Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

Yes you have to say stop at some point. I have no love affair for this thing and am not an audio guy.

Even once I had disconnected the secondary, the transformer still blows the fuse ! I am not going to rewind this transformer...

I would throw it in the trash in anger, but they sell for a lot of money when working, so a parts unit in decent nick will probably get me at least 50 Euros which is better than nothing.
It was donated to me, cost me nothing, so any money it makes is 100% profit.

[PA0PBZ]

Even once I had disconnected the secondary, the transformer still blows the fuse ! I am not going to rewind this transformer...

Right, then it's a different story and time to say goodbye.

[TERRA Operative]

You're just not stubborn enough Vince!

Need to start googling how to rewind a transformer, and start counting turns...    

[Vince]

Terra, as I am getting older I am finally starting to realize just how precious time is !
For this reason I want to reduce as much as possible the time spent fixing other people's consumer junk.

As for my own stuff, I am getting more and more critical about what piece of TE I buy, and what I keep.
First because of space constraints, I am full, and because it takes time and money fixing stuff.. time and money that I can't use for other TE, or other activities in the lab.

So in short I am now choosing my battles more carefully !

I don't mind spending months and dozens of hours working on my little Rochar Nksee DVM, because I love it to bits and it's super rare and I really, really want to have it working properly so I can give it a permanent spot in the lab and actually use it.

But this old QUAD amp is not my cup of tea, so it's best if I sell it to someone who will care about it and appreciate it more than I do... I feel.

[TERRA Operative]

Ooh, I'm hearing you in crystal clear hi-fi stereo sound, I am of the exact same opinion.

I am currently in the process of fixing and adjusting all my gear (it gets easier as I get more and more stuff working, as I can use it to adjust the next piece of gear ) so I can sell a whole bunch off.
I think I'll end up selling off around 3/4 of my gear and still have a lab to impress, I just have that much gear. Hahaha.

My next goal once I have sold of a heap of stuff is to look in to acquiring a Tek 7000 series scope. They seem a bit more bench-space friendly than the 500/600/700 series scopes....

(Don't worry, your scope is still reserved here. )

[SilverSolder]

Terra, as I am getting older I am finally starting to realize just how precious time is !
For this reason I want to reduce as much as possible the time spent fixing other people's consumer junk.

As for my own stuff, I am getting more and more critical about what piece of TE I buy, and what I keep.
First because of space constraints, I am full, and because it takes time and money fixing stuff.. time and money that I can't use for other TE, or other activities in the lab.

So in short I am now choosing my battles more carefully !

I don't mind spending months and dozens of hours working on my little Rochar Nksee DVM, because I love it to bits and it's super rare and I really, really want to have it working properly so I can give it a permanent spot in the lab and actually use it.

But this old QUAD amp is not my cup of tea, so it's best if I sell it to someone who will care about it and appreciate it more than I do... I feel.

I'm beginning to finally "get it" too...  i.e. there are only so many hours in a day, and if you aren't careful with what you allow to occupy your time...  you can end up wasting a lot of it.

[Neomys Sapiens]

My next goal once I have sold of a heap of stuff is to look in to acquiring a Tek 7000 series scope. They seem a bit more bench-space friendly than the 500/600/700 series scopes....

Oooh, tension rising...
 
With your luck in aquisitions, I'll bet it will be not one of the pedestrian ones. And it will probably lead to the aquisition of rarely seen modules too!

[psykok]

Terra, as I am getting older I am finally starting to realize just how precious time is !
For this reason I want to reduce as much as possible the time spent fixing other people's consumer junk.

As for my own stuff, I am getting more and more critical about what piece of TE I buy, and what I keep.
First because of space constraints, I am full, and because it takes time and money fixing stuff.. time and money that I can't use for other TE, or other activities in the lab.

So in short I am now choosing my battles more carefully !

I don't mind spending months and dozens of hours working on my little Rochar Nksee DVM, because I love it to bits and it's super rare and I really, really want to have it working properly so I can give it a permanent spot in the lab and actually use it.

But this old QUAD amp is not my cup of tea, so it's best if I sell it to someone who will care about it and appreciate it more than I do... I feel.

Time is everything !

I started to have thee same kind of approach on my side.
Too many projects and not enough time to take care of everything.

Therefore I started to reduce massively my amount  of open things to do and specially stoped hunting for creasy unrepairable items.
Kipping focus on things you really want to do and also TE you are using, helped me a lot to start sorting and cleaning.

Workshop space is also another factor which will hit you really  quickly  when you start to have to many things :D

[factory]

The good news is the Rotek 350 seems to be functioning OK, the fan could be with oiling, just need a better current source than the HP 6920B.

I did have a look inside before testing to confirm the unlabelled BNC was a modification, it's wired to the cable that would have gone out the back panel, to the matching Rotek calibrator. Also checked the high current sockets and they are the 50A version of Supercon Superexpensive. 







David

[factory]

And some bad news, the HP 3330B seems in a bad way.



First HP TE I've found with six feet, instead of the usual four or five. 



Visual checks found a coax cable stuffed behind the transformer, no RIFAs for change, possible tin whisker problem on some parts, I didn't pull many of the cards for pictures (too many & not enough time), the digital ones are a pain to remove.



The two power supply boards.





The PROM madness board, what are the chances of no bit rot problems here. 



A close up of the tin whisker problem, will need a clean at some point.





Power up and we had random dots on the displays and after a minute or so I could smell something getting toasted.



Turned out to be the driver trannystor for the +5V digital side, it had got very hot, enough to affect the PCB material, not good.  It looked perfect a few days ago, it will go into storage next time I visit, as I have enough things in bits here.





David

[factory]

Back to the HP 5090 receiver 198kHz conversion board project, I fitted the remaining parts this afternoon, I tested the PSU section before fitting the rest of the ICs.



For testing I used the 1MHz output of the Racal counter for the 2kHz divider stage, fitted a random ferrite antenna (probably the wrong one for LW), the 2kHz is the only bit I had working, I suspect the antenna coil is a MW one, or there is too much interference due to it being evening when I tested this and all the RF noisy modern crap is swamping the signal. 





Need to try again during daylight hours.

The Radcom project my board is based on; https://archive.org/details/RadCom_Magazine_1989-11/page/n73/mode/2up

David

[TERRA Operative]

My next goal once I have sold of a heap of stuff is to look in to acquiring a Tek 7000 series scope. They seem a bit more bench-space friendly than the 500/600/700 series scopes....

Oooh, tension rising...
 
With your luck in aquisitions, I'll bet it will be not one of the pedestrian ones. And it will probably lead to the aquisition of rarely seen modules too!

I should clarify. I already have a 7704A mainfraime with a few plugins, but it's too damn big.

I'm looking to move up to a TDS7000 series scope! 

[wolfy007]

Be careful with the TDS7000 series, many have acquisition board problems, many with bad trigger chips....   (hard to get chips) 

[TERRA Operative]

Ah, it's not a similar overheating issue like the trigger chips in the TDS694C is it?

[Neomys Sapiens]

My next goal once I have sold of a heap of stuff is to look in to acquiring a Tek 7000 series scope. They seem a bit more bench-space friendly than the 500/600/700 series scopes....

Oooh, tension rising...
 
With your luck in aquisitions, I'll bet it will be not one of the pedestrian ones. And it will probably lead to the aquisition of rarely seen modules too!

I should clarify. I already have a 7704A mainfraime with a few plugins, but it's too damn big.

I'm looking to move up to a TDS7000 series scope! 

That is of course the far more practical decision. Although I'm content for now with my TDS5104.
If you have built up a good collection of probes using the TekProbeII interface (like the TDS6xx), you might consider a 5000 on the reason of compatibility.

[TERRA Operative]

True re. probes, although there are Tekprobe to TekConnect adapters that pop up on Yahoo Auctions from time to time. One or two of those will keep me going with my older probes.


Anyway, it's a pipedream at the moment. I gotta sell some crap first.

[Ice-Tea]

Sold a 11729C carrier noise test set. As it had been sitting on the shelf for a bit, powered it up. And sure enough: something goes pop. Not the obligatory Schaeffner for once, but the results are the same.



Or almost. No need to dump the entire filter and the insides of the unit are not coverd in boiling epoxy. So yay.



Powers up again after replacing the fuse.



Obligatory insides shot.

[TERRA Operative]

Yay! The 74HCT4158 chips sent by BU508A for my Tek AFG5101 Option 01 board just arrived today! 

So, once I soldered the last few passives in and cleaned the PCB, In they went along with all the rest of the chips save the one last that I'm still waiting on.

Big thanks to BU508A, now I can measure a baseline for this circuit and then see how it behaves when I swap the HCT series chips for non-TTL HC series chips to see if it'll still work.
Fingers crossed it does, as the HC series are still available but the HCT seem to be obsolete everywhere... (hence the help from BU508A in sourcing them).

So, now to wait for the last chip, then I can see if this board will even actually work.... 

[Vince]

Ah, it's not a similar overheating issue like the trigger chips in the TDS694C is it?

It is, from I gathered years ago.

When I learned that one could fix his TDS694C trigger chips by salvaging these same chips from a 7000 series scope, I though wow cool, some hope to fix my scope !
The realized

1) these 7000 scopes are even rarer than a 694C
2) their trigger chips suffer from the same overheating issue and drop like flies just like in a 694C
3) even if I could find a spare acquisition board from 7000 series with good trigger chips.... that board alone cost as much as a WORKING 694C ! 

So one day I will try the usual 694C hack, and swap the bad chips with the two "spare" ones on the board... not much to lose.

[DC1MC]

Somebody was cured by TEA and finally decided to get rid of everything, enjoy:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=87101374

(Germanians mostly  )

Cheers,
DC1MC

[McBryce]

Somebody was cured by TEA and finally decided to get rid of everything, enjoy:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=87101374

(Germanians mostly  )

Cheers,
DC1MC

He's being a bit optimistic with his prices don't you think?

McBryce.

[DC1MC]

Somebody was cured by TEA and finally decided to get rid of everything, enjoy:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=87101374

(Germanians mostly  )

Cheers,
DC1MC

He's being a bit optimistic with his prices don't you think?

McBryce.

Overly optimistic on some things I say, barely acceptable on others, but these are starting prices, so if one is interest doesn't cost too much to drop an inquiry.
I'm preparing to do the same, it seems that I will only afford in near future something like a suitcase laboratory, but I don't think that someone will come to Mannheim to get my stuff in a Transporter. And my prices are rock bottom, "just get it and do something with it, if you sell it keep 30% of the profit and send me the rest to be able to feed my cat". Not many takers, even if actually I have some reasonable quality stuff, mostly working as intended.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC


 

[Specmaster]

@Vince
Re Quad amp, what is the voltage of that suspected secondary winding supposed to be? It might not be shorted, there is a possible overload on the PCB as that is where the resistor is that has expired, I don't really see how a shorted secondary winding would cause the resistor to burn out as the winding is before the resistor surely? If you know what the voltage of the circuit rail that secondary was feeding, power it up using a bench supply in current limit mode and trace the voltage trail  to see if you can pinpoint the faulty item.

Those amps in working order are worth good money.

[Robert763]

Back to the HP 5090 receiver 198kHz conversion board project, I fitted the remaining parts this afternoon, I tested the PSU section before fitting the rest of the ICs.



For testing I used the 1MHz output of the Racal counter for the 2kHz divider stage, fitted a random ferrite antenna (probably the wrong one for LW), the 2kHz is the only bit I had working, I suspect the antenna coil is a MW one, or there is too much interference due to it being evening when I tested this and all the RF noisy modern crap is swamping the signal. 





Need to try again during daylight hours.

The Radcom project my board is based on; https://archive.org/details/RadCom_Magazine_1989-11/page/n73/mode/2up

David

I finally posted the 5090A today, work being mad last week and the PO sunt without notice on Saturday conspired against me.

[RolandK]

Somebody was cured by TEA and finally decided to get rid of everything, enjoy:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=87101374

(Germanians mostly  )

Cheers,
DC1MC

He's being a bit optimistic with his prices don't you think?

McBryce.

I had been at his storages - his grandfather had contracts with Grundig, which they didn't pay when they closed the factory. He got a container full of their factory test equipment and stored it in his garage .

I helped his grandson unpacking about 10 palett-boxes which were in storage for about 25 years (Calibration until 1997/01). I bought some stuff which interested me and where the price was acceptable . There were a lot of other things (10x more than in the ebay-kleinanzeigen ), but he wanted for many things much to much, which is a good thing or i would have a container full, on the other hand, a lot of special TV testequiment isn't asked for anymore.

Just got a ESI decavider DV411, a GR 1433-B decade resistor (complete, but a lot of work to clean and lubricate , not in perfect condition as he stated ), a double power design 2005A for 220V , 2 grundig variable isolation transformers (he can source the market for the next 10 years), some grundig nf millivoltmeters with integrated scope (don't ask, he has no more ), 2 grundig power supplies. He is good in telling how perfect and wonderful the things are . But they were stored for 25 years and are in the state as they come out of storage - which is what we want, but we only want to pay for that.

For some of the stuff he had an interessent, who wanted to pay more then me, but wanted them by parcel. So the seller called me. I was on the autobahn to go skiing just before munich. So i turned arround at the next exit, drove back to ulm and had some very interesting exprience for 3 hours  and then an empty bank account and a full car. When i had the things in the car, the other guy called, that he would come the next day for pick up - to late for the special things - but there was even plenty other.