What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[capt bullshot]

Yes, it has:



Both computers (the M4800 and this E7440) support dual monitors on the dock plus the internal screen, so my triple screen setup works too.
After some debian install-fu (apt-clone and rsync of home directory) the E7440 now is a perfect clone of the M4800, just slower at multi-threaded compile jobs (say make -j 8 ). It's greatest advantage over the M4800 is the fan isn't running at normal active linux desktop, while the M4800 gets quite noisy even when idle.

[Kjelt]

  Take good care of them and maybe as I did with my HP laptops and dockingstations buy an extra one if you encounter them cheap.
I have three seperate ssds , win10, win7 and win xp and just place the one I need, only make sure the internet is disconnected so hackers cant corrupt the no longer updated os's and you have a great and compact solution to support old equipment.

[Tadas]

SC126 Z180 single board computer. One of those "retro computing" kits. Should be fun build to kill couple weeks of the lockdown 

[mansaxel]

4. iFixit Mako (4mm bit) screwdriver kit. The handle on this is fantastic. I’m going to get the 1/4” handle of theirs, as AFAIK, it’s the only 1/4” bit handle with a precision screwdriver style rotating end cap. (And on these, they have ball bearings!) That handle with PB Swiss bits is going to be an unbeatable combination.

That kit is a wonderful upgrade to the other lots-of-crazy-heads driver kit that's part of their tool kits. We've got both, and the Mako is property of my wife, stored in her tool chest. But I'm allowed to borrow it.

Wiha is also a favourite. I've got a few of their torque screwdrivers, and a nearly full set of the standard red/black screw drivers, including the largest slotted DIN has published a standards sheet for, 14,5 x 2 mm.

Oh, and I've been active recently, too:



"Possibly working" was the sellers verdict. It has one of the sick (small, circular, same as old Quad 303 amps, IIRC) Bulgin mains inlet connectors, so I'll have to source one.

[Gixy]

Ersa i-Con Nano to replace my good old Voltcraft solder station, whose iron what not so good and for which tips are no more available.
I'm still having problem to configure the Nano with a micro SD card. It is supposed to accept 16GB cards, but not the one I have. I'll try to downsize the card to 8GB and see if it works.

[McBryce]

You can do all the configuration without an SD card as far as I can remember. The card option is really only there to save time when you need to set multiple units to the same settings.

McBryce.

[tom66]

I bought another 16GB DDR4 module to bring my system to 48GB...

... and Amazon sent me two packages, each with 16GB within.  I contacted their cust. services, and was told to keep the extra.

So now I have 64GB of RAM.  It is more than anyone could reasonably need for a desktop system.  I originally upgraded from 32GB when I moved to a Ryzen 7, as during large FPGA builds I was getting memory allocation failures (often bumping on 28-29GB of usage.)  But I doubt I will ever begin to use this allocation. At least the OS can use it for caching.  I wonder if I can force Windows' caching policy to be more aggressive, often it leaves >20GB unallocated.

[Vgkid]

A new meter...
Physically, it is almost perfect.

[tooki]

Ersa i-Con Nano to replace my good old Voltcraft solder station, whose iron what not so good and for which tips are no more available.
I'm still having problem to configure the Nano with a micro SD card. It is supposed to accept 16GB cards, but not the one I have. I'll try to downsize the card to 8GB and see if it works.

I have the nano, it works well!

(Micro) SD cards can be SD, SDHC, or SDXC. I don’t know whether the nano supports SDHC or SDXC, that could be the issue. I can check once I’m at home.

You can do all the configuration without an SD card as far as I can remember. The card option is really only there to save time when you need to set multiple units to the same settings.

McBryce.

You must be thinking of the “big” i-Con stations. The nano and pico can only be configured via SD — they have no menus or settings on the unit.

[McBryce]

Oops, you're right. It's a while since I owned that model. Temperature and calibration can be done without an SD card, the rest is only via SD card. I upgraded to an iCon 2V a while ago because I got fed up having to swap tips.

McBryce.

[Gixy]

Thx Tooki. The guy at Ersa didn't mention the type of the SD card. He just told me to verify the version of the software and to try to insert the card several times... I'll really appreciate if you could confirm that this is the problem, and after that the challenge will be to find a non-HC or XC micro-card, as there are no more on the market!

PS: on the Ersa website, they say 2-16 GB formatted FAT8, 16 or 32. SD are limited to 2GB and FAT16, so SDHC should be supported...
PPS: finally found another 16GB micro-SD card which worked. Don't know why the other won't...

[mansaxel]

Add one vote for the I-con Nano. It's my daily driver, but is getting some competition from my TS100 which lives in the traveling kit.

[tooki]

Thx Tooki. The guy at Ersa didn't mention the type of the SD card. He just told me to verify the version of the software and to try to insert the card several times... I'll really appreciate if you could confirm that this is the problem, and after that the challenge will be to find a non-HC or XC micro-card, as there are no more on the market!

PS: on the Ersa website, they say 2-16 GB formatted FAT8, 16 or 32. SD are limited to 2GB and FAT16, so SDHC should be supported...

The card I bought for my nano appears to be a 4GB Samsung SDHC, formatted as FAT32 with MBR partitioning. Based on the disk name, I suspect I temporarily borrowed it to test a handheld audio recorder, so it was likely formatted in that device.

Yeah, I don’t deal with SD enough to know the size brackets by heart. (As for the file system, you certainly can use a newer file system on a smaller SD card, or a non-FAT filesystem altogether. I mean, it won’t work on almost any gadget, but computers can handle it just fine! :p An SD card makes for a nifty portable boot disk for computer troubleshooting, albeit a generally slow one!) I vaguely recall there being a period where some sizes of SD cards existed in both the older and newer hardware types, such that incompatibility sometimes occurred.

[mansaxel]

Add one vote for the I-con Nano. It's my daily driver, but is getting some competition from my TS100 which lives in the traveling kit.

Do you have the TS80? If you are happy with TS100, I think TS80 won't fail you. It just added some new tips into its selection, including a nice knife tip and a bend long conical tip.

No, didn't know of the TS80, so had to look at Dave's video. Yeah, I can see why. Definitely want.

[shakalnokturn]

A vintage White case.

[pidcon]

I bought a few PB Swiss precision screwdrivers.

[richnormand]

Got a Prusa 3D printer last Friday. Just finished the assembly today, tested, and first print..

Assembling the kit is nice and the book well written.
As well the website support features the latest changes and peoples comments on each steps and modules.
This is also good to know each bolt and adjustment on the unit for the future.

Birthday gift from my SO.

[CalMachine]

Got a Prusa 3D printer last Friday. Just finished the assembly today, tested, and first print..

Assembling the kit is nice and the book well written.
As well the website support features the latest changes and peoples comments on each steps and modules.
This is also good to know each bolt and adjustment on the unit for the future.

Birthday gift from my SO.

Great choice in a printer   Did you ration your gummy bears properly!?

I've had the I3 MK3s for a little over a year now... it's been a great printer. 

[richnormand]

Birthday gift from my SO.

Great choice in a printer   Did you ration your gummy bears properly!?

Hmmm.. nope!
Reserved for she that gave it to me.....
Some things are just enjoyed better together.

[technix]

So now I have 64GB of RAM.  It is more than anyone could reasonably need for a desktop system.  I originally upgraded from 32GB when I moved to a Ryzen 7, as during large FPGA builds I was getting memory allocation failures (often bumping on 28-29GB of usage.)  But I doubt I will ever begin to use this allocation. At least the OS can use it for caching.  I wonder if I can force Windows' caching policy to be more aggressive, often it leaves >20GB unallocated.

I don't think Windows would ever do much caching at all for a desktop-ish machine. On my dual socket machine with 128GB RAM and Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, it uses just about as much space for cache as yours do. And this is already a server-ish machine with a supposed Windows Server derived kernel.

[CalMachine]

Birthday gift from my SO.

Great choice in a printer   Did you ration your gummy bears properly!?

Hmmm.. nope!
Reserved for she that gave it to me.....
Some things are just enjoyed better together.

Good call

[technix]

Ordered a pair of Xeon E5-2696v2 CPUs for my 7-year-old HPC workstation. The price was US$100 each, and I can what is equivalent to Ryzen TR 1700X performance out of the pair of processors without replacing the whole machine.

[mnementh]

SQUEEEEEEE! 

mnem's Bench: MasTech MS-8911 LCR Tweezer Mini-Review

mnem
 

[fkfaraz]

My new baby A Fluke 187.....

Got it for 139 usd from a so called electrical engineer( Because 10A fuse was installed at 400ma fuse place Glad i first opened it  )

Comes only with probes though and is the most expensive equipment on my workbench right now.

 

[Microcheap]

SQUEEEEEEE! 

mnem's Bench: MasTech MS-8911 LCR Tweezer Mini-Review

mnem
 

mnementh, have you tested this tweezers with in-circuit components? I already have a HP4070C smd tweezers and a DE-5000 LCR meter, but I've been watching this Mastech MS8911 as an alternative to measure components on the board without have to de-solder them. It uses a low test voltage and should works fine for that.