What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[Vgkid]

*snip

I look forward to more pictures.

[vk6zgo]

The "bulbs" are Nixie tubes. They need around 170VDC to illuminate. Not for absolute beginners, but also not what most would consider very high voltage.

McBryce.

Yeah!
You might say $&@#%€£¥¥#####&&&@@@!!!, if you touch it, but it is normally not capable of enough current to do you any real damage.
I don't know why people are so scared of a bit of DC HT---back in the day, we wouldn't have learnt anything if we had that attitude.

Just don't put your fingers in the wrong places---- after all, you wouldn't put your fingers in front of a jigsaw, or touch a soldering iron tip "just to see what happens!"

[Cubdriver]

The "bulbs" are Nixie tubes. They need around 170VDC to illuminate. Not for absolute beginners, but also not what most would consider very high voltage.

McBryce.

Yeah!
You might say $&@#%€£¥¥#####&&&@@@!!!, if you touch it, but it is normally not capable of enough current to do you any real damage.
I don't know why people are so scared of a bit of DC HT---back in the day, we wouldn't have learnt anything if we had that attitude.

Just don't put your fingers in the wrong places---- after all, you wouldn't put your fingers in front of a jigsaw, or touch a soldering iron tip "just to see what happens!"

It seems to me that people tend to be far too risk-averse these days.  I'm not advocating for wanton idiocy, but with a bit of knowledge and care, working on things with 170+ V rails carries little risk.  I started playing with old tube-type black and white TV sets at about eleven years old; they typically had B+ rails that were in the 300V neighborhood, along with 15-19kV CRT second anode supplies.  My knowledge about such things at that point came entirely from reading; no one in my family was into electronics.  (My father had a ham license and had done some shortwave stuff before I was born, but had no station or gear by the time I came along.)

I also remember old project books in the library in middle school that likely dated from the late 50s - early 60s (this was in the late 70s) that were all transformer powered vacuum tube projects.  Too many people today seem to think that anything over 12V is high voltage...

-Pat

[capt bullshot]

No nixie stuff, alas.
But the long time wanted electronic load to complement the typical TE addicts bunch of power supplies.

[chickenHeadKnob]

@Bullshot

It is an electronic load that blows hot air in your face, and has female "safety" input?  That is a real winner.

[TERRA Operative]

That fan looks to be a sucker, not a blower.

[deadlylover]

I bought one of those Kogan DC pedestal fans. I like how it has a very low minimum speed setting compared to the $10 cheapies I have from Bunnings.

At the lowest speed it only draws a couple of watts for a gentle breeze which is perfect for sleeping. The $10 fan draws 30W/36W/40W for low/med/high, so it might pay for itself if it lasts >10 years ahahah.

[technix]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

[julianhigginson]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

What sort of things are you planning to use it with? General web service account login? Or computers you administer that are on the internet?

[technix]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

What sort of things are you planning to use it with? General web service account login? Or computers you administer that are on the internet?

General Web services and PGP. Maybe also as login keys to my computer.

[gamalot]

A FE-5680A rubidium reference clock, and fans, more and more fans! 

[technix]

A FE-5680A rubidium reference clock, and fans, more and more fans! 

On the fast track to time nut? I got my volt nut derailed after I bought my LM399's.

[gamalot]

A FE-5680A rubidium reference clock, and fans, more and more fans! 

On the fast track to time nut? I got my volt nut derailed after I bought my LM399's.

Now I think I need a GPSDO. 

[technix]

A FE-5680A rubidium reference clock, and fans, more and more fans! 

On the fast track to time nut? I got my volt nut derailed after I bought my LM399's.

Now I think I need a GPSDO. 

I already have a GPS-disciplined DS3231 TCXO on a Raspberry Pi set up to be my Stratum 1 NTP server inside my home network, and I have set up all my local computers (including the authentication server) to use that as the clock source. Usually I use GPS PPS as the synchronization pulse, but when GPS is flaky it switches to the DS3231.

[Vgkid]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

[technix]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

I do know that a few companies do use those for work purposes.

Dow do you use them though?

[CJay]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

Same here. 2FA is required for all employees in my facility. The second factor could be a YubiKey, or could be a text message.

I have a pile of 2FA kit for use with various contracts I work on, it's quite common.

[PartialDischarge]

HP 410C Voltmeter in mint condition with accessories.
One has to resort to 60s technology to have a meter with 100Mohm input impedance up to 1500V
Also for non-believers of the unique piece of technology this is, here is it measuring a 50Mhz sine amplitude, put out 500mVrms, measured 520mVrms

[technix]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

Same here. 2FA is required for all employees in my facility. The second factor could be a YubiKey, or could be a text message.

I have a pile of 2FA kit for use with various contracts I work on, it's quite common.

Can those be wiped and reused? YubiKey can be wiped of its contents and repurposed.

[CJay]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

Same here. 2FA is required for all employees in my facility. The second factor could be a YubiKey, or could be a text message.

I have a pile of 2FA kit for use with various contracts I work on, it's quite common.

Can those be wiped and reused? YubiKey can be wiped of its contents and repurposed.

I suspect not by the end user, there must be a way to get your 'secret' onto them and they must be registered somehow as they can be revoked but the back end is not something I have access to.

I have torn one down after it had been revoked but other than a set of programming contacts there's nothing that looks as convenient as the Yubi

[technix]

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

Same here. 2FA is required for all employees in my facility. The second factor could be a YubiKey, or could be a text message.

I have a pile of 2FA kit for use with various contracts I work on, it's quite common.

Can those be wiped and reused? YubiKey can be wiped of its contents and repurposed.

I suspect not by the end user, there must be a way to get your 'secret' onto them and they must be registered somehow as they can be revoked but the back end is not something I have access to.

I have torn one down after it had been revoked but other than a set of programming contacts there's nothing that looks as convenient as the Yubi

Depending on what technology they used, it might be reprogrammable. At least (if you can find the documentations and if it is Flash reprogrammable) it can be wiped of all data and programming and you can build your own crypto code into it.

[bitseeker]

HP 410C Voltmeter in mint condition with accessories.
One has to resort to 60s technology to have a meter with 100Mohm input impedance up to 1500V
Also for non-believers of the unique piece of technology this is, here is it measuring a 50Mhz sine amplitude, put out 500mVrms, measured 520mVrms

That's a beauty, especially getting all the accessories with it.

[cdev]

You can turn $3 stlinkv2 clones (or the Blue Pill dev boards) into a "gnuk", (similar to Yubikey) dongle.

I decided to bite it and bought a YubiKey Neo authentication and cryptography module.

We use those at work.

Same here. 2FA is required for all employees in my facility. The second factor could be a YubiKey, or could be a text message.

I have a pile of 2FA kit for use with various contracts I work on, it's quite common.

Can those be wiped and reused? YubiKey can be wiped of its contents and repurposed.

I suspect not by the end user, there must be a way to get your 'secret' onto them and they must be registered somehow as they can be revoked but the back end is not something I have access to.

I have torn one down after it had been revoked but other than a set of programming contacts there's nothing that looks as convenient as the Yubi

Depending on what technology they used, it might be reprogrammable. At least (if you can find the documentations and if it is Flash reprogrammable) it can be wiped of all data and programming and you can build your own crypto code into it.

[MrW0lf]

[PartialDischarge]

HP 410C Voltmeter in mint condition with accessories.
One has to resort to 60s technology to have a meter with 100Mohm input impedance up to 1500V
Also for non-believers of the unique piece of technology this is, here is it measuring a 50Mhz sine amplitude, put out 500mVrms, measured 520mVrms

That's a beauty, especially getting all the accessories with it.

Just noticed a folded paper that was beneath the meter, can't believe they made each scale unique for each instrument, now I get why it is so accurate.
Tektronix and HP, the best companies ever to exist !