Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

So I printed the PH-163 casing. Fit's perfectly and seems relatively safe to use, but the creator neglected to mention which terminals he used. Has anyone an idea what terminals would fit the PH-163 pins? Or what terminals these are in his picture? https://3dmixers.com/m/268285-ph-163-connector-hp-oval-

McBryce.

Did you print it in PLA? It's hygroscopic. I wouldn't put mains near it.

My approach on these in the future are going to be making a blanking plate with a cable strain relief and either a dangling IEC socket or a captive mains lead.

Although I managed to avoid that at the weekend with the 400E as it had an IEC already

PLA may be hygroscopic, but so's nylon, and that's used as an insulator.

For the record, volume resistivity of PLA is 49-55 x 10¹⁶ \$\Omega\$m (depends on which crystal form). By comparison XLPE* (widely used for high voltage insulation) is 46 x 10¹⁶  \$\Omega\$m.

*Crosslinked Polyethylene

That's not really the issue. The problem is that depending on how it was printed, it can actually warp quite badly. That can leave what looked like secure fitting edges open after a few months. Electrically it's fine.

[Cerebus]

It should be the user's choice not the manufacturers....
Adding the possibility for the people who want or require it for XYZ reason doesn't take anything away from other users. It's just an option, an option.....

Hell, just put RGB LEDs next to the ports...

Doesn’t work like that. You can buy it not. If you buy it you have to drink whatever excrement the manufacturer served.

As for RGB LEDs that’s fine until you have the probe tips ringed and need an LED at that end too…

Actually once you've got enough probes on the table it would be quite useful to have an LED near the probe tip that you could light up to find out which probe's where.

[Vince]

This one came in just under a c-note all-included; the one you passed on would've been equivalent to ~USD$60, and was working and complete.

No, it had missing bits and was heavily yellowed. Yours looks really nice in comparison.

This one is missing the handle and doesn't work.

Oh, didn't realize that... well I am sure you are delighted about the missing handle, gives you an excuse to 3D print one !

Not working ? Must have missed that part when I looked at the ad 
OK, that's why it was cheap..

Well there is nothing we like more here than fixing old broken stuff, isn't it ?
Can't wait for you to receive it and gives us a tour of what's wrong with it precisely...

Expansion module on the back is not compatible; but this model has all the maths functions, RS-232 and Parallel Printer port built-in.

Oh that's cool, problem solved ! 

Floppy disk is pretty much a "meh" to me, as I'd probably plug into the RS-232 to transfer files. 

Yeah, but I like FDD on old scopes, makes them look super state of the art, sophisticated. I remember at school in 1997 or so, when the electronics department got awarded a new round of scopes, we got the then revolutionary TDS220, and a TDS360. The TDS360 had a floppy drive, I was just blown away, I just couldn't believe my eyes.

Plus Floppies are more convenient to carry your files with you and then go to computer, or some body else's in another office, and load your files there. Portability.

But yeah if the computer is close to the scope it's OK to transfer via a cable be it GPIB or serial.
Don't know if the old HP MSO can transfer screen capture files via RS232, will need to have a look in the manual. That would be cool if it could.

Point being... even at a $97 buy, I still see it as a worthwhile gamble. Plus lots of tinkery fun.

Exactly 

[Vince]

I wouldn't throw them out if I had them. The throwing out was accidental but refreshing. I had about 10,000 transistors at one point but sold most of them on ebay and turned them into curry and then into poop 

10,000 ?!    

Oh I think if I had THAT many, even I, would definitely want to reduce the amount ! 

[bd139]

I wouldn't throw them out if I had them. The throwing out was accidental but refreshing. I had about 10,000 transistors at one point but sold most of them on ebay and turned them into curry and then into poop 

10,000 ?!    

Oh I think if I had THAT many, even I, would definitely want to reduce the amount ! 

Yeah I bought some huge lots on ebay and some off gumtree and had a crate of shit I lifted from someone who died in the 90s.

I've got a huge ingress of tubes (at leas 800) coming soon which should be interesting 

[Cerebus]

... although I have to admit that letting agents are absolute sacks of shit at the moment so this is difficult. Argh 

FTFY

[tautech]

It should be the user's choice not the manufacturers....
Adding the possibility for the people who want or require it for XYZ reason doesn't take anything away from other users. It's just an option, an option.....

Hell, just put RGB LEDs next to the ports...

Doesn’t work like that. You can buy it not. If you buy it you have to drink whatever excrement the manufacturer served.

As for RGB LEDs that’s fine until you have the probe tips ringed and need an LED at that end too…

Actually once you've got enough probes on the table it would be quite useful to have an LED near the probe tip that you could light up to find out which probe's where.

Yep, probe ID might be needed with our new 8ch monster especially when these can be daisy chained together for up to 512 channels ! 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds6000l-2ghz-12bit-8-ch-(china-only)/
Custom trace colors will be no problem though as this feature is already present in a few Siglent models although another concern is does the palette have 512 colors to have one for every channel trace ? 

[mnementh]

Fuuuuuuu... cking Craigslist. Somebody has a set of Kef Q30s and a Boston SubSat6 for $200 just around the corner from me.

mnem
Only thing stopping me is bills and a sense of self-preservation...

[Vince]

I wouldn't throw them out if I had them. The throwing out was accidental but refreshing. I had about 10,000 transistors at one point but sold most of them on ebay and turned them into curry and then into poop 

10,000 ?!    

Oh I think if I had THAT many, even I, would definitely want to reduce the amount ! 

Yeah I bought some huge lots on ebay and some off gumtree and had a crate of shit I lifted from someone who died in the 90s.

I've got a huge ingress of tubes (at leas 800) coming soon which should be interesting 

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

[mnementh]

800 tubes of Redhead Repellent. Personally, I think he underbought...

mnem
"...anybody not wearing 2 million sunblock is going to have a very bad day...!" ~Sarah Connor

[Vince]

COMPONENT SORTING

Now found another drawer... a smaller one this time ! OK, I promise... I think... I am pretty suuuure... I really believe they aren't any more hiding anywhere now, this is the last drawer/box/bag of components that was left to process !  I guess only time will tell if that was a lie or not...

Lots of IC's again ! A whole plastic bag of brand new TO92 things as well.... guess it's all BJT...

A few cool IC's in metal cans with gold plated leads, just as I like them 

A few EPROM, love these old ceramic EPROM, they look so cool, and I am always so curious to read their contents, it's like opening a mystery box ! 
... but that will have to wait for the lab to be computerized and equipped with a chip programmer of course... so not anytime soon. The longer the wait the bigger the excitement ! 

But that will be for another day... 00H40 here and I am yawning badly.

Good night people.... 

 

OK I am done sorting all the transistors in that drawer.

With so many small packages, not knowing if every one might a different type... I tried to speed up the triaging process and instead of putting them all in (temporarily) labeled drawers, which takes time to open and close them hundreds of times, and make the labels... I tried a faster approach. Simply put all the packages oto my A4 notepad, writing on paper directly the type of each transistor... this way takes no time to add a new type, it's compact, and you get a quick overview of what you have, see which ones are numerous and you might want to keep, which ones you have noly one or two or three of and you might want to sacrifice in the name of drawer real estate.

Had to download a few datasheet to learn about the specs of this or that, so I can make decisions on what to keep and what to scrap.
Ended up scrapping half of it. Other half, 50% were types I already had so cool, easy enough to add more to them. Remaining 50% were new types so had to "insert" them in the existing drawers, bit a shuffling around required and made two new drawers, but it was not as painful as I though. However it's most definitely much easier to insert them in the ... spreadsheet, just right click "insert line here" ! 

They are all BJT, 2N and BC series.
Have a huge pile of BC639 ! They are interesting : small packages usually means small signal transistor, but here no, for a change it's a "beefy" transistor, so higher voltage and current handling capabilities, but much lower gain. 100V and 1A, and low double digit gain.

Also kept the BC307. Their spec is nothing I didn't have already, but there are a significant enough number of them, 10, and they have cool gold plated leads, it's what saved them, didn't have the heart to scrap such beauties... 

And for dessert, I noted this one : 2N2369.  Somehow that part number sounded familiar, so I Google it and yes, it's the type Jim Williams used for is fast pulser, that every one builds around the world. I sure meant to make one too at some point, so more than cool to have those !    Only 3 of them though, but better than none at all.  I am sure there are better transistors these days, but I like vintage stuff and walking in the legends foot steps is thrilling. Can't wait to build that pulser ! 

OK so now I can move on to sorting all the ICs... stay tuned...

[bd139]

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

I wish it was that easy. This is a dying ex EE relative. The guy has lots of ancient stuff but it has been stored in a damp garage with damaged roof for the best part of 25 years so it's nearly all a write off and will be loaded into a skip. The tubes and some of the components were stored in the (heated) outbuilding fortunately because the garage was full. Going to be a shitty long weekend dealing with it so I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea.

I've been told I can do what I want with it so I'm going to lift the high value tubes and sell individually and the rest go in lots on ebay.

I'll enumerate and heater test (I'm not buying a tube tester) all of them so if anyone needs any for genuine purposes i.e. loading up test gear and not building guitar amps I'll distribute them for postage cost accordingly.

[bd139]

800 tubes of Redhead Repellent. Personally, I think he underbought...

mnem
"...anybody not wearing 2 million sunblock is going to have a very bad day...!" ~Sarah Connor

A professional never repels. Just mix some nixie tubes in there and hook a steampunk redhead floozie.

[tautech]

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

I wish it was that easy. This is a dying ex EE relative. The guy has lots of ancient stuff but it has been stored in a damp garage with damaged roof for the best part of 25 years so it's nearly all a write off and will be loaded into a skip. The tubes and some of the components were stored in the (heated) outbuilding fortunately because the garage was full. Going to be a shitty long weekend dealing with it so I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea.

I've been told I can do what I want with it so I'm going to lift the high value tubes and sell individually and the rest go in lots on ebay.

I'll enumerate and heater test (I'm not buying a tube tester) all of them so if anyone needs any for genuine purposes i.e. loading up test gear and not building guitar amps I'll distribute them for postage cost accordingly.

Fuck....no envy for you on this one only the sadness I know that will haunt you for every minute of it. 
Though he might turn in his grave at you parting out all the tubes he should also smile that you're gunna cash in on all the hollow glass worshippers. 

[mnementh]

I wouldn't throw them out if I had them. The throwing out was accidental but refreshing. I had about 10,000 transistors at one point but sold most of them on ebay and turned them into curry and then into poop 

10,000 ?!    

Oh I think if I had THAT many, even I, would definitely want to reduce the amount ! 

Yeah I bought some huge lots on ebay and some off gumtree and had a crate of shit I lifted from someone who died in the 90s.

I've got a huge ingress of tubes (at leas 800) coming soon which should be interesting 

So... lemme get this right... you pass on a bench PSU you could use and one of the smallest, lightest MegaZoom scopes made (both of which would fit in one banker's box)... while screaming "No room! I'm Moving! The transportation monster is gonna jump up my arse and eat me from the inside out!!!"

But you say "Hells yeah!" on 800 doses of hollow state suppositories you know you're not going to be able to haul in less than 2 wheelbarrows?

Not that I'm judging... hell, no; this is TEAnonymous after all.

mnem
I just wanted to make sure I have the details straight for the screenplay... 

[bd139]

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

I wish it was that easy. This is a dying ex EE relative. The guy has lots of ancient stuff but it has been stored in a damp garage with damaged roof for the best part of 25 years so it's nearly all a write off and will be loaded into a skip. The tubes and some of the components were stored in the (heated) outbuilding fortunately because the garage was full. Going to be a shitty long weekend dealing with it so I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea.

I've been told I can do what I want with it so I'm going to lift the high value tubes and sell individually and the rest go in lots on ebay.

I'll enumerate and heater test (I'm not buying a tube tester) all of them so if anyone needs any for genuine purposes i.e. loading up test gear and not building guitar amps I'll distribute them for postage cost accordingly.

Fuck....no envy for you on this one only the sadness I know that will haunt you for every minute of it. 
Though he might turn in his grave at you parting out all the tubes he should also smile that you're gunna cash in on all the hollow glass worshippers. 

Oh no he's a complete fucking asshole of a human and always has been. I'm just doing it for his daughter (my father's third ex-wife).

Oh he's also a ham. 80m and 2m health complaint, racist, sexist sorta guy. Real nice company. Fortunately his antenna collapsed in the storms about 3 years ago 

[mnementh]

800 tubes of Redhead Repellent. Personally, I think he underbought...

mnem
"...anybody not wearing 2 million sunblock is going to have a very bad day...!" ~Sarah Connor

A professional never repels. Just mix some nixie tubes in there and hook a steampunk redhead floozie.

Oh, right I forgot... you're not a pervert, you're a provert... you get paid to be this way. 

mnem
I'm a prevert... I was this way before it was cool.

[bd139]

I wouldn't throw them out if I had them. The throwing out was accidental but refreshing. I had about 10,000 transistors at one point but sold most of them on ebay and turned them into curry and then into poop 

10,000 ?!    

Oh I think if I had THAT many, even I, would definitely want to reduce the amount ! 

Yeah I bought some huge lots on ebay and some off gumtree and had a crate of shit I lifted from someone who died in the 90s.

I've got a huge ingress of tubes (at leas 800) coming soon which should be interesting 

So... lemme get this right... you pass on a bench PSU you could use and one of the smallest, lightest MegaZoom scopes made (both of which would fit in one banker's box)... while screaming "No room! I'm Moving! The transportation monster is gonna jump up my arse and eat me from the inside out!!!"

But you say "Hells yeah!" on 800 doses of hollow state suppositories you know you're not going to be able to haul in less than 2 wheelbarrows?

Not that I'm judging... hell, no; this is TEAnonymous after all.

mnem
I just wanted to make sure I have the details straight for the screenplay... 

It's more that I'm unsure of where I'm going to be in the next few days as I'm in and out of the city for work and in and checking out lettings etc. And every fucking courier here leaves stuff on the doorstep and recently it has been going missing double-quick.  His stuff can stay there until I'm ready to deal with it or decide I don't want to 

[mnementh]

So your carriers don't offer Hold At Location delivery? Damn... chalk one up for FEDEX & UPS...

mnem
 

[Vince]

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

I wish it was that easy. This is a dying ex EE relative. The guy has lots of ancient stuff but it has been stored in a damp garage with damaged roof for the best part of 25 years so it's nearly all a write off and will be loaded into a skip. The tubes and some of the components were stored in the (heated) outbuilding fortunately because the garage was full. Going to be a shitty long weekend dealing with it so I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea.

I've been told I can do what I want with it so I'm going to lift the high value tubes and sell individually and the rest go in lots on ebay.

I'll enumerate and heater test (I'm not buying a tube tester) all of them so if anyone needs any for genuine purposes i.e. loading up test gear and not building guitar amps I'll distribute them for postage cost accordingly.

OH !!!

BIG misunderstanding here it looks like  ! 

When you said "800 tubes", I assumed you meant 800 PLASTIC tubes filled with tons of integrated circuits , not VACUUM tubes !

Yeah I have enough tubes here... they only I could benefit having some stock of, would be the 6AU6 and 6DJ8 because these two alone constitute 50% of the tubes in my Tek scopes, and tehy like to fail.
They are often used in the amplifiers and when gets tired it creates offset problems on the screen.

So yeah, good luck sorting and testing all these tubes. Hopefully some are worth some money and it will pay for all the time and effort you will put into them... and maybe some more, so you can then invest it in some more TE of course ! 

[tggzzz]

Hopefully a relatively smooth transition although I have to admit that letting agents are absolute sacks of shit at the moment so this is difficult. Argh 

It is quite entertaining watching my daughter respond when letting agents and landlords "try it on" assuming she is merely a "little lady". They retire bruised, and don't mess with her again.

[tautech]

It should be the user's choice not the manufacturers....
Adding the possibility for the people who want or require it for XYZ reason doesn't take anything away from other users. It's just an option, an option.....

Hell, just put RGB LEDs next to the ports...

Doesn’t work like that. You can buy it not. If you buy it you have to drink whatever excrement the manufacturer served.

As for RGB LEDs that’s fine until you have the probe tips ringed and need an LED at that end too…

Actually once you've got enough probes on the table it would be quite useful to have an LED near the probe tip that you could light up to find out which probe's where.

Yep, probe ID might be needed with our new 8ch monster especially when these can be daisy chained together for up to 512 channels ! 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds6000l-2ghz-12bit-8-ch-(china-only)/
Custom trace colors will be no problem though as this feature is already present in a few Siglent models although another concern is does the palette have 512 colors to have one for every channel trace ? 

A quick play with the new flagship just to check it was all working like lesser models do.
512 visually different traces will prove to be a challenge though.

[Vince]

Oh no... just looked at the specs of these two 2N2904A I have here.... turns out they are simply a 2N2905A but with ... 2.5 times less gain ! 

IOW, it's just a VERY shitty 2N2905, so there is absolutely, abbbbbbsolutely ZERO reason not to scrap them.
Except... look at them, how cute they are.. aren't they... nice TO39 metal can with gold plated leads AND the bottom of the can is plated as well ! I just can't resist... I just don't have the heart to scrap such beauties... I am sorry.. I just can't !     I know, I know... I am weak... very very very weak..... pfff..... 

[med6753]

800 tubes coming ?! 

Where do you even find lots like that ?! 
Specialized websites clearing stuff out ?!
I wish I could find stuff like that !

I wish it was that easy. This is a dying ex EE relative. The guy has lots of ancient stuff but it has been stored in a damp garage with damaged roof for the best part of 25 years so it's nearly all a write off and will be loaded into a skip. The tubes and some of the components were stored in the (heated) outbuilding fortunately because the garage was full. Going to be a shitty long weekend dealing with it so I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea.

I've been told I can do what I want with it so I'm going to lift the high value tubes and sell individually and the rest go in lots on ebay.

I'll enumerate and heater test (I'm not buying a tube tester) all of them so if anyone needs any for genuine purposes i.e. loading up test gear and not building guitar amps I'll distribute them for postage cost accordingly.

Fuck....no envy for you on this one only the sadness I know that will haunt you for every minute of it. 
Though he might turn in his grave at you parting out all the tubes he should also smile that you're gunna cash in on all the hollow glass worshippers. 

Oh no he's a complete fucking asshole of a human and always has been. I'm just doing it for his daughter (my father's third ex-wife).

Oh he's also a ham. 80m and 2m health complaint, racist, sexist sorta guy. Real nice company. Fortunately his antenna collapsed in the storms about 3 years ago 

If and when you get to that ugly task there are definitely some vacuum tube types that I would like to have for spares and I'll gladly pay postage from the UK. When I get a chance I'll prepare my wish list. 

[Vince]

It should be the user's choice not the manufacturers....
Adding the possibility for the people who want or require it for XYZ reason doesn't take anything away from other users. It's just an option, an option.....

Hell, just put RGB LEDs next to the ports...

Doesn’t work like that. You can buy it not. If you buy it you have to drink whatever excrement the manufacturer served.

As for RGB LEDs that’s fine until you have the probe tips ringed and need an LED at that end too…

Actually once you've got enough probes on the table it would be quite useful to have an LED near the probe tip that you could light up to find out which probe's where.

Yep, probe ID might be needed with our new 8ch monster especially when these can be daisy chained together for up to 512 channels ! 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds6000l-2ghz-12bit-8-ch-(china-only)/
Custom trace colors will be no problem though as this feature is already present in a few Siglent models although another concern is does the palette have 512 colors to have one for every channel trace ? 

A quick play with the new flagship just to check it was all working like lesser models do.
512 visually different traces will prove to be a challenge though.

Was wondering what this scope daisy chaining was all about, so had a quick look at your link... OK I understand better now, makes more sense... it's not bench scopes being linked together, just front ends  reporting to a computer for display there. So just one screen, the computer.

Well I think colours only makes sense/work if there are only a handful / small number of them, so that the brain can easily/quickly, and reliably tell them apart. To me even 8 is starting to get a bit messy, so 512 oh my god... simply useless.

So I guess if I were writing the S/W of this PC based scope, I would combine colours and numbers, or labels. Use a handful of colours to create groups of traces related to each other, that make sense to the user, whatever that maybe. Then for each colour, just number the traces, and if the user wants to bother/take the time, let him replace the number by a user created label that makes it more explicit.

Something like that.... but it's never gonna be easy for the user no matter what. 512 is just ... hopefully just for marketing / bragging / dick contest, but no real world user will actually ever want to use that many channels at the same time