What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[VK5RC]

Buying and installing one of these was the trade off...
Nobody tell her the price difference.
I think I did pretty well out of the deal.

Aren't those cisterns just SOOO expensive compared to hand tools! HiHI

[Mr.B]

Aren't those cisterns just SOOO expensive compared to hand tools! HiHI

I tried to tell her exactly that.
I must have been married way too long... She didn't believe a word I said.   

[neo]

BNC cables for my workbench, though i bought 75 ohm instead of 50 ohm. 

[TerraHertz]

BNC cables for my workbench, though i bought 75 ohm instead of 50 ohm. 

Ooww. How did that happen? Can you return them? If you don't use any analog video gear, you'd be better to have no 75 ohm leads at all. Getting them mixed is a perpetual pain.

I have a similar problem, only it didn't cost me anything. Boxes and boxes of very nice BNC patch leads, all lengths.  But they are from a shut-down TV studio, and all 75 ohm. My 50 ohm BNC lead stock is quite meager.

[tablatronix]

uni-t 61e finally and a capacitor and flux pen

[neo]

BNC cables for my workbench, though i bought 75 ohm instead of 50 ohm. 

Ooww. How did that happen? Can you return them? If you don't use any analog video gear, you'd be better to have no 75 ohm leads at all. Getting them mixed is a perpetual pain.

I have a similar problem, only it didn't cost me anything. Boxes and boxes of very nice BNC patch leads, all lengths.  But they are from a shut-down TV studio, and all 75 ohm. My 50 ohm BNC lead stock is quite meager.

I wasn't paying attention,  they were cheap and they work for now. They were bought to make testing a frequency counter i bought (and am working on) easier, I'll get the proper ones at hamfest.
They were 2 bucks a cable and had i noticed before i got them i might have tried to return them.

[TheSteve]

Agilent 53147A - 20 GHz frequency counter, power meter and 50 volt DVM. I needed a power meter, figured it was a nice option as it also has the frequency counter. My signal gen only goes to 8.4 GHz.

[HighVoltage]

Agilent 53147A - 20 GHz frequency counter, power meter and 50 volt DVM. I needed a power meter, figured it was a nice option as it also has the frequency counter. My signal gen only goes to 8.4 GHz.

Interesting combination of power meter and DMM, I don't think I have seen it before.
Nice!

[neo]

Agilent 53147A - 20 GHz frequency counter, power meter and 50 volt DVM. I needed a power meter, figured it was a nice option as it also has the frequency counter. My signal gen only goes to 8.4 GHz.

Interesting combination of power meter and DMM, I don't think I have seen it before.
Nice!

Actually i believe in his case it is a DVM, meaning digital voltmeter. DMM implies it can measure voltage and ohms, perhaps but not always current as well.

[gamalot]

TAKASAGO LX035-1B, a tiny quite bench power supply. 

[ElektroQuark]

"Agilent 53147A"

It must be a niche instrument with those specifications. What is it designed for?

[TheSteve]

"Agilent 53147A"

It must be a niche instrument with those specifications. What is it designed for?

Telecom industry I am sure - the DVM meter spec gives that away. There are three versions- 53147A, 53148A and 53149A - they are the same but max frequency counter spec is 20, 26.4 and 46 GHz respectively. They are of a very similar design to the 53150A, 53151A and 53152A frequency counters. They have the same counter ranges but don't have the dedicated power meter or DVM. The power meter is interesting in that it only supports the older HP/Agilent heads - mainly the 848x series. They can often be had for a great deal though. Mine came with a slew of very nice cables and adapters. It was clearly used by someone who worked on microwave gear as well as some cable TV services as there were also a few 75 ohm cables/adapters.

[Rinto85]

Eaton’s SmartWire-DT and some games (Persona 5) :p

[maukka]

A Rigol DP811A power supply and a 0.5m integrating sphere.

[MosherIV]

Got mini toolset, mainly for the small rachet socket handle. Price is very cheap £4 (lidl)

[HighVoltage]

0.5m integrating sphere

Nice!
Are you doing professional light research or is this just a hobby?
 

[Rbastler]

My gamma spectrometer boards arrived. I immediately populated one and it outputs -1kV as it should. Some resistors still need to be calculated.

Edit: I fucked up the drill size of the BC546 and the TL431... Need to drill bigger holes...

[maukka]

Are you doing professional light research or is this just a hobby?

I test flashlights as a hobby. I've been using a DIY styrofoam sphere until now.

[HighVoltage]

Are you doing professional light research or is this just a hobby?

I test flashlights as a hobby. I've been using a DIY styrofoam sphere until now.

Interesting!

How much money do you have to spend roughly to make reliable good measurements on flashlights?
Sphere ?
Sensor?
Software?
What else?

 

[TheSteve]

Are you doing professional light research or is this just a hobby?

I test flashlights as a hobby. I've been using a DIY styrofoam sphere until now.

Very nice! I wanted an integrating sphere for years while I was collecting flashlights. With the advent of high power LED's finding really bright flashlights isn't as tough as it once was.

[maukka]

How much money do you have to spend roughly to make reliable good measurements on flashlights?
Sphere ?
Sensor?
Software?
What else?

The sphere was surprisingly affordable at $650 from lisungroup.com but freight and import costs pretty much double the price. If you get the CCD spectroradiometer with the sphere it's about $2000 extra. I use a spectrophotometer meant for display calibration and measurements, which is about $1000. You also need something to calibrate the numbers from the sphere, calibration lamp was $75.

Software is mostly free (ArgyllCMS, HCFR) or fairly cheap (Babelcolor CT&A). For illuminance measurements you need a lux meter, but my spectrophotometer has a lux measurement built in so I use that. The bottleneck of most cheap lux meters is the cheap color filters so their numbers depend on the spectrum of the light.

edit:
If you don't care for absolute numbers and just want to know how the output changes relative to time, there's this great Android app called ceilingbounce to create runtimes graphs. It uses the ambient light sensor of the phone. Since the sensors are usually very linear, it works great.

For approximating color temperature, there's also several options for smartphones. I thought this was quite accurate.

[Cubdriver]

Well, on Sunday night (July 9th) I ordered a short 44 terminal extender card to use in troubleshooting my HP 5340A counter.  While searching on the 'bay, I also found two others that could prove useful, and ordered those as well.  I'm in Connecticut.  One shipped from California, one from Illinois, and one from just outside of Philadelphia, PA.  All are coming via USPS.  (Anyone care to guess where this is going?  )

Two arrived in the mail today.  The ones from IL and CA.  The one I actually need is the one coming from Pennsylvania - geographically the closest origin point.  Its tracking info shows that it left Doylestown, PA and made it to Philly on the 11th.  And apparently disappeared into a black hole, as there have been no further progress updates.   

I should have known that the one from the far side of the country would make its 2500 mile journey in less time than the one that was only coming about 150 miles as the crow flies.   

-Pat 

[PTR_1275]

I bought a voltech PS1000 switch box. It will turn the load on at 0 degree or 90 degree for testing inrush currents. I couldn't find much info on it, but will do a tear down once I have it in my hands and start a new thread

[bitseeker]

All are coming via USPS.  (Anyone care to guess where this is going?  )
...
Two arrived in the mail today.  The ones from IL and CA.  The one I actually need is the one coming from Pennsylvania - geographically the closest origin point.  Its tracking info shows that it left Doylestown, PA and made it to Philly on the 11th.  And apparently disappeared into a black hole, as there have been no further progress updates.   

Ah, USPS tracking. Gotta love it. Twice, or maybe thrice, I had packages arrive before tracking had even acknowledged their existence in the system.

[Cubdriver]

Ah, USPS tracking. Gotta love it. Twice, or maybe thrice, I had packages arrive before tracking had even acknowledged their existence in the system.

   Yep, I've seen that too.  Gotten the package and then a few days later received notice that it has been delivered.  Thanks, guys - appreciate the update, but, uhh, I kinda already knew you'd delivered it.  I've had it for three days.     Till this, it had seemed to have gotten better in my experience.  Fingers crossed that it gets here tomorrow, and that it HASN'T actually disappeared into the ether in Philly.

-Pat