Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cubdriver]

For me that's in the "give me £10 and I'll remove that hazmat for you" territory.

It reminds me of comments made about this house.... https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116104829#/?channel=RES_BUY Before you look at the pictures, understand that a "listed property" legally requires permission before altering it, that it sold for £1m two years ago, prices have gone up a lot since then, and that the bank repossesed it and failed to sell at £1.4m. The RSJs in the garden in the first picture are a hint. The second picture is jaw dropping, and the 8th indicates why there has been a large claim from the owners of the neighbouring property.

They went a bit hard core with the HDR processing in those photos!  And is that the soil pipe I see floating free outside the building in the last image before the floor plans in the listing?!?     Looks like it has interesting bones, but it'll need a LOT of flesh to be added to make it habitable!  Wow.

-Pat

[factory]

Hey, there is yet hope for eBay, well at least hope for some sellers on eBay. Remember earlier in the week there was a post about a Peak DCA50e but the item was in fact a ESR60, well cop this.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165623099264

Maybe they spotted it too late, but usually you can end the item & cancel bids due to the error in the listing. 

David

[BU508A]

It is, to quote Saruman the Grey, "...the way of pain!!!"

It was Saruman the White and Gandalf the Grey.

[mnementh]

End of sale update, that Peak ESR60 on eBay went in then end for £43.

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, m'self.

mnem
 

[factory]

First item. HP 204D. Firstly it works perfectly. Even the calibration is good  . But it's coated in nicotine and tar  . To all the smokers: you disgust me! 

As obtained for £10.



Quick internal inspection revealed that it is incredibly difficult to get into. The only window into its guts:



First round of cleaning. These are beige not grey for reference so it's not that bad.



Sides being worked on with Dettol and microfibre cloth



Run out of energy now - will resume later on the BROKEN Farnell TM6 RF voltmeter (spoiler: the sensor head is duff but easily repairable)

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

The 209A I took apart to repair a crack in the plastic and free up the mechanism, was definitely grey behind the large dial, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of where all the gears fit.





I need to repeat this with another oscillator, they seem to seize up with dried put grease.

David

[Cubdriver]

I just learned the major down side to a cat perch above the bench with the desoldering iron holder stowed below it.  From now on I will be checking the contents of the holder BEFORE turning it on after not using it for some time...
 


It's now cooling down to be wiped/vacuumed clean, and I suspect that the smell of burnt fur will be lodged in my nose for a while yet.


 

Lesson learned!   

-Pat

[mnementh]

It is, to quote Saruman the Grey, "...the way of pain!!!"

It was Saruman the White and Gandalf the Grey.

Fixed. Thanks.

mnem
 

[bd139]

I just learned the major down side to a cat perch above the bench with the desoldering iron holder stowed below it.  From now on I will be checking the contents of the holder BEFORE turning it on after not using it for some time...
 


It's now cooling down to be wiped/vacuumed clean, and I suspect that the smell of burnt fur will be lodged in my nose for a while yet.


 

Lesson learned!   

-Pat

And I now you’ve learned lesson one of many of why I won’t have the rancid things in my house 

[Cubdriver]

And I now you’ve learned lesson one of many of why I won’t have the rancid things in my house 

Eh.  They're still better company that a lot of people I've met, so I'll clean the desoldering iron every now and again.  That and I've no worries about mouse poop or pee in anything.  That said, I can understand people not wanting to share their home with pets, too.

-Pat

edit to add - I do much prefer the smell of rosin flux to burnt fur.  The desoldering iron is now clean and hot without any foul smells.

[Specmaster]

End of sale update, that Peak ESR60 on eBay went in then end for £43.

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, m'self.

mnem
 

Me neither, I only knew because eBay emailed me telling me that it was finishing soon and they knew that I'd viewed it and that was only because of the link posted here. I think I have enough cap and ESR testers anyway, and a Peak device would be one of the last things I'd consider.

[Specmaster]

I just learned the major down side to a cat perch above the bench with the desoldering iron holder stowed below it.  From now on I will be checking the contents of the holder BEFORE turning it on after not using it for some time...
 


It's now cooling down to be wiped/vacuumed clean, and I suspect that the smell of burnt fur will be lodged in my nose for a while yet.


 

Lesson learned!   

-Pat

And I now you’ve learned lesson one of many of why I won’t have the rancid things in my house 

The cat might be thinking the same thing 

[Squarewave]

You can use one of those desoldering irons for removing AF117's which have suffered from tin whiskers.....

[bd139]

And I now you’ve learned lesson one of many of why I won’t have the rancid things in my house 

Eh.  They're still better company that a lot of people I've met, so I'll clean the desoldering iron every now and again.  That and I've no worries about mouse poop or pee in anything.  That said, I can understand people not wanting to share their home with pets, too.

-Pat

edit to add - I do much prefer the smell of rosin flux to burnt fur.  The desoldering iron is now clean and hot without any foul smells.

If rather have people around. They tend to fuck off. Cats not so much. Plus you have to keep feeding them.

Having married a hairdresser previously I sympathise with the burned hair smell 

Don’t get me started on children. Bloody fridge locusts the lot of them.

[bd139]

First item. HP 204D. Firstly it works perfectly. Even the calibration is good  . But it's coated in nicotine and tar  . To all the smokers: you disgust me! 

As obtained for £10.



Quick internal inspection revealed that it is incredibly difficult to get into. The only window into its guts:



First round of cleaning. These are beige not grey for reference so it's not that bad.



Sides being worked on with Dettol and microfibre cloth



Run out of energy now - will resume later on the BROKEN Farnell TM6 RF voltmeter (spoiler: the sensor head is duff but easily repairable)

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

The 209A I took apart to repair a crack in the plastic and free up the mechanism, was definitely grey behind the large dial, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of where all the gears fit.





I need to repeat this with another oscillator, they seem to seize up with dried put grease.

David

Interesting. Might have to take it to bits some more. To be fair I haven’t actually managed to evaluate the material yet as I dare not touch it directly 

[factory]

I always haggle. I got that HP generator down to a tenner.

Just got back. Photo dump coming later. Too hot now 

Did a walk along the coast quickly. Attached actual photo

I don't always haggle. If it's a fiver and I think it's worth it, I just hand over the bank note.

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

I picked up a few things to help while away the long winter months, including an HP1703 scope complete with manual for a tenner. Now why I bought that, I don't quite know. Some of the knobs look as if they might be replacements for the ones on the HP8640A, which are falling to bits.

No items on the most wanted list, but a few tempting things I was able to resist and a few things too cheap to resist.

There were three HP427 power meters for £15 each. I think they were the same ones as at Newbury. They were discussed on here a time back. I wasn't interested, but I have an idea the bloke would have parted with all three for £25. That's a few useful spares territory.

FRARS seems to be one of the better rallies and I wish I'd gone there before.

If you found HP 427As for £15 then that would be a bargain, I suspect you meant 432A or 435A/B, I'd still pick them up for spares myself at that price, assuming they were complete with feet etc, I think I have an early 432A here that needs a decent meter (has peeling scale disease), the 435 meter is not quite the same (scale labelling is slightly different).

The 1703A looks interesting, OK only 35MHz with analog storage CRT, but can run from low voltage DC, or an optional internal battery.
https://hpmemoryproject.org/an/pdf/sf_1700.pdf

David

[Cubdriver]

And after all that, I still had to cut the damned thing out of there - it didn't want to budge and there's no room to pry at it, and didn't want to risk damaging the board on the chance one or more of the pins were still stuck.  Turned out to be glued down by the generous amount of conformal coating.   



-Pat

[factory]

First item. HP 204D. Firstly it works perfectly. Even the calibration is good  . But it's coated in nicotine and tar  . To all the smokers: you disgust me! 

As obtained for £10.



Quick internal inspection revealed that it is incredibly difficult to get into. The only window into its guts:



First round of cleaning. These are beige not grey for reference so it's not that bad.



Sides being worked on with Dettol and microfibre cloth



Run out of energy now - will resume later on the BROKEN Farnell TM6 RF voltmeter (spoiler: the sensor head is duff but easily repairable)

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

The 209A I took apart to repair a crack in the plastic and free up the mechanism, was definitely grey behind the large dial, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of where all the gears fit.





I need to repeat this with another oscillator, they seem to seize up with dried put grease.

David

Interesting. Might have to take it to bits some more. To be fair I haven’t actually managed to evaluate the material yet as I dare not touch it directly 

If you do take note of where all the screws go, they were all mixed up in mine & some random long ones fitted by gorilla  which permanently grounded the floating inner casing, had to find some shorter ones.

David

[med6753]

I just learned the major down side to a cat perch above the bench with the desoldering iron holder stowed below it.  From now on I will be checking the contents of the holder BEFORE turning it on after not using it for some time...
 


It's now cooling down to be wiped/vacuumed clean, and I suspect that the smell of burnt fur will be lodged in my nose for a while yet.


 

Lesson learned!   

-Pat

Looks like the cat perch itself is one giant hair ball too. 

[Cubdriver]

I just learned the major down side to a cat perch above the bench with the desoldering iron holder stowed below it.  From now on I will be checking the contents of the holder BEFORE turning it on after not using it for some time...
 


 

Lesson learned!   

-Pat

Looks like the cat perch itself is one giant hair ball too. 

Yeah, it's one of Ghost's favorite spots.


Nixie rather likes it, too.


It's in a place that's a PITA to reach.  I should get a stepstool and clean it one of these years...

-Pat

[Neper]

I'm mostly amazed by the amount of flak it receives by people who have no idea how many TL072's their favourite music has passed through.  It literally is everywhere.  That and the 5532.

I once built a playback amp designed by Dr. Goetz Corinth with 709 as its opamps. Thought I was particularly clever when I used 5532 instead. That thing oscillated so strongly that it actually ruined my reference tape by deleting the higher frequencies via the playback head. 

[Cubdriver]

I'm mostly amazed by the amount of flak it receives by people who have no idea how many TL072's their favourite music has passed through.  It literally is everywhere.  That and the 5532.

I once built a playback amp designed by Goetz Corinth with 709 as its opamps. Thought I was particularly clever when I used 5532 instead. That thing oscillated so strongly that it actually ruined my reference tape by deleting the higher frequencies via the playback head.

Ouch!!!   

-Pat

[tggzzz]

For me that's in the "give me £10 and I'll remove that hazmat for you" territory.

It reminds me of comments made about this house.... https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116104829#/?channel=RES_BUY Before you look at the pictures, understand that a "listed property" legally requires permission before altering it, that it sold for £1m two years ago, prices have gone up a lot since then, and that the bank repossesed it and failed to sell at £1.4m. The RSJs in the garden in the first picture are a hint. The second picture is jaw dropping, and the 8th indicates why there has been a large claim from the owners of the neighbouring property.

They went a bit hard core with the HDR processing in those photos!  And is that the soil pipe I see floating free outside the building in the last image before the floor plans in the listing?!?     Looks like it has interesting bones, but it'll need a LOT of flesh to be added to make it habitable!  Wow.

The houses can indeed be delightful.

Given that the house is visible in 1880 maps (probably 1840-60 vintage), the construction will be two leafs of stones held together by cement, with a rubble infill. The walls will be at least 18" thich at the bottom and maybe 9" thick on the top floor. Lintels will be the original wood.

Thus seeing an RSJ causes a sharp intake of breath, then anybody really should scream that the bones must be replaced before even consdering flesh. There are, apparently, now cracks in the party wall; hence the large lawsuits - according to the estate agent that sold it in 2020.

It is a real "what the eff were they thinking" horrow show (not horrorshow ).

[TERRA Operative]

For the nicotine glaze, I've found that at least for Japanese flavours, common dishsoap rips the stuff off much better than isopropyl alcohol etc.

[capt bullshot]

I'm mostly amazed by the amount of flak it receives by people who have no idea how many TL072's their favourite music has passed through.  It literally is everywhere.  That and the 5532. (I think the 5532 has a slight edge on the TL072, but that is based on comparing in one circuit only, and most likely can be nulled by adapting the circuit. )

That not surprising at all. Back in the days, the TL072 was the go to OpAmp for everything below maybe 100kHz, today it's just cheap as chips and still fulfils many tasks. I used to disappoint semiconductor manufacturers / distribution FAEs and sales representatives showing off their latest special purpose OpAmps (and other very specific analog ICs) saying: We've got the TL072 and TL074 on stock and use them at large quantities, the circuit will work fine and it costs way less than your fancy new stuff.

Only downside: it requires +/-12V or +/-15V to achieve its full performance and I like to design circuits that run on 5V or 3V3 only. Anyway, most of the devices had that supply available, so no reason to go for something else than TL072.

[med6753]

For the nicotine glaze, I've found that at least for Japanese flavours, common dishsoap rips the stuff off much better than isopropyl alcohol etc.

Diluted "Simple Green". Full strength tends to leave a film. Also ammonia based window cleaners cut right through that nasty stuff. And cleans completely, no film.