Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[beanflying]

There is about 1 second of TEA with the scope getting used as a Nuke detector.

Bit dumb I have all the Bond's on file but I am watching the free to air complete with adds  Tomorrow Night Thunderball....

[mnementh]

Huh? 

Opened up an original Fluke battery pack. Crusty as you might expect but... what's that?? Some yellow modling came off, looks suspiciously like a PTC resetable fuse. Might be part of the puzzle.

Hey... a Polyfuse buried in the cell pack. Who'd have thunk it...?

Doing it this way serves three purposes:

One, it acts as a regular fuse in cases of short-circuit, albeit a pretty slow one.

Two, it somewhat acts as a thermal fuse; if the pack gets hot for any reason, tho usually from overcharging (or over discharging, in case of a circuit fault in the unit), the resistance of the Polyfuse increases, dropping charge/discharge current.

Three, it acts as OCP, both in charge and discharge modes. As charge or discharge current approaches its setpoint, it increases resistance, decreasing current flow to protect the unit and, in your case I'd suspect, the charging circuit.

Bet you a buck your aftermarket packs either omitted the Polyfuse, or substituted one of the wrong value or a cheap one that didn't work as it should.

I suggest having a talk with your supplier on those, but not until you've had a chance to do some forensic work on one of their packs that fried your expensive scopemeter. 

mnem

[syau]

Huh? 

Opened up an original Fluke battery pack. Crusty as you might expect but... what's that?? Some yellow modling came off, looks suspiciously like a PTC resetable fuse. Might be part of the puzzle.

Hey... a Polyfuse buried in the cell pack. Who'd have thunk it...?

Doing it this way serves three purposes:

One, it acts as a regular fuse in cases of short-circuit, albeit a pretty slow one.

Two, it somewhat acts as a thermal fuse; if the pack gets hot for any reason, tho usually from overcharging (or over discharging, in case of a circuit fault in the unit), the resistance of the Polyfuse increases, dropping charge/discharge current.

Three, it acts as OCP, both in charge and discharge modes. As charge or discharge current approaches its setpoint, it increases resistance, decreasing current flow to protect the unit and, in your case I'd suspect, the charging circuit.

Bet you a buck your aftermarket packs either omitted the Polyfuse, or substituted one of the wrong value or a cheap one that didn't work as it should.

I suggest having a talk with your supplier on those, but not until you've had a chance to do some forensic work on one of their packs that fried your expensive scopemeter. 

mnem

AFAIK, those R&S FSH3/6 Portable Spectrum Analysis use the same type of battery pack.

[mnementh]

Stumbled across this randomly. Guy's a hoot. Don't expect too much, just hang loose and have a laugh.

mnem
 

Not totally off the wall. In the WWII era there was a boat system that used the exhaust gas from a radial engine (mounted with shaft vertical) to drive turbines driving the propeller. IIRC correctly similar systems were at lest experimented with in tanks. It's a variation of the turbo-compound engine.

Well, no, I wasn't talking aboot the content; that was what got me interested. It was just the whole thing with this street-punk-lookin' mofo up there actually knowing WTF he was talkin' aboot, even with the scary rocket-propellant chemistry going on with these things. That was a hoot.

Isn't that how they drove the props on those amphibious landing craft? They were essentially a disposable vehicle meant to be used once... twice if the soldiers got really lucky.

mnem
*munching on a celery stick cuz... no popcorn for me today*

[Robert763]

Huh? 

Opened up an original Fluke battery pack. Crusty as you might expect but... what's that?? Some yellow modling came off, looks suspiciously like a PTC resetable fuse. Might be part of the puzzle.

Hey... a Polyfuse buried in the cell pack. Who'd have thunk it...?

Doing it this way serves three purposes:

One, it acts as a regular fuse in cases of short-circuit, albeit a pretty slow one.

Two, it somewhat acts as a thermal fuse; if the pack gets hot for any reason, tho usually from overcharging (or over discharging, in case of a circuit fault in the unit), the resistance of the Polyfuse increases, dropping charge/discharge current.

Three, it acts as OCP, both in charge and discharge modes. As charge or discharge current approaches its setpoint, it increases resistance, decreasing current flow to protect the unit and, in your case I'd suspect, the charging circuit.

Bet you a buck your aftermarket packs either omitted the Polyfuse, or substituted one of the wrong value or a cheap one that didn't work as it should.

I suggest having a talk with your supplier on those, but not until you've had a chance to do some forensic work on one of their packs that fried your expensive scopemeter. 

mnem

AFAIK, those R&S FSH3/6 Portable Spectrum Analysis use the same type of battery pack.

Yes they do.
They also use the same basic case, front panel controls and LCD.

[Ice-Tea]

Who'd have thunk it...?[/url]

I have no idea! Who? WHO I ASK YOU??!?

Seriously though, might be part of the puzzle, but there's more to it. I blew one with an original pack as well, even though you could ask yourself the question how good that PTC still is after being soaked in battery puke. Still need to check the replacement packs, don't know if they have it or not. But still, must be more to it. There's a charging regulator there, with a max charging current of 1A. You couldn't blow that sense resistor with 1A, not with 2A either.

The two units I blew the sense resistor on were revived.

Going to set up some working 199Cs to monitor the charging cycles of the others. Or themselves. Oooh, that would be cool.

Another possibility: the charging circuit uses the NTC in the pack to monitor charging. It's possible leaving the back cover up disturbes the thermal balance. Or maybe it's positioned differently in the pack. So many possibilities.

On unrelated news: I think I'm done shipping to the UK. Two parcels I shipped over the last two months or so vanished. Passed customs, status set to return straight away after which nobody can find it anymore.

Unpleasant.

Out of curiosity, which carrier and what were the postcodes (for anonymity, omit the last two letters).

DPD. AB526 and DA51PP. As far from each other as possible, doesn't look like the "local" DPD was ever involved either. Just goes from "at the depot" to "being returned". What I *hate* is that I spend stupid amounts of time filling in contact details (and mine are obviously inlcuded) but they *never* make any attempt to contact you if something is off.

[Andrew_Debbie]

DPD. AB526 and DA51PP. As far from each other as possible, doesn't look like the "local" DPD was ever involved either. Just goes from "at the depot" to "being returned".

In my experience DPD are one of the most reliable for UK delivery.    --  I've never had a problem but I only use them for domestic.

FedEx IP are good, at least from the US and China.

Royal mail is so so --  international parcels get there but are often delayed.

DHL can be a customs nightmare.      yodel used to be pure awful but have improved.   Hermes is not great.

[factory]

Not so sure DPD are any good here, I've had things left out to get rained on and most recently they tried to deliver a large & very light box (wasn't TE related), that they had re-sealed, it was opened in the presence of the driver and found to be empty, well apart from packing materials.  Also the previous day they mysteriously claimed they tried to deliver it, I was in that day & they definitely hadn't.

David

[Ice-Tea]

They've been quite decent up till now. But now it's two duds in a month. Pretty sure they're struggling with Brexit but, well, can't really work with a one in two success rate.

[Specmaster]

DPD. AB526 and DA51PP. As far from each other as possible, doesn't look like the "local" DPD was ever involved either. Just goes from "at the depot" to "being returned".

In my experience DPD are one of the most reliable for UK delivery.    --  I've never had a problem but I only use them for domestic.

FedEx IP are good, at least from the US and China.

Royal mail is so so --  international parcels get there but are often delayed.

DHL can be a customs nightmare.      yodel used to be pure awful but have improved.   Hermes is not great.

I have to report that in my experience, Hermes is pretty good and also reasonably priced, and I have discovered that their next day service is roughly the same price as the Royal Mail's 3-day 2nd class service.

[mnementh]

   Huh? 

Opened up an original Fluke battery pack. Crusty as you might expect but... what's that?? Some yellow modling came off, looks suspiciously like a PTC resetable fuse. Might be part of the puzzle.

Hey... a Polyfuse buried in the cell pack. Who'd have thunk it...?   

I have no idea! Who? WHO I ASK YOU??!?

*snerk*    

Seriously though, might be part of the puzzle, but there's more to it. I blew one with an original pack as well, even though you could ask yourself the question how good that PTC still is after being soaked in battery puke. Still need to check the replacement packs, don't know if they have it or not. But still, must be more to it. There's a charging regulator there, with a max charging current of 1A. You couldn't blow that sense resistor with 1A, not with 2A either.

The two units I blew the sense resistor on were revived.

Going to set up some working 199Cs to monitor the charging cycles of the others. Or themselves. Oooh, that would be cool.

Another possibility: the charging circuit uses the NTC in the pack to monitor charging. It's possible leaving the back cover up disturbes the thermal balance. Or maybe it's positioned differently in the pack. So many possibilities.

Hmmm... Now I've had a chance to RTFM before posting, ( at ME) it's pretty obvious the charging function on this unit is quite a bit more complicated than a simple analog Ni-xx charger.

Pages 3-23 to 3-26 of the SM show a number of things going on; if I'm understanding this correctly, even when the unit is off, all power functions are managed by a dedicated Power ASIC. The following things are monitored, and everything below has to return some valid result or the mask software running in the main D-ASIC will not even wake up from IDLE (INACTIVE) mode:

BattVolt: Battery Voltage at R4112 powers part of the P-ASIC. It then can monitor the following:

BattIdent set by a ID resistor in the pack: Evidently more than one battery type was planned; I'd guess Ni-Cd vs high-capacity Ni-MH. This will affect max charge current and cutoff/trickle mode voltage set by the P-ASIC.

MAINVAL: Voltage from AC adapter/Charger at R4104.

Batt Temp: The NTC in the circuit snippet above.

Charge Current: Measured through R4101, the one which keeps blowing up.

If all monitored points return a valid voltage, then the unit's main D-ASIC starts running and unit enters Charge or Operational & Charge mode (if ON button is pressed) and battery charging begins. Charge current is then managed by the main D-ASIC based on VBatt vs TEMP over time.

According to this material, max charge rate is supposed to be no more than 1A. Obviously, something in the scopemeter's interaction with these aftermarket packs is making it possible for that limit to be grossly exceeded.

I find myself wondering if perhaps the aftermarket packs IDENT resistor is wrong for the cells involved, or if possibly there is some other issue. Maybe something that needs a firmware update? Maybe old noisy power bricks with dried out caps? Maybe nonexistent/wrong/just plain crap Polyfuse? Maybe the TEMP NTC is the wrong type/value/slope?

Maybe the TEMP NTC in the OEM packs is corrupted by electrolyte similarly to the Polyfuse, and the failure mode is actually different there? Same is also possible re the Polyfuse in them as well, now I think of it.

I've attached those pages below as PDF & ODT for easy reference. And here's the full SM again for convenience if someone else wants to kibbutz:

https://elektrotanya.com/fluke_192b_196b-c_199b-c_scopemeter.pdf/download.html

Hope that helps!

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

Well the connector is just a dc barrel jack so it should be quite easy to check if the PSU is providing the correct voltage. If I'm not mistaken the brick is just a transformer, bridge, and maybe a decoupling cap, so not much to go wrong.

[tggzzz]

On unrelated news: I think I'm done shipping to the UK. Two parcels I shipped over the last two months or so vanished. Passed customs, status set to return straight away after which nobody can find it anymore.

Unpleasant.

Out of curiosity, which carrier and what were the postcodes (for anonymity, omit the last two letters).

DPD. AB526 and DA51PP. As far from each other as possible, doesn't look like the "local" DPD was ever involved either. Just goes from "at the depot" to "being returned". What I *hate* is that I spend stupid amounts of time filling in contact details (and mine are obviously inlcuded) but they *never* make any attempt to contact you if something is off.

DA5 1 is suburban London and unremarkable. AB52 6 is rural Scotland, with many "C2" (skilled manual) inhabitants. So it looks like DPD is the common factor.

I've never had real problems with any carrier delivering my stuff[1] to me; they all seem pretty good including Herpes and Yodel.

The UK currently has a gross shortage of fizzy drinks and lorry drivers. The first is high energy prices -> fertiliser plant shutdown -> no CO₂ by product (which is also a problem for food processing, since CO₂ is used to "stun" animals before slaughter). The second is claimed by the government to be Covid related, but is more due to brexit and closing borders to foreign workers.

[1] since satnavs and google maps don't recognise a (rather strange) nearby street with a vaguely similar name as mine (X Close is autocorrupted to X Y Street), I often get other people's stuff delivered to me. (The worst such example was full height scaffolding!). I've advised people in the other street to have "opposite the supernarket" as part of their address.

[AVGresponding]

Not normally an ebay day, but what the hey:



Someone else buy this so I don't have to: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144244364494





And there's more: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274979911240





How about a meter that says hello to you when you turn it on? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124956903633





I can't be arsed to bid on this so I'll post it here instead: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373757869148





Another of these buggers, the market's getting flooded: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373757088686





A bit crustyburgers, but good for some portable tzzzzt: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255183215502





Baby differential voltmeter: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373757584332





Cheap as chips basic FG with green LEDs: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353728626029





Macaroni reduced in price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133902254897





Somewhat saltily priced baby Tek: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284491612323





More salty pricing, for an item that myself, factory, and maybe other on here could use. TBH I'd rather make my own than pay that much: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284492325324

[AVGresponding]

The UK currently has a gross shortage of fizzy drinks and lorry drivers. The first is high energy prices -> fertiliser plant shutdown -> no CO₂ by product (which is also a problem for food processing, since CO₂ is used to "stun" animals before slaughter). The second is claimed by the government to be Covid related, but is more due to brexit and closing borders to foreign workers.

If the lorry driver shortage is due to Brexit, why are they short of them in Germany and especially Poland?

It's a good deal more complicated, and while Brexit has an impact, it's not the sole or even primary reason. The utterly incompetent way it's been handled is probably more to blame, not to mention a number of incidences of apparently deliberate nose/spite/face perpetrated by both sides of the divide.

[factory]

Well the connector is just a dc barrel jack so it should be quite easy to check if the PSU is providing the correct voltage. If I'm not mistaken the brick is just a transformer, bridge, and maybe a decoupling cap, so not much to go wrong.

The wall-wart he showed a few pages back, looked exactly the same as the one for the 123 joke-meter at work. I've had to fix one of them, that had a bad connection for the capacitor (can't remember if it was dry jointed, or not soldered at all), they are indeed just a transformer, rectifier & capacitor.

David

[factory]

The UK currently has a gross shortage of fizzy drinks and lorry drivers. The first is high energy prices -> fertiliser plant shutdown -> no CO₂ by product (which is also a problem for food processing, since CO₂ is used to "stun" animals before slaughter). The second is claimed by the government to be Covid related, but is more due to brexit and closing borders to foreign workers.

If the lorry driver shortage is due to Brexit, why are they short of them in Germany and especially Poland?

It's a good deal more complicated, and while Brexit has an impact, it's not the sole or even primary reason. The utterly incompetent way it's been handled is probably more to blame, not to mention a number of incidences of apparently deliberate nose/spite/face perpetrated by both sides of the divide.

Have a quick web search, as I did last time this was mentioned (and form your own opinion), I searched for something like "driver shortage France 2021" and found at least one article that mentioned drivers have been leaving the profession for many years.
I won't comment on this again, as it's too OT for the TEA thread.

David

[factory]

Not normally an ebay day, but what the hey:

Someone else buy this so I don't have to:

That's getting pricey, I been watching it too, as the meter scale is in much better condition than the one I have.

David

More salty pricing, for an item that myself, factory, and maybe other on here could use. TBH I'd rather make my own than pay that much: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284492325324

Might be a while before I think about making a new battery pack for mine, I've noticed it has possible attenuator problems with channel 2, those need investigating first before spending any more on it.

David

[Cerebus]

When I had a year in Southampton back in 1971/72, one of my "mad mates" discovered that the Registration (tax) sticker (yeah, I know it wasn't really a sticker) was very similar to a particular brand of beer label......

Known back in those days as a "Road Fund Licence". In later years the Government was forced to sheepishly admit that the name had been officially changed years before despite still being informally referred to by the government as a "Road Fund Licence" for many a year. The original plan when it was introduced was to ring fence the taxation for spending on roads. Between 1923 and 1938 the words "Road Fund Licence" actually appeared on the tex disc, despite the fact that the official name was changed to "Vehicle Excise Duty" years before and the "Road Fund" it paid into was abolished in 1937. It emerged publicly in the 1980s that none of the taxation was spent on the roads and indeed hadn't been for many years. Now just known informally as "Vehicle Tax" and administered completely by computer, you no long get a physical tax disc to place on your vehicle.

[mnementh]

Damn you Ice-TEA!!! You've infected me with your crusty old Ni-MH pack disease!!!

Put my recently-acquired iROBOT SCOOBA (no, this isn't the pool-cleaning one; it's the floor-mopping one) up on the bench, since we're now into one of the muddy seasons here and thought it might be nice to have someone else mop the front hallway... and what does the little bastard have lurking inside? a 14.4V/4100mAH NiMH pack from 2008!
And of course now I have to at least try to get it to take a charge...   

mnem
No good deed goes unpunished.

[McBryce]

We had those in Ireland too, but they were always just known as a "Tax disk".

McBryce.

[AVGresponding]

The UK currently has a gross shortage of fizzy drinks and lorry drivers. The first is high energy prices -> fertiliser plant shutdown -> no CO₂ by product (which is also a problem for food processing, since CO₂ is used to "stun" animals before slaughter). The second is claimed by the government to be Covid related, but is more due to brexit and closing borders to foreign workers.

If the lorry driver shortage is due to Brexit, why are they short of them in Germany and especially Poland?

It's a good deal more complicated, and while Brexit has an impact, it's not the sole or even primary reason. The utterly incompetent way it's been handled is probably more to blame, not to mention a number of incidences of apparently deliberate nose/spite/face perpetrated by both sides of the divide.

Have a quick web search, as I did last time this was mentioned (and form your own opinion), I searched for something like "driver shortage France 2021" and found at least one article that mentioned drivers have been leaving the profession for many years.
I won't comment on this again, as it's too OT for the TEA thread.

David

Yes, I'm not fond of potentially inflammatory off-topic stuff either, but I do feel the need to rebut things like this from time to time, as it seems Brexit gets blamed for almost everything that goes wrong.

[Neper]

We had those in Ireland too, but they were always just known as a "Tax disk".

The French had them as well and you'd buy them from any "café-tabac". They were always great fun when the darned Securit windscreen was hit by a stone and burst into a few thousand pieces.

[Specmaster]

The UK currently has a gross shortage of fizzy drinks and lorry drivers. The first is high energy prices -> fertiliser plant shutdown -> no CO₂ by product (which is also a problem for food processing, since CO₂ is used to "stun" animals before slaughter). The second is claimed by the government to be Covid related, but is more due to brexit and closing borders to foreign workers.

If the lorry driver shortage is due to Brexit, why are they short of them in Germany and especially Poland?

It's a good deal more complicated, and while Brexit has an impact, it's not the sole or even primary reason. The utterly incompetent way it's been handled is probably more to blame, not to mention a number of incidences of apparently deliberate nose/spite/face perpetrated by both sides of the divide.

While it is true that there are lorry driver shortages in Europe as well, I'm reliably informed by my European friends that it is not anywhere near as acute as it is here. There is absolutely no doubt that Brexit plays a huge part in our situation as our Govt stopped any foreign drivers bringing loads over here from partaking in the Cabotage scheme, meaning that once they are unloaded, they have to drive back empty, they can no longer collect other loads for delivery to other parts of the UK on their return journey. A massive own goal scored right there, rubbing salt in the wound. We have for years treated lorry drivers with contempt, held their pay at record low levels, actively removed many of their facilities like transport cafes, public toilets, and overnight lorry parks with hygiene facilities and actively looked down on them. This I know first hand as I did actually spend a few year's lorry driving (long storey) myself once.

In Europe, they are treated far better, higher pay, facilities are better, and considerably less red tape placed on them.

The pandemic has affected every country in the world, but they are not suffering such shortages in the shops etc as the UK is so any pandemic effect can effectively be ignored, so that just leaves our stupid Govt's rules and red tape, poor treatment of drivers in general and Brexit, the former has been there for decades so the new factor is, unfortunately the B word.

[Specmaster]

Not normally an ebay day, but what the hey:

Someone else buy this so I don't have to: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144244364494

What, I thought you didn't like the wobbly needle type meters