I’m calling BS on this entire website!

[Cubdriver]

   I am so screwed. 

New Guy

Yeah, pretty much...   

-Pat

[helius]

Nice. I'm glad your cat appreciates the smell of vintage electronics. 

[Andy-In_over_my_head]

I feel you! I’m completely YouTube taught and I only do this as a hobby. I have a great career that’s not electricity. I got my first meter barely a year ago. I’ve now invested over $8,000 easily into my lab at home between all my multimeters, scopes, power supplies and almost daily eBay buys for components and junk. It seems way more expensive being someone who wants to build everything from nothing without gluing an arduino into a box and calling it a day. This forum is the only place I can go and say this and people will understand the reasoning to all the time, money and extensive studying learning the laws and math I’ve learned this past year. I wouldn’t change it for anything. Keep killing it and good luck brotha!

[Cubdriver]

I'm glad I sold my old scope before my new one.

I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
Well, my third DMM is coming, and 3 isn't that much.

Come on in, blueskull - the water's fine!   

-Pat

[xrunner]

I'm glad I sold my old scope before my new one.

I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
Well, my third DMM is coming, and 3 isn't that much.

Right ... right,  that's what they all say at first. 

[tggzzz]

I've tried a shallow dip before, that was a Keithley 2002. 8.5 digit metrology is way too much fun for my wallet.

All you need is patience... A Solartron 7081 for £100, a 7 decade KVD for £180, then £14 each for a 10V source with <<1uV noise, two Guildline 10k resistors, and some free saturated Weston standard cells that are well in spec after 70 years and are great as noise-free temperature-controlled voltage sources.

Getting cables/connectors for the above is irritatingly expensive and difficult

Collecting scopes is definitely way too rich for me wallet, even if they are free -- Keysight RTK contract along for a good mid range scope and a few probes can easily be in 4 digits.

I refuse to look at most free scopes, since they are boring. The only free scope I've had was a Tek 464 (effectively storage version of a 465).

You have to be patient to get decent (== >350MHz or resistive divider) affordable probes, of course.

[bd139]

Indeed. Patience reveals a lot of nicely priced stuff here in the UK at least. I've got some real bargains. I think I only had two lemons.

I've worked out my problem is "TSOD" Transient Scope Ownership Disorder. I've actually counted up the scopes I've had since 1995 and it totals 28 now. I think I just like fixing and restoring them. After that I lose interest.

This is the fun bit (£29 of scope):

Pile of crap:

Turned into pile of awesome with a few hours' work (with a friendly 465B):

I think a non DM44 equipped 475 is probably my favourite scope ever.

[Specmaster]

Voltages are ok but the resistance ranges are a bit crap, for such a big meter I would have expected super low resistances and to go much higher than 10M, unless it has some real value, I'd junk that and replace it with loads more smaller more capable gear, although it looks as if you're not short of storage space in your lab 

Well, in its defense, it does date to the early/mid 60s, and IIRC the AC/Ohms converter has tubes in it, so...

Besides, the mass helps keep my house from blowing away when it gets windy, and it has nixie tubes. 



Six of them.  I think we can agree that they trump ranges, volume and mass.   

    Let's get the new guy hooked on neon numbers!   

-Pat

I suppose you have a point about the heft of, it helps to keep the house planted when twisters come by 

I have my share of Nixie's too but they are not as easy to read as LEDs 

[Specmaster]

Indeed. Patience reveals a lot of nicely priced stuff here in the UK at least. I've got some real bargains. I think I only had two lemons.

I've worked out my problem is "TSOD" Transient Scope Ownership Disorder. I've actually counted up the scopes I've had since 1995 and it totals 28 now. I think I just like fixing and restoring them. After that I lose interest.

This is the fun bit (£29 of scope):

Pile of crap:

Turned into pile of awesome with a few hours' work (with a friendly 465B):

I think a non DM44 equipped 475 is probably my favourite scope ever.

I have a long way to go yet I think then, I have to admit though that I seem have trouble in the letting them go dept, even if it is to release more cash for even more TEA 

[tautech]

Indeed. Patience reveals a lot of nicely priced stuff here in the UK at least. I've got some real bargains. I think I only had two lemons.

I've worked out my problem is "TSOD" Transient Scope Ownership Disorder. I've actually counted up the scopes I've had since 1995 and it totals 28 now. I think I just like fixing and restoring them. After that I lose interest.

This is the fun bit (£29 of scope):

Pile of crap:

Turned into pile of awesome with a few hours' work (with a friendly 465B):

I think a non DM44 equipped 475 is probably my favourite scope ever.

I have a long way to go yet I think then, I have to admit though that I seem have trouble in the letting them go dept, even if it is to release more cash for even more TEA 

It's all about the buy price and the $$$ made with a straightforward repair and cleanup. A pair of cheap new probes and stick the manual on CD. Once you get a good feel for fixing CRO's like bd139 it's money for jam new toys. 

[bd139]

Exactly that.

The two Teks above pocketed me £290 totalling over £200 in profit, which got spent on a new Keysight handheld DMM

[Specmaster]

Exactly that.

The two Teks above pocketed me £290 totalling over £200 in profit, which got spent on a new Keysight handheld DMM

I know, I've done that with 4 other scopes already and made money on all of them which I have reinvested in more TEA items  , still find it a struggle though parting with them after the work has been put in  Having said that lack of space helps in that dept otherwise I'd have 12 scopes right now 

[bd139]

It does suck letting them go. For me it goes like this:

1. Oooh new scope to play with.
2. Oh it's really broken.
3. Hours of work
4. Yay it works but I'm fed up of the sight of your innards now.
5. On ebay you go.
6. Sold. Readies in pocket!
7. Lamenting the loss of a close friend.
8. Browsing ebay for exactly the same scope you just sold.
9. Go to 1

[xrunner]

I think we just created a safety backup to the main TEA thread ...

[bd139]

I did think that earlier. That's going to bugger the top thread ranking!

[PA4TIM]

- Stay away from everything that has the word analyser in it. 

- do not worry about multimeters upto the point someone wants to know how much meters or scopes you have and you do not know. 

This will be your future, it goes like this, showing your lab to a mate:
I: No I'm no horder, I only have 2 scopes,
M: and what is that ?
I: oh wait, I forgot my scopemeter, not really a scope...
M: what is that there under that bench ?
I: that is just an old Tek 453 from the first series they made, I do not consider that a scope, it is only 50 MHz
M: and that enormous thing with a round CRT is a television ?
I: Oh my Tek 547 with 1S2 plugin, no that is not really a scope, that is my TDR.
M: I think I see a another crt behind that heathkit power supply
I: Oh, there was my 1 GHz sample scope. I could not find it. Hey, thanks mate for spotting it ,_{mumble mumble ,I'm not crazy, I knew I had a HV supply}
M: What are those plugins on those shelves
I: some plugins for the 547
M: But I see 2 sizes
I: no that is just optical distortion caused by the tears in your eyes
M: I'm pretty sure they are for a 7000 scope,
I: Maybe...they could be for my 7704 and 7603, but they are not in the lab so I do really not count them.
I: I do not know what you mean with "do you have more scopes that are not in the lab ?"
M: and that small baby scope in the livingroom ?
I: That is part of my museum collection, I do not use it.
M: collection ? so you have more ?
I: oh, just 3 miniscopes...and maybe an old 19" HP but that is in the garage,  that's all, honest...
I: you want to see my garage ? Sorry, I lost the keys.....

Multimeters, no clue, 30 to 50 ?
counters: 5:
analysers: 7 or so
powersupplies ?, never enough
bridges: no clue 10 ?
Calibration gear: What did you ask ? I do not understand the question.  Could be I have some. I'm not a real voltnut, Does a 19" rack count as 1 ?
And It could be I have some special stuff here and there

[retrolefty]

A question for the collectors here. What is your plan for your collection when you pass away? I'm looking for ideas as I recently attained the age of 70.

[paulca]

I only started on here in October/November.  Since then I have:

20 x Multi compartment component boxes - full.
1 x DSO USB Scope
30V/5A bench supply
50V/20A bench supply
48V/10A DC Power supply
3 x multimeters
10 x breadboards of various makes and sizes
4 x Arduino Nanos
1 x Arduino UNO
2 x Bare AVR chips
4 x Raspberry PIs
50W Solar panel + Charge controller + SLA
New toolbox, new pliers, new screwdriver, assorted tools and hardware
Hundreds of Dupoint wires
Dozen of banana cables/croc clips/quick clips
2 x Audio amplifers
Several dozen cheap chinese Adafruit clones and assorted sensor modules
Not to mention several 18650 LIon packs and 2x lithium chargers

... and a large dent in my disposable income!

It's not just Dave, those feckers Adam Welch, Jullian Llett, Great Scott and others can take some blame too!

[Russ]

I'm glad I sold my old scope before my new one.

I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
I'm not collecting them.
Well, my third DMM is coming, and 3 isn't that much.

Why do you need three DMM’s? Why do I need five DMM’s? 

[bd139]

A question for the collectors here. What is your plan for your collection when you pass away? I'm looking for ideas as I recently attained the age of 70.

I'm leaving a lot of boxes and bubble wrap and some instructions in my will.

[Mr. Scram]

A question for the collectors here. What is your plan for your collection when you pass away? I'm looking for ideas as I recently attained the age of 70.

Build a monument pyramid style and take it all with you. To make it proper pyramid style, you'd include any live members of the family.

[Russ]

A question for the collectors here. What is your plan for your collection when you pass away? I'm looking for ideas as I recently attained the age of 70.

Build a monument pyramid style and take it all with you. To make it proper pyramid style, you'd include any live members of the family.

    Finally, a voice of logic and reason. :-)

[Specmaster]

It does suck letting them go. For me it goes like this:

1. Oooh new scope to play with.
2. Oh it's really broken.
3. Hours of work
4. Yay it works but I'm fed up of the sight of your innards now.
5. On ebay you go.
6. Sold. Readies in pocket!
7. Lamenting the loss of a close friend.
8. Browsing ebay for exactly the same scope you just sold.
9. Go to 1

That's only because you still have loads of caps left over of the right value for that scope, when they all get used up, look for another make / model and repeat the process.

[bd139]

That's a good point. I've got bags of left over electrolytic and tantalum caps!

[neo]

A question for the collectors here. What is your plan for your collection when you pass away? I'm looking for ideas as I recently attained the age of 70.

Well, and this is assuming anyone gives damn in 60 years or so, have them auction it off but with the kick of only letting people who know what the more obscure items are in to the auction. 
Something humorous like that anyways