What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[Mr. Scram]

Desoldering tool here too! Not station but original Edsyn SOLDAPULLT Deluxe solder sucker!

I also ordered Amprobe 33XR-A as a second meter, and some smd components and leds.

An Edsyn is on my list too. Their mailbag plug was pretty effective!

[mansaxel]

Scored a MetraHit 25 on local auction site.  I think I'm good with multimeters for some time now.



Price was OK, but not fantastic. OTOH, shipping is next-to-free, which never is so if you score a bargain from overseas.

[Messtechniker]

Got myself three LC-ADC-F103C8. 10 channel ADCs.
Just for fun because they are dirt cheap.
Also cobbled together a recoding proggy for these. See pics.

[capt bullshot]

Got that Keithley 238 from forum member Ice-Tea, now it has finally made its way into the instruments shelves:



This is the 100M resistor that is connected:

[lukego]

Quick TR1100 hot air station. Curious to see how it performs on small parts e.g. 0603. I have the Quick 861DW already but I only use that on large parts due to its bulky "garden hose" handling.

Hasn't arrived yet...

[rsjsouza]

1. Very primitive LCD display. 320*240 for a very large size means pixel size it ridiculously large. Also scanning is visible and refreshing is very slow (somewhat 10fps). Viewing angle is great, but color is not so good.

Nice summary; Flukes tend to have those "ancient displays" - I still don't know if it is due to them sticking to an older microcontroller or perhaps they feel that less resolution is more robust for the field (in contrast with TFT stuff).

2. PC program doesn't work well under Windows 10 due to the USB driver is proprietary and supplied driver can't work under Windows 10. Very picky USB stick compatibility, so be sure to get a small and old drive.

Did you check if your pendrives are formatted in exFAT or NTFS? I noticed that most embedded equipment usually works (or performs better) with FAT16/32.

4. Huge power brick. 10W of power in the size of a 330W gaming laptop power brick size, presumably due to CAT IV requirements.

I also have some equipment that has large bricks; I love them and the fact they use larger capacitors with longer life (the ultra-compact capacitors usually are rated for less hours). Not to mention transformers and room for extra insulation around the board.

[PartialDischarge]

I tried to probe a very fast half bridge's high side gate, and it went well with 20MHz BW limit. I also tried to probe high side Vgs, and it also sent well even without a bandwidth limiter.

Out of curiosity, what is the slew rate and voltage of the Vds and Vgs rise time of such a fast half bridge? Just to have a reference.

[rsjsouza]

The scope does, however, work with the same drive if I format only the first 2GB of space and leave the rest unformatted. It seems the firmware doesn't like larger drive partitions.

This is annoying indeed. Perhaps they used int32_t as the disk size; who knows?

I have some 512MB pendrives just for this task - given the low resolutions of the screens, such small size holds an eternity of screenshots. Sure the full 140M points of my DS4014 quickly exhaust it, but it is quite rare for me to actually need it.

[ChristofferB]

Got a Brookdeal lock-in amplifier for next to nothing! Seems to be working as intended, and in a nice half-rack form factor.

I also bought a 1960s NOS quartz fibre dosimeter kit. The old military/civil defense pen dosimeter typically go to multi hundred R, but 200 mR pens are available on ebay occasionally. Would be interesting to actually measure my background dose.

[lukego]

Got the Quick TR110 hot air pencil today. Quite nifty. I'm now able to work on individual 0402s using hot air pretty comfortably. Happy to have that capability for 300 euro.

There's a curious feature where you set a "working time" (default 30s) after which the station kicks into rapid cooling mode at maximum air flow, as if the handpiece had been holstered. What's all that about? Caught me by surprised on my first test here and blew a resistor off the bench:



Otherwise impressed with the unit and how it handles although the UI is one of those digital disasters with too many modes and options, not the same nice feeling as their 861DW.

[djos]

After seeing Dave review it recently, I bought a KOTO Fume extractor to replace my cheap and nasty ebay unit. Unfortunately, shipping is expensive so landed it cost me $192 Ass-trailian Micro-Pesos. Still seems like good value compared to other alternatives.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZHH5H7N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[PlainName]

Hmmm. THat's £203 in Amazon UK, and shipping from the US is apparently $41. Stunning bargain for us to buy from there and ship a quarter of the way around the world instead of buying local.

[djos]

Hmmm. THat's £203 in Amazon UK, and shipping from the US is apparently $41. Stunning bargain for us to buy from there and ship a quarter of the way around the world instead of buying local.

For me it's still $50 AUD cheaper than a Hakko FA-400 which is nothing to write home about. It's also $1,400 cheaper than a Hakko FA-430!

[BravoV]

Another used Japanese PCN's power resistors hoard. 

Smaller ones are rated 150W(mounted)/105W(free air), and larger one is 300W/210W respectively.

Accuracy 2%, 260ppm/C temp.co, can withstand 5X overload for 5 second, with accuracy within 2%, and with dielectric strength 1500V AC for 1 min.

Datasheet -> PCN IRH Series power resistor

The "W" attribute at label means low inductance series, measured with LCR, all have approx.  1uH@100kHz, not sure if these considered low inductance. 

As usual, shot with TO-220 as reference size. 

[TerraHertz]

My old HP 1630G is far from the best LA I have, but it's still my trusty, simple favorite.  Recently an identical one was listed on the 'bay, as an auction starting at one cent. Hmm... I wonder? I set up a low snipe bid, just in case everyone else thought it was too ancient to be of any interest.

And so, behold. A really nice old logic analyzer won for ONE CENT. (254706863961) The seller was good about it, glad it was going to a good home. He did a very solid job of packing, . The international shipping baboons (UPS this time) did their worst to the box, but thanks to excellent padding the 1630G came through perfectly.

All it needed was one dreaded RIFA mains filter cap replacing, before power up. It works!


Wish I'd had the same luck with two other recent buys:
* A HP 16500C LA. Sold cheap as 'for parts'. Arrived undamaged but it turns out the PS is sick, plus HDD and MB memory DIMMs had been removed. Hopefully I can fix the PS, then scrounge a suitable HDD, reload it, and find correct DIMMs.
* A HP 4145B, working, perfect condition, relatively cheap. But despite adequate packing, UPS managed to give it some dinged corners on the way from USA to Oz. Heavily dropped, apparently. At least it still runs, but the dings are very disappointing. Shipping insurance claim time.

[KaneTW]

A Formlabs Form 3, and a Keithley DMM6500.

Now to find a FDM 3D printer that fulfills my requirements...

[ledtester]

Found at my favorite surplus store...

[Ed.Kloonk]

Found at my favorite surplus store...
(Attachment Link)

Crypto mining, are we?

[lukego]

There's a curious feature where you set a "working time" (default 30s) after which the station kicks into rapid cooling mode at maximum air flow, as if the handpiece had been holstered. What's all that about?

To prevent you from cooking the chip or PCB. You should adjust parameters and/or use a hot plate if you can't blow a part down for 30 seconds.

I will try to get used to that. I have to say I'm surprised that it instantly switches from low-flow heating to high-flow cooling. Isn't the expected behaviour that the solder will be molten and the part immediately blown away? Maybe I need to listen for the beeps and point the iron somewhere else during the transition.

[artag]

Fluke 117 in pretty good condition. £80 from 'cash converters' - a kind of pawn shop.

[jmh]

TTi 1705 meter arrived today - will make a change to my little DMM flying about the bench after its leads...

[hli]

A pair of Keysight U1163A SMT grabbers. You can never have too many test leads and probes.
A Prusa i3 MK3S (as a kit - will keep me busy the next evenings I guess). Finally wanted to have a 3D printer that is just a tool and not a hobby (although I liked tinkering with and improving my K8200 it just needs too much attention)
And a TFMini Plus range sensor - I need a car position sensor for my garage (used MaxBotix ultrasonic sensors before, but they are problematic with temperatures around 0°C). I will see how this sensor can deal with the shape of the car.

[Ground_Loop]

Finally got a plasma cutter: Hypertherm XP30

[djos]

I got a cheap drill press the other day and finally got around to setting it up on a metal shelf. Considering how cheap this was, I'm very impressed!

https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07V4PMPTN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[gamalot]

A few days ago, I received an email from the school informing me that I would prepare a computer for my son that can be taken to his school. They recommended a few laptops, and I am not satisfied with those models. After doing some simple searches and comparisons, I decided to buy Lenovo's L380 Yoga. For an extra 120 Australian dollars, I get a better CPU and a larger, higher-resolution screen.