Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Quite fortunate here with our Mom and Pop ISP to be supplying a few of their customers from our 5 GHz 10km p-p link to fiber that as these customers are on different mains supply circuits to us he's installed a nice UPS to keep all his stuff alive over power outages and also our WiFi router.   
Outage = grab iPad like nothing has happened.   

Ditto here for at least a decade; both in metro US and Canada. Honestly, having to wait for everything to reconnect when there's a random hiccup or flicker of the lights is the main reason I keep gateway/WiFi router on a cheap underdesk UPS.

mnem
*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

[25 CPS]

*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

Yep, minimum one hour bagel-imposed downtime right there.

[Ice-Tea]

Evil.

[mnementh]

*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

Yep, minimum one hour bagel-imposed downtime right there.

Donchoo know it!

Just had a sad "you can't go home again" moment... after spending $250 on half a month supply of her diabetes meds (because we were out of network ), wifey saved me a bite of the first Checkers cheeseburger either of us have had since leaving San Antonio over a decade ago.

It tasted just like Wendy's. 

mnem
spew and a half...

[Wolfgang]

Evil.

(Attachment Link)

What do you want? With such a small number of pins there are only a finite number of permutations. 

[tautech]

*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

Yep, minimum one hour bagel-imposed downtime right there.

Please at least get the quotes correct. Too much trouble ? Then delete the post and try again.

[mnementh]

Evil.   

What do you want? With such a small number of pins there are only a finite number of permutations. 

I think he's referring to the "transparent top view" designation of the SOT1061 package. That is slightly perverse. 

mnem
 

[mansaxel]

In short; they don't. Some have GSM/3G/4G backup, though. Then it depends on the resiliency of the local cell net.   Our broadband lastmile provider (which is opto transmission) has about 2h UPS on their active gear. This, sadly enough, has been verified by yours truly.

Edit: I've looked at the genset that powers the cell site we have about 500m from home. There are preparations being enforced and somewhat financed by the regulator. 

Probably still better than GorillaServers' DataCenter. 

mnem
 

It's a good genset, not a cheapo. Providing there's funding and incentive, we're pretty good at building resilient telecoms here.

[mnementh]

*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

Yep, minimum one hour bagel-imposed downtime right there.

Please at least get the quotes correct. Too much trouble ? Then delete the post and try again.

Awwww.... cut him a break... he's Canadian. 

mnem
 

[25 CPS]

*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

Yep, minimum one hour bagel-imposed downtime right there.

Please at least get the quotes correct. Too much trouble ? Then delete the post and try again.

Awwww.... cut him a break... he's Canadian. 

mnem
 

I'd fix it, except it's bagel time.

[Ice-Tea]

Evil.   

What do you want? With such a small number of pins there are only a finite number of permutations. 

I think he's referring to the "transparent top view" designation of the SOT1061 package. That is slightly perverse. 

mnem
 

Well, it's two things. The inconsistency of the mechanical representation (one labelled transparent top view, the other suggesting top view by the dotted lines, the other one... I don't know? Guess which one it is? Know from previous experience it's probably top view and hope for the best?) The other things is the randomisation of the pinning. That's just bad. And awaiting havoc somewhere down the line in some CAD library.

[Specmaster]

Finally, I'm in the process of moving onto experimenting with Linux, I have just been gifted a tower PC with the following specs:-
- processor - AMD Phenom 9650 quad core 2.3MHz
- RAM - 4Gb DIMM
- hard drive -- Seagate 900Gb
- optical drive - Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200A
- video - Radeon HD7450 (new card)
- wifi - Ralink USB dongle

The Motherboard I'm not sure what that is but tomorrow that should be resolved (I'm collecting the PC tomorrow), the RAM is a bit on the low side for me so I'll be increasing that at some point (I have plenty of modules already, just depends what they are if mine will be compatible or not.

It used to run Windows XP but the drive has already been wiped and a fresh install of PCLinuxOS has been done, so I should be able to hit the deck running apart from the learning curve.

I know the processor is a bit old now, but I have had other PC's previously with AMD Phenom 9650 quad cores, both of which are now in use as daily drivers for 2 of my sons, and those CPU's still pack a pretty good punch.

I know nothing about Linux, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on the setup and the version of Linux pre-installed. I'm given to to understand that it has a 100% MS Office compatable office suit as well.

[Andrew_Debbie]

12V mini UPS arrived today.  I plan to use this as backup for our broadband router, freeing up a portable battery-inverter I've been using.


Claimed output is 3A 12V.   57.7Wh.   The router draws somewhere around 1.5A.     


Topping up before install.

I've considered doing the same but out here in the boonies all utilities are above ground and if the power goes out chances are the in line pole mounted amps for my ISP are going to go out too.

And how long will that UPS power it? My guess is 2 hours or less. I wish my typical power outages were less than 2 hours. 

The Power supply that came with the hub is rated 12V 1.5A  -- ~18W.   But this says they measured the BT Home Hub 5 at 5.5-7.5W.   --> https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/01/energy-usage-uk-home-broadband-routers-big-isps-compared.html/2

57.7Wh/18W  * .9  ~2.88 hours
57.7Wh/7.5W *.9  ~6.9 hours

.9 is my guestimate of mini ups power supply loss  and battery safety margin.   

I know one way to find out but Debbie might not like the internet cutting out during a work meeting. 

Even though we have overhead lines, usually the fault is somewhere else.  SP Energy Networks (our DNO) do some magic and our power comes back on in two or three hours.    They recently replaced the wires on our street and cut back nearby trees too.

[Andrew_Debbie]

12V mini UPS arrived today.  I plan to use this as backup for our broadband router, freeing up a portable battery-inverter I've been using.

I presume you have one of the new-fangled fibre into the home connections.

Not yet. FTTC.   Our little rural village recently hit threshold for fibre to home and that will be going in as soon as Open Reach can spend the grant.

Is that UPS sufficient to guarantee connectivity if there is a mains power outage? Or is there some OpenReach equipment in the line that requires local mains power?

I've been using a portable battery inverter to keep the internet going during power cuts.  It has worked in the past. I don't know getting power to the hub will always work.

Our broad band was out for most of Sunday even though our house never lost power or basic phone service.   :shrug:

[Vince]

Finally, I'm in the process of moving onto experimenting with Linux,

What, I thought I managed to put you weeeell off Linux the other day  ?! 

I have just been gifted a tower PC

Ah yes that's what I advised... experiment on a spare PC, progressively.. don't wipe your main system...

with the following specs:-
- processor - AMD Phenom 9650 quad core 2.3MHz

Stop right there, that's 8088 territory, you need at least a Pentium / 586 !! 

- RAM - 4Gb DIMM

That's 400MB or so, not gonna cut it either ! 

- hard drive -- Seagate 900Gb

That's 90GB... that should be plenty enough just to experiment...

I'm given to to understand that it has a 100% MS Office compatible office suit as well.

Well that's marketing of course...there is "OpenOffice" installed by default usually, but its import filter is never going to be 100% ... hell even MS Office is not even compatible with itself, so can't blame others can you ! 
... Just like MS Windows isn't even compatible with itself either... 100% is always just marketing, it just means "good enough most of the time for most of the people"... in reality, just try it and see how it goes with your own files and usage.... only real life examples can tell you how good or bad it is...


As for the choice of distro, since PCLinuxOS is already installed well have fun with that to begin with, but once you hit your first roadblock or get frustrated by this or that, might be time to install Ubuntu, simply because it's by far the most popular distro for the average joe, so has a tremendous amount of support on forums. There are also lots of Ubuntu derivatives, mainly to give you an alternative choice of desktop user interface/environment.
For example I use Xubunbu, ie Ubuntu with XFCE as a desktop environment, because it's simple like old computers used to be, no non-sense smartphone-tabletty-like interface, these drive me nuts, confuse me, waste lots of time and screen real estate. So you can choose something you like, whatever that might be.

At the end of the day all distros suck big time, because the real problems in Linux have nothing to do with the distros themselves... you can try a million different distros, it's not gonna solve anything. That's why I settled for Ubuntu, with XFCE, so that at least if I need help, I know there is a strong support in forums. Also Ubuntu has lots of money behind it, so there are actually a lot of people working full time on it, not just a couple plumbers working part time.

Also, to reduce the amount of trouble, you can go for their " LTS " ( = Long Term Support) releases, as they tend (are meant) to be more polished/tested than the regular 6 months apart releases.  There is an LTS every 2 or 3 years IIRC, no more than 3 years for sure. Not much (that pertains to the end user anyway...) if anything happens in Linux land in 3 years so you won't be missing on anything don't worry.
For example I am using version 16.04, so 5 and half years out of date, 11 releases behind... but I tired the very latest the other day and after 5 minutes playing with it and seeing it was worse not better, I moved back to my 5+ year old release.

Unless you need the latest driver of something and you don't know how to retro-fit it to your current release, then of course upgrading the entire system is the easiest way to get the driver you need.

Just my two cents/pennies after 20 years using the Penguin on my desktop ! 


Have fun with the Penguin !

[cyclin_al]

Quite fortunate here with our Mom and Pop ISP to be supplying a few of their customers from our 5 GHz 10km p-p link to fiber that as these customers are on different mains supply circuits to us he's installed a nice UPS to keep all his stuff alive over power outages and also our WiFi router.   
Outage = grab iPad like nothing has happened.   

Ditto here for at least a decade; both in metro US and Canada. Honestly, having to wait for everything to reconnect when there's a random hiccup or flicker of the lights is the main reason I keep gateway/WiFi router on a cheap underdesk UPS.

mnem
*toddles off to make a bagel for daughter*

And I thought having a UPS was to save having to re-open many web broswer tabs after the power returns 

That said, I am thinking of getting a UPS just for that reason.   Out here in the cold white boonies, there are several power hiccups every week.
I have lost countless minutes from unsaved work every time the power goes out.

If a power outage lasts considerable time, I pull out the generator, but that is more for the well pump, refrigerators, etc. than it is for internet.
I have not tested availability for any considerable time during an outage to see if the DSL (completely untested) or cellular functions.

[cyclin_al]

Finally, I'm in the process of moving onto experimenting with Linux, I have just been gifted a tower PC with the following specs:-
- processor - AMD Phenom 9650 quad core 2.3MHz
- RAM - 4Gb DIMM
- hard drive -- Seagate 900Gb
- optical drive - Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200A
- video - Radeon HD7450 (new card)
- wifi - Ralink USB dongle

The Motherboard I'm not sure what that is but tomorrow that should be resolved (I'm collecting the PC tomorrow), the RAM is a bit on the low side for me so I'll be increasing that at some point (I have plenty of modules already, just depends what they are if mine will be compatible or not.

It used to run Windows XP but the drive has already been wiped and a fresh install of PCLinuxOS has been done, so I should be able to hit the deck running apart from the learning curve.

I know the processor is a bit old now, but I have had other PC's previously with AMD Phenom 9650 quad cores, both of which are now in use as daily drivers for 2 of my sons, and those CPU's still pack a pretty good punch.

I know nothing about Linux, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on the setup and the version of Linux pre-installed. I'm given to to understand that it has a 100% MS Office compatable office suit as well.

I know little (but learning more) of LINUX.
My laptop for occasional use is a NetBook from the same generation with an Intel Atom processor.  I did switch to a SSD.
Windows XP refused to recognize the SSD.
It runs Xubuntu just fine; it is a lighter distribution compared to the normal Ubuntu.
I am not familiar with PCLinuxOS, but it did not come up when I was searching for something light.

The equivalent to MS Office is LibreOffice.  User interface is a bit different, but seems to work fine for most normal use.  I have not pushed it to try macro-embedded files (that stuff stays on the work machine anywahs).

[Cerebus]

Evil.   

What do you want? With such a small number of pins there are only a finite number of permutations. 

I think he's referring to the "transparent top view" designation of the SOT1061 package. That is slightly perverse. 

mnem
 

Well, it's two things. The inconsistency of the mechanical representation (one labelled transparent top view, the other suggesting top view by the dotted lines, the other one... I don't know? Guess which one it is? Know from previous experience it's probably top view and hope for the best?) The other things is the randomisation of the pinning. That's just bad. And awaiting havoc somewhere down the line in some CAD library.

The SOT223 is TOP view, the SOT89 is BOTTOM view - in both cases it's convention to have the collector on the tab and centre pin on those packages. When those packages are used for regulators the tab and centre pin are normally the output.

[BU508A]

I know nothing about Linux, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on the setup and the version of Linux pre-installed. I'm given to to understand that it has a 100% MS Office compatable office suit as well.

I support Vince's suggestion for Ubuntu, but if you don't have any experience with Linux, I recommend to use Kubuntu instead of Xubuntu. Kubuntu is KDE desktop with Ubuntu and it looks and feels very similar to Windows.
If you want to try it out, I recommend to create a bootable USB stick with the Kubuntu image on it and boot from the stick without installing it (there is a test/try mode in the boot menu).

Downloading the newest version of Kubuntu: https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

Here are two tutorials on how to create a bootable USB stick under windows:
Itsfoss: https://itsfoss.com/create-live-usb-of-ubuntu-in-windows/
Canonical: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview

Good luck and have fun.

If you have questions, facing issues etc. just let us know. We can help, I'm sure.

Edit:
One thing, beginners (Linux) with lots of experience in the Windows world are having trouble to understand the organisation how things are stored under Linux.
First: there is NO such thing as drive A:\ C:\ or something.
It is only a directory structure, starting with root (root direcotry), represented by the / (slash).
All your personal files and documents are usually stored in /home/specmaster (if you choose specmaster as your username)
This is your personal directory, like the user directory in Windows.
If you'd like to explore the file structure, there is this program which is called "Dolphin" (KDE Linux equivalent to the Explorer).
Another important thing is: Upper and lower case matters!
And a pro-tipp from my side: don't use spaces in file names. Just don't. Use instead underscores.

Edit: mixed up (as usual) slash and backslash...  - fixed

[tggzzz]

Finally, I'm in the process of moving onto experimenting with Linux,

What, I thought I managed to put you weeeell off Linux the other day  ?! 

I have just been gifted a tower PC

Ah yes that's what I advised... experiment on a spare PC, progressively.. don't wipe your main system...

Dual booting is a way of avoiding that issue.

with the following specs:-
- processor - AMD Phenom 9650 quad core 2.3MHz
- RAM - 4Gb DIMM
-hard drive -- Seagate 900Gb

I run Xubuntu on a 11yo 1.6GHz Atom notebook with 1GB RAM. The only difficulties relate to the 800*600 screen - website designers persist in positioning every pixel where they want it, not where it would be best for me.

I'm given to to understand that it has a 100% MS Office compatible office suit as well.

MS makes many efforts to frustrate any 100% compatibility.

Nonetheless, LibreOffice is quite usable and has a good degree of compatibility.

https://www.dedoimedo.com/ has usefully brutal reviews of many Linux distributions - plus many tips for getting them to work more sweetly.

[Specmaster]

@Vince, Thanks for your feedback, however, I'm a little confused by some of what you say, the AMD 9650 is better than a Intel Pentium 4 running @ 3.2GHz even though the AMD is running @ 2.3GHz re this comparison site. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-4-320GHz-vs-AMD-Phenom-9650/m7095vsm5238

8088 processors were the original type that IBM used in the early PC's with a max speed of around 8MHz and were only 16bit CPUs whereas the AMD9650 is a 64bit CPU running @ 2.3GHz.

You also said about the AMD 9650, "Stop right there, that's 8088 territory, you need at least a Pentium / 586 !!" 

You forget that a 586 is only a 32bit device against the 9650 being a 64bit CPU.

The 900GB drive is actually a 1TB drive thats been formatted, so that will eat the Linux OS for breakfast many times over, I think your confusing it as a 90GB drive, but that confuses me as the Linux site claims that it will install as little as 4GB.

I think your calculator needs a new battery as the 4Gigs of RAM is actually 4096Mb and not 400Mb as you claimed 

[Vince]

Rochar counter, next installment.

I did RTFM and experiment, to figure out what this "frequency" switch was meant for.... it's not meant to be a loopback/auto-test feature... I prefer that, would have been rather weird to devote so much real estate just for that.

Nope... this switch is not used for measuring frequency at all, it's used to measure TIME. Be it the period of your inpout signal, or some time interval or pulse width or anything you might be interested in, using the "chrono" inputs.

The "Frequency" switch, and it's ranges from 1Hz up to 100kHz, is the speed at which you count, during the time measurement. It gives you your timer resolution I mean... so say you set the knob to " 1kHz", and your input signal is 1Hz, that is a one second period... the counter will register 1000 pulses during the one second period, so you will see " 1000 " one display, meaning 1000ms.
So the faster you count, the higher your resolution.
So that's all... that knob let's you adjust the time resolution when you measure the duration of whatever it is that you want to measure the duration of...

I looked at the schematic to see what the time base oscillator looked like, how it was implemented... it's not 10MHz... not even 5MHz or 1MHz like I found in my two other Nixie counters ( a Metrix and an Enertec). Nope... this counter heart beat runs only at 200kHz ! This explains why the highest setting for the " Frequency" knob, is 100kHz .. 100kHz is the closest "multiple of 10" frequency you can have from 200kHz, obviously.

So as you can see the oscillator is very rudimentary ! A single transistor, a few resistors and caps and bob's your uncle ! 
Well at least they used a Crystal.... and see its symbol, another funny one !    Looks like a square with a cross in it...more like you would see these days to represent the pin on a connector or something... oh I just love looking at these old service manuals ! 

[Saskia]

I want my BSD/OS back. CBA to write device drivers even tho I have the source.

@Zucca your poster was way incomplete. The entire Bell labs unix line was left out ...

[Vince]

@Vince, Thanks for your feedback, however, I'm a little confused by some of what you say, the AMD 9650 is better than a Intel Pentium 4 running @ 3.2GHz even though the AMD is running @ 2.3GHz re this comparison site. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-4-320GHz-vs-AMD-Phenom-9650/m7095vsm5238

8088 processors were the original type that IBM used in the early PC's with a max speed of around 8MHz and were only 16bit CPUs whereas the AMD9650 is a 64bit CPU running @ 2.3GHz.

You also said about the AMD 9650, "Stop right there, that's 8088 territory, you need at least a Pentium / 586 !!" 

You forget that a 586 is only a 32bit device against the 9650 being a 64bit CPU.

The 900GB drive is actually a 1TB drive thats been formatted, so that will eat the Linux OS for breakfast many times over, I think your confusing it as a 90GB drive, but that confuses me as the Linux site claims that it will install as little as 4GB.

I think your calculator needs a new battery as the 4Gigs of RAM is actually 4096Mb and not 400Mb as you claimed 

Oh no don't  worry I was simply being naughty, I was just picking on your typos for a bit of fun that's all ! I apologize !!!! 

You said your CPU was running at 2+  MEGA Hertz not GIGA ! 

Also you kept using "bits" (lower case ) instead of "bytes" (upper case), so since we had a discussion recently about the misuse of units in old gear, where they used capital 'S' for "seconds"... I just could not resist jumping on your lower case 'b', which means bits not bytes ! 

I am sorry  !!!!    

[tautech]

Keep doing that Vince as we all need pulling into line when laziness rears its head.

Oh and how's your garage coming along ?