Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

I guess I've been sleeping under a rock. Who is this knob that was referenced here? Someone flip me a PM and educate me.

As far as overbearing moderation I still have a bitter taste for what happen here almost 2 years ago. Which explains my mostly absence but always willing to help if someone asks. I do monitor my PM's.

In keeping with on topic latest project here is this 475A with gross high frequency/compensation issues. It will be posted in the "other" forum.

       

[tggzzz]

Just found your 7075 thread instantly. I hate people like that. Basically fix it for me. Nope not how it works.

Oh dog, him. He was one of the people that made me decide to have a non-null "ignore" list.

Another entity in my ignore list recently started a thread...
"Hi can you pls simulate this active electrode circuit in Ltspice or other simulators?  I dont know how and cant risk experiment with output that is unknown."

That's "not even wrong".

[tggzzz]

I'm more inclined to tear people a new arsehole as I get older for wasting my time because quite frankly if I don't get called out on it their attitude will continue. There's a megawatt of energy at least going into morons fighting over trivial things and that time can be spent better.

It doesn't work when they forezt/barbican thanks you.

Soon you will viscerally realise why Victor Meldrew is right, and has become a meme.

[Zenith]

It's mostly the TE section I read/contribute to, haven't repaired a radio for years. Since broadcast radio has been ruined by Global & Bauer Media, buying up every radio station, asset stripping & turning them into non-local & generic shite, I've pretty much lost interest. The only radio receiver I've worked on in the last year is the HP 5090A, which is an off-air standard receiver, the 198kHz conversion PCB was a success, I posted about that both here & there.

I got into this thing partly through domestic radios, because they weren't particularly complicated, and it was fascinating that something that would have been a credible product in the thirties was still usable 70 to 80 years later. I got bored with them very quickly and became interested in comms receivers, which needed swept alignment, and so I found myself into this TE thing. 20 years back sweep generators (wobulators) weren't that easily come by or were very dear, or cheap and crap. Actually the story is more complicated than that. 

The mods of any forum can only follow the rules of the owner.

I've met the owner and done business with him and found he was very proper and pleasant. 

He does have certain leanings, which he has proclaimed.

Much of the trouble started when he was distracted by events in his life and the moderators started to get heavy about grammar and spelling and closing threads at the drop of a hat.

I believe I caught a glimpse of you at Hack Green at the end of last year. tggzz said it was you and he was handing over some piece of kit. Perhaps another time we can sit down over a cup of coffee and discuss these things. As it is, it's a bit like doing dirty washing in public. There's no statement I've made I wouldn't stand by, but yer know, it seems inappropriate.

One of the mods that joined the mod team in the last few year is ex-HP, very knowledgeable, was a designer at South Queensferry until Agilent took over & deleted the factory, AFAIK he isn't on the HPAK groups.io.

It's strange what is allowed & what gets closed, certainly a recent topic on wire-strippers was OK, anything vehicle related (air/sea/land based) that isn't radio/audio related gets locked quickly and discussions of house wiring got banned. Not every ebay mention gets locked or deleted, guess they don't have time to read/deal with everything. I've not seen any spelling/grammar related errors highlighted in red, maybe they stopped doing that IDK. Some of what gets locked/deleted will be due to members complaining as well.

David

I can take a certain amount of inconsistency, but there comes a point when I take the huff. Yes, you can take this forum business too seriously.

I suppose this discussion is off-topic and the posts could reasonably be deleted. I don't believe the TEA thing fits in a huge single thread comfortably.

[shakalnokturn]

Nice to see BD and papa smurf around again. Until things runaway again then I'll be pissing-off to a quieter place

In other non-TE related:
Been doing some preventive a bit late as it appears maintenance on some high-end Danish audio junk that has lived in the tropics most of its life.

[shakalnokturn]

There was talk of the Metrix power meters a couple of days ago. A MX1220 has turned up on ebay
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156076382369
No, I don't need another one and it's over priced at £179 even given the nice condition.

I'll leave that alone too. I don't think I've bought anything from the UK since Brexit.

Those clamp meters show up for as low as 20€ around here, there's no great interest in them. The models that sell well here are the Taiwan made Metrix MX350/355 there's nothing great about them.

[factory]

Nice to see BD and papa smurf around again. Until things runaway again then I'll be pissing-off to a quieter place

In other non-TE related:
Been doing some preventive a bit late as it appears maintenance on some high-end Danish audio junk that has lived in the tropics most of its life.

Good to see modern RIFA madness paper crapacitors lasting even less time than their ancestors, how old is this item? I see surface mount bits, unleaded symbol on silkscreen and an old looking carbon comp resistor for unknown reasons.

Some TE repair related stuff arrived today. 



And I seem to have become the lucky new owner of a HP 33E. 

David

[TERRA Operative]

Blegh, I do not envy the smell of that Rifa, the one that blew up in my 8648C stank , even after a sneaky run through the dishwasher, after a thorough wash with dawn dishsoap, and after a douse in isopropyl alcohol it still had that Rifa stank for a while until it faded.....

[BU508A]

Some TE repair related stuff arrived today. 

OSH Park pcbs?

[shakalnokturn]

I don't know how old they are, I wasn't curious enough to look at IC datecodes, they were in BeoLab 9 active speakers.

Funnily they had been powered on in this state without bang-crack-puff-of-smoke, the newer Rifas must be an improvement over their ancestors they puke all over the PCB like a binge drinker cheap electrolytic but don't go off in flames 

As soon as I find some spare time and a sunny day I have a small fire cracker project on the way to show my teen son how to treat quality Swedish capacitors. (To be fair there are also some Wima in the heap...)

[factory]

I believe I caught a glimpse of you at Hack Green at the end of last year. tggzz said it was you and he was handing over some piece of kit. Perhaps another time we can sit down over a cup of coffee and discuss these things. As it is, it's a bit like doing dirty washing in public. There's no statement I've made I wouldn't stand by, but yer know, it seems inappropriate.

The Hack Green sale is very local to me, I have been going for a few years now, it was a little smaller than usual at the end of last year, but some TE was on offer on a few stalls, probably not as much choice as the bigger sales in the South of England, next one is advertised as a Militaria & Radio sale on the 10th of March, which is Mothers day in the UK, no idea if this will prevent some people going.  It was only advertised as Military stuff at the same time last year. If I'm well enough I hope to be able to go, I missed the Radioactive sale in Nantwich last month, it was the day after I escaped hospital following the heart malfunction, I wasn't in any fit state to go and look for and/or buy TE.



That was the Solartron LM1420.2BA DVM I bought from tggzzz, it has a T-RMS option, but unlike HP & Rochar with plug-in modules, this one is very much hardwired in place, it has a hinge mechanism, allowing limited access to the boards. I don't believe I added any pictures before, it has thermocouples for the AC converter.













I didn't know what sort of capacitors the small yellow Lemcos were, I posted on the radio forum and found out they are ordinary aluminium electrolytics, sometimes found in consumer audio equipment and often need replacing. The larger yellow plastic capacitors were made by CCL, wonder if they are any better than Plessey plastic cased caps (many were open circuit in the HP 5090A). 

It also has the original unobtainium input lead, which will allow me to work on the other two standard LM1420.2 DVMs, some work has been done on these, the dead readout bulbs have been replaced with the few spares I had and the HV rectifier diodes have been replaced in one of them, after a Hunts cap failed causing a diode to short, this blew the Belling Lee 00 size mains fuse too.

I suppose this discussion is off-topic and the posts could reasonably be deleted. I don't believe the TEA thing fits in a huge single thread comfortably.

Your right, it's probably best to talk about the radio forum over tea/coffee in person, than here.
Nothing has been deleted here for some time, unless we break forum rules it shouldn't happen, the mods have left this thread alone since. If I'm right the TEA discord is where most off topic is discussed these days, but I'm not 100% sure as I've never used discord.

David

[duckduck]

<SNIP>



That was the Solartron LM1420.2BA DVM I bought from tggzzz, it has a T-RMS option, but unlike HP & Rochar with plug-in modules, this one is very much hardwired in place, it has a hinge mechanism, allowing limited access to the boards. I don't believe I added any pictures before, it has thermocouples for the AC converter.

<SNIP>

That TE has a very nice aesthetic. I'm a sucker for ni*ies. Thank you for sharing.

[Zenith]

The Hack Green sale is very local to me, I have been going for a few years now, it was a little smaller than usual at the end of last year, but some TE was on offer on a few stalls, probably not as much choice as the bigger sales in the South of England, next one is advertised as a Militaria & Radio sale on the 10th of March, which is Mothers day in the UK, no idea if this will prevent some people going.  It was only advertised as Military stuff at the same time last year. If I'm well enough I hope to be able to go, I missed the Radioactive sale in Nantwich last month, it was the day after I escaped hospital following the heart malfunction, I wasn't in any fit state to go and look for and/or buy TE.

Sorry to hear about your heart problem. I hope you've recovered.

Telford is a two and a half hour trip for me, but the rally has been fairly good. Hack Green and Nantwich are an extra half hour, which puts them over the limit, unless the rally is more or less guaranteed to be very good, such as Dunstable Downs or Newbury.

I had the impression they were trying to separate the Hack Green rally into a spring event for military items, and an autumn event as a radio rally. I went to it was one I hadn't been to before. As a radio rally it wasn't up to the local minor ones, such as Weston-super-Mare and Chippenham. The nuclear bunker was fairly interesting.

I toyed with the idea of Nantwich, but it's a bit too far, especially at this time of year, I'd no idea whether it was likely to be any good, and anyway, I've not yet dealt with all of last year's acquisitions.

I would have thought Blackpool, Red Rose and the Lancashire rallies would be in striking distance for you. I've heard Blackpool is good.

That was the Solartron LM1420.2BA DVM I bought from tggzzz, it has a T-RMS option, but unlike HP & Rochar with plug-in modules, this one is very much hardwired in place, it has a hinge mechanism, allowing limited access to the boards. I don't believe I added any pictures before, it has thermocouples for the AC converter.

It's clearly found its way into the hands of a sympathetic owner and a true enthusiast.

[zepto]

"DO NOT RAISE BOARDS WHEN POWER IS ON"

I love it.

[factory]

Some TE repair related stuff arrived today. 

OSH Park pcbs?

No, just the usual low price boards from Hong Kong.

First one is for the 5264A (also used in 5214L) preset plug-in, unfortunately the snapped PCB is missing, need to take the transistors & mica capacitors from it at least.

Second one is the rectifier board used in the 524xL/M counters, it's needed for the 5245L, the one fitted at the moment belongs to the 5248M. Seem to have six boards in this lot, guessing one failed inspection & got sent anyway?

Will search the spares tomorrow for some diodes & capacitors, should have something suitable for all the parts.

Sorry to hear about your heart problem. I hope you've recovered.

Telford is a two and a half hour trip for me, but the rally has been fairly good. Hack Green and Nantwich are an extra half hour, which puts them over the limit, unless the rally is more or less guaranteed to be very good, such as Dunstable Downs or Newbury.

I had the impression they were trying to separate the Hack Green rally into a spring event for military items, and an autumn event as a radio rally. I went to it was one I hadn't been to before. As a radio rally it wasn't up to the local minor ones, such as Weston-super-Mare and Chippenham. The nuclear bunker was fairly interesting.

I toyed with the idea of Nantwich, but it's a bit too far, especially at this time of year, I'd no idea whether it was likely to be any good, and anyway, I've not yet dealt with all of last year's acquisitions.

I would have thought Blackpool, Red Rose and the Lancashire rallies would be in striking distance for you. I've heard Blackpool is good.

I'm still at home recovering, it's been almost a month since the heart attack at work, hopefully it shouldn't happen again if I follow all the advice, I'm keeping busy working on TE for some of the time, I'll get told off if I attempt to play with any boat anchor grade TE though. The forums & groups.io are keeping me distracted too. The first week I completed those PCB designs (above) in KiCad.

Both the Hack Green & Nantwich sales vary, sometimes very little of interest, sometimes lots of TE, I did get a few interesting things from the Radioactive sale in 2023, all from the same seller, who was clearing his garage of the TE he used years ago. Neither are as big as those you go too.
Yes it was mostly military stuff at Hack Green spring last year, strange how it's changed again, a work colleague would have been very interested in the military only sale.

I should really go to some of the other sales, sometimes they clash with other things, or I want to spend the time working on the TE already here.

That was the Solartron LM1420.2BA DVM I bought from tggzzz, it has a T-RMS option, but unlike HP & Rochar with plug-in modules, this one is very much hardwired in place, it has a hinge mechanism, allowing limited access to the boards. I don't believe I added any pictures before, it has thermocouples for the AC converter.

It's clearly found its way into the hands of a sympathetic owner and a true enthusiast.

It has, once I've put the HP 5090B receiver back together and replaced some tired capacitors in the HP 6920B meter calibrator, I hope to return to repairing the first of the Solartron DVMs.

"DO NOT RAISE BOARDS WHEN POWER IS ON"

I love it.

Someone has probably tried anyway and not attempted it again. Not something you want to do really, with the voltages required by the displays.

David

[shakalnokturn]

SWMBO is out for a few days, I convinced myself while she had her back turned was the right time to abandon my over-cluttered desk and drag the Fluke 5100B to the dining table 

The recently repaired MX54 was left alone, too much time to spend too few figures to gain (I'm not into volt-nuttery yet) the sacrificial MX53 did get quite some benefit from the software readjustment.

[TERRA Operative]

Well, I bought a 4263B, came with a 16065C with external bias adapter and I picked up a 16064B LED Display/Trigger Box for cheap on ebay too, just for fun.

Once it arrives I'll hack it to enable options 001 and 002 so I can do transformer measurements and gain the 20kHz test frequency.

[EggertEnjoyer123]

Ideas with what to do with this boat anchor logic analyzer I got from the garbage?

[KrudyZ]

Sell what's in the pouch on top of the machine.
The two probe cables and adapters are the only thing people would be interested in.
Alternatively, you could use it as a logic analyzer 

[TERRA Operative]

The coax ribbon cable on the probes can be repurposed for DIY logic probes for Siglent scopes.

I'll even volunteer to do the hard work if you want to sell them cheap.   

[EggertEnjoyer123]

I was told that these logic analyzers are only useful for debugging CPU systems with parallel memory interfaces.

Might be useful to have around since I'll probably find a broken piece of test equipment with a digital fault one of these days.

[tautech]

The coax ribbon cable on the probes can be repurposed for DIY logic probes for some Siglent scopes.

I'll even volunteer to do the hard work if you want to sell them cheap.   

FTFY. 
Those that use SPL2016.

[Robert763]

Ideas with what to do with this boat anchor logic analyzer I got from the garbage?

That's not a boat anchor, it's a lightweight LA. For a boat anchor try the 16500A/B/C You can even add a 16501A expansion to double down..

It's a usable LA

[EggertEnjoyer123]

Is there a way to connect my logic analyzer to a computer or do stuff like I2C/SPI decoding?
I pretty much exclusively do RF and analog stuff, so I'm not well versed with logic analyzers

[tggzzz]

I was told that these logic analyzers are only useful for debugging CPU systems with parallel memory interfaces.

"Only" is too strong.

People often don't realise a key advantage of a decent logic analyser is the amount of data it ignores, and hence beneficially reducing the information if captures. That allows you to concentrate your attention on the information.

That is achieved by combinations of capturing data only on clock edges, sophisticated arm and trigger specifications based around FSMs. People that have only played with toy 24MHz 8-bit data slurpers don't understand what they are missing. Or rather they don't understand how much their lives would be improved if they could avoid slowly and painfully eyeballing large buffers

Apart from that, look on fleabay to see the price of the grabbers