Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

Proposal to develop Insulin sensor submitted to the powers that be.
Now need to forward this to our CEO thru channels just in case some midlevel management critter decides that it's too much work to take a stand ...

This would be an insulin sensor that could be used in a personal device? That would be a game changer for diabetics!

yes, exactly.

If you asked me before, I would have said to have seen such a thing somewhere before. Assuming that Saskia did her research and that AL is also current in such things, I'm a wee bit astounded now.

I tried to buy one. The pharmacy told me that none was listed. Did my Google search, found none

[Neomys Sapiens]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/nanovolt-design-challenge-build-and-show-your-own-nv-meter-in-256-days/

 

how beautiful is this:



this is such a sexy board.... even with the bodges....

Really? With those crappy connectors?

[Neomys Sapiens]

Proposal to develop Insulin sensor submitted to the powers that be.
Now need to forward this to our CEO thru channels just in case some midlevel management critter decides that it's too much work to take a stand ...

This would be an insulin sensor that could be used in a personal device? That would be a game changer for diabetics!

yes, exactly.

If you asked me before, I would have said to have seen such a thing somewhere before. Assuming that Saskia did her research and that AL is also current in such things, I'm a wee bit astounded now.

I tried to buy one. The pharmacy told me that none was listed. Did my Google search, found none

Ok, wait. Are you talking sensor development or device productisation?

[Vince]

Yesterday, I checked the local classifieds site for “Tektronix” and found an ad for a 547, not working, with some plugins about a 40 minute drive from home for free. 

Wow....wow. 

Some people just get lucky.... very lucky.... EXTREMELY lucky....

Happy for you !!

Glad you juuust about saved its life from this tube hoarder, phew that was close !!! 

That 547 is in such a great overall shape, and already working basically, that it would be a tragedy to end its life as a mere donor ! 

As for me luckily I don't have to make such a painful decision... have two 547 but one is in decent shape and kinda works, just needs fixing, but fundamentals are good,  whereas the other is very crusty inside out, is already missing a few tubes and probably sat unused in a damp garage for the past 20 years. So it's a no brainer as to which will get restored and which will donate its organs to help the restoration...

Interesting this third party plug-ins you got, as well !

[Neomys Sapiens]

Regarding the HP8347A: The thing is here and as we can see, it is exactly the same as pictured:

I won't be able to rest it until 2 weeks from now and will not look at the interior before that. But a manual supporting the existence of this version still needs to be found.

[mnementh]

What the actual FUCK...? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353637404307

mnem
 

I don't know what you're making a fuss about you're the one that likes nekkid electronics!

Take it off! Take it all off!   

LOL! 

And it's nekkid again, only this time it's going back together.

mnem
*scrubbity-scrubbity... wipe-ity wipe-ity...

mnem

[Kosmic]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/nanovolt-design-challenge-build-and-show-your-own-nv-meter-in-256-days/

 

how beautiful is this:


this is such a sexy board.... even with the bodges....

Really? With those crappy connectors?

Similar but not exactly the same as the 3458a reference.



The board is huge though, not sure how it will fit in a 3458a if the goal is to replace the reference.

[shakalnokturn]

Not TE, just old electronics...
I bought a Monarch 5700 receiver / amplifier today. At the seller's place when asking if it worked well I was told "it comes on, don't have speakers haven't tested further....".
He plugs it in to show me the dial (partly) lights. (Wow, f'ing fabulous! I already have bulbs to replace...)
While I'm the only one awake and things are quiet at home I thought I'd do a quescient current sanity check on the amp. and check the voltage needed for replacement dial bulbs.
The round power cable with replaced plug got me suspicious  so I took a peep in there before plugging it in again....
Now I wish I'd negotiated the price harder.
Must send the seller a message asking if he knows what the person who's house he cleared the receiver from died of.

[tautech]

What the actual FUCK...? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353637404307

mnem
 

I don't know what you're making a fuss about you're the one that likes nekkid electronics!

Take it off! Take it all off!   

LOL! 

And it's nekkid again, only this time it's going back together.

mnem
*scrubbity-scrubbity... wipe-ity wipe-ity...

mnem

 

[Vince]

Oh no....... ohhhhh...... noooooooooo.... I did it AGAIN ! 

Remember just a few days ago I talked about this horrible Gould 1604 scope that drove me nuts when I fixed it a year ago ? How I said it was a horrible experience that brought many grey hair, and how I promised myself I would never, ever buy a Gould scope again ?.....


Well I just bought THE EXACT SAME SCOPE again !!!!!   


Just received it this evening, few piccies below.

However there IS a reasoning behind this scope.... kinda.


Previous one, I initially bought for me, I mean, to keep it, add it to my collection, not resell it. Back in the day I remember seeing ads/brochures for these things. The front panel looked like it was off of an alien space ship with its myriad of push buttons, and the built-in printer was like.... just... WOW !!! 
Such an extraordinary luxury I thought at the time, so convenient, so insanely high-tech.... a PRINTER INSIDE YOUR SCOPE ?! 
Even our fancy Tektronix scopes in the lab didn't have a printer in them !

So when I saw one for only 50 Euros + shipping, defective / no power, I thought cool, quick power supply fix and I can add one of my dream scopes to my collection ! How nice ! 

Then the thing actually arrived and... oh my god.
Thing was missing the carry handle, didn't pay attention to that in the sellers pictures. Much worse, show stopper : the scope did NOT have the printer ?!  I always assumed it was a standard feature on all these Gould scopes, how foolish of me !  Couldn't tell from the sellers picture as he didn't show even a glimpse of the top of the scope.

Then as I worked on it to fix it, realized the seller took it commmmmmpletely apart, 100%. Absolutely every piece of it had been taken apart. Half the screws were missing, and those that were still there, were usually mismatched and not the correct type of screw in the right place.
Guy made an attempt to fix the corroded traces on the main board from the leaked battery... had to finish the job, took ages to track down the faulty / broken trace... hiding under a big RAM chip of course !

That was too much to take... so flipped it as soon as I managed to get the thing going.


So now, a year later or so, another one pops up, exactly the same model, a 1604 (4 channels, 20MHz, 16MS/s, analog+digital).. but bought it anyway because this one looks to be a much better deal !

- This one I could clearly see it had the printer !!!!    CHECK

- Carry handle NOT missing ! CHECK

- Ad inspired a lot more confidence than the previous scope. Says it worked 15 years ago when he last used it. So most likely the battery leaked and bricked the scope. Except now I now how to fix this... I know where to look and exactly what awaits me, I am "prepared"...

- Comes with a couple probes. A generic unmarked x1/x10  probe, but also a nice looking Lecroy probe, model P9020 which according to Google is good for a wooping 350MHz ?! Scope is only 20MHz !    Cool, I will take that !
It's missing the ground alligator clip and retractable "hook" to grab component leads, but hey, it's not mandatory. I can just stick a ground "spring" around the tip and I will be in business

- Even comes with the front cover !

-.. .cost me only 20 Euros  + only 6,5 Euros for shipping ! 26,5 Euros delivered !!!

So really when you add everything up... I just could not say no ! 

Quick power up. 100% same symptoms as the previous one : Powers up but nothing on the CRT, front panel unresponsive, and only two LEDs that show signs of life : Power ON LED, and the "Triggered" status LED that's blinking randomly.
Been there done that. Scope brain dead because of leaky battery breaking traces in the CPU RAM area. The two "working" LED are driven purely by independent analog stuff, they would still light up even if I pulled the CPU from the scope...

First look at the outside of the scope seems to confirm my good feeling about this scope having NOT messed with this time : all screws are still there, not a single one missing, and they are all identical, no mismatch.

So that one I think is a keeper. With the painful experience from the previous scope, I should be able to fix this one  way faster and with way less headaches !!! Then just need to give the plastic trim pieces around the front panel, and printer panel a good "retro-bright" session (worse case paint them...) to make it look good again, and that will be it !


I am exhausted, 2H30 AM here, going to bed. Will open up the scope tomorrow. I don't even have anywhere to store it ! All storage shelf space is already taken ! That scope will have to take up space on the work bench for now...
I may be able to free a spot on the shelves as I have an old Brown Philips scope I bought to fix and flip. So the sooner I get round to fixing it, the sooner I can reclaim the space and put the GOULD in its place...

[tautech]

Careful Vince this one's a DSO.....there's hope for you yet !   

[xrunner]

... and how I promised mysedlf I would never, ever buy a Gould scope again ?.....

I just bought THE EXACT SAME SCOPE again !!!!!   

LOL you're a sucker for TEA like the rest of us. 

So the printer - I assume it prints the traces on the CRT (what else would a scope printer print). But can you even get paper for the damn thing?

[Vince]

Careful Vince this one's a DSO.....there's hope for you yet !   

Eh ?! You are just being a bad mouth my dear Tautech ! I already have NINE DSO scopes, with this GOULD that now makes it TEN ! 

[shakalnokturn]

So now, a year later or so, another one pops up, exactly the same model, a 1604 (4 channels, 20MHz, 16MS/s, analog+digital).. but bought it anyway because this one looks to be a much better deal !

I saw that one and considering the price, was going to give it a try, luckily you saved me the bother.
In return I might give you my fix to the defective HV problem on the brown Philips PM32xx scopes if I get round to solving that - ever.

The front panel looked like it was off of an alien space ship with its myriad of push buttons, and the built-in printer was like.... just... WOW !!! 

I believe the user interface actually is alien technology.

- Comes with a couple probes. A generic unmarked x1/x10  probe, but also a nice looking Lecroy probe, model P9020 which according to Google is good for a wooping 350MHz ?!

I think that was one of the probes sold in the day of the 7200/7200A scopes, the buy was worth it just for the probe.

[Vince]

LOL you're a sucker for TEA like the rest of us. 

I am afraid you might right I guess ! 

So the printer - I assume it prints the traces on the CRT (what else would a scope printer print).

Well yes like any DSO... 
I tried to connect to it via Wifi and an app on my Smarthphone, to print the list of groceries... it failed miserably !

But can you even get paper for the damn thing?

I have no idea !!!  However it's not a thermal printer, it's just a pen plotter hence uses normal paper. So I guess if I search a bit, might be able to find a roll of paper that might fit, from some desktop / Business / accounting calculator or something....

For now, there is still a little bit of paper left in the thing.

[xrunner]

Regarding the HP8347A: The thing is here and as we can see, it is exactly the same as pictured:

I won't be able to rest it until 2 weeks from now and will not look at the interior before that. But a manual supporting the existence of this version still needs to be found.

Regarding manual information on this particular optioned 8347A -

Can Find Nothing ...

(but not giving up yet)

[Vince]

So now, a year later or so, another one pops up, exactly the same model, a 1604 (4 channels, 20MHz, 16MS/s, analog+digital).. but bought it anyway because this one looks to be a much better deal !

I saw that one and considering the price, was going to give it a try, luckily you saved me the bother.

Not worth your time ! Too much of a pain to work on, and too little return once flogged ! You need higher added value items... higher spec scopes that you can sell for a few hundreds, like you usually do. Bottom of the barrel like this GOULD, not enough money to be made to make it worth your while... 
That, PLUS I understand you now have an old amplifier to fix, so one thing at a time little Shakal !!! 

In return I might give you my fix to the defective HV problem on the brown Philips PM32xx scopes if I get round to solving that - ever.

You're kidding me ? You and me know EXACTLY how you fix CRT issues on scopes  ! ... you just Frankenstein a Minitel flyback into them and off you go !    I have to say, I do admire your talent and creativeness when fixing stuff... I do.

My Brown Philips, a 3214, has no CRT issues. According to my old notes when I test drove it upon reception, it has only 3 problems:

- Erratic triggering. Could just be dirty switches given the design and age of the thing...

- Channel 2 works fine but Channel 1 does not work... no trace at all comes up on screen when I select it. So actually maybe it DOES work but either the " Mode " switch fails to switch it on screen, or the vertical position knob/circuitry keeps the trace far away off screen so I can't see it.

- Horizontal amplifier needs calibrating and/or fixing : the trace does not span the entire width of the graticule. Scaling seems wrong too : the probe calibrator signal doesn't measure 1kHz at all (though it doesn't say on the front panel nor in the manual, what the frequency is supposed to be...)... so assuming it's supposed to be 1kHz, then it could just be that the gani needs to be adjusted, and it will fix both the scaling and the span issue, all at once.

So really nothing massively wrong, should be possible to fix it fairly quickly for very little cost if anything at all. Shift it for 50 or 60 Euros and call it a day. Put the GOLD in its place...

Have another Brown Philips too, a PM 3232 that I bought purely for parts. 10 Euros. Missing the CRT bezel, missing the rear cover, and hardwired power cord has been cut. Not going to fix it of course, but might still be worth replacing the cord so I can test it to see if the CRT is working fine so I know whether I can salvage related parts from it if I ever need to.

- Comes with a couple probes. A generic unmarked x1/x10  probe, but also a nice looking Lecroy probe, model P9020 which according to Google is good for a wooping 350MHz ?!

I think that was one of the probes sold in the day of the 7200/7200A scopes, the buy was worth it just for the probe.

Yeah a decent brand 350MHz probe, no matter how old, has to be worth something ! Certainly is worth something to me as I can't afford a brand new one !

[tautech]

Well yes like any DSO... 
I tried to connect to it via Wifi and an app on my Smarthphone, to print the list of groceries... it failed miserably ! :-

iPad one I did yesterday. 

Yeah a decent brand 350MHz probe, no matter how old, has to be worth something ! Certainly is worth something to me as I can't afford a brand new one !

You might be surprised that we can get them new for just $40 for 10x sense pin variety but not from Siglent where they want real $ for them. 

[xrunner]

I have no idea !!!  However it's not a thermal printer, it's just a pen plotter hence uses normal paper. So I guess if I search a bit, might be able to find a roll of paper that might fit, from some desktop / Business / accounting calculator or something....

For now, there is still a little bit of paper left in the thing.

A pen plotter? Really. I wouldn't have guessed that. I remember using an hp pen plotter a long time ago. Made some really neat old school pics. I'd love to see some plots come out of that thing, well sometime if you get it all set up. 

[tautech]

I have no idea !!!  However it's not a thermal printer, it's just a pen plotter hence uses normal paper. So I guess if I search a bit, might be able to find a roll of paper that might fit, from some desktop / Business / accounting calculator or something....

For now, there is still a little bit of paper left in the thing.

A pen plotter? Really. I wouldn't have guessed that. I remember using an hp pen plotter a long time ago. Made some really neat old school pics. I'd love to see some plots come out of that thing, well sometime if you get it all set up. 

Me neither but either way scopes with printers were never that common and vanished when USB came along.
Still it would be interesting to see some prints from it and especially how much additional info to the trace is provided.

[Saskia]

Proposal to develop Insulin sensor submitted to the powers that be.
Now need to forward this to our CEO thru channels just in case some midlevel management critter decides that it's too much work to take a stand ...

This would be an insulin sensor that could be used in a personal device? That would be a game changer for diabetics!

yes, exactly.

If you asked me before, I would have said to have seen such a thing somewhere before. Assuming that Saskia did her research and that AL is also current in such things, I'm a wee bit astounded now.

I tried to buy one. The pharmacy told me that none was listed. Did my Google search, found none

Ok, wait. Are you talking sensor development or device productisation?

In pharma that means the same thing. Finding the mechanism how a sensor works would be research. Development would be miniaturization and productization of the aforementioned sensor into a medical device. Plus of course the regulatory stuff which no one has done for those innovative research results.
Without a personal Insulin meter the patient will not have easy access to his Insulin levels which makes measuring success of the intervention aka diet difficult.

[mnementh]

G10 number two is being a total buzzkill. Extra crusty, 3x as much scrubbity-ing, and finally go to test it and... boots okay, but lens error as soon as I hit ZOOM. 

mnem
*knocks self unconscious with a recidivism mallet*

[capt bullshot]

Oh no....... ohhhhh...... noooooooooo.... I did it AGAIN ! 

Remember just a few days ago I talked about this horrible Gould 1604 scope that drove me nuts when I fixed it a year ago ? How I said it was a horrible experience that brought many grey hair, and how I promised myself I would never, ever buy a Gould scope again ?.....

Some time ago, I had a Gould scope in my stash:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/show-your-strangest-crappiest-piece-of-te/msg1807304/#msg1807304



I don't have it anymore, but there might exist one more where it came from, might have been scrapped in the meantime, don't know. In case you're interested, I'll have a look tomorrow if it's still there and silently take it away for you (no one will ever miss it).

[bd139]

I’ve never actually seen one of them in the flesh before. Are they that bad?

[AVGresponding]

@Saskia I don't know if this is on your watchlist but i just received a seller offer of £500 on it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tektronix-TDS3032-TDS3052-500MHz-5GSa-s-2-Ch-Digital-Oscilloscope-USB-RS232-/284458265780


EDIT: Fixed the link, sorry...