What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[Ice-Tea]

6 x THS720P isolated, portable Tek scopes. Pretty close to prestine condition, most of the accesoires are there except for the battery packs.

[TopLoser]

Cool, where can I buy it and how much does it cost? Does it need an external vacuum pump?

Starting point...
http://www.medwow.com/used-electron-microscope/jeol/jcm-5000/482399477.item

[Jeroen3]

6 x THS720P isolated, portable Tek scopes. Pretty close to prestine condition, most of the accesoires are there except for the battery packs.

Nice, you can DIY the battery packs from a few D cells (I think), some tape and copper foil. I have made two packs this way.
They still die quickly because the scope does not have any charging circuitry.

[capt bullshot]

The THS scopes run fine without the battery pack. So keep the packs outside to save them from being overcharged if you don't need them. NiMH doesn't like the continous charging the THS does. NiCd is more tolerant to this.

[DC1MC]

I bought three trolley tables

and for one of them a Datron 1082 to test its resistance  , and a Datron 1041 for 12GPB  that I hope it will arrive soon to help with the table testing.

You can help me as well, still looking for a Datron 108x User Manual, Current Board and Analoge Output module.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[purfield]

Cool, where can I buy it and how much does it cost? Does it need an external vacuum pump?

Starting point...
http://www.medwow.com/used-electron-microscope/jeol/jcm-5000/482399477.item

Yes, it uses a rotary vane vacuum pump for rough vacuum and a turbo molecular pump for the high vacuum. 

[G0HZU]

Salvaged this old Aeroflex 6GHz vector sig gen from the dumpster...

It was in a mess inside after two (big name) companies had tried to fix it and failed. I've managed to get it running now although there were parts missing and parts physically damaged inside due to the 'repair attempts'.

[Ice-Tea]

Sweet! And not *that* old

[CJay]

Salvaged this old Aeroflex 6GHz vector sig gen from the dumpster...

It was in a mess inside after two (big name) companies had tried to fix it and failed. I've managed to get it running now although there were parts missing and parts physically damaged inside due to the 'repair attempts'.

Nice, I have a faulty 3GHz version that I *must* get round to investigating

[aargee]

6 x THS720P isolated, portable Tek scopes. Pretty close to prestine condition, most of the accesoires are there except for the battery packs.

I would advise that you keep the batteries out of the units, my 720's LCD polariser failed within a week of last use, the NiCd battery died at the same time - I can only guess that it was the battery out-gassing that attacked the screen.
Or a terrible coincident.

Going to have to attempt a polariser replacement once I get my hands on some polariser film.

[Ice-Tea]

Got that advise before, I will heed it and forward it to future customers. Thanks!

[FrankBuss]

Cool, where can I buy it and how much does it cost? Does it need an external vacuum pump?

Starting point...
http://www.medwow.com/used-electron-microscope/jeol/jcm-5000/482399477.item

27,000 USD, I think I will pass. But still relatively cheap for an electron microscope, they used to be much more expensive. For what do you plan to use it?

[G0HZU]

Salvaged this old Aeroflex 6GHz vector sig gen from the dumpster...

It was in a mess inside after two (big name) companies had tried to fix it and failed. I've managed to get it running now although there were parts missing and parts physically damaged inside due to the 'repair attempts'.

Nice, I have a faulty 3GHz version that I *must* get round to investigating

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a service manual available for these generators and they are a bit fiddly to take apart and work on. One piece of advice I would give you is don't run it with the covers off for very long unless you blow it with a cooling fan. The thermal management of these generators is dodgy at best and I think part of the reason mine had parts removed and damaged from the main RF board was because the repairer let it overheat with the covers removed. So it developed more problems the longer it was left running. It went away with one fault and came back with unrelated parts missing and parts damaged and it had a string of problems because of this. My guess is that the repairer just gave up on it but they left a real mess inside and didn't even put it back together properly. I think it is designed to suck in cool air at the grill at the front and draw it over the RF section and then the warm air is blown out of the back. So without the covers it will overheat. This assumes the fan on mine is the right way round!

[Terry01]

I pulled the trigger on 1 of these today! 

[CJay]

I pulled the trigger on 1 of these today! 

Nice machines, I have a few of the 15" G4 versions on the shelf at work and they *fly*, SSD speed is ridiculous fast.

[Terry01]

I pulled the trigger on 1 of these today! 

Nice machines, I have a few of the 15" G4 versions on the shelf at work and they *fly*, SSD speed is ridiculous fast.

Nice to hear! The reviews are quite good for it too. I won't push it anywhere near it's limits so it should fly all day long with my use. It's "marmite" looks are quite nice I think.

It's always good when someone can give you real world info because they have actually used the thing in question themselves. I did dither and sway a bit and nearly bought the Predator 300 and also the 15" Omen too. Once I settled on the Omen machine I then knew I would be spewing if i'd got the 15" and not the 17" as there was only £100 difference between them.

I'll report back once I've had a chance to properly use it 

[gamalot]

New toys from Digigkey Digikey:

 Meanwell AC/DC 5V/3A power supply, STLink-V3SET, Quickchip flux-remover.

[bob225]

A mint condition PS3 for free, no leads or controller, never opened

[Martin.M]

a Fluke, 883A

[stenbror]

Pace ADS 200 and a JBC CD-2BE with a lot of tips. Wonder why?

[Kjelt]

So again a find from visiting my favorite metal scrapyard.
This time I encountered a metal dumpster full of Assembleon feeders.
Upon asking how much they would cost a piece, the man said €2,50 per kg

Unfortunately many of them were already looted, motors were ripped off 
I ended up with 15 pieces for €100.- , many more good ones around but hey I could not carry more of them with me.
Now I have to find schematics for them or reverse engineer them.
If anyone has some schematics please pb me : Assembleon Type:  PA 2655

Sorry for the lousy picture from the scrapyard,  I still have a Nokia stupidphone from 2005 or so 

[gamalot]

New toys from Digigkey Digikey:

 Meanwell AC/DC 5V/3A power supply, STLink-V3SET, Quickchip flux-remover.

Quite a young engineer with quite a complicated STM32 chip debugger!

Actually he has no interest in the debugger, he likes the shiny shiny switch mode power supply. 

[Shock]

Pace ADS 200 and a JBC CD-2BE with a lot of tips. Wonder why?

You need to repair your Commodore 64C perhaps?
Time to purge all the Chinese ones.

[PTR_1275]

I’ve been looking for a new backpack for a while. My 12-13 year old crumpler laptop bag is getting on a bit and recently I’ve been needing tools on the go more and more. I looked at lots of varieties of tool backpacks / technician bags to get one I wanted but they seem to be seriously heavy duty for people using them 10 hours a day on building sites, through to not useful for anything.

I finally bought a fluke pack30 and while it’s a pretty big bag, it feels like it could be a bit better laid out.

The side “wings” would be more useful if they were wider (deeper) to put things in, but they are only quite thin. The main section is meant to open all the way looking at the press photos, but it fees like you have to force it to open that far which makes me cautious of the durability in the long term.

Being in Australia the 12 month warranty from fluke doesn’t mean jack with consumer laws (a $300 backpack will be seen that it should last longer than 12 months and will be covered by consumer protection).

[PartialDischarge]

Vacuum 2 stage pump with mist eliminator, Alcatel 2012. Not exactly portable