Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Ice-Tea]

Sicherheits-disketten.

*snicker*

[Robert763]

[..]

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

Close, but no Cookie.
It's F20 not F22. Not a fighter but has the wing from  fighter.  French to boot.
Aircraft in the photo has at least one of the PCB's on board, possibly 2 depending on role configuration.

[med6753]

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

I always wanted them but back then even the tube scopes were still in high demand and too expensive. 

[SilverSolder]

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+carburator&crid=1ECH9RSN7ZGKW&sprefix=tecumseh+carburetor%2Caps%2C104&ref=nb_sb_noss

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=tecumseh+carburator&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

I replaced the Tecumseh engine on mine with a Harbor Freight "Honda Clone" engine, the best thing I ever did!  - smooth, powerful, quiet, economical with fuel...   

Still, I love the 5hp Briggs on my leaf blower (probably 30 years old).  Starts first time every time, doesn't burn oil, runs like a champ, sounds mean!
 

[med6753]

I replaced the Tecumseh engine on mine with a Harbor Freight "Honda Clone" engine, the best thing I ever did!  - smooth, powerful, quiet, economical with fuel...   

Still, I love the 5hp Briggs on my leaf blower (probably 30 years old).  Starts first time every time, doesn't burn oil, runs like a champ, sounds mean!

Yes, I've heard that the Chinese Freight clone engines are actually quite good but I have no direct experience with them. Another reason Tecumseh went bust.

[BU508A]

Sicherheits-disketten.

*snicker*

Source:
https://www.qwertee.com/

[BU508A]

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.

You are welcome. 

The best surprises are the unexpected but nice ones. 

And it was Christmas, so I thought of the poor Papa Smurf what could him make happy.

[mnementh]

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 ***

XRUNNER... LAMINATE DAT BITCH AND GET ON WIDJER LIFE !!!   

mnem

[AVGresponding]

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.

The problem with termination scenarios like this are not usually to do with the electrical side of it at all, but mechanical. Cable of that CSA is so stiff it's likely you're going to break the DIN rail clip on the back of the terminal while either a) getting the cable into it, or b) tightening the terminal to the specified torque, or c) 10 seconds after you walk away from it, it'll spontaneously ping off the rail...

Doing it in a lab like in the video is easy-peasy. Try doing it lying on your back in half-darkness and freezing cold inside a cramped sarel box, and see how easy it is.

[mnementh]

Sicherheits-disketten.

*snicker*

"One less worry."

mnem

[tautech]

Go easy on our Ozzie member.

[Andrew_Debbie]

Aircraft in the photo has at least one of the PCB's on board, possibly 2 depending on role configuration.

Mach loop?   

[med6753]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

   

[AVGresponding]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

Is the rotation of the photo to compensate for the rotation of the trace..?   

[mnementh]

Solartron 7055 on the bench. Restarts continuously. Also smells something fierce when warming up. So, naturally I dug up my bag of replacement Schaeffners and opened her up. Much to my surprise, the filter is in one piece. But...

This kindof got lost in all the "discussion" I started over my own little bit of electrical fustercluckery... what was the eventual outcome?

Hard to tell from the angle the vid was taken at; looks like a safety cap from here, but given the circuit more likely a blob tant...?

mnem
9. Capacitors are Murphy's footsoldiers.

[med6753]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

Is the rotation of the photo to compensate for the rotation of the trace..?   

Huh? 

[mnementh]

The point of interest mostly is it has the weighted horizontal tuning knob that was a Marantz "thing",

Oh, and one actually wants the old separate tuners with the blue window and the long tuning scale. This is the 4230, so a receiver but they still are pretty much the same, also; a borrowed pic.

Hi-Fi's and audio gear was so much better looking and sexier back then, don't you think?

Eye candy emptied many of our pockets. 

As we got older (and wiser...? ) our definition of "eye candy" definitely has morphed a wee bit...

   

http://hparchive.com/wallpaper

mnem
Oh yeah... that's it... you just float right there just like dat... *siiiiiiiigh*

[mansaxel]

Doing it in a lab like in the video is easy-peasy. Try doing it lying on your back in half-darkness and freezing cold inside a cramped sarel box, and see how easy it is.[/color][/size][/b]

Oh, of course. The demo is not the install.

It's just that once you've got the wire into the hole, pressing the "connect" button is going to be a bit easier than finding the hex key, tightening lightly, swapping to the torque wrench, getting it to grab, and then torquing to spec.  All the other parts are roughly equal in shittyness for all cases.

[mnementh]

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.

You are welcome. 

The best surprises are the unexpected but nice ones. 

And it was Christmas, so I thought of the poor Papa Smurf what could him make happy.

Thanks BU, for being what TEAnonymous is all about. 

mnem

[mnementh]

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.

The problem with termination scenarios like this are not usually to do with the electrical side of it at all, but mechanical. Cable of that CSA is so stiff it's likely you're going to break the DIN rail clip on the back of the terminal while either a) getting the cable into it, or b) tightening the terminal to the specified torque, or c) 10 seconds after you walk away from it, it'll spontaneously ping off the rail...

Doing it in a lab like in the video is easy-peasy. Try doing it lying on your back in half-darkness and freezing cold inside a cramped sarel box, and see how easy it is.

LOL.... yeah, I was thinking I want that cut of copper to throw under the car seat as a emergency club...

mnem
Bigger. Faster. Louder. All the good things in life.

[med6753]

And I thought tants were expensive. This is almost $60 USD of HV disc ceramic capacitors to re-cap one HV supply in the two Type 547's. But at least now I can start experimenting with the HV issues.

The latest from the clowns at hvstuff.com: An inquiry was sent via PayPal to respond to me with status of the order. If no response by tomorrow I can authorize PayPal to release the hounds and get my money back.   

[mnementh]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

Is the rotation of the photo to compensate for the rotation of the trace..?   

Oh, now yer just agitatin'... 

mnem
*airlifts med a trace-nudging mallet*   

[Vince]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

Is the rotation of the photo to compensate for the rotation of the trace..?   

Huh? 

Might be parallax error but the trace does look like it's not horizontal. Looks like it's got a slight positive slope to it. Trace looks slightly below center on the left, and slightly above center toward the right end.
CRT rotation needs to be fine tuned, I say !

[med6753]

Matched 12AU6's installed in Type CA plug-in which is in turn installed in the Type 535A. 45 minute warm up. DC Balance: Perfect! 

Is the rotation of the photo to compensate for the rotation of the trace..?   

Huh? 

Might be parallax error but the trace does look like it's not horizontal. Looks like it's got a slight positive slope to it. Trace looks slightly below center on the left, and slightly above center toward the right end.
CRT rotation needs to be fine tuned, I say !

Nope, the trace is level.

[mnementh]

   Go easy on our Ozzie member.

I dinn't do nuthin' to 'im! ...just borrowed his likeness for a few laughs...

mnem
*toddles off to rent a clue*