Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

That’s about right.

HP fun. Cleaning while on conference calls….

Reminder of before



Now. Better but not perfect.



The red banana plug is mostly held together with glue and can not be undone properly. Will need some more work.

[mansaxel]

What would be a reasonable price for a HP 6237B in good shape? 100 Euro?

If it was inside the EU, and I did not already have one, I'd certainly consider it at that price. The 6237B has mains voltage adjustment on switches and a single RIFA to swap, so obligatory work to perform is quite minimal.

A lot of the hp-Harrison supplies get looked over because they show up in the US, at initially reasonable prices, which however will triple once GSP and customs/VAT have had their say.

My both ones came from the US; the 6206b was a GSP write-off (refund) that I nursed back to life whereas the 6237b was more like "Ah want dat" with less concerns. I therefore paid a bit more for it, and it's rewarded me with stellar service.

I'd totes buy a 6209 "for parts" -- they are well built and will take a lot of abuse. But not at current prices.  I also have other more pressing needs, like an electronic load, and maybe some more SMD-related tooling.

[factory]

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.

Of the "lets abuse a microprocessor to do what a real piece of TE should do" Chinesium testers out there, the PEAK/ATLAS brand is probably one of the best product lines out there. It was the ESR60 in particular that I wouldn't touch, as I know from experience its inputs are unprotected.

Cheers,

mnem
 

The ESR60 is not completely unprotected, mine checks for voltage before starting the capacitance/ESR measurements, it will try to discharge low voltage capacitors & abort the test if it necessary, I've had this activate at least once, I've not attempted to confirm the higher voltage limits shown in the specs here; https://www.peakelec.co.uk/resources/esr60.html

Maybe you were confused with the LCR40, LCR45, these along with many lab grade LCR meters, have zero protection against charged capacitors.

It's always a good to check HV caps with a DVM before measuring, even if there is a discharge resistor fitted, as they can go open circuit, or be missing in some cheap consumer crap.

David

[Ice-Tea]

Yesterday on ebay Kleinanzeigen here: a HP 34401A (all red input jacks) for 190.- Euro. Gone within minutes.

BTW: any idea what is up with that "all red version"? Does it have a certain meaning or did they run out of black ones  ?

[TERRA Operative]

I can't remember who was after the Texas Instruments calculator charger (was it Specmaster ?), turns out we haven't got any TI calculators here, I've now checked it works today, PM me if you want it.


David

Hey, I got a 5340A with it's pants off on my healing bench too.

[mnementh]

Now. Better but not perfect.   

The red banana plug is mostly held together with glue and can not be undone properly. Will need some more work.

Ugghh... I hate when peeples do dat. Especially when it's me, and I have to go back and try to undo it later...

Did you get the friction roller/fine adjustment wheel dingus working properly?

mnem

[mansaxel]

BTW: any idea what is up with that "all red version"? Does it have a certain meaning or did they run out of black ones  ?

The other way around. Really old hp branded ones had all red jacks. Later, the black jacks appeared. IIRC this was before the Agilent renaming.  The specimen in the Kleinanzeigen therefore -- if I've gotten things right, is a quite old one. Hence BD's comments on firmware level and display wear.

[BU508A]

BTW: any idea what is up with that "all red version"? Does it have a certain meaning or did they run out of black ones  ?

It means, that it is an early one. Later 34401A do have black and red input jacks.
The issue with the early ones is: it could be, that it is one of the first generation.
The driver ICs for the display tend to leak and make the VFD unreadable. Those ICs
are unobtanium and the whole display electronics is incompatible with the newer ones.
So, if you spot an interesting 34401A with all red input jacks, check the firmware revision
to be sure, it doesn't have this nasty display.

More information can be found here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/hp-34401a-dmm-with-leaking-segments/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp34401a-display-with-dots-after-every-digit/msg1231908/#msg1231908

Edit:
Someone replaced the display with an OLED one.
Project page: https://github.com/openscopeproject/HP34401a-OLED-FW

Regarding the indicator:
"On older issue 34401a meters (fw version 06-04-01 and prior) have a custom HP designed micro controller with integrated high voltage VFD driver which is not obtainable, unless bought as a whole front panel assembly, which again is not cheap."

[med6753]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

[mnementh]

Well eBay prices have gone bananas 

The cheaper one wasn’t even shown working to any reasonable degree.

Maybe all the chatter on here helps to inflate the prices even more, maybe we need some sort of code to help keep prices low?

That's an interesting thought. There can't be that many potential buyers of some of these things.

I look but I haven't bought a used piece of TE off ebay for years. The prices have generally become far too high, especially for anything small and neat, such as those little RF sig gens which were rebranded by all sorts of people.

If you want something specific, the established dealers are worth a try. Very often they are cheaper than ebay, they offer a short guarantee, and they'd really rather not sell a load of rubbish, unless it really is spares or repairs.

Are you suggesting some sort of bd139 effect is going on here...? 

On the latter note, sadly, one of my favorite "wholesalers of junque TE" has changed their game:

AllTest has evidently gone balls-deep on the legit TE distributor game; looks like they've gotten themselves some competent (I hope ) techs to do repairs and are now offering gear as "pre-owned" and "refurbished" with warranty and prices to match.

IIRC, I saw med mention that they even got Shahriar to do a repair on one unit; for the publicity, I'm sure.

Point being... a lot less yummy stuff from them being sold as "parts only" anymore... and  I fear this also means we will start seeing "as-is/parts only" units that are actually "made from slapped-together borked bits taken off repaired units" from this once-favorite source...

mnem
 

[TERRA Operative]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've seen the same for the E361xA HP powersupplies. Either Red, Black, Green for +ve, -ve, GND, or Red, Red Green for the same layout.
I also found one with a single turn current limit pot from factory, had slightly different moulding on the front panel, but I have found no info on that particular variant, it had no option number for that difference. I swapped it to the usual 10-turn pot.

I swapped all my banana jacks to Red, Black, Green to prevent me from letting the smoke out of my projects....

[Zoli]

...
BTW: any idea what is up with that "all red version"? Does it have a certain meaning or did they run out of black ones  ?

From the 34401A user manual:

The multimeter returns three numbers. The first number is the
firmware revision number for the measurement processor; the second
is for the input/output processor; and the third is for the front-panel
processor.

The interesting number is the third one: front-panel processor; version 01 is the old unobtanium NEC/HP chip.
Version 01 is always red input jack, but the red input jacks can be different revisions, as seen below. So if you has to go blindly to buy a 34401A, go with red/black input jacks. Beside, the red input jacks are a good reason to get lower price.
As sidenote, the new front panel price is around $200 ....

[dl6lr]

Having just extracted the 8754A VNA from the analyser stack and rebuilt it I can report that a HP 5335A counter stacks nicely on top of a R&S CRTU / CMU-200 and the HP feet lock into the guide on the top of the R&S.

Ah, here it is the other way round: The R&S sits on top of a HP. In this case the CMU-200 on top of the 8970B. But the rubber feet doesn't lock in...

[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
 

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.

Of the "lets abuse a microprocessor to do what a real piece of TE should do" Chinesium testers out there, the PEAK/ATLAS brand is probably one of the best product lines out there. It was the ESR60 in particular that I wouldn't touch, as I know from experience its inputs are unprotected.

Cheers,

mnem
 

The ESR60 is not completely unprotected, mine checks for voltage before starting the capacitance/ESR measurements, it will try to discharge low voltage capacitors & abort the test if it necessary, I've had this activate at least once, I've not attempted to confirm the higher voltage limits shown in the specs here; https://www.peakelec.co.uk/resources/esr60.html

Maybe you were confused with the LCR40, LCR45, these along with many lab grade LCR meters, have zero protection against charged capacitors.

It's always a good to check HV caps with a DVM before measuring, even if there is a discharge resistor fitted, as they can go open circuit, or be missing in some cheap consumer crap.

David

Nope... the ESR60 I had in my repair shop in Florida warned of no protection right on the front of it. There was some aftermarket hackery made to give some small measure of protection, which I suppose PEAK/ATLAS might have adopted as a revision... but key point is it did not have the isolation relay in the frontend to keep the measuring bits out of circuit until the cap was safely discharged that the ESR70 and later had.

After that, no interest in the ESR60 under any circumstances. I know that if I did dare to buy one, it would probably be mine (or the same exact version) come back around on the great wheel to bite my scaly dwagon arse after unloading it on the Bay of Fleas. 

mnem
 

[cyclin_al]

I'm pondering whether I will make it to the FRARS hamfest on Sunday, and/or the Rugby hamfest next weekend. Both are equally distant. Any recommendations based on past experience?

Congratulations and commiserations in equal amounts. Had the same problem with my old Fiat. Someone removed the side of it when it was parked outside the school. I didn't bother claiming because I was looking for excuses to get rid of it. It didn't die quite enough to write it off though.

As for the hamfests, I have not been to either yet. I will be attending FRARS tomorrow though on recommendation elsewhere. After I've loaded the car up with goodies, I hope, I will be mugged an extortionate fee for parking and lunch and go and have an amble around here with the older assistant:

   Rugby is a no for me. Maybe next year.

Next one for me will be MKARS (Milton Keynes) on the 28th, which is on my "half way through house move day off". Also dangerously close to TNMOC.

Speaking of the car... repaired, or ailment mysteriously self-healed?

Also, best wishes for a painless move.


mnem
...you know, the exact opposite of my moves for the last 3 years. 

Self healed. Being treated with suspicion. Has routine service on Monday so they’re going to look at it then. Fingers crossed.

Thank you

I suppose I ought not to note that there are more geraniums listed by your supplier. You might not have enough cash leftover for the hamfests and car repairs (or even petrol).

My eBay scraper already notified me 

As for the transistors, not interested in those ones. The quantity and types do not excite me too much 

I was very confused for a few minutes 

Geranium:


Germanium:


 

[med6753]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've seen the same for the E361xA HP powersupplies. Either Red, Black, Green for +ve, -ve, GND, or Red, Red Green for the same layout.
I also found one with a single turn current limit pot from factory, had slightly different moulding on the front panel, but I have found no info on that particular variant, it had no option number for that difference. I swapped it to the usual 10-turn pot.

I swapped all my banana jacks to Red, Black, Green to prevent me from letting the smoke out of my projects....

Dumb question time. Where can I get black jacks that match the red on my 3456A? 

[Kosmic]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've seen the same for the E361xA HP powersupplies. Either Red, Black, Green for +ve, -ve, GND, or Red, Red Green for the same layout.
I also found one with a single turn current limit pot from factory, had slightly different moulding on the front panel, but I have found no info on that particular variant, it had no option number for that difference. I swapped it to the usual 10-turn pot.

I swapped all my banana jacks to Red, Black, Green to prevent me from letting the smoke out of my projects....

Dumb question time. Where can I get black jacks that match the red on my 3456A? 

On the 3456a they are all in 1 plastic part if I remember correctly. Plus, I wouldn't touch anything on the input. Don't you have some black paint somewhere ?   

Edit: Added a picture of the input connectors of the 3456a.

[med6753]

Are you suggesting some sort of bd139 effect is going on here...? 

On the latter note, sadly, one of my favorite "wholesalers of junque TE" has changed their game:

AllTest has evidently gone balls-deep on the legit TE distributor game; looks like they've gotten themselves some competent (I hope ) techs to do repairs and are now offering gear as "pre-owned" and "refurbished" with warranty and prices to match.

IIRC, I saw med mention that they even got Shahriar to do a repair on one unit; for the publicity, I'm sure.

Point being... a lot less yummy stuff from them being sold as "parts only" anymore... and  I fear this also means we will start seeing "as-is/parts only" units that are actually "made from slapped-together borked bits taken off repaired units" from this once-favorite source...

mnem
 

It appears you are correct which sucks. Went on Ebay and did search on Tek 2465 and AllTest did have one or two 2465's that were "as is" or "power up but no further testing done" for reasonable price. But many other listings of refurbished 2465's with price tags to match. $700 USD upwards to over $1000 USD. 

[med6753]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've seen the same for the E361xA HP powersupplies. Either Red, Black, Green for +ve, -ve, GND, or Red, Red Green for the same layout.
I also found one with a single turn current limit pot from factory, had slightly different moulding on the front panel, but I have found no info on that particular variant, it had no option number for that difference. I swapped it to the usual 10-turn pot.

I swapped all my banana jacks to Red, Black, Green to prevent me from letting the smoke out of my projects....

Dumb question time. Where can I get black jacks that match the red on my 3456A? 

On the 3456a they are all in 1 plastic part if I remember correctly. Plus, I wouldn't touch anything on the input. Don't you have some black paint somewhere ?   

Edit: Added a picture of the input connectors of the 3456a.

Yea, good point. Not smart to screw around in that high impedance area. And if they are all one assembly it's a moot point anyway.

Of course Papa Smurf has black paint. 

[Squarewave]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've got one of those 6.5 digit voltmeters somewhere. Have never ever used it actually.

[Specmaster]

AllTest has evidently gone balls-deep on the legit TE distributor game; looks like they've gotten themselves some competent (I hope ) techs to do repairs and are now offering gear as "pre-owned" and "refurbished" with warranty and prices to match.

IIRC, I saw med mention that they even got Shahriar to do a repair on one unit; for the publicity, I'm sure.

Indeed, IIRC I remember Shahriar mentioning during one of his videos, that he was repairing the item in the video on behalf of AllTest.

[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.

Of the "lets abuse a microprocessor to do what a real piece of TE should do" Chinesium testers out there, the PEAK/ATLAS brand is probably one of the best product lines out there. It was the ESR60 in particular that I wouldn't touch, as I know from experience its inputs are unprotected.

Cheers,

mnem
 

The ESR60 is not completely unprotected, mine checks for voltage before starting the capacitance/ESR measurements, it will try to discharge low voltage capacitors & abort the test if it necessary, I've had this activate at least once, I've not attempted to confirm the higher voltage limits shown in the specs here; https://www.peakelec.co.uk/resources/esr60.html

Maybe you were confused with the LCR40, LCR45, these along with many lab grade LCR meters, have zero protection against charged capacitors.

It's always a good to check HV caps with a DVM before measuring, even if there is a discharge resistor fitted, as they can go open circuit, or be missing in some cheap consumer crap.

David

Nope... the ESR60 I had in my repair shop in Florida warned of no protection right on the front of it. There was some aftermarket hackery made to give some small measure of protection, which I suppose PEAK/ATLAS might have adopted as a revision... but key point is it did not have the isolation relay in the frontend to keep the measuring bits out of circuit until the cap was safely discharged that the ESR70 and later had.

After that, no interest in the ESR60 under any circumstances. I know that if I did dare to buy one, it would probably be mine (or the same exact version) come back around on the great wheel to bite my scaly dwagon arse after unloading it on the Bay of Fleas. 

mnem
 

I think that you might find that the model you worked on or saw in that repair shop was a very early model, they certainly do have protection now, and they carry out controlled discharging before doing test.

[TERRA Operative]

The all red input jacks are also prevalent on other older hp gear such as this 3456A. Personally not a fan. Should be black for the low side.

I've seen the same for the E361xA HP powersupplies. Either Red, Black, Green for +ve, -ve, GND, or Red, Red Green for the same layout.
I also found one with a single turn current limit pot from factory, had slightly different moulding on the front panel, but I have found no info on that particular variant, it had no option number for that difference. I swapped it to the usual 10-turn pot.

I swapped all my banana jacks to Red, Black, Green to prevent me from letting the smoke out of my projects....

Dumb question time. Where can I get black jacks that match the red on my 3456A? 

It looks like there are only blue on ebay now, used to be more colours (Black, Red, Green and Blue) a year or two back.
May be able to find more on aliexpress etc?

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Jack+Insulated+24A+4mm+Banana

To paint them black, I'd look at the Tamiya paints used for remote control car body shells. It comes in little spray cans, is formulated to adhere to plastics without primers or sanding, is readily available from hobby stores and isn't too expensive.

[tggzzz]

I was very confused for a few minutes 

Geranium:


Germanium:


 

in a similar vein, I don't have any Macaroni test equipment, but have a lot of Heap TE. When being interviewed at Heap I had to discipline myself to always say Hewlett Packard lest I slip into embarassing myself.

[Vince]

When I leave work I will head straight to the H/W store to buy a rubber plunger, then to the super market to get some drain cleaner... and hope I can't fix it this way.

you should be able to free any blocked tube with multitudes of 50 grams ...

No I can't do that ! 
I still have 23 years to go to repay the bank / loan... can't afford to blow the house just yet....

So I went to the H/W store and left with a 7 Euro rubber plunger and a 5 Euro bottle of the most powerful drain cleaner they had.
Instructions on the bottle say that it's so powerful it will eat metal and stone/tiles.... so first thing I did was remove the little metal grill.

And.... oh... WTF is that.... the sink is PLUGGED with a big grey PVC plastic thingy ?! 
I removed it, it's hollow and shaped like a bowl, installed upside down...

Looks like it's meant to catch small debris to keep it from entering the drain pipe... but there is such a tiny gap/clearance between that bowl and its surroundings, that it took just a couple hair to clog it !
Once I removed it, I could see zero blockage in the drain, clear hole. Shoved the shower hand piece whatever its called, onto it, water flow full blast, and it drains just fine ! 

So the problem was this "chicane", which was too restrictive for its own good, was being counter productive. So I might as well remove it... the metal grill is plenty enough to keep debris out.
Or maybe I can put the chicane back in place and now I know this is the problem, simply pull it out when needed, and give the sink a good flush to remove the debris stuck in it.

So for 2 and half years now, I have been spending money, and polluting the environment, with a bottle of cleaner every 2 months.... when all it was was that clogged up chicane that takes 30 seconds to remove and rinse/clean... oh dear.... 

I apologize, my dear planet / environment, lesson learned...

Well the cleaner and rubber plunger I will keep anyway, cost me only 12 Euros total, and can always be useful, for real this time, one day...

PS : I survived my first day of training at work. Think I will survive the second and last training day tomorrow, but don't think I will survive Thursday and Friday once I am left on my own. Oh well....
Girl I am replacing will land at another Airbus plant literally down the road (where I was for 3+ years before I got fired), doing other stuff... I managed to get her to give me her personal phone number so I can contact her in case I am in great distress / panic / hitting a brick wall. Turns out she is not as incompetent as the manager said she was.... she manages just fine.... it's just that it's not her cup of tea (she is not very technical savvy at all), and just prefers to go do something else... She stayed only for one month.. and apparently had only one single day of training back then ! So me having TWO days with her, is quite an improvement I guess !