Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[SilverSolder]

I don't understand what the drama is about. I looked at your pic and I struggle to see what it is that you couldn't reproduce in seconds with any mid '90s word processor on a 486 CPU with Windows 3.1 ?! 

The buttons are just rectangles, any word processor can draw basic shapes like this, which you can position pixel by pixel exactly where you want it to be.
The button caption is just a "text box" which is a graphical element and as such again, can be positioned accurately where ever you want.

It's only a few minutes job.. longest part is looking at all the fonts to find one that's good enough to your taste...

Right - so I've got it to 99% of what I want this label to look like, at least using a test on white paper. The best matching font for it was plain old Times New Roman.

What do you think Vince? I didn't even use a 90's word processor on a 486 w/Windoze 3.1, I used Windows 10 and a Ryzen 7 1700 8 core 3.2 GHz processor to re-create what was possible 30 years ago! And to think people ask why we constantly need more powerful computers!

 

That actually looks very good!   You should try some $50 bills next? 

[xrunner]

That actually looks very good!   You should try some $50 bills next? 

Maybe not that, but might try some BASIC programming. So many GOTOs in those instructions it brought back memories!

 

[0culus]

That actually looks very good!   You should try some $50 bills next? 

Maybe not that, but might try some BASIC programming. So many GOTOs in those instructions it brought back memories!

 

HP BASIC is actually kinda fun. I have the full programming manual for my 8566B and for my 8510C. It's interesting to sit down with just that and no search engines and write a program the old fashioned way.

[cyclin_al]

Took over an hour to start the snowblower.  Carburator must have been partially gummed up.  Yes, there was some fuel so it did not dry out to a hard varnish during storage.  Yes, there was stabilizer in the fuel.  Yes, it was high octane fuel with no ethanol.  Tank was mostly filled with new winter fuel purchased this month.

Not much later, the snowblower found the stick that the dog had been playing with.  Okay, actually a 3" diameter firewood log.  Yes, shear pins work.  It is a PITA to replace a shear pin, especially outside far from the garage.

Finished snow clearing at 9:51pm, then still had to walk the dog...

Now time for 

Is it a Tecumseh "Snow King" engine? If yes I pity you. There's a reason they went under and out of business. Their carbs were total crap and even pampered the passages would clog up with the result you experienced. 

It looks like you might be bang on.  It is a Sears Craftsman with a Tecumseh engine...

So I can assume I did nothing wrong, but I can assume that when I get sufficiently frustrated I will be blowing (pun not intented, but left anyways) the TEA budget on a snowblower. 

[Vince]

I don't understand what the drama is about. I looked at your pic and I struggle to see what it is that you couldn't reproduce in seconds with any mid '90s word processor on a 486 CPU with Windows 3.1 ?! 

The buttons are just rectangles, any word processor can draw basic shapes like this, which you can position pixel by pixel exactly where you want it to be.
The button caption is just a "text box" which is a graphical element and as such again, can be positioned accurately where ever you want.

It's only a few minutes job.. longest part is looking at all the fonts to find one that's good enough to your taste...

Right - so I've got it to 99% of what I want this label to look like, at least using a test on white paper. The best matching font for it was plain old Times New Roman.

What do you think Vince? I didn't even use a 90's word processor on a 486 w/Windoze 3.1, I used Windows 10 and a Ryzen 7 1700 8 core 3.2 GHz processor to re-create what was possible 30 years ago! And to think people ask why we constantly need more powerful computers!

 

Yeah looks good, see wasn't difficult ! 

You did 99% of the work as you said. Now you can sit back enjoy your work, and have fun doing the fine tuning to make it even more faithful, if so you wished.

3AM, going to bed...

[cyclin_al]

Anyone in the US interested in a functioning HP 5340A? According to the 1977 catalog the H10 option on the back is "frequency extension to 23GHz", if it had international shipping I might have bought it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294742357414




David

Dammit!!!  I'd been staying away from eBuy!   

-Pat

Congrats!

So that explains why it is already sold ... you guys move fast!

[0culus]

Anyone in the US interested in a functioning HP 5340A? According to the 1977 catalog the H10 option on the back is "frequency extension to 23GHz", if it had international shipping I might have bought it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294742357414




David

Dammit!!!  I'd been staying away from eBuy!   

-Pat

Well, I haven't. I bought VNA cables.     


The prices were too good to pass up though. Ended up with two pairs of OEM -hp- 26.5 GHz VNA cables in excellent shape for about the price of a pair of the mini-circuits "budget" VNA cables with 2.92mm connectors.

[med6753]

Took over an hour to start the snowblower.  Carburator must have been partially gummed up.  Yes, there was some fuel so it did not dry out to a hard varnish during storage.  Yes, there was stabilizer in the fuel.  Yes, it was high octane fuel with no ethanol.  Tank was mostly filled with new winter fuel purchased this month.

Not much later, the snowblower found the stick that the dog had been playing with.  Okay, actually a 3" diameter firewood log.  Yes, shear pins work.  It is a PITA to replace a shear pin, especially outside far from the garage.

Finished snow clearing at 9:51pm, then still had to walk the dog...

Now time for 

Is it a Tecumseh "Snow King" engine? If yes I pity you. There's a reason they went under and out of business. Their carbs were total crap and even pampered the passages would clog up with the result you experienced. 

It looks like you might be bang on.  It is a Sears Craftsman with a Tecumseh engine...

So I can assume I did nothing wrong, but I can assume that when I get sufficiently frustrated I will be blowing (pun not intented, but left anyways) the TEA budget on a snowblower. 

No, you don't have to buy a new snowblower. But you do have to tear down the carb and clean out all the tiny passages and then rebuild it. I haven't checked but I'll bet there's some utube videos out there showing how it's done.

(Former owner of a Sears Craftsman snowblower with a Tecumseh engine) 

[mansaxel]

Such sexy. And I'm talking about the Reihenklemmen.    sed -i -e '/mind/d' /dev/gutter 

Having had infrequent but not non-existent exposure to high-current 400V circuit conductor termination I can see exactly where this will make sparkies very happy. It's such a mess trying to do this properly unless you've got the real stuff, and as soon as you get into screw terminations, a torque-controlled tool is more or less necessary, if you are to attain the same connection quality as spring-closed connections.

[Specmaster]

Stumbled across this pix today and thought I'd share it. My bench about 1990-1991.

Very nice Med, but there is not a single glowing Tek in sight, so what started your love affair off with them?

[tautech]

Stumbled across this pix today and thought I'd share it. My bench about 1990-1991.

Very nice Med, but there is not a single glowing Tek in sight, so what started your love affair off with them?

I'd guess that was like for Med as it was for me, just getting old classics functional again if only for the satisfaction that you know you can.......then it turned into a business much like it is for IceTea.

[Specmaster]

Gee I was 2 years and a month old !

Looked like even back then you were a fan of wooden dark brown furniture 

Looks like you also quickly upped your game... scope on first / most recent picture shows a much fancier scope than the one on the oldest/second pic !

The scope in the older pix is a Heathkit IO-4540 (I think) that I built around 1977 or so. I later sold it and bought the B&K 2120 which I still have and works a treat.

And yes, wood stain is Minwax #230 Early American on Southern Yellow Pine with semi-gloss poly which I still use today.

Edit, and I told you I was older than dirt. 

Older than dirt, but much wiser than dirt and with a wealth of experience to pass onto the younger generation in the way of hints and tips 

[Specmaster]

By that argument, a crimped terminal damages the conductor; as it extrudes both conductor and terminal slightly if done correctly.

My comparison against an alligator clip have nothing to do with the contact area of the jaws; I'm talking about how the two sides of the clamp are "electrically connected".

Covalent area of the WAGO is still a small fraction of that produced by twisting the wires together.


mnem
 

You beat me to the point about crimps and ferrules, all deform the conductor(s) as in fact do Wago's and similar spring clips. if you pull on a conductor in spung connector such as a Wago, the actual sprung contact is designed to increase the grip on the conductor, so much so that in tests done by Crabtree Electrical, the conductor suffered sufficient deformity due to the spring contact biting harder and ended up cutting into material and the and eventually through it.

[Ice-Tea]

Stumbled across this pix today and thought I'd share it. My bench about 1990-1991.

Very nice Med, but there is not a single glowing Tek in sight, so what started your love affair off with them?

I'd guess that was like for Med as it was for me, just getting old classics functional again if only for the satisfaction that you know you can.......then it turned into a business much like it is for IceTea.

Still look at my stock from time to time and wonder what happened 

[tautech]

Stumbled across this pix today and thought I'd share it. My bench about 1990-1991.

Very nice Med, but there is not a single glowing Tek in sight, so what started your love affair off with them?

I'd guess that was like for Med as it was for me, just getting old classics functional again if only for the satisfaction that you know you can.......then it turned into a business much like it is for IceTea.

Still look at my stock from time to time and wonder what happened 

No. 1 plan is to keep the magic smoke in ! 
Otherwise you need that magic syringe Cerebus has to stuff it back in.

[Ice-Tea]

Actually, keeping a stock of RIFA replacement components goes a long way. And batteries. Loads and loads of batteries.

[tautech]

Actually, keeping a stock of RIFA replacement components goes a long way. And batteries. Loads and loads of batteries.

You're 230VAC right ?
Does some of your stock come from 110VAC regions ?
RIFA's don't like that ! 

[Ice-Tea]

Yeah, perhaps that's a factor but they go anyways, even if all they've ever seen is 240V

[tautech]

Yeah, perhaps that's a factor but they go anyways, even if all they've ever seen is 240V

You ain't kidding.
Kenwood Chef we got for a wedding gift served us well for decades until dear wifey was doing her annual Christmas cake binge and the RIFA's gave out in the middle of it !
A buddy lent us one the same so she could finish her cake binge and I got her one fixed but it was some years before it gained her trust again. 
Another dozen cakes done a month or so ago without issue and with luck she's completely forgotten about RIFA's but probably not the smell. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

I don't understand what the drama is about. I looked at your pic and I struggle to see what it is that you couldn't reproduce in seconds with any mid '90s word processor on a 486 CPU with Windows 3.1 ?! 

The buttons are just rectangles, any word processor can draw basic shapes like this, which you can position pixel by pixel exactly where you want it to be.
The button caption is just a "text box" which is a graphical element and as such again, can be positioned accurately where ever you want.

It's only a few minutes job.. longest part is looking at all the fonts to find one that's good enough to your taste...

Right - so I've got it to 99% of what I want this label to look like, at least using a test on white paper. The best matching font for it was plain old Times New Roman.

What do you think Vince? I didn't even use a 90's word processor on a 486 w/Windoze 3.1, I used Windows 10 and a Ryzen 7 1700 8 core 3.2 GHz processor to re-create what was possible 30 years ago! And to think people ask why we constantly need more powerful computers!

 

Xrunner gets his

*** TEA Certificate of Forgery and Falsification ***

[McBryce]

mnem
 

Take a step back when they do the over-current test on that one!

McBryce.

[THDplusN_bad]

[..]

The Blue one is polarised. That type has a small permanent magnet to make them more sensitive. It also means the drop out voltage is very low. I've tested 24V examples that held in down to 3V. You have to be careful of sneak paths when the drop out is that low.

This I knew.
1.) it has the proper symbol for that
2.) I know those series.
Regarding the 'Relay battle', I was referring to the 'Centigrid' type (visible in the upper right), respectively a RF optimised variant of them.

Centigrid are nice, very expensive though. Funnily enough yesterday I found a PCB from a 2" aircraft indicator I designed in about 1995. It has a centigrid on it.
Virtual cookie to anyone who can identify the aircraft type 

G'd Day,

let me guess after I have taken a closer look with my thick glasses: That's for the F22 fighter airplane as visible in the copper mask in the lower left corner? 

If that's correct - where can I get that cookie then, please?

Cheers,

THDplusN_bad

[mnementh]

Anyone in the US interested in a functioning HP 5340A? According to the 1977 catalog the H10 option on the back is "frequency extension to 23GHz", if it had international shipping I might have bought it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294742357414

   

David

Dammit!!!  I'd been staying away from eBuy!       -Pat

Congrats!

Ditto !

mnem
*says a prayer for Pat's wallet now that he's again been touched by evilBay...*

[med6753]

Surprise package from Deutschland this morning.

I'm kinda speechless. BU508A, you didn't have to go to this expense but I'll shut up and be thankful.  My fussing about not having a matched pair 12AU6 for the pre-amp of the Type CA plug-in is obviously now resolved.

I see it was sent around December 17th. I'm surprised it took this long to get here....or maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

   

Later today I'll install and check the DC balance.

[mnementh]

Took over an hour to start the snowblower.  Carburator must have been partially gummed up.  Yes, there was some fuel so it did not dry out to a hard varnish during storage.  Yes, there was stabilizer in the fuel.  Yes, it was high octane fuel with no ethanol.  Tank was mostly filled with new winter fuel purchased this month.

Not much later, the snowblower found the stick that the dog had been playing with.  Okay, actually a 3" diameter firewood log.  Yes, shear pins work.  It is a PITA to replace a shear pin, especially outside far from the garage.

Finished snow clearing at 9:51pm, then still had to walk the dog...

Now time for 

Is it a Tecumseh "Snow King" engine? If yes I pity you. There's a reason they went under and out of business. Their carbs were total crap and even pampered the passages would clog up with the result you experienced. 

It looks like you might be bang on.  It is a Sears Craftsman with a Tecumseh engine...

So I can assume I did nothing wrong, but I can assume that when I get sufficiently frustrated I will be blowing (pun not intented, but left anyways) the TEA budget on a snowblower. 

Naaahhh... just get a cheap Chinese carb off slAmazon, and install a fuel petcock if it doesn't already have one. Use it religiously.

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=tecumseh+carburetor&crid=1ECH9RSN7ZGKW&sprefix=tecumseh+carburetor%2Caps%2C104&ref=nb_sb_noss

Once you have the thing running again with the cheap Chinesium, then you can worry about rebuilding the original for a spare. Or put it off til summer.

The later models of Tecumsehs... the engine itself is pretty good, but like med says... carb and coil were contract-built by the lowest bidder, so tended to be somewhat hit or miss for durability.   

Briggs have their own constellation of problems, not the least of which is chronic blow-by due to oil rings made of case-hardened cheese; replacing a mostly functioning snowblower for the sake of "the brand" is just ¢-wise and £-foolish.

good hunting!

mnem

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3246876/#msg3246876