Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[TERRA Operative]

Your cap looks like it traps some water like the S-bend or P-trap or whatever it's called in your area, to prevent gasses and smells coming up out of the pipes.

[bd139]

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

Yeah annoys me too. I will probably replace both the red and black ones if I can find some matching HP ones

As for the friction thing it works really well after a clean 

[med6753]

Well that was ridiculously easy. Testors black enamel model paint. 


 

[Vince]

Your cap looks like it traps some water like the S-bend or P-trap or whatever it's called in your area, to prevent gasses and smells coming up out of the pipes.

Yes once the cap is installed into the white " female " part, it makes indeed for an 'S' shaped chicane.

to prevent smells ?! Hmmm..... didn't think of that  !  I have an extremely poor sense of smell in general, so most odours that annoy people, I can't even detect at all.

OK maybe I better put that cap back on now, and just pop it off to give the white part a good clean every time I notice the flow is getting slow. Now that I have a diagnosis and a quick and easy and cheap fix / solution, I am happy. No need for an endoscope and no need to spend fortunes all the time for cleaning products...


Sanding / wood : while at the H/W store I had a quick look at the small sanding machines.... boy even the small ones cost a lot ! 150 Euros for a decent brand !
The cheap ones are like 35 to 70 Euros, still quite a bit for the crap it is... it's not like a sanding machine in 2022 was some rocket science....just a crap chinese motor in a crap chine plastic case.... come on... 

Too expensive so will wait for my first pay check to show up on my account, if I make it that far that is.

[Specmaster]

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 !   

Have some confidence in yourself and you'll be just fine.

[AVGresponding]

Looks like ebay have just completely ruined their mobile app, namely the saved searches. Might save me some money, as I won't be looking at it much, it's completely broken.

[Specmaster]

Your cap looks like it traps some water like the S-bend or P-trap or whatever it's called in your area, to prevent gasses and smells coming up out of the pipes.

Yep I think you're right, I doubt that there was enough space to fit a conventional trap beneath the tray.

[Specmaster]

Looks like ebay have just completely ruined their mobile app, namely the saved searches. Might save me some money, as I won't be looking at it much, it's completely broken.

So is their feedback system, most time I sell anything these days I get no feedback left, yet I always leave feedback for others 

[mansaxel]

Your cap looks like it traps some water like the S-bend or P-trap or whatever it's called in your area, to prevent gasses and smells coming up out of the pipes.

Indeed; it's a "water lock" as we say in Sweden.

[mnementh]

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.

No, it was mine, I used it every day. I also repaired it several times after blowing it up.

Like I said... if I were to ever allow that thought the merest possibility of the slightest chance of even daring to imagine crossing my mind, I know that Murphy would somehow make me suffer.

All y'alls kin keep yer ESR60. I'm not interested in anything less than the ESR70Gold or maybe a DCA75Pro ATM. I certainly wouldn't give almost 50 quid (the listing in question) for a used one of unknown provenance.

mnem
 

[dl6lr]

And now for something completely different: A Gossen Konstanter!

Helped that sweet baby to not be thrown into the garbage bin. Last checkup is not long ago, so I plugged it in and ... it was dead. No meter movement when turning the knobs. A quick check indicated the
primary fuse was not blown and the fan was shuffling some air through the innards.
It had some scratches and needed some cleaning, so I undressed it and gave it a wash. Brushed all the dust away and inspected the boards. Nothing blown, no caps leaking. At a second test, all was fine: voltage regulates, current limits OK, a test with a 30R resistor was successful (and gave quite some smell of hot components). So I assembled everything and it seems to be ready for laboratory use.

[bd139]

Looks like ebay have just completely ruined their mobile app, namely the saved searches. Might save me some money, as I won't be looking at it much, it's completely broken.

Seems ok on iOS 

[dl6lr]

Part 2 of the Gossen: Load with a 30R resistor.

Forgot to say: The fan is very quiet. It is running all time.

[Specmaster]

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.

No, it was mine, I used it every day. I also repaired it several times after blowing it up.

Like I said... if I were to ever allow that thought the merest possibility of the slightest chance of even daring to imagine crossing my mind, I know that Murphy would somehow make me suffer.

All y'alls kin keep yer ESR60. I'm not interested in anything less than the ESR70Gold or maybe a DCA75Pro ATM. I certainly wouldn't give almost 50 quid (the listing in question) for a used one of unknown provenance.

mnem
 

Neither would I, its a discontinued product now anyway.

[mansaxel]

And now for something completely different: A Gossen Konstanter!

I showed this picture (the front panel shot, if SMF decides to be SMF and not DTRT.) to Wife and Middle Boy and they were most taken in by the clean beauty of the German industrial design. "Cute", "Clean" and other positive adjectives were uttered. Someone stated I married well the other day, and I agree.

[bd139]

I would also agree with your last statement

[tautech]

Well that was ridiculously easy. Testors black enamel model paint. 

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 
I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace.

Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?
Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

[david77]

Mmm Gossen Konstanter... I like  And looks like new, too, hope you get it working again.

[Vadim Bellous]

Hay, Vince, did you have any success swapping out that VFD in your Fluke 8845A. I'm asking because I have two of the same displays (same numbers and layout in your picture) I bought from eBay a few years back. When I got them, I desoldered one of the displays from its driver board and noticed that the VFD itself is a bit different. It has two additional pins (17 pins in the middle row, not the 3 pins on each side) compared to the VFD in my Fluke 8845A with 15 pins. Also, the patterns on the backs of the displays don't match either. That's when I lost all interest, leaving them in a drawer for a few years, having to continue to endure a below my standards display brightness. At least until a few days ago, when I ran in to the displays again and was thinking it might still be possible to get them working (possibly with a different pin configuration). Or maybe try to connect the display with its driver board (if it will fit). Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

[mnementh]

Well that was ridiculously easy. Testors black enamel model paint.     

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 

I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace. Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?   Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

It is my understanding that the reasoning was that these meter inputs are isolated from GND, therefore the LO side should not be assumed to be negative, or even the negative-most point in a particular circuit.

This is why they are labeled HI and LO for "point of highest positive potential" and "point of lowest positive potential" under test. Also why there's a max V differential compared to GUARD/GND.

mnem
 

[Zenith]

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 
I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace.

Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?
Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

Dunno. It was before my time. But HP had a reputation for being largely autonomous divisions with rivalries, and very often a determination to do things their own way for the sake of it.

[tautech]

Well that was ridiculously easy. Testors black enamel model paint. 

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 
I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace.

Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?
Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

It is my understanding that the reasoning was that these meter inputs are isolated from GND, therefore the LO side should not be assumed to be negative, or even the negative-most point in a particular circuit.

This is why they are labeled HI and LO... for "point of highest positive potential" and "point of lowest positive potential" under test.

mnem
 

Yeah well it's still a dumb decision IMO when if we look at Med's old SDM3055 the input jacks layout looks and makes more sense than the HP abomination. 



Also with the potential to be elevated above GND. 

[Specmaster]

Another epic fail on eBay 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392307615721

[bd139]

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 
I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace.

Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?
Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

Dunno. It was before my time. But HP had a reputation for being largely autonomous divisions with rivalries, and very often a determination to do things their own way for the sake of it.

That’s how my company thinks it works. Really it’s a Frankenstein grade monster made of fast food remains sifted out of a bin sewn together with discarded CAT 5 and reanimated by a thousand souls crushed beneath the boots of the death march of misguided progress.

[Specmaster]

Well that was ridiculously easy. Testors black enamel model paint. 

You have to wonder what went down when these HP's were first released with jacks all the same color. 
I imagine a good deal of HP techs at the time flabbergasted that one of their products with polarity sensitive jacks all of the same color could make it to the marketplace.

Any old chaps here know about any cooler dispenser chat from those times ?
Seems like the dumb shit Chinese have become famous for............

Are they polarity sensitive, it is a digital meter after all and so surely the display will show a negative number if the leads are reversed just like any other DMM?