Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[dl6lr]

I contacted that guy immediately after he posted the ad with €550,-. He responded after two days and increased the price to €750,-. I already had my colleague ready for pick up.

Really ?!? What an Arschloch  , and full idiot as well, this blatant shite rarely works overall and definitely doesn't in Germany, where "ein Mann, ein Wort" still has some power. But let him wait 750 days, this is no iPhone, I have a feeling that 95% of potential customers customers are here and have seen this asocial behavior.
@dl6lr I still can make him a 500€ 'Angebote and if we meet in the middle (550  ) you can send your friend to pick it up, let me know if I should do it.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

Well, to just fast forward to the end:

After November 1st where he suddenly increased the price, the seller did not respond to any offers from me. DC1MC contacted him and started negotiation. After he settled a deal, the seller messaged him again that the negotiated price is not valid any more because DC1MC mentioned DL0JZ where I was team member.

So I am out, uninterested in this kind of "BUSINESS".

[factory]

Do you need some cable to go with it, needs quite thin stuff?

David

Before I need anything I have to check the trafo.
Original fuse was out so who knows what the reality is, and of course the thing is packed away, not far though.

If trafo is sane I'll accept the new connector, if you think you won't have the rainy day one day.

Trafo tested, seems to be ok.
Found 20mm holder and removed its chassis, bent pins and it's in.
Had only T fuses in hand so smallest, 160mA is in place.

Suitable wired test pins emerged from old hard disk power extension thingy.
Some twist, some tin, cut ends, file corners and it's like a new.
Keep in mind that newer extension may have thicker wires.

Not because of this but low ohms is a bit off, short is around 4.

I've sent you a PM, now I've found a box to send the connector, assuming you still need it.

David

[DC1MC]

...
Well, to just fast forward to the end:

After November 1st where he suddenly increased the price, the seller did not respond to any offers from me. DC1MC contacted him and started negotiation. After he settled a deal, the seller messaged him again that the negotiated price is not valid any more because DC1MC mentioned DL0JZ where I was team member.

So I am out, uninterested in this kind of "BUSINESS".

Well, you can have this cute Tek for way less money, and it has a history:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/oszilloscope-tektronix-rhode-schwarz-t912-2-kanal-speicher/2269442195-168-1861



Cheers,
DC1MC

P.S. Just for completion: I'm not affiliated with any of those (grumpy) sellers !!!

[Peter_O]

For that money I bought a 475A recently.   

[DC1MC]

For that money I bought a 475A recently.   

Is there a place in Germany that sells 475A for 45EUR !!! I must know about it now 

[Peter_O]

For that money I bought a 475A recently.   

Is there a place in Germany that sells 475A for 45EUR !!! I must know about it now 

OK. It was 60 Euros. 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg4466350/#msg4466350

[Vince]

Today I am a happy camper. I just successfully upgraded my TDS210 scope to a TDS220.
Just needed a couple GPIB commands and then a full calibration, so I used my PS5004 (TM5000) Precision Power Supply for the DC voltages needed, my SG503 Levelled Sine Wave Generator for the high frequencies and my HP 3325A Function Generator referenced to my 34461A 6.5 Digit Multimeter for the lowest frequencies that the SG503 couldn't get down to.

Oops somehow I missed that post of yours !
Wow that's really cool, interesting, thanks for the info 

I do want a TDS220 at some point, but here 99% of TDS2XX for sale are the basic TDS210.
So that means I can get a TDS210 now, knowing I can upgrade it so easily !

[Ice-Tea]

Bad display. The display is connected to the driver board with zebra strips vertically and a flex that's coiled up a bit and is supposed to connect act as a spring and connect like this.

Sadly, it has caused both the flex and "landing" pads to rub away over time...

[Vince]

A bit ironic for this " Video Signal Generator "... to itself have video problems of its own !

[Ice-Tea]

Even worse: no VGA output.

[factory]

Adds Fluke to my do-not-buy list....                       ..... oh wait they are already there, because of the horrid 123 things. 

David

[factory]

Collected my six auction lots from PP yesterday, had enough of the A500/A50 (roads) for at least six months.

Here is the Rotek 350 high current adaptor (similar to one I used at work), I didn't win the calibrator that it could have been used with, the main calibrator would only be good for 1A-ish output, the adaptor gives 10A output and 50A (AC only) on the big sockets.



Turning it around there appears to be something missing, I'm sure the one at work had a connector to go between the calibrator & adaptor, this has nothing but an empty slot on the back.  Maybe the input has been reconnected to the unlabelled BNC on the front panel, needs further investigation.



Inside there is a lot of empty space at the back, fan might have been replaced as only two screws are fitted, along with some dropper resistors ready to drop off the back of the IEC block.  Can't see any RIFAs for a change.





Looks like it got repaired in the 90s, two of the power trannystors have been replaced.



Removing the internal cover, the power transformer, rectifier & Mallory can caps take up most of one side.





The other side has the +/-15V supply & amplifier control board, with bodge? wire running across the board.





The middle has the 50A output transformer and Dale four terminal sense resistor.





The 50A output connectors are some variant of Supercon from Superior Electric, need to measure the diameter to find out if they are 50A or 100A sockets, noting the Rotek at work had the 100A AC option.



David

[factory]

Extra pictures for above....

[psykok]

Geez, just back from work, checking Leboncoin.fr , what do I see ?! FRUSTRATION !! Nothing but ... FRUSTRATION !

[...}

Then, even worse....

That really nice Rochar Neeksee DMM Factory just found, that I have never seen before, guess what ? YES, one just popped here today ! You just can't make that up ! And only 10 Euros as well, not the usual 100/150 BS !! BUT !!!.... the very title of the ad says it's reserved for some guy by the name of " Rémy " already !!! 

Life sucks, we all know that. It sucks big time. It's unfair, it's unjust, it's mean, it's brutal, disgusting, useless, worthless, it's a joke we are all forced into without our explicit consent. It's a tragedy.

However, within that severely depressing reality, there are still here and there, well hidden, scarcely distributed..... tiny islands, tiny pockets, tiny bubbles... of goodness. Bubbles that no matter how rare and tiny, somehow manage to make us feel this stupid life might actually be worth living, after all.

No, I didn't mean to post this on Philosophy_Anonymous, though I am sure there must be such a forum on the interweb somewhere.

No, I sure did mean to post on TEA and nowhere else...

That Rochar DMM that popped up yesterday that said it was reserved to "Rémy"... well I am back home from work and I ran my daily search for stuff and go figure, this ad popped up again ?!

[url]https://www.leboncoin.fr/collection/2251436987.htm[/url]

Why did it get relisted (this morning at 8H40)... hmmm.... so I had a closer look at it. I noticed that somehow the seller modified the title of the ad, it now made NO mention of being reserved for Rémy.. or anybody else for that matter !  I clicked on the ad to read the full description.... still no mention of the thing being reserved... and it even said the guy is willing to ship ?!

Better yet, guy enabled the "Buy" button, so yes, sure enough I clicked on that button ! 
... expecting the guy to reply sorry it's reserved, or already sold during the course of today.... but no, guy was online and replied to me within 10 seconds, was baffled. Said " yes it's still available but it's heavy at 10kg !! ". I said what do you care, I have already paid for shipping, just send the stupid thing and HURRY UP !!! 
Then he said "sorry but with bank holiday then the week-end, I probably won't be able to send it before Saturday or even Monday next week ! "

THAT'S FINE DUDE ! AS LONG AS I DO ACTUALLY GET THIS THING, I AM HAPPY

Yes, I can't quite believe it... I was so depressed yesterday about not being able to buy it... and just 24H later so overjoyed that the wind changed and it's now soon to be mine, for only 10 Euros (+12 Euros for shipping & fees) at that !!! 

OK it looks really dirty, like it sat in a barn for 30 years... but looking at all the pics, it looks like there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, cosmetic-wise, it should clean up decently well, not too worried. As far as electrical condition, given the pics and what the guy says, we know it powers up, that all display tubes are bright and working, and that the  guts of the meter basically work since the guy managed to measure some voltage with it. Connected it to a 9V battery... reads 6.5V. That's fine.... who cares....it's got to be fixable.

I just can't wait to receive this thing, a fourth Rochar Neeksee piece of TE in my collection ! 

Obviously the lack of any technical information on this thing, will make it a challenge to fix.
So no doubt that there are countless hours of reverse engineering and probing around and trial and error and experimenting... ahead.
That's fine, that's how you build a strong, durable relationship with your TE ! 

Plus, since Factory has the exact same instrument, with the same plugin type as well in it... hopefully we will be able to help each other and get both our units working just fine 

What's more ? Believe it or not... today is my birthday !!!    Not even kidding ! 45 today...
So no doubt this Rochar and me were MEANT to meet... it was our destiny, it's no coincidence 
It must be a birthday present sent from outer space, from Elektronika, the goddess of all things TE 

Sorry for the length... it's just that I am so happy to have managed to make this puppy mine, needed to share the joy that's filling my little heart right now ! 

It's an anonymous therapy group after all, so it's perfectly fitting...

Amazing that you got it, I was about to buy it because I  got another DC Meter from the same seller 2 days before ... a Solartron lm 1420

[Vince]

Well, what a coincidence.... allow me to follow in Factory's foot steps and add my 2 cents worth of vintage power stuff, that I have been working on yesterday and today. Am just finished, now ready to post about it 

So last evening  I decided to start tackling the stuff I got in my big haul 2 weeks ago.
I have a "black box" that I decided to take home purely for parts. It's unbranded, not a even a front panel to speak of, it just looked like some kind of custom, special purpose power supply module... .I thought I could salvage the power components from it.

So I did that yesterday.

Lots of cool stuff :

- 2 big ass heat sinks, with cool threaded metal inserts embedded on their ends, where the enclosure screws into. The heatsink are actually the sides of the enclosure itself, they ARE the sides... clever.  This way the rest of the enclosure is just a 'U' shaped thick piece of aluminium, and at the top, a grilled panel for convective passive cooling.

- On each heatsink, x4 2N4347 TO3 NPN trannies, 120V 5A, so X8 total.
- x10 sub ohm wire-wound  resistors : x4 0.1R + x4 0.27R + x2 0.47R
- x8 beefy stud diodes / rectifiers : 1N3880R, 100V 6A  . Date codes say year 1974.
- x2 big ass filter caps, made by SAFCO, must be top notch stuff then, I guess.... so will keep them.


Then inside, there are 2 circuit boards. One looks to be for voltage regulation, the other more a power interface board to drive the power trannystors.

On these boards I got :

- A metal cased, luxurious looking trim pot
- x7 plastic trimmers of a kind I have never seen before. They are sealed / potted underneath, and the knob at the top has.. .DETENTS ?! 
Wow.... never seen such refinement in a trimmer.
- x2 cute little red anodized heat sinks for TO39 metal transistors.
- x2 LM305H Vreg , cute T039 with gold plated leads. Datasheet says 4.5V to 40V... not sure how useful is that, but I will keep them anyway because as always, these old voltage regulators look so sexy. Plus, you never know, maybe one day I will need one to fix some vintage piece of TE some day.
- x4 TO3 2N3055, made by RCA. So the good quality old 2N3055, not the modern shitty ones they manufacture these days. So I will treasure these.




Then this evening I realized how stupid I was.... got a Eureka moment and decided there was an obvious and much better thing to do with this old PSU... suddenly scrapping the enclosure was not an option anymore, at all.

My electronic load... now that I have debugged it and this "prototype" / concept is now proven to work, I now need to put it together nicely so I can actually use it ! Need an enclosure for it, to hold everything tidily and safely, make it a practical TE.

Well.... this old PSU I just took apart would make a lovely case !   
It looks nice, black anodized, sturdy, with x8 holes at the front already (where the stud diodes used to be mounted), that I could use as a front panel to put binding posts, switches, and the panel mount 10 turn pot.
I could reuse the two massive heat sinks (required anyway since they are a structural part of the enclosure), and this way have a gigantic amount of cooling = the big heat sink I am using on my prototype currently weighs 260g , but the ones in the PSU are about 30% larger in all 3 dimensions, and have more fins. They weigh 860g each so 1720g of metal in total, about 7 times more than the other heat sink ! 
I could put my 3 IRF 630 MOSFET on one heat sink..... and put 3 more (have plenty of them) on the other H/S .... could make for a REAL BEEFY load !!!    Something I could rely on, that won't boil or explode...

Inside, the two boards were inserted nicely on vertical guides.

So.... I stripped the PSU from everything. All wires, can caps etc... then gave it a good clean.
Cleaned the H/S as well.

Now I have a marvelous enclosure, ready for me to make a kick ass electronic load with !!! 




All I have to do is design a board of my own, inspired by Zoli's design / schematic, that would slide into these vertical guides. Neat.
Then put a few WW 0.1R resistors in // for a chunky bullet proof current shunt.
Then add my 10 turn pot on the front panel, jacks to connect the load and the power supply to power the board inside.
Since that load would be able to deal with literally tens of amps, I could also add a switch at the front, to select from a few current ranges, I don't know, something like : 1A max, 5A max, 10A max, and 50A max. The switch would wire a different feedback resistor for the shunt amplifier.

Two benefits :

1) It would make it impossible to accidentally vastly overload / cause damage to the device under test.
2) It would increase the current resolution of the 10 turn pot. On the 50A range, would not be easy to finely control the current under 500mA say... but doing so on a 1A range would be perfect of course.

Oh yeah I like where this load project is going !!

Let's to it !!!

All I need to buy is a few good quality binding posts. Getting the PCB manufactured would be cheap I guess, being only single sided and the board not too large. Not tiny either, but not super large either.

Any objection  to this project ? A fundamental flaw, an elephant in the room that I failed to see ?!

I am excited !! 

[Vince]

...

[psykok]

Last week I got a new Nixie toy : a Tekelec Aitronic Te 370 Multimeter

I managed to fixed the instrument and also solved the wiring of the odd db9 input connector.
Unfortunately  one of the ZM 1005 tube was dead. I just need to find a replacement for a decent  price.

[Vgkid]

Nice score Vince with the psu .Good job psykok  with the Tekelec Multimeter.
Edit: fixed users, thanks Vince.

[Vince]

Yes, I can't quite believe it... I was so depressed yesterday about not being able to buy it... and just 24H later so overjoyed that the wind changed and it's now soon to be mine, for only 10 Euros (+12 Euros for shipping & fees) at that !!! 

Amazing that you got it, I was about to by it because I  got another DC Meter from the same seller 2 days before ... a Solartron lm 1420

Well I HOPE I will get it...... but I am getting worried now, because it's been shipped 7 days ago (via Mondial Relais ) and it's still in transit !
LBC said that Mondial Relais is having problems currently, so I hope they will not lose my box, and that it will arrive intact ! 
I am scared....

[Vince]

Nice score Vince with the psu , and Tekelec Multimeter

The Tekelec meter it's Psykok not me ! 

[KG7AMV]

Oopsie!!!

[tautech]

Oopsie!!!

X Plus, HD or 5kX. 

[TERRA Operative]

Today I am a happy camper. I just successfully upgraded my TDS210 scope to a TDS220.
Just needed a couple GPIB commands and then a full calibration, so I used my PS5004 (TM5000) Precision Power Supply for the DC voltages needed, my SG503 Levelled Sine Wave Generator for the high frequencies and my HP 3325A Function Generator referenced to my 34461A 6.5 Digit Multimeter for the lowest frequencies that the SG503 couldn't get down to.

Oops somehow I missed that post of yours !
Wow that's really cool, interesting, thanks for the info 

I do want a TDS220 at some point, but here 99% of TDS2XX for sale are the basic TDS210.
So that means I can get a TDS210 now, knowing I can upgrade it so easily !

Yep, you just need a good somewhat precision DC power supply and a leveled sinewave generator (or a way to measure the output of a function gen to adjust the level) good to 100MHz.

And if you get the cheaper TDS2CM communications addon module, it's a simple process to upgrade it to a TDS2MM math module that gives you FFT function and rise/fall time measurements and stuff.
I recently made a video on that, check my youtube to see.

[Vince]

Today I am a happy camper. I just successfully upgraded my TDS210 scope to a TDS220.
Just needed a couple GPIB commands and then a full calibration, so I used my PS5004 (TM5000) Precision Power Supply for the DC voltages needed, my SG503 Levelled Sine Wave Generator for the high frequencies and my HP 3325A Function Generator referenced to my 34461A 6.5 Digit Multimeter for the lowest frequencies that the SG503 couldn't get down to.

Oops somehow I missed that post of yours !
Wow that's really cool, interesting, thanks for the info 

I do want a TDS220 at some point, but here 99% of TDS2XX for sale are the basic TDS210.
So that means I can get a TDS210 now, knowing I can upgrade it so easily !

Yep, you just need a good somewhat precision DC power supply and a leveled sinewave generator (or a way to measure the output of a function gen to adjust the level) good to 100MHz.

And if you get the cheaper TDS2CM communications addon module, it's a simple process to upgrade it to a TDS2MM math module that gives you FFT function and rise/fall time measurements and stuff.
I recently made a video on that, check my youtube to see.

Oh yes I vividly remember you posting here about that video not so long ago ! I did watch it with great interest... 

[psykok]

Yes, I can't quite believe it... I was so depressed yesterday about not being able to buy it... and just 24H later so overjoyed that the wind changed and it's now soon to be mine, for only 10 Euros (+12 Euros for shipping & fees) at that !!! 

Amazing that you got it, I was about to by it because I  got another DC Meter from the same seller 2 days before ... a Solartron lm 1420

Well I HOPE I will get it...... but I am getting worried now, because it's been shipped 7 days ago (via Mondial Relais ) and it's still in transit !
LBC said that Mondial Relais is having problems currently, so I hope they will not lose my box, and that it will arrive intact ! 
I am scared....

Mondialrelay is struggling  a lot these days.
One of my delivery  took 5 weeks to arrive

The vendor did a good job on the packaging and the heavy Solartron Voltmeter arrived in one piece.