Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Neomys Sapiens]

I will be jumping off of that bridge soon, I am telling you !

Don't! Call La Gendarmerie, and tell them that you feel threatened by a dubious instrument.
Hang a faux black beard on it and drape it with some islamist paraphernalia. Leave house in apparent panic when the officers arrive. Stammer uncomprehensively and point towards the correct room while shaking visibly. They will shoot it for you.

P.S.: now I read that you found something. Dang. Trop tard - les officiers sont en route !

[Vince]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

[Saskia]

use the well established 50 grams solution ...

if you are careful not to burn the board you could use hot air and our desoldering pump to speed up the process.

[wolfy007]

I have been meaning to get one of these for a while, but just spotted this deal on Banggood for US$159 (AU$217), if anyone is interested;

https://www.banggood.com/Micsig-DP10007-Oscilloscope-High-Voltage-Differential-Probe-100MHz+70V-Oscilloscope-Probe-Kit-p-1776361.html?cur_warehouse=CN&rmmds=search

[TaylorD93]

Well Done Vince!

[Zucca]

Vince your repair adventures remind me this

[Saskia]

all in all the 7001 will cost about 160 brussel sprouts err pesos before it's here. I am also looking at a broken 2700, error unknown but display working for a hunnerd, pickup possible but 500 km drive round trip. will try to combine this with pickup of a cocktail arcade "Time Pilot", Konami, original, 1982 vintage in good working condition.
I have too many arcades, too little time and too many hobbies.
Back on Keto, back on walking regimen, back on target of 3000 kcal/day plus picked up a keyboard to exercise dexterity and regain lost motor control of my left hand.
for those playing along at home, it's a Yamaha PSR SX700

Sorry, not posting too much lately, not enuff time to follow the thread. Still emptying moving boxes and trying to reorganize stuff. battling storm damage, water leak, sorting paperworks and documentation and preparing documentation for the IRS equivalent over here.
Then planning to get my final pinball installment up here.
fix up those I want to get rid of first and get them out of the door, then go for the others and restore them one by one ...
This will take time ...

Hubby got his Austrian disabled person pension approved, we are still struggling with the German authorities regarding his local pension. he also got his handicapped status which will give us some tax benefits. He is also on yKeto and approaching 20 kg weight loss and slowly getting back on his feet.
as for TEA ...
my "lab" is nearing "organization" meaning I am at a point where I have most of the stuff I need in the room I want it in. Unpacking and setup is a different matter though. One of the next steps will be to put in flooring and juice, but that will have to wait until the sale of my old Appartment is finalized and the water leak situation is resolved. I need the money from the sale before I can afford the building material ..
the tools are here though  Festool KS 60  miter saw, Festool MFT 3 workbench, Bosch 635-216 table saw with stand, Bosch reciprocating saw (25 €...).
Will post pics of new lab as soon as I have time and the last boxes have been unpacked ...

[mansaxel]

(Not sure off the top of my head what the 5216A uses as a frequency standard, but given that it's about 51 years old I'm impressed!  I suppose it can be considered well aged at this point in time.)

The 5221A, IIRC, uses mains frequency; it certainly came in two options, 50 and 60 Hz. Mine is spot on, compared to meters steered by my Meinberg GPS. 

The 5216, according to PRC68.com has, in some revisions, an 1MHz Bliley.

However, reading from the source, [hp] journal #8 from 1967, the time base in the 5216 is 10MHz. I did remember the clock source in the 5221 correctly, though.

[Ice-Tea]

I will be jumping off of that bridge soon, I am telling you !

🎵🎵Sous le pont d'Avignon...🎵🎵

[Robert763]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Well Done Vince. 

The problem with the joints sounds like a PCB failure not a solder joint failure.
Sometimes the "tinning" of the PCB really is done with Tin, chemically, rather than solder. I suggest the tin plating to copper trace has failed. This leaves the solder sticking to a small floating pad of Tin with the copper track just below it.
The failure can be caused by contamination of the chemicals, not cleaning the copper properly or even putting too thick a Tin plated layer on.

[Specmaster]

Oh so you had some fun too I see !!! 

I just fixed it !!! 

It was the same bad connection problem I had on the comparator board with the 200Volt pin : a joint that looked fine, but once you wick all the solder to expose the pad... said pad looks lie bare copper, solder didn't stick to it AT ALL !

So I wicked all 12 joints on the back plane for that Nixie #2 board, and sure enough I found AGAIN such a pad that solder joint didn't stick to !!   

so what was this pin/pad carrying ? You just can't make ths shit up, it was GROUND !!! 
NOt only that, but coming to this pad, was a ground wire coming straight from the transformer, then feeding it to the entire backplane ! So basically this one single dogy joint was not just keeping ground from getting to that one Nixie board, no, it was cuasding the ENTIRE intrument to lose ground AND cause the PSU to produce illegal voltages due to the secondary windings of the transformer not being properly referenced anymore !
So.... I redid all the joint. With some flux, I managed to get that crappy pad to take solder.

Now the meter works perfect, and if I wiggle that Nixie board, meter stays solid, like champ !!!
Hell, I can even get the Manual Trigger mode to throw garbage anymore, like it used to ! So maybe the trigger circuit was misbehaving not so much because of a dodgy switch, as it was because of a dodgy ground ?!    I will keep an eye on that for sure... but so far so good. Have "new" switches coming soon anyway, so can replace on the spot if still required.

Soooo.... I am so happy ! 

I have now a "working" counter... I mean, one whose remaining faults are solid, so I can concentrate on those now 

That is : the input offset problem, and that Nixie board #2 that displays only '0' and '1'.

NOW... I can go to bed.... 

Good sleuthing there, now you can sleep like a baby having resolved that issue.

[Specmaster]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Put one on your shopping list, you'll not regret it, promise you.

[med6753]

What is a “double peaked” CRT? The following photos demonstrate the phenomenon. Photo 1 shows normal trace and good focus. Start turning the intensity up and suddenly trace brightens and “blooms” (goes out of focus) as shown in 2nd photo. Keep turning up the intensity as in photo 3 and suddenly trace is bright and back in focus. Photo 4 shows intensity at max and bright trace and out of focus.

This double peaking is a warning that the CRT has a lot of hours on it and is nearing end of life. Eventually the double peaking will cease but it will continue to lose brightness and become almost useless. The original CRT in this Type 561B was so weak that it barely had a viewable trace at full intensity. This replacement CRT from a parts unit is not much better but currently still usable. And as the CRT warms up it becomes somewhat less noticeable.

If you're buying a 500/560 series scope in person this could be a price bargaining chip if the CRT displays double peaking. While I have not seen this phenomenon on 400 series I'm going to go out on a limb and say it could happen. 5000/7000/2400 series I really don't know. But it is something to watch out for.

“Flood gun” storage CRT's are a whole different animal. They have a well documented and surprisingly short lifespan in storage mode. But still be useful as a standard CRT well beyond that point. And I'm going to go out on a limb again and state that they will eventually also display double peaking.       

[Ice-Tea]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Put one on your shopping list, you'll not regret it, promise you.

I second that. RS 137-2292 works very well for me.

[THDplusN_bad]

Tadaaa!

Order placed today...

Nice one. I only had mine, a type 5054 for a few weeks for a "special project" ; but I liked it. Just ignore the other comments about the Windows PC-platform. 

Cheers,

THDplusN_bad

[Mortymore]

It has arrived.

My review: This is super cool. Get one! 

 

It would be interesting to see one LIXIE with the Tektronix logo evolution

https://hackaday.io/project/18633-lixie-an-led-alternative-to-the-nixie-tube

[Peter_O]

My new old I HP6653A power supply does not have a bottom cover plate, but the chassis itself is the bottom. So it would be a lot of dismounting to place a nut inside for my beloved Adam Hall rubber feet.

Printing a solution with the usual sping lock mechanism does not convice me, so I scribbled a solution with a locking plate that can be fastened by scew.





In more detail here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/replacement-knobs-feet-and-fittings-for-test-equipment/msg4116601/#msg4116601

[Vince]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Put one on your shopping list, you'll not regret it, promise you.

I second that. RS 137-2292 works very well for me.

Good lord, 280 Euros !! 

[Vince]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Well Done Vince. 

The problem with the joints sounds like a PCB failure not a solder joint failure.
Sometimes the "tinning" of the PCB really is done with Tin, chemically, rather than solder. I suggest the tin plating to copper trace has failed. This leaves the solder sticking to a small floating pad of Tin with the copper track just below it.
The failure can be caused by contamination of the chemicals, not cleaning the copper properly or even putting too thick a Tin plated layer on.

Oh that's interesting, good point !

Must be that...

[Vince]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Put one on your shopping list, you'll not regret it, promise you.

One is on my shopping list for the lab for sure.... but just like SO MANY other things as well...and so little money to go through that list !

[tggzzz]

It has arrived.

My review: This is super cool. Get one! 

It would be interesting to see one LIXIE with the Tektronix logo evolution

https://hackaday.io/project/18633-lixie-an-led-alternative-to-the-nixie-tube

If price is no object, someone make custom nixies

https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/custom-logo-display-pushes-nixie-tube-technology/

[tautech]

Might be worth spending a little time to check every solder joint now you've found a few bad ones....

LAst week I touched up EVERY single joint on that back plane, each and everyone ! Yet that freaking ground wire still failed....

.. because yeah, "touching up" is not good enough, you NEED to suck/wick the joint completely to expose the pad and then only can you see if the pad is tinned/good, or just bare copper that the joint didn't stick to ! So that's a lot work to do !      No I don't have a power desoldering tool, just wick and manual pump/solder sucker.

Put one on your shopping list, you'll not regret it, promise you.

One is on my shopping list for the lab for sure.... but just like SO MANY other things as well...and so little money to go through that list !

Just KISS until that 280 Euro won't hurt. 
Then there's something about KISS and the satisfaction getting parts out without all that new fangled sucky stuff whereas investment in a hot air station can be more beneficial in the long term.

[Vince]

YES !

I don't need a desoldering tool badly enough to justify the expense right now, seeing how little use it would get.

However my hot air station, the cheap 858+ I bought for 50 Euros 4/5 years ago... that I could justify because for little money it allowed me to tackle SMD stuff which I just could not do before.
It opened a new world of possibilities for only 50 Euros.

[Ice-Tea]

If you want to improve without spending a fortune:

https://www.reichelt.com/be/nl/desoldeerpomp-elektrisch-30-w-met-verwarmingselement-vel-vtdesol3-p253395.html?PROVID=2812&gclid=CjwKCAjw6dmSBhBkEiwA_W-EoK7nJjUV_ZzMp4rtJMrQMSADpsAymioJ88af4ZNQNwMezJr-zXyNYhoCTmIQAvD_BwE

Quality is only so-so as you would expect for that price but easy of use compared to soldering iron + braid = +1000%

[m k]

Weller DS40 or W-TCP-K military soldering kit.
http://www.byan-roper.org/steve/steve-at-play/antique-electronics-and-2/weller-w-tcp-k-military.html

Then just add DIY suction system with pedal.