Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Med, not sure if something here can conjure up enough vacuum for experiments with your sick HV tranny:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=vacuum+generator&rt=nc&_dcat=48718&_sacat=-1&vbn_id=7024754051&_udhi=31&mag=1&_fsrp=1

[BU508A]

And why don't you buy such DIN-A4 sheets with sticking labels? Can be used with a laser printer.

https://www.pokornys.de/DIN-A4-Universaletiketten

I'd do first print them on an ordinary DIN-A4 sheet and check, if the printings hits correctly all the labels.
But then it is a cheap and nice thing to label the drawers with them.

The downside with those is that using them is essentially a batch operation. It's difficult to print off a single label as you need them. On the other hand, the tape type printers are good for single labels, perhaps a few at a time, but are poor for larger batches.

The reasons, why I've recommended in this  case those sheets are:
- Vince has to do a lot of labeling at one time with similar content
- cheaper than a specialized printer, either if it is for paper stickers or if it is one for those plastic stripes (Brother, Dymo)

I do have here a Brother label printer and some DIN-A4 sheets for my Laser. With this combo I've made good experiences.
But to be honest, sometimes I'm toying with the idea of buying one of those label printers, something like this:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/274457832950

But they are usually all thermotransfer or thermodirect printers and THIS will fade over time.

[ch_scr]

Med, not sure if something here can conjure up enough vacuum for experiments with your sick HV tranny:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=vacuum+generator&rt=nc&_dcat=48718&_sacat=-1&vbn_id=7024754051&_udhi=31&mag=1&_fsrp=1

The ones that work on air are NFG for the task at hand, but one that works on tap water should be strong enough.
Depending on the size of the transformer, a "Weck jar" (use petroleum jelly and the original gasket) with a 1/4" Polycarbonate lid (with a tube fitting in it) should suffice as a vacuum vessel - it's never more than -1 bar anyway...
Beware, when turning off the water on such a system the vacuum will suck back water into it 
so you have to have a disconnect or valve (not a bad idea anyway) in the vacuum line!

[BU508A]

Thanks for the info.  Could you make some inquiries for me?

Cost of just a replacement transformer if he still has one in stock. Don't need the entire HV assembly.

Cost to repair one of my transformers if I send it to him. 

 

Done.
Waiting for answer.

[tggzzz]

There is often no need for a sticky-backed label printer.

If you store the components inside transparent plastic bags (whether or not xiploc), then simply print the label on whatever printer is to hand, and put the label inside the bag. Or even use a thick pen on a scrap of paper.

The Dymo style tape printers are still useful for the outside of drawers, amongst other things.

I'm unconvinced the digikey labels are useful: the print does wear/rub, and the key information is too small for fast reading.

[AVGresponding]

And why don't you buy such DIN-A4 sheets with sticking labels? Can be used with a laser printer.

https://www.pokornys.de/DIN-A4-Universaletiketten

I'd do first print them on an ordinary DIN-A4 sheet and check, if the printings hits correctly all the labels.
But then it is a cheap and nice thing to label the drawers with them.

Because that will fade over time; the label machines use thermal printing on plastic tape, which does not fade.


<SNIP>

I've never know black laser print to fade. It's basically carbon black.

Perhaps "fade" was the wrong choice of word; in my experience anything printed on paper gets unusably grubby in short order in many work environments.

[Robert763]

@med6753

I've found this article where someone used a vacuum chamber and beeswax to seal a HV transformer of a 547:

https://richardsears.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/tektronix-547/

Sadly the guy in his article also updated his blog entry to warn people that this method did NOT hold up with time... so rewiring looks like the only real good long term / reliable option, sadly 
But as you say, nothing fundamentally impossible, and others have already doen it before, so I agree.. it could be just a new part of the hobby ! 

Get good at it and I will send you mine to redo, have two 547 in my queue ! 

The guy seems to have made a fundamental mistake. He put the transfomers straight into the beeswax. This just traps the moisture. They should have been slowly baked under vacuum before impregnation.
Not sure about the beeswax either. HV varnish or paraffin wax may be a better choice.

[vk6zgo]

Casio fx-83GT gives 1.00000001 when in degrees mode and 1 (no decimals) in radians mode.

Mark I brain gives 1 (no decimals) by examination in both modes.

Wow that's interesting ! How comes there is a difference ?!

I just tried it in Radian and just like you, I get 1 with all zeros, spot on !   

Good old Ti 85 is not that bad then ! 

My "garage sale" HP22s says 1.0000.
I thought it had a rads mode, but it is only a conversion key.

[vk6zgo]

No, Vince... it's a little more complex than that. The presence of an [ = ] button indicates something fundamental in how the calc thinks. The RPN/Non-RPN "calculator wars" that keep resurfacing in here are a friendly argument about whether the calculator "thinks" like pushing/popping numbers and operators on/off a stack vs using order of operations, and even which interpretation of the order of operations is used.

If you need to use a [ = ] button to get the correct answer according to order of operations, this is considered "math defective", just like the ol' tinkerdwagon. 

Also, what BU508A sed.

mnem
I just push the [ + ] button one more time.

"Reverse Polish" suggests an interesting convergence with the language sub-thread,  "leicajyzrp yrats"!                   

[vk6zgo]

Oh, a good baguette would be novel; what they have here is more like long skinny Ciabatta bread.    Even fresh and warm from the bakery it's still hard as a rock on the heels, which is my favorite part of a proper baguette.

mnem
more a self-defense weapon than food, says I...

Yes, the Italians bake 'em sturdy, in case they meet some French on the way home!

Huh... according to the relevant wiki, Ciabatta is a modern (80s) invention... created in response to the popularity of baguettes.

Ummmmm... FAIL! 

Don't get me wrong... I like a juicy grilled steak & onion with a nice aged Parmesan on Ciabatta... but as a substitute for baguettes, especially with wine & cheese or with my coffee...? That's like bringing a salami to a gunfight.

mnem
Just say no to crappy baguette.

Meh!--- I like a good old German Rye slathered with liverwurst, then covered with sweet gherkins!
Trouble is, that back in the day, everybody produced it, but it has gone out of fashion in Oz.

[Andrew_Debbie]

"Reverse Polish" suggests an interesting convergence with the language sub-thread,  "leicajyzrp yrats"!                 

Polish notation is named after a Polish mathematician who came up with a prefix notation    For example   + 1  1   

Reverse Polish Notation - well it is PN reversed --  1 1 + 

Once you've learned it, RPN is slightly faster for complex calculations because there are fewer keystrokes.      There is a learning curve but it really isn't that hard.

I've been using it so long now that using RPN comes naturally.   My initial attraction to HP calculators was for the build quality and tactile feel.   RPN was something that just came along with the rest.   Now, I find the other kind of calculator slow and awkward.

[AVGresponding]

I've always thought of "Reverse Polish" as referring to what you do when you take your freshly waxed car down salt-encrusted winter roads.

[vk6zgo]

I'll bring the beer and a big chunk of pig.  (I know the way to a German boy's heart. )

What...you'll take British beer to a German boy are you crazy or what? German beer is among the world's finest, they have purity laws over there for their beers 

I'm not carrying beer (or half a pig) all that way when they've got perfectly good local stuff. Not that all German beer is great, it's quite possible to get a Maß of insipid, national brewery beer in Germany, just like you can here. "Bitte ein Bit?" - nein danke. Thankfully, the Germans have been a bit more insistent than us in keeping their local breweries alive and kicking and generally if you drink what's brewed locally you can't go wrong.

I could never abide "Lowenbrau", although others loved it.

[factory]

QUESTION : now I have shiny new drawers, I need to label them of course... am thinking of investing in one of these thingies depicted below (just some random pic), a compact portable/battery powered label printer, a "Dymo" or other brands... looks like there some affordable ones now, lots models and brands around... but I don't know what to be wary of, traps for young players, I don't know... so if you have any advice  I am all ears.

Budget is 50 to 75 euros tops, for a new one. I don't mind used if it gets me cool benefits of a more fancy unit.

I measured the front of the drawers. The available height / to put a label, is 11mm. So a 10mm wide ribbon would be perfect.. if that's a standard size, I don't know.

I see there are colour printers... I don't have that as a requirement, black on white is fine with me.
What I want is the ability to use a 10mm ribbon for my drawers, or possibly even wider ribbons as well, for other uses, if a printer can make use of several different width of ribbons ? Or are they stuck to using only a given size and that's it ?

As far as sophistication, would be a dream if I could download component symbols into the printer, like small bitmap files / icons drawn on my computer.. that I could the print.
I could have a label with the component symbol on the far left, then on it's right the component value and what not.
Useless in case of a drawer that's 100% filled with resistor, but I am think of drawer units that would hold a mix of components, resistors, caps, misc H/W parts, X-tals, what not... a bit of a pot-pourri. In this case having symbols next to the text, could help find what you need more quickly perhaps ? Just an idea...

If too fancy a feature, well plain text will be just fine of course ! 
As long as I can print very large characters so as to make fullest use of the height of the ribbon, so that the text is as easy to read as possible when you stare at all those drawers...

We used label printers, cardboard and paper sticker sheet over the years at work, to label the plastic component drawers.

The Brother printer used the laminated tape, this is far better than the Dymo which wasn't laminated, the print on the non laminated tape can easily disappear with cleaning solvents, hence why I have a Brother machine at home. The disadvantage is they are slow to use & you get through a lot of tapes, some tape is wasted each print too, to avoid this you need to think about typing in & printing several labels at once.
The tape does not come off cleanly if it's been there for many years, the top layer comes off and the white or color background/adhesive tends to stay on the drawers.

The drawer units were originally supplied with card labels, it's quite easy to make more labels with the old guillotine here (picture snurched from the web). This is the method I'm using at the moment.


A4 paper sticker sheet was OK, but I've started to notice some of the labels have a tendency to fall off the plastic drawers over time.
Both paper & card labels were marked using an Edding 8404 marker pen, but I've been using pencil at home to make it easier to change.

Examples of some with paper sticker labels on the diode storage unit, card labels on the capacitor storage unit, sorry for the crap pictures, they were taken in a hurry when unloading the van each night, last night of the move it rained too.


David

[vk6zgo]

Lardy cake might have a southern origin (it might not, I really have no idea) but in my lifetime it's not been a southern thing but, like all the best things involving lard, been a northern thing. You have to remember that the south-east of England has since the 1960s been been turning into the fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, taste-free, pleasure-free capital of Europe.

I am truly sorry that US-style "Wonder White Bread" anti-flavored conservatism, making it a goal to suck the joy out of everything, was what we exported back when you all gave us The Beatles, The Who, Donovan, and Pink Floyd  and so many other joys with The British Invasion. The karmic backlash has been great, for both our nations.

mnem
The Stones.... ehhh... could you please take them back...?

In my experience, Southern English "bought" food was crap in 1971, except for a couple of pie shops in Southampton.
People still knew how to cook at home, but as a Oz lad on a "working holiday", I ate a lot a lot of the dreck that passed for "takeaway" & "cafe" food!

The "burger vans" cut their "burgers" off a thick "sausage", chucked it & some onions on the hotplate till it heated up a bit (the onions were never completely cooked) stuck it on a miserly bun, & "called it good"!

Cafe meals consisted of a couple of lousy quality sausages, baked beans & tomatoes, both of the latter out of a can!

Aussies, Kiwis & Yanks used to get together to whinge about the food!

[Robert763]

I've always thought of "Reverse Polish" as referring to what you do when you take your freshly waxed car down salt-encrusted winter roads.

No, that's Reverse polish.

[Cerebus]

I have a Dymo LabelWriter and it works great. It's an older model "330 USB" still going strong at about 16 years old.
I only use genuine labels. They do a translucent plastic film type which is very robust. It's good enough for equipment labels.

I have had Brother ones of that ilk for 20+ odd years and use them regularly. I recently replaced the old one for driver compatibility reasons. The old one still works fine, its drivers just don't want to play nicely with the more recent versions of MacOS.

It's not the quality of the labels that's a issue, it's convenience and suitability for the job in hand. They're OK when you're doing a very few labels, but printing off a batch of 20, finding the next label you want to apply in the pile of 20 bits of cut tape and fiddling to get the backing peeled off is a PITA. A single printed length of 20 paper labels spat out by a commercial industrial/POS type thermal label printer is just a lot easier to take to a set of bags or drawers or whatever and apply.

With the tape label makers you're limited to the widest tape you can get (which for the Brother ones is 24mm) which can limit what information you can present. For component storage I've found that a problem if you want to put more than minimal information on the label e.g. value, voltage, tolerance, and footprint type will fit just about comfortably - adding manufacturer and part number as well is too much. Plus a reel of 1000 off 50x76mm paper labels will cost under £10, a reel of 8m x 24mm third party tape for the Brother is about £5 - that's about a factor of 10 per unit area cheaper for the reel of paper labels.

It'a a question of horses for courses. I use the Brother label printer with laminated tape for reagent jars, solvent bottles, cable tags, mains plugs (oh, how much easier life is when the plugs on a distribution board have a label) and all those permanent things. I'd use a paper thermal printer principally for poly/mylar bags of components (required label lifetime perhaps years in a closed box), but also for the odd address label and other sundry uses where something only has to last days in the rough and tumble world.

If I need REALLY BIG durable labels, I have a vinyl cutter:



I have labels made that way on the wheelie bins, and they've survived years of rough handling by rough bin men.

The vinyl cutter is also good for slightly more creative labels on equipment. All the labelling on this is cut black vinyl:

[Cerebus]

But they are usually all thermotransfer or thermodirect printers and THIS will fade over time.

The 'direct' does fade, quite quickly - very quickly if left in the sun (one day inside a car in summer can obliterate one entirely), instantly if wetted with isopropanol (accidental discovery, useful for de-doxing incoming packages before disposal). The 'transfer' does not fade. The transfer either uses soot in wax, or soot in resin - the latter basically being the composition of laser printer toner.

[tggzzz]

Lardy cake might have a southern origin (it might not, I really have no idea) but in my lifetime it's not been a southern thing but, like all the best things involving lard, been a northern thing. You have to remember that the south-east of England has since the 1960s been been turning into the fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, taste-free, pleasure-free capital of Europe.

I am truly sorry that US-style "Wonder White Bread" anti-flavored conservatism, making it a goal to suck the joy out of everything, was what we exported back when you all gave us The Beatles, The Who, Donovan, and Pink Floyd  and so many other joys with The British Invasion. The karmic backlash has been great, for both our nations.

In my experience, Southern English "bought" food was crap in 1971, except for a couple of pie shops in Southampton.
People still knew how to cook at home, but as a Oz lad on a "working holiday", I ate a lot a lot of the dreck that passed for "takeaway" & "cafe" food!

The "burger vans" cut their "burgers" off a thick "sausage", chucked it & some onions on the hotplate till it heated up a bit (the onions were never completely cooked) stuck it on a miserly bun, & "called it good"!

Cafe meals consisted of a couple of lousy quality sausages, baked beans & tomatoes, both of the latter out of a can!

Aussies, Kiwis & Yanks used to get together to whinge about the food!

General food back then was pretty awful. Restuarants were for special occasions, pubs were just catching on they could sell food and entice families in. That food was invariably "ploughman's lunch" consisting of bread, cheese, pickled onion or chutney and a lettuce leaf (the concept was invented a decade earlier by the cheese producers to - unsurprisingly - sell more cheese). The only alternative was J.O. Lyons tea houses which sold tea, weak coffee, cakes/buns and maybe a sandwich. (J.O. Lyons has a serious claim to fame: they were the first company to use a computer for commercial purposes i.e. logistics).

Starting in the mid 80s things improved radically. Out went the stuffy old concept of food popularised by Fanny Craddock (see her on yootoob and weep), and in came foodies who thought food should be fun - think Keith Floyd (Aussies had Grham Kerr). Pubs started serving decent food and beer (not keg crap), and later mutated into "gastropubs". Restuarants became places you ate for ordinary occasions.

Nowadays the food is very good and varied. Some areas, such as my local city, are known as foodie havens.

[Robert763]

I have a Dymo LabelWriter and it works great. It's an older model "330 USB" still going strong at about 16 years old.
I only use genuine labels. They do a translucent plastic film type which is very robust. It's good enough for equipment labels.

I have had Brother ones of that ilk for 20+ odd years and use them regularly. I recently replaced the old one for driver compatibility reasons. The old one still works fine, its drivers just don't want to play nicely with the more recent versions of MacOS.

It's not the quality of the labels that's a issue, it's convenience and suitability for the job in hand. They're OK when you're doing a very few labels, but printing off a batch of 20, finding the next label you want to apply in the pile of 20 bits of cut tape and fiddling to get the backing peeled off is a PITA. A single printed length of 20 paper labels spat out by a commercial industrial/POS type thermal label printer is just a lot easier to take to a set of bags or drawers or whatever and apply.

With the tape label makers you're limited to the widest tape you can get (which for the Brother ones is 24mm) which can limit what information you can present. For component storage I've found that a problem if you want to put more than minimal information on the label e.g. value, voltage, tolerance, and footprint type will fit just about comfortably - adding manufacturer and part number as well is too much. Plus a reel of 1000 off 50x76mm paper labels will cost under £10, a reel of 8m x 24mm third party tape for the Brother is about £5 - that's about a factor of 10 per unit area cheaper for the reel of paper labels.

It'a a question of horses for courses. I use the Brother label printer with laminated tape for reagent jars, solvent bottles, cable tags, mains plugs (oh, how much easier life is when the plugs on a distribution board have a label) and all those permanent things. I'd use a paper thermal printer principally for poly/mylar bags of components (required label lifetime perhaps years in a closed box), but also for the odd address label and other sundry uses where something only has to last days in the rough and tumble world.

If I need REALLY BIG durable labels, I have a vinyl cutter:


I have labels made that way on the wheelie bins, and they've survived years of rough handling by rough bin men.

The vinyl cutter is also good for slightly more creative labels on equipment. All the labelling on this is cut black vinyl:

The LabelWriter is NOT a tape printer. it prints on pre-cut paper or the plastic I mentioned) labels on  roll. Anything form jewllers ring tags to CD labels. I generally use standard rectangular "address" types.
I do have 3 tape printers. Brother laminated, Brother un-laminated and a cheapie Dymo handheld. All good for their respective purposes.

[Cerebus]

Ah. I think I got misled by the plastic film reference.

[mnementh]

Yes, including on my back porch where I can cook on it.

And if you don't think I'd grill in the middle of a raging blizzard... you don't know me well at all.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

I've done whole tenderloin on my puny Weber "ball" style grill, in heavy snowfall.  New year's eve, needs tenderloin, right. Wasn't that windy though.

Grillin' season never ends at the dwagon household, doncha know... 

And "raging blizzard" is about right... 50MPH winds, everything blowing sideways... no idea how much has fallen so far, as it never gets a chance to land. 

mnem

[mnementh]

...Why tickling a dragon's tail isn't a good idea.  Scientists in Los Alamos had discovered this astonishing fact!

More like tickling the dragon's balls... gotta do it just right; make sure he likes it... or...

mnem

[mnementh]

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.

   https://xkcd.com/833/

mnem

The old time wood cutters in the SouthWest of West Oz always labelled their axes!

*grooooaaaannnnnn*

mnem
and that's all you're gonna git. I don'n have any boots to spare; soggy, old or otherwise...

[Neper]

Starting in the mid 80s things improved radically. Out went the stuffy old concept of food...

Methinks this applies to large parts of Western Europe and has been helped a lot by holidays abroad teaching us about other cuisines as well as the arrival of foreign workers bringing their cooking with them. Suddenly, there were Italian, Spanish, Greek, Balkan, Indian and Turkish restaurants and takeaways and the indigenous population (i.e. us) discovered all the delicious things to be had there. This, in turn, influenced our own cooking and made for much more variety on our tables.