Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

This is from an episode of Just Rolled In - They're like a Daily WTF only for mechanics to post short vids of crazy shit they see on the job.

https://www.youtube.com/c/JustRolledIn

I tune in every once in a while to reinforce how happy I am about the fact I'm not in the trade anymore... 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[VK5RC]

This is from an episode of Just Rolled In - They're like a Daily WTF only for mechanics to post short vids of crazy shit they see on the job.

https://www.youtube.com/c/JustRolledIn

I tune in every once in a while to reinforce how happy I am about the fact I'm not in the trade anymore... 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

I enjoy watching them as well - my favourite was the car with a scraping noise - with a complete Stop sign and post stuck under the car!

[Neomys Sapiens]

@Vince, your input would be welcomed on the TEA Discord, ijs...

He made it  and announced his presence.
Truly amazing what a working PC can do. 

My 15 year old Core2Duo computer has always been able to make it on Discord. The only reason I was there today was because of AVG.
I won't be fooled twice... I know his tricks now.

To be fair I got something out of this. I learned what " TPTB " means.
I am not saying it's good enough  value for money, but at least it's something 

Huh? How a trick? He asked nicely for you to join the mayhem.
mnem
I don't have the powah...

The way he worded it, to me, made it sound like something particular on Discord was going on, that called for my presence, some French related matter, I don't know.
So I thought it would be rude not to try and help if I could. But there was no such thing as a need for my presence at all. Hence I consider it a trick, he fooled me.

He himself admitted it BTW, so you can't deny it. It's just a fact.

BTW I may have talked BS on Discord. Can't remember exactly but I may have said that the H160, successor of the Dauphin, was co-developed with the Chinese. Brain fart. That applies to the H175, the H160 bigger brother. I don't know the specifics of the H160, so I will assume it's still a 100% Airbus design, no Chinese involved, until proven otherwise.

You said exactly that, so no BS involved.

[TERRA Operative]

No worries Vince, a fun adventure was had and now we know how not to do it. 

I'll have to see if I can figure out a way to pull the firmware without the tektools application. Once I get the PSU for my PC working......

Maybe the easiest route would be to simply ask the guy who wrote TEKTOOL, if he would be kind enough to update it slightly so it can run on Windows 95/98.....

Or maybe at the very least, convince him to release the source code (But I am certainly not a software guy, so someone else will have to take it from there...)

Speaking of which, anyone got a spare TSM110CN or TSM111CN 'Triple Voltage and Current Supervisor) chip laying around?
https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/cd00001698.pdf
I've tested almost everything else, and it seems the Current Mode Controller chip (uC3845B) that switches the main switching transistor isn't getting a signal from the TSM110CN, but the optocouplers seem to test ok.
It looks like Digikey have the TSM110CN chips in stock, but I need to make a $50 order to avoid the $20 shipping charge.......

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233603951155?hash=item3663e16a33:g:qiYAAOSwFohe0Qp5

Cheaper, 15 US dollars shipped..... or cheaper, since the seller is willing to take offers...
Direct from China. Japan is not that far from CHina so you would I hope receive them much faster than we do in Europe, in a matter of days rather than weeks or months.

Can't you just hack something to make use of a standard ATX power supply ? It's not like you needed to look pretty ion order to sell it or something... as long as it can power up the computer, GPIB will be happy enough....

China is an option I guess, but I'm always wary of fakes....

I do have a newer ATX PSU here actually, but the problem there is that modern PSU's don't have a -5V rail since there are no ISA slots any more... So even though a modern ATX PSU does physically fit, and repinning the power plugs isn't too hard, I still need to figure out how to get the -5V rail, and then we are back to it all being a harder process than just buying that chip for the existing PSU..   (Assuming that this chip is the actual fault in the first place...)

[TERRA Operative]

I just did a quick check of the local classified ads.  The Hewlett-Packard meter listed for $75 that I offered $50 on a few weeks ago is still listed.  The $50 offer was rejected out of hand.

I showed the ad to a couple of friends and the consensus was that I was being way to generous with the lady who's selling it.  I'm debating how much longer to let it sit and wait before I send another message saying I've reconsidered, and I'd be delighted to offer her $30 so she can double her money from the $14.99 she paid for it at Value Village from the price tag she didn't remove before taking pictures to post it for sale?

Nah, don't tell her about the price tag, let her guess how you know what she paid. See if she realises on her own

[Saskia]

ok, the power board needs a thorough revision, them gorrillas oughta be strung up to a car battery, an NE555, a Mosfet and a proper coil ...

Lesseee ...

Anyway, swapped out the power board temporarily.
Then found the problem on the CPU board. Even though I have not been soldering for quite a while this result should look about acceptable. Not good, but acceptable.

Photo of culprit plus backbox with boards attached.

You know that I am not such a technical person ...

[AVGresponding]

@Vince, your input would be welcomed on the TEA Discord, ijs...

He made it  and announced his presence.
Truly amazing what a working PC can do. 

My 15 year old Core2Duo computer has always been able to make it on Discord. The only reason I was there today was because of AVG.
I won't be fooled twice... I know his tricks now.

To be fair I got something out of this. I learned what " TPTB " means.
I am not saying it's good enough  value for money, but at least it's something 

Huh? How a trick? He asked nicely for you to join the mayhem.
mnem
I don't have the powah...

The way he worded it, to me, made it sound like something particular on Discord was going on, that called for my presence, some French related matter, I don't know.
So I thought it would be rude not to try and help if I could. But there was no such thing as a need for my presence at all. Hence I consider it a trick, he fooled me.

He himself admitted it BTW, so you can't deny it. It's just a fact.

BTW I may have talked BS on Discord. Can't remember exactly but I may have said that the H160, successor of the Dauphin, was co-developed with the Chinese. Brain fart. That applies to the H175, the H160 bigger brother. I don't know the specifics of the H160, so I will assume it's still a 100% Airbus design, no Chinese involved, until proven otherwise.

It was pleasant to see you there, in any case.

[Specmaster]

<snip>
I was meaning as opposed to modern day stuff that normally just works when you plug it in 

Or not, if it is W10! 

My "you beaut" little nanoVNA arrived recently, & after playing with it for a while, I decided to download one of the software packages readily available on the Internet.

It looks like it is downloading, & even asks you "if you want to open it".
I told it "yes", & it proceeded to make a few beeps & do nothing---rather reminiscent of loading "Frogger" into a C64 from a Datasette, & with less result.

At least the C64 thing would load properly about every tenth time you tried.
Hang on, maybe I have to try this 10 times? 

Is it a genuine nanoVNA or a clone, the clones are known to have issues.

[tautech]

On the Bench Tonight: 12 dollah Battery Tab Welder: Is It Full Of Fire or just WTF...?
.............
For good or evil... there it is. A fucking 2 dollar battery. Made with a 12-dollar spot-welder. 

A bored tinkerdwagon is a dangerous thing... but if that coin cell doesn't spontaneously combust sitting on that tile overnight, I'm gonna put it in that 54621D. Fuck DigiKey and their stoopit Canadian account BS...

mnem

Good stuff mnem, more please !

[Zoli]

I do have a newer ATX PSU here actually, but the problem there is that modern PSU's don't have a -5V rail since there are no ISA slots any more... So even though a modern ATX PSU does physically fit, and repinning the power plugs isn't too hard, I still need to figure out how to get the -5V rail, and then we are back to it all being a harder process than just buying that chip for the existing PSU..   (Assuming that this chip is the actual fault in the first place...)

7660? Or, if you need more powah, SN6501/5 or some step-up wired as negative supply. PM if you intend to mod something in, I might have some parts in my drawers...

[Specmaster]

Next project already in queue on bench 1. B&K Precision 2120 scope. I purchased this scope new in 1991 and was for many years my only scope. That all changed about 2013 when I was given a duff 2465 DMS for repair which got me back into the hobby. And that started that never ending rabbit hole and the extensive collection I have today. 

So what's needed on this 2120? Both channel attenuator decks are extremely spotty with no easy access to clean them. The top board shown in the 2nd pix must be removed. And then unsolder shields surrounding the switch assemblies. And I figure since I have it apart I might as well re-cap it. So a BOM has been submitted to Mouser and should be delivered Wednesday.



   

I'm gob smacked, its not even blue, Plonking that on your bench is tempting fate, the Teks will be striking next 

[bd139]

Ugh all that FR2 board. I keep getting flashbacks of that HP 54600 with cracked PCB 

[Saskia]

these are the voyages of the Valkyrie Saskia on her continuing mission to explore and eradicate gorillaism ...


(burned back box connector due to too much load. Had to revert to a bit of gorillaism when crimping since I misplaced the Molex tool)



For fucks sake. Why did they not use a chain saw to break the lock ...
and 2500 for breaking the lock and fucking up the powerboard and the battery thingie on the CPU board ? Cut off their balls.

But after a little bit of valkyric intervention it boots up and throws no critical errors ...



ok, that's the wiring part.

Further gorillaisms to be eliminated:
the huge fuck up with the slingshots
both cannons need to be completely degunked as they are not rotating at the right speed, thus placing to much current draw on the circuits and wires
Backbox needs to be properly repaired (this will be a fucking pain involving huge amounts of Festooling ...)

[Saskia]

not to mention stripping the playfield, fixing some abrasions, mounting protectors, swapping all light bulbs for LEDs and doing some minor mods. Also, the DMD has a missing column (i.e. internal connector problem, almost unfixable except by DMD swap)

Cost so far: pickup (50€), new power board (350€), Molex connector (2€), work: ca 5 h to get it dis- / reassembled and booting.

[m k]

No worries Vince, a fun adventure was had and now we know how not to do it. 

I'll have to see if I can figure out a way to pull the firmware without the tektools application. Once I get the PSU for my PC working......

Maybe the easiest route would be to simply ask the guy who wrote TEKTOOL, if he would be kind enough to update it slightly so it can run on Windows 95/98.....

Speaking of which, anyone got a spare TSM110CN or TSM111CN 'Triple Voltage and Current Supervisor) chip laying around?
https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/cd00001698.pdf
I've tested almost everything else, and it seems the Current Mode Controller chip (uC3845B) that switches the main switching transistor isn't getting a signal from the TSM110CN, but the optocouplers seem to test ok.
It looks like Digikey have the TSM110CN chips in stock, but I need to make a $50 order to avoid the $20 shipping charge.......

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233603951155?hash=item3663e16a33:g:qiYAAOSwFohe0Qp5

Cheaper, 15 US dollars shipped..... or cheaper, since the seller is willing to take offers...
Direct from China. Japan is not that far from CHina so you would I hope receive them much faster than we do in Europe, in a matter of days rather than weeks or months.

Can't you just hack something to make use of a standard ATX power supply ? It's not like you needed to look pretty ion order to sell it or something... as long as it can power up the computer, GPIB will be happy enough....

My guess is that hacking a PSU is much easier than downgrading TekTool.

That API call can also be a totally not used feature but still very deep in the version thing.

[m k]

Well I failed to win the crusty HP 34750A/34702A DMM a few weeks back, but did find a nicer looking one for not too much on ePay USA soon after. It was marked as "Delay due to major event" on the 23rd by Hermesworld (used by GSP) and I was getting concerned that meant it was lost, but thankfully it turned up this morning. 
It looks in almost perfect condition from the outside, OK rear foot plastic failure as usual.


Most of the buttons of the 34702A were rattling about inside when I unpacked it, I failed to picture this before. 




Inside of the 34750A not so good, burnt rectifier for the ±12V supply & signs of failed of repair, the reference hybrid has been robbed.








Worryingly the OVP zener for the +12V (CR25 appears to have not been soldered on one side, not sure if this is due to very careful de-soldering of it left the factory like this, the +12V supply is used by both halves of this snap-on DMM system.




Hope I can make a working one, out of the two sets I now have.

David

Is that one Centronics pin bent on purpose?

[m k]

GPIB FUN


Oh, RESULT !!! 

Look at that !

The TEKTOOL program looks like it's working now !!! 

Now, it's about getting the ISA GPIB card working... luckily since Win95 is still on the drive along W2K, I can access the MS-DOS config / startup files to see what I had to put in there 5 years ago to get the driver to load properly.... hopefully that driver will work on W2K as well !! 


Stay tuned...

W9x drivers are *.DRV when W2k has *.VxD.

Earlier versions were *.COM but started secondary way and terminated as TSR.

[bd139]

HP 427A update. New power supply engineered and under test. Bog standard boring LM317 circuit. The positive things being that some of it is recycled from the HP PCM test set including the LM317T, the diodes, one of the capacitors and the heatsink and hardware.



Kicks out 24.56V which is good enough for the job. This will now be hooked up to the existing HP 427A voltage source and loaded with the peak of 13mA as per the HP427A's max load to make sure it doesn't drop out or exceed the differential voltage limits of the LM317.

Low tech mount - this will be taped to the bottom of the battery compartment with auto foam tape. Keeps it floating and insulated

[bd139]

Oh great - my PL320 is starting to get flakey LED segments. Is intermittent. Comment problem on these but can't remember what the root cause was.

From across the room with my phone so please excuse crappy picture.



That's for the repair list then...

[xrunner]

Fix one and another breaks - like at my place. 

[med6753]

Ugh all that FR2 board. I keep getting flashbacks of that HP 54600 with cracked PCB 

I've had that board out before and had no issues with cracking or other problems. But I did have the high value resistors in the focus circuit go open twice.

[med6753]

I'm gob smacked, its not even blue, Plonking that on your bench is tempting fate, the Teks will be striking next 

Surprisingly everyone gets along without any fights. 

[med6753]

HP 427A update. New power supply engineered and under test. Bog standard boring LM317 circuit. The positive things being that some of it is recycled from the HP PCM test set including the LM317T, the diodes, one of the capacitors and the heatsink and hardware.



Kicks out 24.56V which is good enough for the job. This will now be hooked up to the existing HP 427A voltage source and loaded with the peak of 13mA as per the HP427A's max load to make sure it doesn't drop out or exceed the differential voltage limits of the LM317.

Low tech mount - this will be taped to the bottom of the battery compartment with auto foam tape. Keeps it floating and insulated

Is 13mA enough to have the LM317 properly regulate? 

[bd139]

The divider network is designed to sink 7mA which is above the 5mA minimum regulation on the NS LM317T datasheet. The 13mA load is in addition to that

[factory]

Well I failed to win the crusty HP 34750A/34702A DMM a few weeks back, but did find a nicer looking one for not too much on ePay USA soon after. It was marked as "Delay due to major event" on the 23rd by Hermesworld (used by GSP) and I was getting concerned that meant it was lost, but thankfully it turned up this morning. 
It looks in almost perfect condition from the outside, OK rear foot plastic failure as usual.


Most of the buttons of the 34702A were rattling about inside when I unpacked it, I failed to picture this before. 


Inside of the 34750A not so good, burnt rectifier for the ±12V supply & signs of failed of repair, the reference hybrid has been robbed.








Worryingly the OVP zener for the +12V (CR25 appears to have not been soldered on one side, not sure if this is due to very careful de-soldering of it left the factory like this, the +12V supply is used by both halves of this snap-on DMM system.




Hope I can make a working one, out of the two sets I now have.

David

Is that one Centronics pin bent on purpose?

It's actually removed completely, see the top side of the board too where the board is drilled out, it's for extra isolation? for the voltage input from the snap-on modules.

Also I made an error yesterday, it's the 5V supply that has failed, one the the two diodes got a bit hot & burnt the PCB, because the 2200uF capacitor went short. 
This doesn't explain why the 15V OVP zener has one lead disconnected though, the zener is not shorted. 

David