Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

I assume the 5340A came from AllTest? FedEx has always been very prompt to me. Overnight. And of course AllTest packed it to withstand a nuke. 

No, it's coming from a private seller.  Hopefully he packed it well - I wish everyone did it as thorough a job at it as AllTest.

-Pat

[AVGresponding]

Goof of the week:

wtf do they use those power supplies for?

Powering the vibrating water-bed..?

[factory]

I assume the 5340A came from AllTest? FedEx has always been very prompt to me. Overnight. And of course AllTest packed it to withstand a nuke. 

No, it's coming from a private seller.  Hopefully he packed it well - I wish everyone did it as thorough a job at it as AllTest.

-Pat

Was this one from a few days ago. https://www.ebay.com/itm/294742357414

I hope they packed it well too, not often a decent condition appears at a sane price. 

David

[mnementh]

oh woe eeez meeee    I stumbled across a Keysight N6700B ...   muuuuuust rezeeeeest   aaaarggghhhh, caught in the make-offer-event-horizon ...   tacker..hack..clacker   offer accepted ...   aaaarrrgllll

Oh, who dooya think you're you kidding, woman...? We all know you love it right there...

How many modules didja get widditt...?

mnem
 

[Saskia]

GBS !

George Bernard Shaw?
Ginger Beer Shandy?
Giant Bowls of Spaghetti?
Gigantic Ball Sack?

get better soon ...

[Saskia]

oh woe eeez meeee    I stumbled across a Keysight N6700B ...   muuuuuust rezeeeeest   aaaarggghhhh, caught in the make-offer-event-horizon ...   tacker..hack..clacker   offer accepted ...   aaaarrrgllll

Oh, who dooya think you're you kidding, woman...? We all know you love it right there...

How many modules didja get widditt...?

mnem
 

nun.

already had an iq test this year 2 modules sitting here.

My line of thinking was that without the mainframe they only take up space.
One 30V and one 100V if I remember correctly, the 100V was gifted to me by a large distributor.

[Saskia]

After a quick trip to my favorite distributor to grab some cable shoes (I returned with the cable shoes, some heat shrink tube, an SSD, a rust drive and a graphics card and was told to come back for the big Creality 3D printer, they had to think about the price they could give me) I had a hunch and started working on that pin.

Rewire the power box. Not pretty, but does the trick.


Measured Voltage at metal parts against earth. A couple hunnerd mV, but that's it.
No dangerous voltage after correctly attaching the ground wires within the cabinet.

And behold:


However a closer look at the CPU board reveals this utterly shameful situation:


Why can't people take out the batteries before dying ?

Hrmpf.

No, this is not meant seriously.
Close up:


The switch matrix is toast. Quite obviously. I need to remove the battery holder, the ULN2803, LM339, the 74LS line driver and all affected resistors, diodes, capacitors. The scrub in acid, remove all gunk, throw in ultrasonic, repair vias and put in new components.
Once that is done the bulk of the repair should be finished.

Estimated time needed to bring the pin back into operation: 10 hours.
Which includes lamp / rubber swap, repair of broken coil stops and mounts and the overhaul of the CPU board.

An additional day of work to make it reasonably tidy.

To make it nice: additional 100 hours. But I don't think I will go to that length.

[mansaxel]

Wow, sorry to hear you've all got the dreaded bug. Hopefully as you stated it will be mild for all of you. I get my Moderna booster on 9 February. Had my 2nd shot on 30 August.

I hope to be able to finish fixing my 465; found the required info in the service manual (how to tell which way the Dunlops go), so now I'll just gotta muster up strength to waddle out to the workshop and go through the connectors to the Trigger/sweep board.

Edit: "waddle" was chosen as verb, because I'm currently wrapped in longjohns, Army Model 90 shirt, Houdini fleece hoodie, Army model 90 merino sweater, two pairs of socks and a woolen cap that my mother made. This is crowned by a fleece blanket.

[Cerebus]

Goof of the week:
wtf do they use those power supplies for?

Upgrade from one of these?

[mnementh]

*pokes TEA thread with a stick*



mnem
*returns to carving the Roast of Doom*

I was busy fixing something that wasn't broken. (my router config)

In other news: We've got covid, all of us. Am very happy that those eligible got our shots. No-one is beyond mancold/flu in seriousness. It feels like a bad case of season flu, so most likely is Omikron and not one of the old ones.

Currently hoping that my parents (who I met last this saturday, when we had, unbeknownst, the virus in the family.) will be able to cope. They have gotten their 3rd shot, and are very careful, so there is hope.

Edit: And the anti-vaxers go: "It's just like the virus targets us. Illuminati 5G indeed!"  (In Sweden, the data says that adults between 16 and 60 are 21,1 times more likely to end up in ICU if they get covid and aren't vaccinated.)

I was busy finishing the pork roast; it is now ~6lbs of roast pork slices, ~3lbs of pulled pork with Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ sauce, and another~4 lbs total of roast veggies and rice as a side.

I have mandated a sit-down dinner for the whole family as my compensation for this extravagant use of my time and skills. 

In the ~6 hours it took to cook, I kibbutzed with cyclin_al over his shitty problems and failed miserably at finding a viable path to pull some ROMEX up an alternate wall in the dwagon-cave.

Even drilling down through a 6" sillplate only got me 3 1/2 feet down the wall; I have long bits & extensions to get me just about that far and no more. As the space I'm working with is only the thickness of a 2x4, I'm loathe to try drilling the next stringer for fear of the spade bit with 2 or 3 extensions deflecting and going straight through the wall.

I'm going to look into a path to pull to a box on the joist next to the ungrounded fustercluck outlet when I'm done being exhausted by this whole mess. Not my first choice, but at least things are mostly visible.


mnem
already regretting the time spent on this hole boring business...

[factory]

Strange, looks like a dick contest in reverse, the smaller it is the more one brags about it ?! 

003 003 003 003 003003 003 003


AVO digital measuring system, probably didn't sell very many.


David

[mansaxel]

AVO digital measuring system, probably didn't sell very many.

That's proper enheavyment! 

[Specmaster]

Well, you did use rather a lot of it on that test 

The more the betterer !!! 

I guess I watched Louis Rossmann too much..  "there is no such thing as too much flux... " .. as he pours half of his 35cc syringe of flux onto a poor SMD resistor 

For those playing along at home... Precise application of exactly the correct amount of solder paste is critical to successful reflow soldering.

mnem

Yep, use precisely the right amount of solder paste is vital to prevent short circuits.

[mnementh]

Goof of the week:

wtf do they use those power supplies for?

mnem
Hey, you need something to power your Electric Boogaloo...

[factory]

The only person that'll get 10000W through those will be Photonicinduction. 

David

[Neomys Sapiens]

When I answered the door to let in a delivery service, I almost fell over two packages. One contains a little immaculate precision square in a box, so no problem.
The other has 'Welectron' as sender, so it contains my DMMcheck. Why do they always leave the most valuable packages unattended in the hall while I have to trudge to the post shop for 5-euro items? 

At least it looks unmolested. Will unpack later.

[mnementh]

GBS !

George Bernard Shaw?
Ginger Beer Shandy?
Giant Bowls of Spaghetti?
Gigantic Ball Sack?

Here you go, C...



mnem
*impairing productivity since nineteen mumblety-mumble*

[mnementh]

I hope to be able to finish fixing my 465; found the required info in the service manual (how to tell which way the Dunlops go), so now I'll just gotta muster up strength to waddle out to the workshop and go through the connectors to the Trigger/sweep board.

Edit: "waddle" was chosen as verb, because I'm currently wrapped in longjohns, Army Model 90 shirt, Houdini fleece hoodie, Army model 90 merino sweater, two pairs of socks and a woolen cap that my mother made. This is crowned by a fleece blanket.

      

Also, best wishes that your illness is brief and uneventful as you suggest, and that it gets you plenty of sympathy from the wimmen-folk.

mnem
*toddles off to nuke a penguin*

[m k]

Agilent E4419B EPM $225 for nobody.
(20min left)
https://www.equipnet.com/auctions/agilent-technologies-e4419b-epm-series-power-listid-842619/

[Zucca]

nun.

already had an iq test this year 2 modules sitting here.

My line of thinking was that without the mainframe they only take up space.
One 30V and one 100V if I remember correctly, the 100V was gifted to me by a large distributor.

If you don't post the pics after it is in your home/lab one of your pinballs will explode.

[factory]

A bit of fun again... was sorting some more... was into wire/electrical stuff... found this old 9V rechargeable battery !

A beautiful Varta. Yes I know the yanks shit on them, but in Western Europe they make good ones.. they only send you the crap ones.. or maybe Varta has a plant in the US or Mexico just for your market and has substandard quality control there, I don't know...

Anyway, there is not even a date on that battery, but no need : it's the only 9V rechargeable battery I ever bought, and I still vividly remember buying it, as a teen, in the local electronics shop. Had to save for a bit to buy it, was so thrilled... said on the tinu it can recharged 1000 times wow... I was in awe of this thing, was the future for sure.
So it's at least 30 years old, maybe 32 I don't know.

I think I used it... never, not even once. But I was happy to have it anyway !   

So, will I get my 1,000 cycles then, 30 years later ?

I measured voltage... can't believe it, it still registers something ! 2.5V !   
The wonders of electro-chemistry I guess... not my part.

OF COURSE I had to see if it would take a charge ! 

....Snip.....


Battery label says it's a 9V but back then that meant it really was 7.2V (6x1.2V cells).

Up to 10V charging voltage, it takes zero current.

At 11.5V here, it takes about 50mA.

I will leave it like that for a bit see what that does... will it revive it a bit ?
My bet is the 50mA aren't charging anything at all... must be just a DC leakage current due to the severe state of chemical decomposition this battery must be in ?! 

It'll probably be fine, I've had this Varta Ni-Cd for several decades, wish I had more as the 2004 Uniross Ni-Cd just isn't as good and the UniDross NiMh, well they were just shite & long since disposed of. 
The 1990 Varta PP3 hasn't been charged since Dec 2020 at least, still has nearly 8V. 




The Therm DMM/AMM arrived recently, cost me £50 (plus p&p), wonder if anyone else recognises it, I already know what it was rebadged from (took me a bit a research before making the offer). Quite pleased it works as the sellers pics weren't the best advert. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373805200342


David

[Neomys Sapiens]

Measured Voltage at metal parts against earth. A couple hunnerd mV, but that's it.
No dangerous voltage after correctly attaching the ground wires within the cabinet.

I would recommend that you look out for a PAT (while your pinball machines do not seem to be 'portable', it is applicable to anything connected to a standard outlet). It does not need to be a current one with protocol etc., but as those machines leave your hand when done, it would certainly aid your risk management.
Improvised measurements such as described above are not really a substitute for the prescribed PE resistance/Insulation/leakage tests.

[Vince]

It'll probably be fine, I've had this Varta Ni-Cd for several decades,
The 1990 Varta PP3 hasn't been charged since Dec 2020 at least, still has nearly 8V. 

Wow the exact same battery, and just as old, what were the odds 

The Therm DMM/AMM arrived recently, cost me £50 (plus p&p), wonder if anyone else recognises it, I already know what it was rebadged from (took me a bit a research before making the offer). Quite pleased it works as the sellers pics weren't the best advert. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373805200342


David

5 digit Nixie DMM for 50 pounds, working at that, can't complain for sure ! 

It's even got a mega cute little Omega symbol on the left most Nixie ! 

[Vince]

I don't know... charging it fully and properly, woudl tak e14 hours... like any NiCd battery.

At 50mA I was fast charging it, pushin it, just to give it a quick shot see if there was still life in it in some way...

But charging it completely, would need to do it properly, so 14 looong hours at C/10 ie at 110mAH that's 11mA for 14H.
That's also what's written on the battery itself.

So I would have to time it so as to not overcharge it... OK I guess I can make an effort an keep track of start and stop time.

Just dug out my old NiCd charger ! Maybe I can just that instead...

We are on EEVBlog so before doing anything I tore it apart of course ! 
Oh boy it looks middle age crude in there ! 
A transformer, single wave rectification and a current limiting resistor and that's it !

Plugged the battery in there and scoped the voltage across it... see for yourself.

Single wave indeed, and peaks at 12.5+ Volts ! 

this crude pulsating voltage, that's torture, should be illegal ! How did law back then allow for these things to be sold at all ?! 

so... looks like my lab power supply is two order of magnitude more refined than this charger eh ?
At least it's proper DC I am feeding the battery with, and I can control the current.
Well, kind of... it's a basic analog supply not a fancy HP/Agilent microprocessor haunted supply.
So I don't have great control over the current, in the low end. If I set the pot to the minimum, it will still give 40mA or so, or 75mA.. depends on the output voltage it appears.
I guess I can add a series resistor to get to the required 11mA.
Would be so nice to have fancy PSU where I could just set it to say 15Volts and limit current precisely to 11mA or whatever, trusting that it would stick to that no matter how the output voltage varies.
One day, one day....

EDIT : stupid me... there are two 9V slots in the charger. I plugged the battery in one, but was scoping the other/empty one ! 
So the waveform was for an open circuit condition !
Now I am scoping the proper slot and I see DC with negligible ripple, and it tops at 10.3V or something now, ie the battery voltage I measured prior. So all seems well... letting it charge overnight, wrapped in a fire resistant blanket, floating in a large bucket of water, and smoke detector next to it. Have an IR camera with AI monitoring activity. If anything fishy is going on, I will get a text message on my smartphone.

Your bench charger is a better tool for this task .set the voltage to about 12 V and current to 10 mA put the battery on small plte or in a mug "just in case" and let it charge for >15 hours. Check voltage immeditely off-charge and off-load. Leave it with nothig connected for 12-24 h and check voltage off-load again. Report back. Ni-Cads like to be stored discharged so it might come back to life.

The old charger charged for 243H and I doubt it shoved any electron into that battery.... not even warm, and then I realized the red LED supposed to light up when current is flowing... well I have never seen it lit !  This charge is not only crude... it does not even work it ought to be... no matter how poorly that would be.

So I did what you said. Back to charging on the lab supply. 12+ Volts and a beefy 180R resistor in series. Adjust voltage to get about 10mA. That meant 13V or so.
Measured that with a DMM of course, since the am meter in the power supply has  only a 10mA resolution, it displays basically zero... so not very helpful...

[AVGresponding]

Measured Voltage at metal parts against earth. A couple hunnerd mV, but that's it.
No dangerous voltage after correctly attaching the ground wires within the cabinet.

I would recommend that you look out for a PAT (while your pinball machines do not seem to be 'portable', it is applicable to anything connected to a standard outlet). It does not need to be a current one with protocol etc., but as those machines leave your hand when done, it would certainly aid your risk management.
Improvised measurements such as described above are not really a substitute for the prescribed PE resistance/Insulation/leakage tests.

PAT regs apply to anything not part of the permanent wiring (here in the UK at least, and they are from when we were still harmonised with europe so...) which includes anything connected to a Fused Connection Unit (aka a fuse spur) or flex outlet plate via a flex, even if the flex is protected by flexible conduit.
Confusingly, this includes what is referred to in the PAT regs as "static equipment", which could be something like a lathe connected via a 64A TP N+E commando.