Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[TERRA Operative]

You ever used an ExpressCard external laptop GPU?

Made for good gaming on a laptop when you got it working, but driver updates are... interesting 

[Vince]

OK so I emptied the big box that contained most of the salvaged stuff I had in stock. Now let's sort it all out where needed, and try to fit it into the drawers I just bought this evening... not enough drawers I thing, but at least that's a beginning. All the screws and misc H/W will need further tedious sorting later, into a bunch of small bin.. need to buy that as well.

Gotta start somewhere ! For now the aim is to get rid of that bib container and shove all the stuff into those plastic drawers so that at the very least... it's now easier to get to ! Then later I can further re-organize all that better...creating order is an iterative process here...

   I think I have waaaay too many small DC motors ! Need to throw 75% of them away but... what criteria to sue to decide which ones to keep or trash ?     It's gonna be a bit arbitrary I fear... they are all so similar... since they all had similar duties in consumer gear.

Motors are best treated as a "long-term storage" thing. I keep my rando motors (as in, the ones that aren't hi-po brushless for my whirry little flying things) in a plastic shoebox. These are the containers seen above at the bottom of the shelving unit next to my old Radio-Shack-hacked-into-T12-OLED soldering station. They cost a buck or two apiece depending on how many you buy, and will stack up to 4 or so high before you have to worry about them toppling or caving under the weight.

I recommend keeping them all. You really don't have that many, and they are a great source of small bits of spring brass good for fixing switches and relays, as well as varnished wire/magnet wire that can be used for bodges or for making custom inductors. Also, the bushings make good spacers for small screws when you're feeling "maker-ily".

A good assortment of "expendable" motors also means a good assortment of wire diameters and colors close at hand. 

mnem
And don't forget to keep a gutted one handy for magnetizing screwdrivers.

You are not helping me much here ! 

I was assuming and secretly hoping you would tell me to trash all that junk !

I don't have anywhere near as much storage space as you do in your big house and Dwagon cave, so I am trying more and more to be reasonable as to how much of every thing I keep around.

.... I sorted them by size and shape/looks.... how scientific.... I think I am developing a kind of OCD, I need things to be sorted and organized, I can't stand random messes...

So looks like I have 61 motors then... Pfff... OK will keep them for now. As you said it's not taking too much space for now, so no urgent need to dispose of them... unlike my XXXX power cords.
I can always get rid of some of them later if space becomes really an issue... but for now they can stay. How nice I am...

As for magnetizing... I have much better than shitty DC motors. Old man used to train white goods service/repair technicians. Used to have tons of spare parts at home... then he retired and throw all of it out the window. He gave me a powerful toroïdal magnet from a magnetron... and a box with half a dozen complete magnetrons to keep my 30 year old Philips microwave oven running for the next 200 years.

As for salvaging enameled wire.. I just take apart some common mode choke or small power supply transformer   

[mnementh]

...And don't forget to keep a gutted one handy for magnetizing screwdrivers.

You are not helping me much here !     I was assuming and secretly hoping you would tell me to trash all that junk !

As for magnetizing... I have much better than shitty DC motors. Old man used to train white goods service/repair technicians. Used to have tons of spare parts at home... then he retired and throw all of it out the window. He gave me a powerful toroïdal magnet from a magnetron... and a box with half a dozen complete magnetrons to keep my 30 year old Philips microwave oven running for the next 200 years.

As for salvaging enameled wire.. I just take apart some common mode choke or small power supply transformer   

 You assumed that... in here... and from me...?   

*extends a paw*  Hi, I'm mnem, the tinkerdwagon... have we met...?

Oh, I have oodles of Magnetron magnets... I used to work for a Ding & Dent appliance store, plus I have a weakness for snurching nukeboxes off the curb whenever they present themselves. 

Small DC motors are actually a lot more convenient, as they can magnetize or demagnetize depending on which field magnet you draw the screwdriver across, plus the really nice part... you can throw them in a drawer and they don't glue themselves to the bottom, requiring a jackhammer to break them loose, as magnetron magnets are oft wont to do. 

As for the varnished wire... motors are a lot easier to salvage wire from than transformers of any sort. Once you find the end of the wire (hint: usually found at the commutator ), the armature is like a handy-dandy little bobbin of wire that unwinds like it was meant just for you.

Also, as you get to tinkering, you'll usually find you actually want those inductors for their original purpose a lot more than the wire on them.

mnem
*veteran of a thousand psychic wars tinkering sessions*

[cyclin_al]

Just stumbled over this YT-channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/MachiningandMicrowaves/videos

A cross-over of machining things and playing around with RF.

Example:

Wow!  The machining in that video makes it look like magic.
I wish I could do work like that; but then again, I already have more than enough rabbit-holes to go down.

Gotta love the humour with his AI 

[cyclin_al]

Since counters are a hot topic at the moment, I came across this one in the Toronto area:

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-buy-sell-other/city-of-toronto/hp-5248l-electronic-counter-for-parts-only/1559781767

"We specialize in electronics" and "Could not test it because we do not have a power cable" 

Some of their postings say they will accept any reasonable offer; some ads do not.
They probably "specialize" in finding a cheap source or are involved in disposal/recycling...

Did the Dwagon ever check out this store during his sojourn to the GWN?

They're EcoTech Electronics; a shoestring eCycling shop much like the one I did business with in San Antonio.



They do mostly reclamation of fleet computer gear that's too old/fuxxored up to sell on fleaBay as "off-lease". 25CPS came and visited me in the fall of 2020; we went there and I bought some laptop packs for cells and he got, IIRC, some hollow-state goodness similar to the one in this listing. They're legit, and willing to make a deal on most of what they have (cash is your best negotiation tool; nudge-nudge, wink-wink  ), but I wouldn't expect them to know anything about any TE that might come through their hands; certainly not how to test it in any manner we'd be comfortable with as being better than "where-is/as-is".

Shia's the resident nerd, but his specialty is recycled server RAM/CPUs, not TE in any flavor. I believe him when he says he doesn't have the cord for that; its a PH-163, IIRC. He'll have C5 & C13 cords by the MFT; any PH-163 he might have would be completely by accident.

 

They're also where I got the Dell server PSUs I made these from for my deal with you; BTW, have they found a good use yet, or still in the "pending" paddock?

mnem
 

Thanks for that!  I recall you and 25_CPS going TE shopping, but never made the connection that this was one of those shops.
I will likely stop in there sometime, whenever I make a trip in that direction.  No time soon, unfortunately.
Given that you shopped in person, I imagine that shipping would be a risky option.

Those PSUs are still in the "pending" paddock.  I have 4 specific uses in mind, but only 3 PSUs.  Not to worry, I will get there! Some day?

[VK5RC]

Putting the UNI-T 622A to work. 

nice to see someone actually using TE on this thread.

also good to see that you have a shim handy just in case you find a wobbly table leg or a chassis that is missing a foot.

Nah, a UniT is not that good for a shim, would break too easily 😁

[0culus]

Putting the UNI-T 622A to work. 

nice to see someone actually using TE on this thread.

also good to see that you have a shim handy just in case you find a wobbly table leg or a chassis that is missing a foot.

I found a better shim:

[Brumby]

You know ... I think it wouldn't have felt right if there wasn't a bit of this to-and-fro going on every now and then.   

[tautech]

You know ... I think it wouldn't have felt right if there wasn't a bit of this to-and-fro going on every now and then.   

Careful now, the Scram might jump in and attempt to pull you into line ! 

[mansaxel]

Oh, text editor you say...?    Well, since I had to give up LEWP when I stopped using MS-DOS...  WordPad. Use it every day. I love the funny looks I get from people when I send them a document in .rtf or .txt format. And I like it. 

Yes, I had one of those infatuations too, with WP 5.0. Ended completely when I learnt to use Real Computers.

And yes, I have written code in WordPad. Just to see if I could.

mnem
*certifiable crusty ol' agitatin' bastard*

That is neither crusty nor agitating, just sick.

[mansaxel]

As for speed, ad says it's USB 2.0 and Goggle pretends USB 2.0 is designed for 480Mbps ?! That's plenty enough...
So if the adapter is slow, do you mean it's because the Chinese copies are crap, and the Agilent one will be fast... or they are all slow and it's hopeless ??

USB 2.0 High-Speed is 480 Mbps, but USB 2.0 Full-Speed is only 12 Mbps. Yeah, it's almost as if they wanted it to be confusing. I'm betting that it's probably only 12 Mbps, if only because most microcontrollers only stretch to 12 Mbps.

Fully agree on the confusion part.

Now, if it takes 30 minutes, at 12 Mbit / second, that's ~ 2.7GiB flat out. Even at only 1/3 efficiency, we're still talking about more data than most people had in harddrive size back when the scope was made.  I'm fairly certain (as I'm convinced you're too) that there are other things involved that make it take such long time; like writing speed into fixed memory, repeated verification, checksumming according to non-trivial algorithms, and so on.

I would be surprised if adapter speed was a major contributor to update time, but there of course could be weird timing issues.

[mansaxel]

Just won myself a handy bit of kit for the old Thinkpad laptop (currently running Win98 for legacy stuff).

Contec CardBus GPIB adapter.
Will help make things a bit easier when messing with GPIB stuff, I won't have to string cables across the place to reach to and tie up my PC.

I remember when CardBus arrived. I had one of the few ThinkPads that could use it at the office, so I swapped a 3Com 10Mbit PCMCIA card for a 3Com 100Mbit PCCard with a colleague and both were happy.  Still have that card, actually. And also a Xircom double-height one, where you don't need a fragile dongle.

Then, IBM realised that BrokenThing was not now, nor ever, going to win over Ethernet, and grudgingly started adding Fast Ethernet onto the motherboard of their ThinkPads. 

That, though, is a seriously sexy thing. And now, I want one. Damn!

[Andrew_Debbie]

also good to see that you have a shim handy just in case you find a wobbly table leg or a chassis that is missing a foot.

I've had the HP since new.   It continues to be useful.

When faced with equations like this:


I usually grab the HP.  I've had it so long, I can compute C without thinking about it.   I can store measured values in registers for later use.   I don't program it often anymore, but can if needed.

If I don't have the HP handy, I use dc.    I've tried several HP emulators, but none of them have the feel or match the speed I can get with the HP.   -- Muscle memory??

Nah, a UniT is not that good for a shim, would break too easily 😁

I've been pleased with the 622A.  It does what I need and is accurate enough.   It came with a multi-page calibration document.  It is far better than the Tenma I'd used for years.

Most people here will want the 622B which adds 100kHz test frequency and kelvin clips.   I almost went for the B, but it is more expensive.

[Robert763]

Been a busy day. Took the dog to the vet for some dental work. Vet is about 80 miles away but is one we trust. Came home late this afternoon to find a box had been delivered TEA
A good old analog multimeter. An SEI Selectest Super 50 MkII. Snapped up on ebay for only £7. It's in better condition than the one I bought a year or so ago. Needs a clean. Particuarly under the knobs. Dirt here makes it hard to read the switch setting. The glass appears to have been glued in with hot melt glue but it's fairly neat.
A quick calibration check on low voltage ranges shows a slight under-read. This is well within the 1% specification.   
Interestingly the low AC ranges of this meter are specified from 10 Hz to 50 kHz at the full 2.25% accuracy.
I now have a large scale analog multimeter and it's not an AVO.

Those meters are nice, used to have in college when I was there years ago, there were a few of the Selectest and only a handful of AVO's, so I'm guessing that the AVO's were more expensive. I can't get over how little you paid for it either, that was the one from Luton right? I saw that and dismissed it thinking that it got for loads more, just all the others I was watching  I'm so jelly now 

Yes it was from Luton. It's not too pink either.
Somtimes "too good to be true" works in your favor as no one else bids  I think tha's how I got two R&S CRTUs (CMU200+) and a  CMW for £83.
Sometimmes if I see an itm with a high BIN and a low auction start I'll put  minimum bid in to cancel the BIN option
I've won a couple of those...

[Saskia]

Expecting the Megger PAT 2/2 early next week. Seller confirmed receipt of funds and promised to send it out today or tomorrow.

In other news, salary has arrived. Looking for Festool MFT/3

[mansaxel]

Ok, score one for the Wiggly Club; just won it for about 30€:



Unigor 6e which means both Fets and a Zerhacker. Somehow the German word is much more adept at describing the agony of the voltage than "chopper amplifier"

This is Zerhacker:



This is Chopper:

[nixiefreqq]

[/quote]

nice to see someone actually using TE on this thread.

also good to see that you have a shim handy just in case you find a wobbly table leg or a chassis that is missing a foot.
[/quote]

I found a better shim:


[/quote]

now that is some calculator porn.

was hoping it belonged to you but the link leads me to believe you googled it.   

pity.

[Andrew_Debbie]

calculator porn.

Still have it.  Haven't used it in years.

[Robert763]

My Daily Driver

[Peter_O]

I wanted one for some time. Not because I really need one, but just because ... 

And as I have an 3353A already, I preferred to get the 3325 as a B version to cover the generations - so to say.
Might qualify for this thread after all.   

Finally this guy arrived today with some battle scars, but overall and after first cleaning in a quite usable condition. Self test runs fine. Manual is printing.

What's the best way to better remove the Edding markings on top and front without damaging the plastics or paint? I had some minor success with ethanol (more than IPA) and cleaning solvent ("Waschbenzin", benzine)?

Fortunately the generations seem not to disagree in basic parameters. 

[Specmaster]

nice to see someone actually using TE on this thread.

also good to see that you have a shim handy just in case you find a wobbly table leg or a chassis that is missing a foot.
[/quote]

I found a better shim:


[/quote]

now that is some calculator porn.

was hoping it belonged to you but the link leads me to believe you googled it.   

pity.
[/quote]
No, that is a calculator, not a shim, how do I know?, simple, it has a = key and not ENTER key or a EXE key 

[mansaxel]

My Daily Driver

And mine: (but both the Free42 phone app and dc on the computer see a lot of keystrokes.)

[Cerebus]

Just in case anyone finds it useful in the future, the raw data for that Metcal PCT-100 temperature profile exported from the Agilent 34461A and slapped into an OpenOffice spreadsheet. Also the obligatory graph of it.



Please note you scunners, and there's people who could learn from this, I label my graph and my axes.

[McBryce]

Ok, score one for the Wiggly Club; just won it for about 30€:



Unigor 6e which means both Fets and a Zerhacker. Somehow the German word is much more adept at describing the agony of the voltage than "chopper amplifier"

This is Zerhacker:



This is Chopper:

And more importantly: This is what the German word Zerhacker means:



McBryce.

[Cerebus]

What's the best way to better remove the Edding markings on top and front without damaging the plastics or paint? I had some minor success with ethanol (more than IPA) and cleaning solvent ("Waschbenzin", benzine)?

I've had consistently good results with a melamine sponge and isopropanol (or 70/30 isopropanol and water if there's any suspicion that the stain has a polar component).

As a matter of fact my 'standard' cleaning solution at the moment is 70% isopropanol, 30% de-ionised water and 0.1% Benzalkonium chloride. Benzalkonium chloride (aka BAC) is a quaternary ammonium compound that is both a detergent (surfactant) and a highly effective disinfectant and antiseptic. Ironically I originally brewed up that mixture back in 2019 in litre odd quantities as an improved version of my normal 70% isopropanol specifically for spectacle cleaning and packaged it into 50ml spray bottles. Then Covid-19 hit and I found myself with ready-made sanitiser/disinfectant packaged up pocket size ready to go. Consequently throughout the whole Covid thing I have found myself completely free of being a thrall to 'big hand sanitiser'.

I've used Benzalkonium chloride as a household disinfectant for years as it has low toxicity compared to many other common disinfectants (especially phenol related ones which have high toxicity in cats and dogs - there's a story of a big cat getting fatally poisoned at one of the big zoos when a keeper used a phenolic disinfectant to mop out an enclosure). It's the active ingredient in Zoflora disinfectant but using it in its own has the advantage that it's virtual odour free and very, very cheap compared to commercial preparations like Zoflora.

I drop back to straight 70/30 isopropanol and deionised water if I want a cleaner that's guaranteed 'residue free'.