Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

More fun with the HP 606A - freeing the stuck range turrets.



-Pat

[med6753]

Your house is big. My lab is also my office, living room and bedroom 

[MED mode on]

I get it. I'm used to having all this room at my disposal (no wife or kids (that I know of ...)). I can't stand a lot of clutter. That's me. If someone else likes that or needs to have some because of space requirements, I understand. But I don't like clutter, I'm 63, and I ain't fuckin' changin' now!

 

[MED mode off]

Amen Brother.  Let the pigs wallow in the mud. Is today pick on the neat guys? I guess I should have been around to defend the flag but decided today was a good day to catch up on some sleep. But I'm here now so if you messy guys wanna pick on me give it your best shot. I hate disorganized clutter. I have upmost respect for guys like Jim Williams but he was a slob, plain and simple. If I had to work at that bench I would sweep all that crap onto the floor and bin it. And this comment about "well, if your stuff is neat then it's not readily accessible" Bullshit. My tools and equipment is right at hand. Difference is I can find what I need immediately because it's organized while you rummage through a pile of shit to find what you need.

And yes, typically residences here tend to be larger than say in the UK. I don't know how my one bedroom "flat" compares with a typical UK "flat" but my total space, including kitchen and bath, is just under 1900 square feet. My living room is large at approx 17 feet by 9.5 feet. And it's a constant challenge to keep neat but I accept it. 

As xrunner said "But I don't like clutter, I'm 68, and I ain't fuckin' changin' now!"

Go ahead, make my day.   

[factory]

More fun with the HP 606A - freeing the stuck range turrets.



-Pat

Seems to be a common problem with these, I found my 606B had seized up from storage a couple of years ago, a good oiling got it all moving again.

David

[BU508A]

As of about a week ago Apple are added to the vendor shitlist here. There another thread about that though.

They still produce the best hardware and software combo but now compromised privacy and a compliance nightmare means I can’t conscientiously continue using their platform without endorsing a downward spiral for my kids.

As you’ve heard me say: always have an exit plan and that has been played.

Reference in context: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/18/german-politician-letter-tim-cook-csam-scanning/

Saw you talking more on this in the Discord... You mean you're actually getting rid of the iPuds & iPwns for the kidzz, etc as well...?

mnem
all I can say is... hide the shovels so they can't make you dig your own hole... 

Yep scrapping the whole lot. Have bounced all my personal devices other than iPhone as I’m waiting for a hardware token to turn up so I can still do MFA. Then that’s going. Youngest is keeping iPad for now as it’s heavily locked down anyway and all that shit disabled. Older two don’t use theirs much as they have laptops and desktops.

On a positive note I now have a fad wad of cash which is immediately going to be burned on something mirrorless with a decent amount of glass in front of it 

For anyone who doesn’t know, Apple accidentally introduced the first step of global totalitarian policing to their platform and everyone has shit the bed over it. Me included. When confronted about it they claimed misunderstanding and doubled down on it. So double bed shitting took place.

They have found a working collision in Apples algorithm:

https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX/issues/1

The two pictures in question:


Those collisions are not "found" they are calculated.

[bd139]

Yep. Which now means you can use it as a targeted attack.

This is the biggest privacy shit show ever.

[Saskia]

it's also unfair to the next of kin.

I hate clutter. I was brought up in a messy household
with drunk abusive things (sperm / womb donors, not what I would call parents) and a severe case of parkinson at home.
I had been sent to a school approx. 15 miles away and spent the whole day at school. Also had to use the bicycle to get there.
I did not have any weight or insuline issues back then ...

Anyway, when we had to leave that place they called a container to dispose of all the stuff.

Now I am faced with a similar dilemma. Hubby is sick, I am way overworked and need to have some spare time to get my health back on track. Hubby is wasting away, and with my work load plus moving back and forth between daughter and husband (~ 350 miles) it is somewhat difficult to maintain the entire household plus find some time for myself which I definitely also need to get my health back on track.

The result is: clutter.
And this is the next thing that absolutely has to go.
I absolutely need to unclutter before moving. I absolutely hate clutter.
Period.

So Med, I am with you 100%.

[bd139]

it's also unfair to the next of kin.

I hate clutter. I was brought up in a messy household
with drunk abusive things (sperm / womb donors, not what I would call parents) and a severe case of parkinson at home.
I had been sent to a school approx. 15 miles away and spent the whole day at school. Also had to use the bicycle to get there.
I did not have any weight or insuline issues back then ...

Anyway, when we had to leave that place they called a container to dispose of all the stuff.

Now I am faced with a similar dilemma. Hubby is sick, I am way overworked and need to have some spare time to get my health back on track. Hubby is wasting away, and with my work load plus moving back and forth between daughter and husband (~ 350 miles) it is somewhat difficult to maintain the entire household plus find some time for myself which I definitely also need to get my health back on track.

The result is: clutter.
And this is the next thing that absolutely has to go.
I absolutely need to unclutter before moving. I absolutely hate clutter.
Period.

So Med, I am with you 100%.

Spot on with this.

I have a bit of a worry coming up. A relative is slowly dying. He’s an ex EE and ham. I’ve been tasked with sorting all his shit out and getting top return on it. There is test gear and all sorts in there but most of it hasn’t been touched for 20 years in a damp garage. The rest is dotted all over the place in the house in boxes and the attic is entirely unknown.  I have decided to actually reject this job and call in a clearance company (Specmaster - remember Marty?) and get them to deal with it.

Things cost time. If you don’t deal with your affairs they will cost relatives time as well. Honestly I’m going out with my birthday suit and that’s it.

Actually speaking to an aforementioned YL at the weekend we’re walking past a jewellery and tat shop in Chichester and she says “oh look shop full of shit that no one needs”. So true. She runs her life out of a couple of bags. Starting to turn to that mindset these days. I don’t want to be owned by my stuff

[xrunner]

it's also unfair to the next of kin.

Yes! Look what the neighbor who passed 6 years ago left to his daughters. Piles of rubbish of practically no value in the garage. See how it filled the garage. And the house ... I won't present that image to your eyes. 

Maybe all those images had an effect on me over and above my desire for no clutter, but I ain't gonna end up with a mess like that for people to clean up. 

[factory]

After cleaning the foam crap out over the bin, I checked the battery pack, it measured in at 4.6V.
But once reinstalled it failed to power the scope without the wall-wart connected, I expect it's past it's best and will need replacing. No issues apart from a memory error, the display is in excellent condition and judging by the number of power cycles this scope hasn't seen a lot of use.



As the main bench is still covered in hp 180 series, it will be a while before I do a teardown to evaluate the condition of smd caps that maybe inside.

David

Yeah, the battery situation is a bit of a bummer, but at least it's made up of standard cells.

4 of those power cycles are me checking the basic operation and battery after I bullied some charge into it (arrived here with ~300mV on it), though I didn't think to check the number of them in that menu so never saw that memory error   

I keep looking over at my 720A now and wondering about smd caps dammit!   

A couple more power cycles will be me, I didn't RTFM, instead remembered the log on the 2465B and thought this might have something similar hidden in the menus. Not sure about the memory error, hoping it's just the waveform storage NV memory & a dead coin battery or supercap?

The reason I want to check the smd caps is this Shango066 video, featuring another Tek product rebranded as Mac Tools, plus the early 1990's stuff at work (not TEA related or smd) where through hole Panasonic caps of all sizes randomly leak and eat the traces from the boards.

A picture from that video, it was mentioned the nearby regulator IC's used in that scope are around $20 each if the conductive splooge buggers them up.


Second one looked perfect until the cap got removed.  Anyone recognise the cRapacitor brand?

I keep looking over at my 720A now and wondering about smd caps dammit!   [/color][/size][/b]

Stop wondering then, just crack it open to check for them, and make some nice pictures for us in the process, that goes without saying !

There were teardown pictures in the first post of this thread, but they aren't showing for me, not sure why.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tek-ths720a-portable-scope-teardowndiscussion/

It was mentioned there are differences between my 710 & the 710A/720A version, one is the trigger can be from the DMM input on the A version.

David

[Specmaster]

@bd139
Oh yell yes, I remember Marty, the famous scope man from Leatherhead no less. So that was his game eh, house clearance, looked to me like he needed to clear his house, right tip as I recall 

[bd139]

Yeah his house was a shit show. He’s moved now and learned how to pack stuff finally.

[Specmaster]

it's also unfair to the next of kin.

Yes! Look what the neighbor who passed 6 years ago left to his daughters. Piles of rubbish of practically no value in the garage. See how it filled the garage. And the house ... I won't present that image to your eyes. 

Maybe all those images had an effect on me over and above my desire for no clutter, but I ain't gonna end up with a mess like that for people to clean up. 

Thats nothing, you should see what my Mum left for me to sort out, although to be totally fair, some of it was mine. I still have piles of stuff that SWMBO and myself thought might be useful to keep, still piled up in my garage 7 years later. I think that I'll have to arrange a skip and start disposing of some of it as we have not really made use of it, then maybe I can house of the stuff from my hobby room in the garage and maybe fit another desk/bench in 

[Cerebus]

For the UK crowd, especially Cerebus, this might be of interest. eBay auction: #393343336397. NAWTS.

Thanks, but not for me. Two reasons. (1) Too pricy - I'm generally only adding bargains to the microphone stock, if at all. (2) As capacitor mics go I'm probably only going to add C451 range bits to extend the existing collection of the same. I mean, if I spot a pair of KM84's or a U87 or even a C414 for a really good price I'm not going to say no, but unless I trip over something I'm not really actively looking even though I've got a few ebay searches set up for C451 stuff.

[med6753]

My Mother wasn't a pack rat by any means but for some reason she saved every bit of mail that came into her house for the past 10 years. My Brother spend days with 2 paper shredders to get rid of it. He also found many pictures including several of me with the assorted...ahem...females who happen to accompany me at the time on visits.    I told him to send them to me so I could take a quick trip down memory lane and then I'll bin them. (Lady Cop knows all about my past history but if there's any suggestion that I'm gonna show them to her you can squash that thought right now. Ain't happening  )

I face a similar dilemma when it comes to the final disposition of my stuff when that day eventually comes. None of my boys are into electronics. I could say donate it, but to who? Or try to sell it. That would be a royal PITA and a burden. I fear what ultimately will happen is a huge dumpster will take it all.         

[Cerebus]

As xrunner said "But I don't like clutter, I'm 68, and I ain't fuckin' changin' now!"

Go ahead, make my day. 

Na, you'd enjoy it too much.

[tggzzz]

Thats nothing, you should see what my Mum left for me to sort out,

As I mentioned, 8-16 rooms

Now, what is the value of CITES Appendix 1 pieces of taxidermy with no paperwork? £Xk or £0?

[Vince]

Just finished my little project.

My JLC boards are just fine. They fit just fine in the DB9 Amphenol shell I bought. Board is electrically fine. So I went to solder the components.
Sorry people I am not as good as you. 1206 here for the resistors, SOT23 for the trannies, and MiniMELF for the diode. Don't have good eyes nor top notch soldering equipment (just my good old "Magnastat" Weller with the smallest chisel tip I could buy, 0.8mm or 0.6 or something can't remember, bought it 4 years ago), never mind a microscope.  Plus there was no need for ridiculously tiny packages in this particular project. 1206 fits just fine as you can see.
I may have to build 20 or 50 of these boards so I don't want to make my life more miserable than it needs to be...

Anyway, quite happy about how it turned out. Board looks great, I didn't screw anything up when making them. Then I tested the thing, works fine it appears...

It's an OBD interface cable a friend in Germany has been selling for 20 years. He makes them using through hole components (1/4W resistors and TO92 packages), and somehow with some practice, it actually fits inside the shell without shorting anything. Somehow in 20 years he never had a cable fail or a customer complain of anything. I am stunned. Still, I always found this horrible.. .20 years later I am getting used to SMD stuff and we can make boards dirt cheap, so I thought it's time to clean all that mess up, and make him a PCB with SMD components. So I did that.

Last project was 15 years ago, so it's nice to get back to actually doing useful stuff in the lab. An actual real world project from start to finish. Choosing the enclosure / shell (Never liked the one he used, crap and ugly, so went for a nicer Amphenol shell instead, and better quality cable as well), buying a bunch of different cables to settle on the best one. Design the board to fit the shell, learn Kicad, get the board manufactured, solder the SMD components, testing the board / cable so the gear in the lab actually  gets used... it's all thrilling and very satisfying ! I forgot just how fun it was to design stuff from end to end, no matter how modest the project might be, it's irrelevant.

Now that this little project got me up to speed with SMD and Kicad and getting boards made... I am eager to work on my next project ! 

Now I know the basics of Kicad, I can spend less time / effort learning Kicad, and more time on the project itself. So I can afford to switch gear and go for a more complex project.

Thing is, now that I left aviation and am trying to get back into the electronics industry, I need to convince companies that even though I spent the last 10 years in aviation, I am not rusty in electronics. Best thing to demonstrate this is to actually show real world projects, show them I can actually design stuff today, from end to end, using modern fancy SMD stuff, nice looking/professional PCB, electrical design, mechanical design, building, testing, programming... everything.
If you can show an actual finished/polished product, show material about it, schematics, code listing,  pics of your lab and your prototypes, answer any question about anything on the project, in an eye blink... then they will know the guy means business and is not an imposter. Worked for me 15 years ago when I got interviewed by 2 different R&D companies. The chief engineers liked my approach very much but sadly the HR girls had the final word and didn't like my unconventional style. They prefer actual engineers with a diploma, from a reputable school, suit and tie and nice hair cut. That's definitely not me.... 

Anyway, I am very excited by this first project and now can't wait to get started on the next one, a bit more complex this time ! 
I think I already know what this project might be !! 

[Saskia]

I guess part of life is living in nostalgia, daydreaming about days gone by, chances and opportunities that are bygone, and the fleeting thought to hold on to those memories by trying to get an anchor to relive past emotions.

however from my own experience this just does not work.
You overendulge and keep mental ballast which will keep you from aquiring new experiences, emotions, what have you.

You cannot turn back time. (except maybe by running backwards around a tree in light speed. But if you manage to do that, you can literally just fuck yourself ...)

So, part of moving will be a major sell off of my stuff. I will keep a couple of things, but I even got Hubby to put up some of his stuff for auction and to just keep his beloved G19 for practicality reasons.

In case anybody here wants some fairly decent computing stuff:
drop me a note.
RC stuff will go after that, and a sell off of hifi stuff is planned.

Also the Jag and the Milwaukee Iron may go.
The boat (my RIB) has already been sold.

I may even toss some books (*gasp*)

plus any/all Apple stuff I can find.

[Vince]

Wow, sounds really bad 

I wish you the best for your next life, and hope you won't regret any of the stuff you are about to part with.. but seems you have thought this trough and through so...

I hope we will still see you on TEA every now and then ?!...

[Zucca]

You can't split a /64 if you want magic. (that is, the SLAAC and RA stuff working.)
Did you get a prefix delegation from the ISP or is it only one /64? It's not unlikely you'll have to tell your router to request a PD. Most ISP's who do PD here give the customer a /56 or so, meaning you have 2⁸ /64 nets to play with.
I've got a /49 from my local tunnel provider, and a /48 from HE.

After further analysis and tests I did not win the battle yet, Charter is giving me /64 Ipv6. More on that in a separate post.
Again we confirm the golden rule: the more you know about networks, the more those ISP looks like:



Interesting reading
 

[srb1954]

More fun with the HP 606A - freeing the stuck range turrets.



-Pat

Faraday is obviously in charge of the repair works.

[mnementh]

I can do 0603 fine now 

Congrats ! Want to build some of my stuff ? Just asking ... 

The 22puff caps I replaced in the oscillator I'm poking here with my High-Z Super Sharp Pointy Stick^TM are 0603, soldered with the naked eye... earlier, when I was trying to make do with scavenged parts, I had some 0403 in there reclaimed from a HDD. I did get the old magnifying visor out for that bit tho.

The hard part with MMLCCs is minimizing dwell time to prevent fracture; when they go on a bit crooked you just wanna retouch so bad... 

mnem
*smacks paw* NO! BAD TinkerDwagon!

[Cubdriver]

Decided to fire up the 606A Signal Generator and see what would happen.  It works, at least somewhat.  I still need to check the PS rails and calibration, and the meters have some issues, but considering that I've no idea when it last ran and that it spent years in a storage container in New England, I'm impressed that it runs at all.  Internal and external modulation operates, and the output frequency (at least when measured with the scope) appears to be pretty accurate to the dial setting.



-Pat

[mnementh]

There's a curve where there is an intersection of "these parts are really cheap" and "I've lost half a cut tape of parts in the carpet" which is a sweet spot of efficiency for hand building. 0603 / 0805 is about the middle.

• I always do my part stuffing at the living room table, where there is a reasonably clear wooden floor. A combination of that and the "shine a torch sideways across the floor" trick means that I'm:
  
  • Doing pretty well on the "lost parts count" front, and
  • acutely aware quite how much dust, fluff and other crap is on the living room floor.
• I'm occasionally and casually trying to mentally design a tray that parts don't b^o_uⁿ_ce off but that still has a smooth ESD safe surface and with a lip that will catch parts as they try to ping off into the distance.
  
  JLC use the used backing boards from PCB drilling as the flat, rigid packing for stencils.  I was using the one that came with my stencil as my working surface (nice and smooth, neutral grey) when stuffing boards the other day. One part tried to get away from me, but got trapped in the registration holes that go through the edge of the backing board as it tried to skitter off. Thus it strikes me that perforated hardboard might make quite a good margin for an SMD hand assembly area as a part catcher.
  

I put my silicone work mat in a old cafeteria lunch tray. Works a treat for keeping itty-bits captive, aside from the occasional crease in the bottom of my forearm if I absently rest it on the edge too long. And of course, finding itty-bits stuck there from time to time...

I suppose I should work up some actually grounded ESD-safe solution; for now I just lay it on my ESD mat and takes my chances.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

   Just finished my little project.

My JLC boards are just fine. They fit just fine in the DB9 Amphenol shell I bought. Board is electrically fine. So I went to solder the components...

Ummm... you know JLC offers parts population services as well, right? And these quantities... very possibly cheaper completely populated boards than you can buy the components yourself.

mnem