Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Do I see Philips crapacitors? 

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

Now now, you're not playing with Simon here are you, you're supposed to what Simon says aren't you? 

I like watching Simon, he gets some pretty good bargains at auctions from time to time.

[McBryce]

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 

My OCD rash just broke out big time. Soldering to snipped leads is just wrong! 

McBryce.

[bd139]

I’d run out of fucks by the time I got that far through that scope 

[med6753]

My OCD rash just broke out big time. Soldering to snipped leads is just wrong! 

McBryce.

If there was no ready access to the solder side of the board my OCD wouldn't even flinch. J hook it! 

[med6753]

One of the 2 ordered NTE126 transistors arrived today. The 2nd one will arrive tomorrow. Amazon had 2 in stock and I grabbed both. I guess they had each stocked in different warehouses. Anyway, these are Germanium replacements for 2N2207. They were not cheap. $12 USD/each. Probably NOS and I really doubt any Fab is working with Germanium anymore which explains the high price. Since both the Type 321A and 547 use them I figure I better snap them up as spares while I can.

I also have 2 Amperex OEM 2N2207's coming this week which supposedly have been tested. I'll check them when received. 

   

[mansaxel]

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

US wiring is weird. Some things are very gung-ho, some things are so anal that you'd think NEC never went to the bathroom, ever.

In Sweden, almost all  house wiring is in PVC conduit, which may be nailed to framing inside drywall clad walls, cast into concrete, or laid in chiseled cutouts made in masonry/expanded concrete walls which are then covered with mortar.

In conduit, one may pull insulated wires that are either single-wire (EK), 7-strand (FK) or more strands (MK or RK). Our "Romex" / "T&E" / "NYM-J", called EKK may these days be pulled in conduit too, which earlier was not allowed. EKK may also, which is another EU harmonisation, be hid behind mortar, which was not OK in the 80s. It is not allowed to run it inside drywall without conduit. The original installation method was nailing it to the wall using clips.




Areas start at 1,5mm² for a 10A circuit.  Colour code is European harmonised,

Phase	Black or Brown
Neutral	Blue
Protective earth	Yellow/green

Additionally, white tends to be used as a "lighting wire" which means going from the switch to the light, and denoting that the circuit is controlled.  Old installs had red as PE, and I've got lots of green and yellow lighting wire in my conduit. All these colours are largely frowned upon today, not enough to mandate rewiring, but certainly to block new construction. 

We had a period of wire nuts from about 1970 to 1990. They now are mostly obsolete, as are the "submarines", one-entry screw clamps.



Most joins are made with Wago 221's now.



Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Marking is done, if at all, on the outlet/switch face, and indicates the fuse number and distribution board.

[Cerebus]

One of the 2 ordered NTE126 transistors arrived today. The 2nd one will arrive tomorrow. Amazon had 2 in stock and I grabbed both. I guess they had each stocked in different warehouses. Anyway, these are Germanium replacements for 2N2207. They were not cheap. $12 USD/each. Probably NOS and I really doubt any Fab is working with Germanium anymore which explains the high price. Since both the Type 321A and 547 use them I figure I better snap them up as spares while I can.

Well, you'd be wrong, sort of. There's a SiGe process used for high speed digital and RF circuitry by several people, IBM and Analog amongst them, so there are fabs working with Germanium, just not in the way you meant.

[Cymaphore]

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.

I don't know what they sell over there where you live. But over here, by my professional experience of many years, spring-loaded terminals are one of the most reliable ways to connect things in electrical installations. Never seen a WAGO terminal, block terminal or spring loaded terminal on socket outlets (proper brands) fail, unless it has been significantly mishandled by a layman or a lazy professional.

Screw terminals on the other hand tend to get loose on their own over time, because even copper has some flowing and things change temperature all the time, hot, cold, hot, cold... You get the picture. Or the screws are undertightened or overtightened and/or damage the wire. And amateurs regularly put screws on stranded wires. And they usually don't even know how many Nm the terminal can handle. And even professionals are sometimes lazy or make a misstake.

And once (bare) aluminium wires are connected, screw terminals are a delicate thing that requires regular maintenance and experienced people to handle it, or they will definitely glow under load or break.

[Cerebus]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

[Cubdriver]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

[med6753]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

Agreed. If done properly.

[med6753]

One of the 2 ordered NTE126 transistors arrived today. The 2nd one will arrive tomorrow. Amazon had 2 in stock and I grabbed both. I guess they had each stocked in different warehouses. Anyway, these are Germanium replacements for 2N2207. They were not cheap. $12 USD/each. Probably NOS and I really doubt any Fab is working with Germanium anymore which explains the high price. Since both the Type 321A and 547 use them I figure I better snap them up as spares while I can.

Well, you'd be wrong, sort of. There's a SiGe process used for high speed digital and RF circuitry by several people, IBM and Analog amongst them, so there are fabs working with Germanium, just not in the way you meant.

Thank you Captain Obvious, you knew exactly what I meant. 

[bd139]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

Agreed. If done properly.

And that’s why they’re shit. Need to be reliable and safe in the hands of electricians who are neither reliable or safe from experience.

[mansaxel]

Just made a snipe on the local auction site, and scored:



Was advertised as "Microphone, grey" but I realised it is an upgraded version of the Studio Projects mikes I already have, a B3. Elastic suspension is fucked, but that can be dealt with.

[Andy Watson]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

Agreed. If done properly.

And that’s why they’re shit. Need to be reliable and safe in the hands of electricians who are neither reliable or safe from experience.

Exactly.
I thought wire nuts were banned (for domesitc wiring) throughout Europe a few years back ?

[Cerebus]

One of the 2 ordered NTE126 transistors arrived today. The 2nd one will arrive tomorrow. Amazon had 2 in stock and I grabbed both. I guess they had each stocked in different warehouses. Anyway, these are Germanium replacements for 2N2207. They were not cheap. $12 USD/each. Probably NOS and I really doubt any Fab is working with Germanium anymore which explains the high price. Since both the Type 321A and 547 use them I figure I better snap them up as spares while I can.

Well, you'd be wrong, sort of. There's a SiGe process used for high speed digital and RF circuitry by several people, IBM and Analog amongst them, so there are fabs working with Germanium, just not in the way you meant.

Thank you Captain Obvious, you knew exactly what I meant. 

Which is exactly why that ends "just not in the way that you meant", Captain Dunderhead.

[Cubdriver]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

Agreed. If done properly.

And that’s why they’re shit. Need to be reliable and safe in the hands of electricians who are neither reliable or safe from experience.

If someone is incapable of stripping and twisting a couple of wires together then screwing a cap onto them, I’d posit that they have no business wiring buildings. It’s not rocket surgery; I’ve known how to use wire nuts since my early teens.

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

One of the 2 ordered NTE126 transistors arrived today. The 2nd one will arrive tomorrow. Amazon had 2 in stock and I grabbed both. I guess they had each stocked in different warehouses. Anyway, these are Germanium replacements for 2N2207. They were not cheap. $12 USD/each. Probably NOS and I really doubt any Fab is working with Germanium anymore which explains the high price. Since both the Type 321A and 547 use them I figure I better snap them up as spares while I can.

Well, you'd be wrong, sort of. There's a SiGe process used for high speed digital and RF circuitry by several people, IBM and Analog amongst them, so there are fabs working with Germanium, just not in the way you meant.

Thank you Captain Obvious, you knew exactly what I meant. 

Which is exactly why that ends "just not in the way that you meant", Captain Dunderhead.

Don’t make me stop have to this car!  Play nice, you two!   

-Pat

[Cerebus]

Don’t make me stop have to this car!  Play nice, you two!   

-Pat

You'll know we're not playing nice when we stop insulting each other and taking the piss.

[Cubdriver]

Don’t make me stop have to this car!  Play nice, you two!   

-Pat

You'll know we're not playing nice when we stop insulting each other and taking the piss.

LOL - yeah, I suppose that's true.  Like kids in the house, you worry when they get really quiet... 

-Pat (who just has cats in the house)  (they're typically getting into trouble regardless of the volume level.)

[Neomys Sapiens]

Thanks for suggestions about wallpaper for my phone. I've settled on this:



My ringtone is the warning sound from 2001:ASO when Poole is about to fire the explosive bolts on his pod; listen below. That is one of the few sounds guaranteed to get my attention.

It also works well in a crowded openplan office, to remind people that their ringtones annoy the whole room

I am using the sound of two colliding small powerful magnets as my SMS notification. Hard to miss.

[mansaxel]

Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Wire nuts are the work of the Devil, and those who use them are Satan's little helpers.

I don't understand the hate for wire nuts.  Made up properly, IMO/IME they're very reliable.

-Pat

• They're one-use, if you want low resistance. Some models can be re-used if you stuff them even more (i.e. adding cable might work)
• You can't mix stranded with solid, or even different stranded lay-ups. Pretty common use-case here, so is important.
• They require skilled labour because the resistance and persistance of the connection is up to the sparky bodging them together.

In contrast, the 221 terminals:

• Are explicitly reusable.
• As long as you have holes left, you can add wires.
• Removing a wire is easy as pie.
• Any hole can have a different wire type.
• And, they are self-explaining, and very easy to get a good connection with. As long as you strip 11mm (.433") from the wire and get it all in the hole, you're good as soon as you've flipped the lever down.

Screw terminals need proper torque and have cold deformation problems, which means they too have issues that make them less desirable for production use. I use them, where I have to, but they're not reliable. Just the other day I tracked down a fluctuating signal level in my overengineered multi-room stereo to a screw terminal gone bad. Typical slow deformation issue; it's been fine for years and then I need to tighten 100 terminals because they've not been properly -- to a very narrow tolerance -- tightened.

Most serious sparkies here have torque screwdrivers to help with the problems, so there is some progress.

[AVGresponding]

Most joins are made with Wago 221's now.



Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Marking is done, if at all, on the outlet/switch face, and indicates the fuse number and distribution board.

I don't know what you're talking about, I get them for free...   

When you're pulling in enough cables to fill a 3-phase 64-way board, you mark the cables or you're going to have a very bad day when it comes time to terminate them.

Torque-drivers are required by the regs here for termination into boards (ie MCBs, RCBOs, earth/neutral bars etc), though not for accessories (sockets, switches, spurs etc).

[tautech]

Most joins are made with Wago 221's now.



Personally, I hate wire nuts, and love 221's. They are fantastic. And of course, a bit expensive. But worth it.

Marking is done, if at all, on the outlet/switch face, and indicates the fuse number and distribution board.

I don't know what you're talking about, I get them for free...   

When you're pulling in enough cables to fill a 3-phase 64-way board, you mark the cables or you're going to have a very bad day when it comes time to terminate them.

Torque-drivers are required by the regs here for termination into boards (ie MCBs, RCBOs, earth/neutral bars etc), though not for accessories (sockets, switches, spurs etc).

There’s something to be said in support of a proper apprenticeship scheme where a year or two of gripping and dragging cables builds sufficient strength to twist a screwdriver with sufficient force to make a properly sound connection.
Limp wristed sparkles need be shown the door and warned not to let it hit them on the way out ! 

[mansaxel]

There’s something to be said in support of a proper apprenticeship scheme where a year or two of gripping and dragging cables builds sufficient strength to twist a screwdriver with sufficient force to make a properly sound connection.
Limp wristed sparkles need be shown the door and warned not to let it hit them on the way out ! 

An equally large problem to loose connections is overtightening. It's not "more", it's "right", that's needed. I find that when I torque to spec which I try to do these days, I experience the torque required as substantially less than what I'd use if I did things by feel.

Torque control tooling is applied science, from a large data set. A no-brainer for someone with TEA, methinks.

Current collection:

ISI-werkzeuge 40-200Nm wrench, 1/2" grip.
Proxxon 40-200Nm wrench, 14x18mm Einsteck-Griff.
Norbar 10-60Nm wrench, 1/2" grip.
ISI-werkzeuge 5-25Nm wrench, 1/4" grip.
Wiha 0,8-2Nm screwdriver, 4mm hex grip
Wiha 1,2-5Nm screwdriver, 4mm hex grip

Oh, and the "new" car came with one too, for fitting the roof rack bars to the rails. Old torsion bar with a pointer system. 4Nm is the torque required on the clamp screws.