Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[SeanB]

Yes, had those at previous job, and the record for destroying one was 2 hours.......

[Ice-Tea]

Turns ou these hings have a weight limit for  a reason.

Who knew. 

No problem at all to get 1 dozen modern instruments on these trolleys without challenging their weight limit. 

So, that's 1 to operate and another 11 as spares?

....

I'll show myself out.

[Vince]

Vince,
Don't buy TE while you are ill.
If looking at a 4W DMM consider the Fluke 8845 and various Keitleys (not just the 2000, I like my 199, 5-3/4 digit 299999 count 4W, LED and I only paid £125).
Get well soon and good work by the boss sending you home.

Robert G8RPI.

Feeling half decent now, I feel enough energy to do some typing !

4W meters : thanks people for the replies.
No I am not buying anything while ill.. or not ill either. Still have a gaping 6,000 euros hole in my bank account, slowly filling up now I got a new job, but will take at least a year... but more like 3 because I still need to finance the construction of the garage. So need to do two contradictory things at the same time.... not spend, so I can fill the hole/pit, yet I do need to spend for the garage... so the compromise is to fill the hole as much as I can right now, and when spring comes, dig again in that hole to pour the concrete slab, the fill the hole partially again... then erect the walls, rinse and repeat... then when the garage is finished I can fill the hole one and for hole and be done with my debt.

Anyway, that means I am responsible enough not to spend any 3 digit money on anything for the lab.
The only purchases I allow myself, as usual are the occasional low two digit sums for that cool rare piece of vintage TE that comes along, because when you see it you know you will never see another one in a reasonable time frame, or maybe not for as cheap or as good a condition... so, that's why I still allow myself small expenses for rare vintage stuff, and a few Euros to restore them.
But for anything that is more much easily available , and is more expensive to boot, it's a definite no-no.

I don't want a bench meter to have 4W, but I do want my future bench meter to have 4W... if that makes sense.
My main goal with a bench meter is to have at least one very accurate voltmeter in the lab, and since these cost money, I would rather want it to do 4W as well for increased bang for buck, so that I don't have to buy yet another meter just for that (that would take extra space as well)

Robert, the Fluke model you suggested costs 1,500 Euros !  Are you trying to bankrupt me more than I already am ?!
I guess you meant to say the older models like Spec mentioned afterwards...

[Vince]

Testing was done with a 60W lamp limiter in series with the mains, to allow any caps to reform and not burn up the transformer if they decide to short.
All seemed to be functioning OK, last two digits are a bit unstable.
With the lamp limiter switch in bypass mode, we have a problem, it goes into max count in the 20000 check position and reads incorrectly, guessing the PSU is not regulating properly. 



David

Thanks for the piccies ! 
I know what to expect now.... and I am already very pleased with  what I see : PCB look more modern than my other Rocha DVM I am working on at the moment : brown opaque board with traces and pads that come off and self destruct almost every time,. Also 10% of the solder joints that look fine but aren't because the tinning they are grabbing onto... separated from he bare copper of the pads/tracks, making unreliable contacts with no visual clue whatsoever. I have lost my sanity over these freaking boards !

But not so there... we have fancy modern... Fiber glass boards.

First, you can see the traces through it which is a huge help when trying to reverse-engineer the board to identify components to figure out where it is that you need to stick your scope probe or DMM to...
I also expect / hope that they also improved on the two other issues, with better quality glue and tinning process.

So right there I would expect this meter to be much reliable and easier to fix than my other Rochar DVM.


Geez the rotary switch in that plugin is a mile-long ! Starting to understand why it takes so much force to rotate it...

Glad that your unit basically worked out of the box ! Looks really nice once cleaned up and all lit up showing ... 25,000 counts !  

Hopefully you can fix that  without too much trouble.... keep us posted on that front of course, I am curious ! 

[Vince]

Turns ou these hings have a weight limit for  a reason.

Who knew. 

With your new workshop and your side business ramping up... you need to start getting professional tools to match, and that includes trolleys ! 
Need a trolley with marge diameters wheels with inflatable tires or soft rubber compound,  Should make the ride smoother on that paved surface = more comfortable for your, and the gear not bouncing around as much hence safer as well as less likely fall off the trolley during the trip. Will probably make it easier on your back as well.

Yes, you need to do some research and invest some money in a nice trolley. 

[Vince]

A couple more bits arrived today for the Tek TDS Scope calibration PC. 

Got a 17" 1280x1024 LCD monitor in practically mint condition for 2000yen-ish, no yellowing on it at all.
Then a 2m National Instruments GPIB cable arrived and the HP 10834A GPIB extender arrived too, to give me clearance from the rear of the PC case. The cable cost somewhat less than 3000yen shipped, and the extender cost about 2500yen, not bad when they are around 8000yen new. 

So all I need now is a replacement slimline floppy drive (just won an auction now) and this PC is complete on the hardware side.
It's running MS-DOS 6.22 at the moment, but I want to dual-boot to something to let me take advantage of the 1Gb RAM, dual 600MHz Pentium III CPU's and the Quadro FX3000 GPU. Maybe XP for some good retro gaming action........ 

Oh thanks, so that's what it looks like when it WORKS .... a nice green colour for starters.. not purple and red like I got back then !

[Robert763]

<SNIP>

Robert, the Fluke model you suggested costs 1,500 Euros !  Are you trying to bankrupt me more than I already am ?!
I guess you meant to say the older models like Spec mentioned afterwards...

The Fluke 8845 I bought was only £310 inc shipping. 

[Robert763]

Turns ou these hings have a weight limit for  a reason.

Who knew. 

You will need better than that for your PP delivery 
Those castors doo seem to be made out of particuarly thin metal.

[Vince]

<SNIP>

Robert, the Fluke model you suggested costs 1,500 Euros !  Are you trying to bankrupt me more than I already am ?!
I guess you meant to say the older models like Spec mentioned afterwards...

The Fluke 8845 I bought was only £310 inc shipping. 

That's not fair.....

[AVGresponding]

Heheh... Nothing to get you guys worked up about. 3 5kW UPS's ;-)

I can confirm this is true. I don't get worked up until the UPS is at least 20kVA, and I don't get excited unless it's over 100kVA.

[tautech]

Turns ou these hings have a weight limit for  a reason.

Who knew. 

No problem at all to get 1 dozen modern instruments on these trolleys without challenging their weight limit. 

So, that's 1 to operate and another 11 as spares?

....

I'll show myself out.

Best you do as they were all different.
EMEX 2022 Auckland.

[TERRA Operative]

Heheh... Nothing to get you guys worked up about. 3 5kW UPS's ;-)

I think you might need a stronger daisha, the ones we use in the datacenter are good to about 300kg, but we sometimes load them up with a pile of storage servers full of 3.5" hard drives and push them to 400kg, the wheel bearings don't complain tooooo much.

[TERRA Operative]

A couple more bits arrived today for the Tek TDS Scope calibration PC. 

Got a 17" 1280x1024 LCD monitor in practically mint condition for 2000yen-ish, no yellowing on it at all.
Then a 2m National Instruments GPIB cable arrived and the HP 10834A GPIB extender arrived too, to give me clearance from the rear of the PC case. The cable cost somewhat less than 3000yen shipped, and the extender cost about 2500yen, not bad when they are around 8000yen new. 

So all I need now is a replacement slimline floppy drive (just won an auction now) and this PC is complete on the hardware side.
It's running MS-DOS 6.22 at the moment, but I want to dual-boot to something to let me take advantage of the 1Gb RAM, dual 600MHz Pentium III CPU's and the Quadro FX3000 GPU. Maybe XP for some good retro gaming action........ 

Oh thanks, so that's what it looks like when it WORKS .... a nice green colour for starters.. not purple and red like I got back then !

I have a feeling that each scope gets it's own software colour scheme to keep things interesting. I'll have to install more and see the full rainbow.

Time to get my levelled sinewave generators polished up and I'm nearly ready to try a calibration.
I think I'll try it on one of the scopes earmarked for sale before I do it on my good scopes.....

[Neomys Sapiens]

As I have promised months ago, I have created a first version on the Wandel & Goltermann document on communication transmission measurements. It is just a scan, I will create an OCR version when I get around to it.
As it is nearly 10MB, I've uploaded it to KO4BB. If someone needs it and can't get it from there, PM me.
(attached is just the title page and contents)

[VK5RC]

Edit - too boring a post

[Ice-Tea]

Heheh... Nothing to get you guys worked up about. 3 5kW UPS's ;-)

I can confirm this is true. I don't get worked up until the UPS is at least 20kVA, and I don't get excited unless it's over 100kVA.

Sooo... got three. Which makes 15kVA. Getting close, eh?

Turns ou these hings have a weight limit for  a reason.

Who knew. 

You will need better than that for your PP delivery 
Those castors doo seem to be made out of particuarly thin metal.

Yeah, I know. Pondering hiring someone for a day or so. Which would make me an employer. Not sure if I want that. Not even for a day.

[Robert763]

Can't you hire contract someone who is self-employed? Then you are not an employer

[Ice-Tea]

Oh, I'd be using a temporary agency worker, so that's not the concern. But I'd still be paying someone to work for me. And that's not really 'me'.

[Peter_O]

You don't need to have 4 wire capability, all you need is a decent 2 wire meter with a Null function, short the leads together, press the null button and it will reset the display to read zero, then measure your .3ohm resistor and your meter will display .3ohms. A 4 wire meter is just spending more money, unnecessarily.

Ok, the URL seems to suffer from malignous redirection and some flunkie is posing as our friend Specmaster here!

Else it would be crystal clear that everyone should have at least one desk multimeter with 4 wire capability AND that the requirement to measure resistances below 1 Ohm is a perfectly good reason to aquire a milli/micro-Ohmmeter!

Nope it is I alright  , but I was under the distinct impression that Vince was looking to raise some Euro's not spend some, and for measuring resistances of the value that he was looking at, there is no need for a 4 wire meter. I have 3 such meters myself and I can't recall ever having to use them in such fashion, 2 wire has always been good enough, especially once the lead resistance has been nulled out of the readings. I like to only really buy what I need, but then again, I'm not in the same position of a lot of friends here who are single, I have to keep SWMBO happy as well 

I was almost going so write a taunting reply akin to 'which spouse would not be perfectly happy about an improvement of the in-house measurement capabilities' when suddenly the view of my ex-SWMBO snarling at me 'I do not want to live in a f****** laboratory' appeared in my mind. So, duh.

Man's cave with bath and kitchen over here. No problem to have some cable holders mounted on living room furniture, as you can see in the background of the picture.   
From that, and in TEA perspective, 4 wires are very much preverable over 2.

To have some 4wire DMMs in the foregroud does not hurt either.

[tggzzz]

Oh, I'd be using a temporary agency worker, so that's not the concern. But I'd still be paying someone to work for me. And that's not really 'me'.

While I understand your viewpoint, would you hire someone to do significant work around a house (e.g. rewiring, replacing a driveway or roof) or to deliver packages to your customers?

Nothing is black and white; it is all shades of grey - and sunglasses can help shift how something is viewed

How many kg of batteries does that include? 5kW will suck juice fast!

[Ice-Tea]

Oh, I'd be using a temporary agency worker, so that's not the concern. But I'd still be paying someone to work for me. And that's not really 'me'.

While I understand your viewpoint, would you hire someone to do significant work around a house (e.g. rewiring, replacing a driveway or roof)...

Funny story: I did the electricity, tiling, much of the sanitary, underfloorheating, roof insulation, complete bathroom and the solar installation myself. So, uh, yeah, I know it's a problem. I need to work on this..

...or to deliver packages to your customers?

Funny story II: while I don't deliver packages I did pickup my first auction score in Copenhagen. I'm guesing the trend is clear. The thing is, I don't really have to justify the economic viability of my time, I do have to start justifying it if I have to pay someone.

How many kg of batteries does that include? 5kW will suck juice fast!

They come standard 12 x 12V/6Ah. Which is what killed the trolley 

[DH7DN]

A couple more bits arrived today for the Tek TDS Scope calibration PC. 

Got a 17" 1280x1024 LCD monitor in practically mint condition for 2000yen-ish, no yellowing on it at all.
Then a 2m National Instruments GPIB cable arrived and the HP 10834A GPIB extender arrived too, to give me clearance from the rear of the PC case. The cable cost somewhat less than 3000yen shipped, and the extender cost about 2500yen, not bad when they are around 8000yen new. 

So all I need now is a replacement slimline floppy drive (just won an auction now) and this PC is complete on the hardware side.
It's running MS-DOS 6.22 at the moment, but I want to dual-boot to something to let me take advantage of the 1Gb RAM, dual 600MHz Pentium III CPU's and the Quadro FX3000 GPU. Maybe XP for some good retro gaming action........ 

Oh thanks, so that's what it looks like when it WORKS .... a nice green colour for starters.. not purple and red like I got back then !

I have a feeling that each scope gets it's own software colour scheme to keep things interesting. I'll have to install more and see the full rainbow.

Time to get my levelled sinewave generators polished up and I'm nearly ready to try a calibration.
I think I'll try it on one of the scopes earmarked for sale before I do it on my good scopes.....

It must be possible to replace the GPIB commands for the DC Voltage Calibrator (Analogic Data Precision 8200) with a different type of a DC voltage reference since the scripting files inside of the Tektronix Field Adjustment Software are text-based. I suppose others have tried it and did not succeed 

Damn, I need to go down this rabbit hole, too
Hopefully in 2023 soon(tm) 

[TERRA Operative]

I have almost been thinking of having a go at reverse engineering the commands sent and received to make a python script etc that is GPIB interface agnostic.

The scope doesn't care what is actually sending the commands, but I know that the adjustment calculations are done in the PC software (the manual strongly suggests the use of an FPU on 486 systems to increase the speed of calculations) so it will require at least a little effort to unravel the actual process involved.

It would be great to have a script that can autodetect the scope type, you can specify what voltage and signal generators are attached (or they are autodetected too) and it just does it's thing with minimal user input.


Just another project to add to the long list.

[Specmaster]

Vince,
Don't buy TE while you are ill.
If looking at a 4W DMM consider the Fluke 8845 and various Keitleys (not just the 2000, I like my 199, 5-3/4 digit 299999 count 4W, LED and I only paid £125).
Get well soon and good work by the boss sending you home.

Robert G8RPI.

Feeling half decent now, I feel enough energy to do some typing !

4W meters : thanks people for the replies.
No I am not buying anything while ill.. or not ill either. Still have a gaping 6,000 euros hole in my bank account, slowly filling up now I got a new job, but will take at least a year... but more like 3 because I still need to finance the construction of the garage. So need to do two contradictory things at the same time.... not spend, so I can fill the hole/pit, yet I do need to spend for the garage... so the compromise is to fill the hole as much as I can right now, and when spring comes, dig again in that hole to pour the concrete slab, the fill the hole partially again... then erect the walls, rinse and repeat... then when the garage is finished I can fill the hole one and for hole and be done with my debt.

Anyway, that means I am responsible enough not to spend any 3 digit money on anything for the lab.
The only purchases I allow myself, as usual are the occasional low two digit sums for that cool rare piece of vintage TE that comes along, because when you see it you know you will never see another one in a reasonable time frame, or maybe not for as cheap or as good a condition... so, that's why I still allow myself small expenses for rare vintage stuff, and a few Euros to restore them.
But for anything that is more much easily available , and is more expensive to boot, it's a definite no-no.

I don't want a bench meter to have 4W, but I do want my future bench meter to have 4W... if that makes sense.
My main goal with a bench meter is to have at least one very accurate voltmeter in the lab, and since these cost money, I would rather want it to do 4W as well for increased bang for buck, so that I don't have to buy yet another meter just for that (that would take extra space as well)

Robert, the Fluke model you suggested costs 1,500 Euros !  Are you trying to bankrupt me more than I already am ?!
I guess you meant to say the older models like Spec mentioned afterwards...

Here you go Vince, as I have said many times, very seldom does anyone doing what you and I do require anything more than 4.5 digit so a 5.5 digit is a real luxury, so little point in spending major money to acquire anything better. Of course if one was to fall into our hands for very little money, i.e., the same as a 5.5 digit, of course we'd grab it, for the bragging rights

Here is Dave extolling the virtues of a Fluke 8842A, but unlike Dave's, mine does have the AC option installed and I think it also has the GPIB interface as well, that said, I never use it.

[tggzzz]

Oh, I'd be using a temporary agency worker, so that's not the concern. But I'd still be paying someone to work for me. And that's not really 'me'.

While I understand your viewpoint, would you hire someone to do significant work around a house (e.g. rewiring, replacing a driveway or roof)...

Funny story: I did the electricity, tiling, much of the sanitary, underfloorheating, roof insulation, complete bathroom and the solar installation myself. So, uh, yeah, I know it's a problem. I need to work on this..

I'm guilty too. I've reroofed my house and done the usual DIY things myself. Getting older... not so much.

...or to deliver packages to your customers?

Funny story II: while I don't deliver packages I did pickup my first auction score in Copenhagen. I'm guesing the trend is clear. The thing is, I don't really have to justify the economic viability of my time, I do have to start justifying it if I have to pay someone.

Funny how picking things up is more tolerable than sending things. 

If I don't want to do something, I calculate the mileage costs @ ~33p/mile. That helps me decide how much I want something that I don't really need. Usually it is cheaper if it can be safely shipped.

How many kg of batteries does that include? 5kW will suck juice fast!

They come standard 12 x 12V/6Ah. Which is what killed the trolley 

OK, so I guess >40kg/UPS, and 5mins at 2.5kW.

The 40kg is sufficient for me to want to avoid it - but you may be able to halve that weight by moving the battery and crate separately.