Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[wkb]

The older HP counter is  better it seems

The now dead hybrid sported an amplifier with AGC.

[wkb]

And for entertainment: the specs of my ~ 1976 HP 5342A

Added bonus: M6800 CPU witn 3KB of mask ROM and 256bytes of SRAM.

It counts to ~ 20GHz, exceeding spec by 2 GHz 

Those HP guys were Real Engineers[TM]......

[Robert763]

I think that is the only way to go, I was hoping for a basic solution, but I'll have to learn how to code instead...
I'll have to figure out how to alter the code to do a divide-by-128....

The HP uses a now obsolete MB510PF to do the dividing.

Use PicBasicPro 3 Student Edition (free) and a 14 pin PIC16F688. The PIC hsa built in oscillator and a hardware UART that supports SPI etc as does PBP3
https://www.pbp3.com/
You should be able to pick up a PicKit3 programmer clone locally at low cost.

Robert.

[Vince]

@Terra : if you are worried about the specs of the clone boards versus the OEM board, maybe have a look at Shariar's video :

9 years ago he fitted one of these boarfds to his HP counter. Video is 50 minutes long so maybe he spent some time measuring the specs (I can't remember)
If not, maybe you could suggest him to make a video on doing just that, so that you and other people know what they are getting for their money, if it's wasted money or not.

Besides, even if the clones didn't have the same specs, is that grave ? As long as the specs make it a useful device to you, what do we care if the specs are OEM or not ?
Well I mean, unless you tried to sell the counter without telling the buyer it's not the OEM board, that would be misrepresenting the product of course...

[Zoli]

I think that is the only way to go, I was hoping for a basic solution, but I'll have to learn how to code instead...
I'll have to figure out how to alter the code to do a divide-by-128....

The HP uses a now obsolete MB510PF to do the dividing.

Use PicBasicPro 3 Student Edition (free) and a 14 pin PIC16F688. The PIC hsa built in oscillator and a hardware UART that supports SPI etc as does PBP3
https://www.pbp3.com/
You should be able to pick up a PicKit3 programmer clone locally at low cost.

Robert.

PIC16F688 can be programmed on a TL866(he has one, IIRC).

[EggertEnjoyer123]

For 11.8 dB$ I also bought this 2 - 8 GHz sweep generator (or at least the plugin)
It should be easier to reverse engineer since there seems to be fewer pins, and switching bands can be done using a physical switch on the panel.

I also finished soldering my phase lock board (took me 1.5 hours). Just need to make sure nothing is shorted and all the voltage rails work. Soldering QFN was actually relatively straightforwards. I still have no idea why JLCPCB wanted to charge me $30 for shipping for assembly, when shipping the board takes $1.5. Now it's time to move on to making sure nothing is shorted. Once I get my display and keypad I should be able to mess with firmware too, which is easily the least favorite part of every project for me.

(Yes, there is an issue with the SMA connector soldering that I'll fix later, and I also forgot to extend the microstrip all the way. Oh well, I think I can afford 5dB loss)

[Robert763]

@vince Your package went back in the post yesterday. Same person at the counter. Took them >15 minutes to deal with it. That included making a phone call, reading the from letter that came back with it, taking photos of the labels and letter on phone for the person on the phone. They entered both addresses on the computer at least twice. Two people in the queue behind me left 

Robert.

[DC1MC]

I think that is the only way to go, I was hoping for a basic solution, but I'll have to learn how to code instead...
I'll have to figure out how to alter the code to do a divide-by-128....

The HP uses a now obsolete MB510PF to do the dividing.

The project link that I've posted for you has the PCB gerbers, software and everything needed already, what is the problem with it ?

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[TERRA Operative]

I don't know how to code......

I'll muddle through it, it seems the best option so far.


Tonight was a little productive. I bought a new GPU for my laptop (It's an eGPU setup), a Gigabyte RTX 4070 TI OC with 12Gb RAM. Will be great for playing a heavily modded version of Skyrim, much nicer than the GTX 970 I was using.... My son has been bugging me for the last week to play.


And on the TE side of things, the replacement VFD for my 53132A Counter arrived, so I slapped it in (carefully...), it looks great!

[RolandK]

...
And on the TE side of things, the replacement VFD for my 53132A Counter arrived, so I slapped it in (carefully...), it looks great!

Where did you get the VFD from? epay?

[Vince]

@vince Your package went back in the post yesterday. Same person at the counter. Took them >15 minutes to deal with it. That included making a phone call, reading the from letter that came back with it, taking photos of the labels and letter on phone for the person on the phone. They entered both addresses on the computer at least twice. Two people in the queue behind me left 

Robert.

Wow, that's getting painful, sorry you had to endure that, and thank you very much for your patience with it....
It's crap that they impose a customs form for regular envelopes. When I sent you your mini light bulbs in that A4 padded envelope the guy at the counter was happy not bothering with customs, unless my memory is failing me ?   This Brexit is really killing me, I hope you will soon vote again and come back aboard. All this customs BS is just so.... middle age. 

[AVGresponding]

@vince Your package went back in the post yesterday. Same person at the counter. Took them >15 minutes to deal with it. That included making a phone call, reading the from letter that came back with it, taking photos of the labels and letter on phone for the person on the phone. They entered both addresses on the computer at least twice. Two people in the queue behind me left 

Robert.

Do I have the only competent Post Office in the country?   

[TERRA Operative]

...
And on the TE side of things, the replacement VFD for my 53132A Counter arrived, so I slapped it in (carefully...), it looks great!

Where did you get the VFD from? epay?

Yup, here's the link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134599414505

[duckduck]

Shameless plug. I'm selling a scope.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-(us)-rigol-ds1202z-e-200mhz-2-channel-1gsas-oscilloscope-$220-free-shipping/msg5059297/

[TERRA Operative]

What? No!

You're not supposed to sell gear, you are supposed to keep it when you buy the new thing!

We are all here for a reason, to support each other in the endless acquisition of gear! I cannot endorse or approve of this wanton and reckless act of removing a piece of TE from the collection! Harumph!


Well, ok, but only on one condition... That the funds acquired from this sale will be used for the sole purpose of acquiring new TE.

[geb]

Was going to make a thread for this, but felt silly for such a minor question...

I recently received an original Fluke 87. It's working well enough for its age, but readings in its 4.5 digit mode are bouncing around, varying by ± three or four digits every second. I cleaned the switch area with 91% IPA but nothing changed.

I've never had an 87 before, so I don't know how stable the 4½-digit mode should be. Being Fluke, I'd hope that it was originally quite stable.

PS: I've had better luck fixing up an 8050A. Replaced the 470uF caps with Panasonic so I could get a usable display, then 91% IPA to clean up the switches.

[m k]

All ranges equally?

[tggzzz]

Well, ok, but only on one condition... That the funds acquired from this sale will be used for the sole purpose of acquiring new TE.

Or in my case, s/funds/space/

[duckduck]

What? No!

You're not supposed to sell gear, you are supposed to keep it when you buy the new thing!

We are all here for a reason, to support each other in the endless acquisition of gear! I cannot endorse or approve of this wanton and reckless act of removing a piece of TE from the collection! Harumph!


Well, ok, but only on one condition... That the funds acquired from this sale will be used for the sole purpose of acquiring new TE.

I want to trade in the old Rigol for the new Rigol. It looks sweet. 12 bits? HDMI out? Touch screen? USB C powered? These should make any wannabe EE drool.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1563-new-$389-12bit-rigol-dho800-scope-teardown/

EDIT:

Apparently, there is a bug in the URL parsing logic of this forum that cuts off URLs before a "$" symbol. You'll have to edit the link after posting it if you rely on the forum to create the code for a link.

[geb]

All ranges equally?

A good question! I revisited the 87 to confirm...

The issue seems to be associated with the source resistance, broadly speaking.

I tried the same DC voltage ranges using an LB02A calibrator, an AD584JH reference, and a Wanptek DPS3010U power supply. The 87 read cleanly from the LB02A at 0.1V, 0.4V, 1.0V, 4.0V, 10V. The other two sources caused the reading to jump around.

With my 0.01% precision resistors, 100 ohms caused it to jump around. 1K jumped a smaller amount, and 10K and higher were stable.

[m k]

So more like an external thing.
Maybe a probing issue.

Is it the same if you do the previous set again?

[TERRA Operative]

Does anyone know of a free/open source/etc app for scripting commands over GPIB and USB?

For one example, if I want to calibrate my HP 33120A function gen, I want to be able to read out the output voltage from my 34461A multimeter via USB, then feed that measured value into the 33120A function gen and apply the value, rinse and repeat for all the required tests.

[wkb]

Pyvisa. Along with some mild learning of basic Python scripting

[TERRA Operative]

Hoping for something easier than learning a programming language. It's quicker to just do the stuff manually..

[duckduck]

Does anyone know of a free/open source/etc app for scripting commands over GPIB and USB?

For one example, if I want to calibrate my HP 33120A function gen, I want to be able to read out the output voltage from my 34461A multimeter via USB, then feed that measured value into the 33120A function gen and apply the value, rinse and repeat for all the required tests.

Check out https://sigrok.org and https://pyvisa.readthedocs.io

EDIT:

Dutch-turbo-person beat me to the draw on pyVISA.

If you had to choose just one programming language, Python would be on the short list since it is one of the easier to learn ones while being crazy useful and running on almost anything that computes.