then fiddled with something.  He tells me everything is fixed and running amazingly well and I should be very happy with 0.35 Mbps 
He said it would get a tiny bit better with fiber.  Of course, he failed to mention it will be a cold day in Hell before Verizon Bell ever installs fiber in my area.

When I did wiring I never used the loop method for switches. Too sketchy IMHO and the extra copper to do it right wasn't all that much. I also never used the "push in" connectors for outlets. Always proper screw termination. I've seen those push in's fail many times and in fact start the burn. I think they should be banned.

Any time I have the switch beyond the light such that the white wire was the switched hot going back to the box with the light fixture, it gets marked at both ends with black heat shrink.  When the white in three conductor cabling is acting as a traveler between three or four way switches and may be hot at times, it gets marked with red HS at the ends.

Back stab receptacles are tools of the devil..  Current code still allows them, but now only for 15A circuits and the holes permit the insertion of #14 wire only; they're too small for #12.  Still won't use them that way.  In fact, I do pigtails in receptacle boxes so the downstream circuitry is wire-nutted together rather than relying on sequential screw connections on all the upstream receptacles to pass the current.  A bit of extra work, but more reliable in my opinion.

-Pat

[bd139]

Bought some test gear finally. Nice little Farnell triple output power supply. Great for old fashioned linear and digital electronics work. 23 quid including delivery 



Simon Spiers (current owner of my old Fluke 87) did a video on them:

[Cubdriver]

The steering wheel is on the wrong side. No wonder it never got passed the prototype stage. 


And if anyone cares the Type 547 is back on it's feet and my nuts are intact. 

No, the steering wheel is on the right hand side.

Yeah, but you guys DRIVE on the wrong side of the road.     

-Pat

[factory]

P.S. could really use one of them exploding cats, to install in this computer  , had lots of problems with it the last few days, it froze shortly after an error appeared and then refused to boot afterwards (not even a beep from the motherboard), it's done this twice now, I suspect a hardware problem. 

It could easily be a windows update (if that's your OS). My laptop started behaving oddly after updating yesterday, the line detection doesn't work properly now and it keeps dropping in and out, with accompanying beep (until I got annoyed and turned the sound off).
Naturally I checked the output from the brick as I thought the high ambient t was making it shut down, but nope. Just windows being windows.   

Bit behind on here again.....

It's done it again over the weekend, I'm fairly certain it's a hardware problem, as it refused to do anything other than spin fans/drives up and light the LED on the front. To rule out the OS (win 10) I unplugged the HDD's and still couldn't get anything for a while after repeatedly trying, I would normally expect the motherboard beep & show the boot screen, then the post info, would have thought an error about no drives too.

Not sure I can be bothered investigating further as the PC is getting on a bit, the motherboard & CPU are from 2008, I did replace the cheap nasty Coolermaster PSU after it failed in 2011 (filled with CrapXon caps & not enough space to fit decent parts, due to component density). The GPU, RAM and HDD's got upgraded in 2014.

Might be time for a partial rebuild with new motherboard, CPU, RAM, SSD, etc. Thinking of going for a Ryzen 3700X (65W), not sure about the rest yet, as I need to see if I can find a motherboard with correct expansion slots for the GPU & other cards.

David

[bd139]

3700X is a nice CPU. Can't go wrong with it.

[med6753]

Bought some test gear finally. Nice little Farnell triple output power supply. Great for old fashioned linear and digital electronics work. 23 quid including delivery 



Simon Spiers (current owner of my old Fluke 87) did a video on them:

Do I see Philips crapacitors? 

[factory]

3700X is a nice CPU. Can't go wrong with it.

Yeah it is, I've gone for that one due to the lower power (65W) and a decent upgrade on what I have. The old machine has a quad core Intel Q6600 which has lasted well and it wasn't the one I originally ordered, they didn't have the dual core in stock at the time (which would probably have been a crap choice anyway).

David

[Kosmic]

The steering wheel is on the wrong side. No wonder it never got passed the prototype stage. 


And if anyone cares the Type 547 is back on it's feet and my nuts are intact. 

Well I'm not the only one doing "Dad Jokes". I was going to post the same comment 

[bd139]

Do I see Philips crapacitors? 

Not for long. I'm going to blow the cunts up after replacing them 

[factory]

Bought some test gear finally. Nice little Farnell triple output power supply. Great for old fashioned linear and digital electronics work. 23 quid including delivery 



Simon Spiers (current owner of my old Fluke 87) did a video on them:

Do I see Philips crapacitors? 

My brother picked up one of those Farnell PSU's a few years back, don't think it was expensive either.

As for the Philips caps, they vary a lot, some are complete crap and others test better than the replacements I bought. 

David

[med6753]

Do I see Philips crapacitors? 

Not for long. I'm going to blow the cunts up after replacing them 

Good boy. Post videos. 

[med6753]

My brother picked up one of those Farnell PSU's a few years back, don't think it was expensive either.

As for the Philips caps, they vary a lot, some are complete crap and others test better than the replacements I bought. 

David

My experience with Philips capacitors in Fluke gear is that they are complete shit. 

[Robert763]

I've had a TOPS 3D, the digital metered version for many years. It's great for mixed signal applications. A lot handier than a daul and a single.

[bd139]

My experience with Philips capacitors in Fluke gear is that they are complete shit. 

They are problematic as a rule. I got a PM3315 for cheap a few years back and guess what: shorted philips bluey bastard. Note the lazy hack job to replace it 



Worked:



Don't ever buy those scopes - they are complete aggro. It's an 8085 computer with a primitive DSO strapped to it that uses CCDs and all sorts of weird shit to do its thing. Also the (well hidden) inline mains filter likes to blow up when you're doing burn in and ruin the curry you're eating.

They also work nothing like anything else on the planet.

Edit: bonus guts photo:

[med6753]

They are problematic as a rule. I got a PM3315 for cheap a few years back and guess what: shorted philips bluey bastard. Note the lazy hack job to replace it 

Gee, looks like my work.  You're not the only one who's done that. 

[bd139]

Good to know 

[Saskia]

reached agreement with realtor. Negotiating with employer.

[med6753]

Good to know 

That's why me and Carlson would never get along. He would rip the unit completely apart just to gain access the solder side of the board and do a proper remove/install. Now I may be anal but fuck that. Snip, j hook, replace, done. 

[med6753]

reached agreement with realtor. Negotiating with employer.

Good deal. Hope it all falls in place.