Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Aaand on to the annoying task of the day. Need to top up RS basket by £3 to get free delivery and I can't think of anything I need.

I'm on £1.70 more required ... 

those zener diodes you needed for that thing. 560K resistors, as your trash can is devoid of them. Lapping compound for your conversational cutlery. Henways.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

I'm stuck at work       I think a longer lunch break is called for. 

Some of our overseas readers may need it explaining that "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" is not the result of Andrew's cat tap-dancing on his keyboard but is an honest-to-goodness Welsh place name of somewhere that actually exists.

There's more. That's actually a shortened form. The full, official name in Welsh is "Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch". The unbeknowing could, with some justification, think I'm pulling their legs at this point, but I'm not. Here's the local railway station:

Its also very close to the National Slate Museum and of course the famous Dinorwig Hydro Power Station which was carved out of the slate mountains and uses water pumped upto a lake on the top of the mountain and released through massive bore pipes down to the generators in a massive cavern at the bottom of the mountain during peak periods.   

[Vince]

Some of our overseas readers may need it explaining that "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" is not the result of Andrew's cat tap-dancing on his keyboard but is an honest-to-goodness Welsh place name of somewhere that actually exists.

There's more. That's actually a shortened form. The full, official name in Welsh is "Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch". The unbeknowing could, with some justification, think I'm pulling their legs at this point, but I'm not. Here's the local railway station:

Wow !

As an overseas, I am trying to decipher this mess of a string and try to spot bits of strings that could make sense... what I can read is :

" an "  " fair " " oger " " rob " " ant " !

So it's about an oger that's fair and robs and eats only ants to their parents rather than human babies ! Makes perfect sense to me, I got it  !!!   

I guess the people in this village must not be overwhelmed by mail... whoever is trying to send anything there is bound to make a typo so the mail will never reach its destination ! 

[mnementh]

They have no problem getting mail; their alphanumeric PostCode greatly simplifies things: 0G0FUCKURSLF

mnem
 

[Brumby]

Some of our overseas readers may need it explaining that "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" is not the result of Andrew's cat tap-dancing on his keyboard but is an honest-to-goodness Welsh place name of somewhere that actually exists.

There's more. That's actually a shortened form. The full, official name in Welsh is "Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch". The unbeknowing could, with some justification, think I'm pulling their legs at this point, but I'm not. Here's the local railway station:

In Australia, at least, the Welsh are known for an "interesting" language and the town mentioned above is generally known as a classic example.

Many years ago, a well known news reader on one of the Sydney TV stations had a little prank played on him.  (Apparently this is not unheard of)  He was handed a short piece that included this tongue-twister of a town name .... and he read it - for the first time - on air.

The joke, however, was on the pranksters as he proceeded to read the whole story - including the full town name - correctly and without faltering.  He later explained that as he was growing up, a neighbour had taught him how to pronounce it properly.  The neighbour was, of course, Welsh.

[tggzzz]

Some of our overseas readers may need it explaining that "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" is not the result of Andrew's cat tap-dancing on his keyboard but is an honest-to-goodness Welsh place name of somewhere that actually exists.

There's more. That's actually a shortened form. The full, official name in Welsh is "Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch". The unbeknowing could, with some justification, think I'm pulling their legs at this point, but I'm not.

I've heard the contraction was Llanfair PG, as per:
"The name (which means St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio near the Red Cave) was dreamt up in the 19th century to get the tourists in. And it worked. The previous name Llanfairpwllgwyngyll would have been hard enough; most locals call it Llanfairpwll but you'll often see it written as Llanfair PG."
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/wales/llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-llanfair-pg

[bd139]

Quick lunch time clean up with some Asda multi surface cleaner and a microfibre cloth. Some dum dum had written on it with a permanent marker. Managed to get most of it off but there are a couple of small stains on it still 



Not a bad specimen so far!

[Andrew_Debbie]

The full, official name in Welsh is "Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch". The unbeknowing could, with some justification, think I'm pulling their legs at this point, but I'm not. Here's the local railway station:

My local train station.    It is a request stop. You have to ask the guard for a stop or the train will roll right on by.    I'm sure some of the guards enjoy watching tourists and train junkies struggling with the name.   -  "I'm sorry, which request stop  "


The others request stops have names like  Bodorgan and Ty Croes so it is pretty obvious which stop they are asking for no matter how garbled the attempt is.

Anglesey still uses Victorian era mechanical signalling.   Big leavers,  bells, the whole thing.  Llanfairpwll has a manually operated crossing.  A Network Rail signaler opens and closes the crossing gates by hand.      We also have a few "User Worked level crossings"   The user is responsible for safe operation of the way across the tracks.

User Worked Crossing at Star, Anglesey:

[Specmaster]

Here are some links to the power station, which I think are very interesting. I was invited many years ago when this power station was being built to go and see it first hand. Sadly on the day I travelled across the UK to see it, a few minutes before I arrived, they had an emergency within the construction site which meant that no visitors were allowed on site, so I never got to see it after all 

[Andrew_Debbie]

Manually Worked Level Crossing:

[Specmaster]

Solved the mystery of the Yodel system, the tracking number I have been given was the sellers tracking number. I'm not sure if Yodel also provide a tracking number for the end customer or not. My package is now apparently up at the national sorting hub, so I'm hopeful that might mean that it'll be sorted and sent back to my local depot today and then delivered tomorrow, fingers crossed. I'm keen to get stuck in to the tearing down process for investigation and to identify the memory storage battery, so I can get another ordered and replace it, as well take a look at the screen illumination.

[Specmaster]

Manually Worked Level Crossing:

Have you been to the power station and its associated slate museum which is located next to the bottom lake and the power station is actually buried in the mountain that the slate was quarried from?

[Andrew_Debbie]

The startup screen on my RD6006 is a photo of Dinorwic Quarry. 

[Andrew_Debbie]

This one, I think.   

[mnementh]

Tripped over this the other day while looking for something else; an interesting, if difficult to realize, proposition at the end:

https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2019/08/a-law-to-stop-politicians-from-lying/

mnem

[mnementh]

bang-em-good living up to their name...   

mnem
*initiate round 2*

[Specmaster]

Keep at it, and you will either get the right ones sent, or a full refund. 

[Specmaster]

bang-em-good living up to their name...   

mnem
*initiate round 2*

The problem with getting things to stick to a politician is that they have friends in high places, take the item numbered 2 in the text, he has already nobbled the legal system, the national radio and TV are also in his grip via a political appointment as their head, and he is now bringing in a new law that would send any news reporter who attempts to show the government in a bad light. We are now living in an era of political power grabbing on a scale like I've never seen before. 

[mnementh]

Okay... but as horrible as he may be, I don't think BoJo is behind in my problem order of bang-em-good test probes.

mnem
*gaze narrows contemplatively*
Or is he....?   

[mnementh]

Mail actually delivered today... random baggities from parts unknown.  I wonder what secrets they might hold...?

mnem
No, seriously... it's been so long, I'm not sure...

[bd139]

bang-em-good living up to their name...   

mnem
*initiate round 2*

Having a similar issue with a recent aliexpress purchase. Abridged version:

Me: one part missing

Them: we will refund 20%

Me: if you delivered me a car with two wheels missing would 20% be a reasonable compromise?

Them: err 50%

Me: half way there.

Refunded 

I can’t complain though. Even the worst of the Chinese have a higher competence level than the best at CPC. Depressingly I’ve only ordered from them about 20 times and 15 of those orders had something wrong with it.

[AVGresponding]

and a little mysterious TE thingie:   

It's a under-load cell tester for old-school Lead-Acid batteries with exposed bus bars between the cells. Grand-dad had one; also had such a battery in Miss Allis (old diesel tractor ~110HP or so).

mnem
 

AKA the crackle tester, so named for the noise it makes when you stab the probes onto the battery terminals. Make sure it's a 12V and not a 6V one before you test it on your car battery, as these things get HOT under nominal voltage; put a 6V one on a 12V battery and the resistive element may well melt before you can disengage it, as the probes have a tendency to weld themselves to the battery terminals.

[mnementh]

Ummm... not quite. This particular version is used to measure individual cells; while the poky bits will sizzle a tad, especially if the bus bars under test are a bit crusty, we're talking typical 1.5-2.5V here. Terminal battery voltage makes no difference measuring cell-by-cell.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

and a little mysterious TE thingie:   

It's a under-load cell tester for old-school Lead-Acid batteries with exposed bus bars between the cells. Grand-dad had one; also had such a battery in Miss Allis (old diesel tractor ~110HP or so).

mnem
 

AKA the crackle tester, so named for the noise it makes when you stab the probes onto the battery terminals. Make sure it's a 12V and not a 6V one before you test it on your car battery, as these things get HOT under nominal voltage; put a 6V one on a 12V battery and the resistive element may well melt before you can disengage it, as the probes have a tendency to weld themselves to the battery terminals.

Nooo it is not a complete battery tester but an old-fashioned cell tester, back in the day when batteries also had the cell connections visible rather than just the final + and - terminals on todays batteries. Also, I think you may want to revise your statement,  as a 6V battery only provide 50% of the heat generated as a 12V one would do to the load resistor.

[Specmaster]

The Tektronix LCD portable scope has been relisted from yesterday https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203545772627