Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[AVGresponding]

It's a lottery list car for me too, but they are notoriously unreliable on the electronics side (and every other side unfortunately).

I just don't understand the logic in buying such a car and in over 30 years only doing an average of 1000 miles a year in it?

I believe that comes under the heading of "speculate to accumulate". They are not petrolheads.

[med6753]

It's a lottery list car for me too, but they are notoriously unreliable on the electronics side (and every other side unfortunately).

And it has the styling only the English could love. 

BAM! 

[dl6lr]

Some more digging into the -hp- 5245L with serial prefix 408:

Replaced some capacitors without much gain in terms of fixed issues. Counter is counting in CHECK and START mode on the last digit only. So measured the gate from the first decimal counter assembly A17(4), which is mainly working as the display assembly A18 is showing the correct counts, and found it to be stuck at +20V. WTF? The output is expected to be pulsed -15V/0V and the input on A16( is expected to have a coupling capacitor.

So I pulled out all other decimal counter assemblies A10 to A16. output A17(4) is -15V without pulses. So checked the A16 assembly and found it is missing the coupling capacitor but goes direct to a clamping diode to +20V (similar to the boards A10 to A14). I already observed a difference in board population, the service manual says the boards A10 to A14 should be 5212L-4A and A15/A16 should be 05232-6010. In my device the boards were populated A10=05232-6010 and A11 to A16 are 05212-6016. The latter are not mentioned in any service manual I have and hp states them to be 600kc decimal counters only, so this one will not work in position A16 where 5Mc are expected. And I guess the former owner swapped boards without knowing that this caused havoc at the first decimal counter.

So tested the output stage of A17 and found Q9 to be dead (open emitter). Installed was a 2N2455, service manual says 1850-0163 which would be 2N2635. 2N2943 or 2N2048 should be fine too. But I have neither of them. Tried to replace with a silicon PNP without luck, have to measure the pulse at the base now.

[factory]

A quick reply, I think all seven boards are replacements, the manual from Artek is a little newer.
I can't see how they wouldn't work at a lower speed, with the 5MHz board in the correct position, just you wouldn't get the full 50MC.

David

[mnementh]

@med thx fer asking, he needs to undergo another heart surgery on Nov 5. They need to cut through scarring to free up a clogged blood vessel. They expect a. 4 hour endoscopic surgery and consider this a high risk issue. Not doing it is not an option though as you could count the days before the next cardiac attack. No fun.
In other news the building permit should arrive hopefully next week. we have a notary appointment on Friday.

oh dear... Hope that means him getting strong enough for the other operation you were talking about... A bypass was it?

I also hope your home red tape woes are finally slain like the demon they all are; I lost most of a inheritance to a perfect storm of red tape as a youth, and I still regret decisions made reactively rather than proactively simply because we didn't know how we were being hosed.

Good luck, and best wishes that this is the beginning of a more hopeful chapter!

mnem
*toddles of to pick up the boi after a long day of thrifting*

[bitseeker]

As I predicted it's getting closer. 2 C here this morning. Albany, 70 miles north, 1 C. Saratoga Springs, 30 miles north of Albany, -1 C. Winter is coming. 

Lake Placid in the Adirondacks is -2 C.

Positively summer here by comparison then at 14C, mind you it won't be long till we get down to similar temperatures.

First major rain storm arrived today. I haven't seen much of it, yet, but it's causing flooding, landslides, uprooted trees, etc. in various regions.

Meanwhile, I'm running a TEA thread backup. 

[bitseeker]

I find myself in a very strange situation. I have no pressing projects for repair/restoration.  It feels very weird. I must go shopping on the bay of evil.   

My wallet went into hiding. 

LOL! Don't say that too loudly. The scopes may hear you. Then you'll be busy all winter.

[med6753]

I find myself in a very strange situation. I have no pressing projects for repair/restoration.  It feels very weird. I must go shopping on the bay of evil.   

My wallet went into hiding. 

LOL! Don't say that too loudly. The scopes may hear you. Then you'll be busy all winter.

It appears that the mini 212 heard me. It's screwing up again with trace/focus issues. I guess I'll have to pull it apart AGAIN. 

In the meantime I have found nothing on Ebay so far that interests me. 

[xrunner]

LOL! Don't say that too loudly. The scopes may hear you. Then you'll be busy all winter.

Day-um. You been out a long time seeking bits! 

[bitseeker]

Yes, indeed. The end of one quarter and the beginning of the next are the busiest at work and then there's the ever-growing "honey do" list. But I'm still keeping the thread backed up.

[TERRA Operative]

Yeah, I've seen that list, but trying to actually find those firmwares for download is a bit of a task....

Would be nice to start uploading them as we can find them for posterity I was thinking.

http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=manuals&dir=Tektronix/Tektronix_-_TDS5xx_TDS6xx_TDS7xx_Digital_Phosphore_Oscilloscopes/TDS784D_Firmware_v7.4e

is not an option?

That firmware is for the D version, my scope is the C version unfortunately.

It seems that the 5.x firmware is for early C version scopes, 6.x is for the late C version scopes (after approximately B06xxxx serial number) and the 7.x firmware is for D version scopes.
Don't hold me to that, but I think it roughly holds true.

[TERRA Operative]

On the repair front, I opened up my recently acquired HP 334A Distortion Analyzer.

Looks like it's due for a full recap... Some of the Vishay Sprague 30D caps are well on their way to turning themselves inside-out... 
I think I might just replace them with radial United Chemicons, the 30D's aren't anything particularly special, just a general purpose cap, and for the amount of caps I need for this unit, I'd be spending over $150 on 30D caps alone... Even low ESR KY(x) series United Chemicons are almost an order of magnitude cheaper and the technology is much newer too...

While I'm at it, I might replace all the nasty drifty and noisy carbon composite resistors with equivalent 50/100ppm 1% metal film types as I can get them cheap in Akihabara.

Besides that, it looks almost as clean inside as the day it was made.

[Brumby]

From all the comments about the season change, this image has flashed before my eyes....



Come down under and you'll be greeted by quite the opposite!



Did anyone here model for that role ...?

[med6753]

On the repair front, I opened up my recently acquired HP 334A Distortion Analyzer.

Looks like it's due for a full recap... Some of the Vishay Sprague 30D caps are well on their way to turning themselves inside-out... 
I think I might just replace them with radial United Chemicons, the 30D's aren't anything particularly special, just a general purpose cap, and for the amount of caps I need for this unit, I'd be spending over $150 on 30D caps alone... Even low ESR KY(x) series United Chemicons are almost an order of magnitude cheaper and the technology is much newer too...

While I'm at it, I might replace all the nasty drifty and noisy carbon composite resistors with equivalent 50/100ppm 1% metal film types as I can get them cheap in Akihabara.

Besides that, it looks almost as clean inside as the day it was made.

For the two big boys you may have trouble with height if you go with a radial replacement. But I'll bet if you upgraded to 3300uf axial rather than trying to go for that oddball 2600uf you could get them relatively cheap.

It looks like some of the others are 50uf. Run with 47uf, much cheaper.

[Cerebus]

It's a lottery list car for me too, but they are notoriously unreliable on the electronics side (and every other side unfortunately).

And it has the styling only the English could love. 

BAM! 

There's no doubt that particular Aston is a crime against motor car styling but I don't think you can single out the English for that.





Need I say, or rather show, more?

[med6753]

It's a lottery list car for me too, but they are notoriously unreliable on the electronics side (and every other side unfortunately).

And it has the styling only the English could love. 

BAM! 

There's no doubt that particular Aston is a crime against motor car styling but I don't think you can single out the English for that.





Need I say, or rather show, more?

Go ahead, post as many of those ugly mofo's as you want. I am not a fan of big American land yachts. Never owned one. Never will. A waste of sheet metal and guzzle gas. Always owned compact or intermediate vehicles.   

[beanflying]

Ok then 

[med6753]

Ok then 

That was half a car. This one is just plain fucking ugly, and from the same company (AMC).

[beanflying]

I did contemplate posting a photo of the PT Cruiser but they are so butt ugly none of our eyes need to suffer that much 

The back end of the Pacer sort of reminds me a little of the Jensen Interceptor one of Dads cousins had a small collection of them way back when.

[med6753]

I did contemplate posting a photo of the PT Cruiser but they are so butt ugly none of our eyes need to suffer that much 

Yea, spare us the eye bleach. And you'll also wake up the dragon and we'll never hear the end of it because he owned one. 

Edit...aw crap, he's awake. 

[mnementh]

As I predicted it's getting closer. 2 C here this morning. Albany, 70 miles north, 1 C. Saratoga Springs, 30 miles north of Albany, -1 C. Winter is coming. 

Lake Placid in the Adirondacks is -2 C.

Shut up you. 

I spent the day power shopping for Halloween and thrifting Roomba stuffs instead of putting the snow tires on.

mnem
*naughty tinkerdwagon*

[mnementh]

With all of this discussion of the Fluke 27's here lately, I just revisited the specifications of those, and they must have been really expensive when new because they have a DC specification of 0.1% +1 count whereas a newer Fluke 75 only has an accuracy of 0.4% +1 count. They are every bit as good as the Fluke 85 which a newer meter but with the addition of capacitance and frequency added to its range, neither of which are as good dedicated devices, so anyone getting those meters with the EHV probes are getting a first class meter.

Precisely why, after much hemming and hawing, I went in with cyclin_al on the twins to save a few shekels on shipping. I think it'll be good company for my 189.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

According to my 1990/1991 Farnell catalogue the 27 was the second most expensive hand held Fluke at £279.
 A 87 was  one pound cheaper at £278. A 73 was £76 and a 77 £139. A huge difference in cost and performance for similar looking meters.
And the most expensive? My favorite, the 8060A at  £371.
All thes price were plus 17.5% tax. So the retail cost of a 27 was £327, a 73 £89 and the 8060A £435.

Edit, the 75 was £108 (£127 retail) so the 27 was £200 more retail, > than two and a half times the 75.

According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, the retail pricing works out to a hair over £760 now and converted to C$, that's just over $1293.  That's...not cheap...  The surplus Fluke 27 kits are definitely a great buy for sure.  I know I'm not having any buyer's remorse, especially seeing what the original pricing looks like adjusted for inflation to today.

Makes me wonder what the cal cost on top of that, for units that got it...

mnem
 

[mnementh]

We talked about speaker cables in Discord last night, and while AES is a paywall standards organisation from last century, I see fit to at least point out the source I was quoting slightly more formally, and their preview, including the abstract, is as far as you go without paying.

I really must get on with making my employer an institutional member of the AES. I think we have been, and since we're a SMPTE member, as well as founding member (IIRC) of the EBU it's only sensible we get into that club too. Then I can finally read the standards I'm quoting 

Does it include monster cables and oxygen free copper and all that audiophool wizardry?  Oh and what about those cables that must be suspended above the floor for purer sound? 

Suspending speaker cables above the floor for purer sound only works if the correct reclaimed 19th century telegraph insulators are used.  And even then, only if they're all in mint condition because if there's any damage on them, they won't perform properly.  Or so I have been told.  I think the sound of my eyes rolling when I heard that one ruined the musical experience of the moment...

It is all about it having a higher "imponance" -- the little known electrical unit that expresses the awestruckness of the beholder.

Hey, we already have an established and agreed upon unit for that measure: e-peen. 

mnem

[mnementh]

Thanks for the clarification, though. I probably can tease a tea-dumper a bit more calling his sedan a saloon, so will adapt language for maximum cheekyness.

Tease all you want. My Civic is a 2 door coupe (not a sedan) and the CR-V is an SUV. And if I want a drink I'll go to the local saloon. 

No, it's a 2-door sedan; it has back seats. A coupe has 2 doors, 2 seats only.

mnem
*has owned 11 Honda Civics, and every one a sedan. Or wagon.*