Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Mr. Scram]

on the packaging job.

My Ukraine/Russian arrival last week was surrounded by 2 wraps of bubbles and then in a box with 1" foam cubes to keep it off the walls of the box. Some Sellers on evilbay do it more than right. 

I am sick and tired of straightening bent pins and pin headers on evilbay shipments  Sellers go on my shit list!

Never mind the shit list, just make them pay. Literally. It's the only way they'll learn.

[beanflying]

26 cases in the last 3 months  Only a few $$ but very over it.

[Cubdriver]

The main realization I made a few days ago is that the main reason I buy this equipment is to repair and verify the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy...

I've expanded my collection based on this 'logic' more than a few times.  For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

-Pat

[xrunner]

The main realization I made a few days ago is that the main reason I buy this equipment is to repair and verify the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy...

That reminds me of the classic instructions on a bottle of shampoo - Lather - Rinse - Repeat 

[Cubdriver]

That reminds me of the classic instructions on a bottle of shampoo - Lather - Rinse - Repeat 

<pokes head out of shower after 45 minutes>  "Honey, I need more shampoo!!"   

-Pat

[Mr. Scram]

<pokes head out of shower after 45 minutes>  "Honey, I need more shampoo!!"   

-Pat

Honey turns out to be horrible shampoo.

[bitseeker]

For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

Now, that's really giving it GAS.

[Cubdriver]

For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

Now, that's really giving it GAS.

If you're gonna do it, do it right!  I see no reason for going at things half hearted - jump in with both feet. 

GAS pedal to the floorboards. 

-Pat

[neo]

For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

Now, that's really giving it GAS.

If you're gonna do it, do it right!  I see no reason for going at things half hearted - jump in with both feet. 

GAS pedal to the floorboards. 

-Pat

Thats the approach i've taken, what with the sheer number of things i've bought this last year and all. 

[bitseeker]

GAS pedal to the floorboards. 

 

[Specmaster]

Back to IOS v Android earlier posting. Apple has admitted that it has deliberately slowed down older products when IOS 11 was released because it was thought that older devices with ageing batteries couldn't cope with it. They say it was "Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices," it said.

This has a huge smell of Bullshit about it, people could if after upgrading to IOS 11, problems arose due to poor battery performance, have a new battery fitted but that would not have increased sales of their new phone, I suspect it has much more to do with their sales war with Samsung then anything else.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/21/technology/apple-slows-down-old-iphones/index.html?sr=fbCNN122117apple-slows-down-old-iphones0728AMStory

[bd139]

It’s really not bullshit. It’s just not the trade off you’re used to hearing about. Someone’s cheese got moved. The battery performance trifecta. Choose your compromise: lifetime (t), capacity (Q), performance (I) Everyone bitching because Apple chose performance and everyone else chose lifetime. Q is constrained by size and technology. And incidentally you can get it fixed for free, unlike everyone else’s t limitation.

t is the thing that ruins user experiences. operational t is bad if it’s low. Latency t is bad if it’s high. Q no one gives a crap about or even understands (who knows what Watt/hours are bar us technical folk). A 50% drop in performance as a trade off is good if you start from a point of efficiency (xnu+cocoa+llvm) as this may only result in a perceptive latency increase of a few ms.

Your Tesla Model S now drives like a high end Merc C class rather than you having to call the AA out every time your Ford Focus tank gets to 25%

Case in point: Casio FX991ES PLUS calculator. Optimised for t. Battery life - fuck knows as I’ve been using it for about 2 years non stop. TI nSpire CAS. Recharge daily. Dies in the middle of something important. Useless. Casio much slower solver. Meh fine.

Case in point: Agilent OLED DMMs. Battery measured in hours/days. Keysight LCD DMMs. Battery measured in hundreds of hours of constant use, display slower. Meh fine. Lame attempt to keep it TEA related.

I charge for consultancy usually on such matters

 

[Berni]

I've expanded my collection based on this 'logic' more than a few times.  For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

-Pat

That would get rather expensive once you get to RF gear...

Also remember to have backups.

Yesterday i was doing the calibration on a HP 83480A scope mainframe and the manual calls for a HP 8360 series or HP 8340 series (Synthesized Sweeper 20GHz) . A lot of RF gear has that thing used for calibration. Always wanted one but the prices are holy crap. So instead i resorted to my usual Gigatronics 6100 synthesizer for the job. I checked its 10MHz reference out and it was within the risetime and amplitude requirements for the procedure. Hook it up and i get a flat line on the screen. I re-check all the connections and im pretty sure it should be working. Hook up the output to my scope and sure enough there is no output (Maybe my trick with shimming that sticking solenoid in the output attenuator was not such a great fix).

But i happen to also have a Gigatronics 7100 synthesizer (This one has crapy 1MHz resolution but goes to 20GHz). Tho the 10MHz reference output on this one looked like a sinewave, but it was roughly the right amplitude and technically it does have a 'rise time' of over 3ns that the calibration procedure calls for. So i went on with the calibration, twiddled some trimmers, twiddled some values on screen, let the thing twiddle itself etc... and woho calibration successful and the waveforms look crisp.

It still needs a bit of a cleaning and being put back in to the rack but here is a screenshot. Note the timebase setting.

[Specmaster]

It’s really not bullshit. It’s just not the trade off you’re used to hearing about. Someone’s cheese got moved. The battery performance trifecta. Choose your compromise: lifetime (t), capacity (Q), performance (I) Everyone bitching because Apple chose performance and everyone else chose lifetime. Q is constrained by size and technology. And incidentally you can get it fixed for free, unlike everyone else’s t limitation.

t is the thing that ruins user experiences. operational t is bad if it’s low. Latency t is bad if it’s high. Q no one gives a crap about or even understands (who knows what Watt/hours are bar us technical folk). A 50% drop in performance as a trade off is good if you start from a point of efficiency (xnu+cocoa+llvm) as this may only result in a perceptive latency increase of a few ms.

Your Tesla Model S now drives like a high end Merc C class rather than you having to call the AA out every time your Ford Focus tank gets to 25%

Case in point: Casio FX991ES PLUS calculator. Optimised for t. Battery life - fuck knows as I’ve been using it for about 2 years non stop. TI nSpire CAS. Recharge daily. Dies in the middle of something important. Useless. Casio much slower solver. Meh fine.

Case in point: Agilent OLED DMMs. Battery measured in hours/days. Keysight LCD DMMs. Battery measured in hundreds of hours of constant use, display slower. Meh fine. Lame attempt to keep it TEA related.

I charge for consultancy usually on such matters

 

Still think that Android (at least the way Samsung implement it) is perhaps the best way, after a phone gets to a certain point, stop supporting OS updates for it, at least the performance does not suddenly deteriorate and also most of their phones have user replaceable batteries. The user should have the decision of if they wish to upgrade, and that will depend on what and how they use the phone, is it just a phone to them or or is media device like a mini tablet etc, all will have a bearing on their decisions.  Many IOS users it seems (if reports are correct) suing Apple because they cannot (allegedly) use the phone as a phone, it is too slow to respond to inputs.

I'm glad that I personally have Samsung phones, and even older ones are still capable of being used as daily phones etc, I know, I have an old one and a new one, the new one was only purchased in a panic because I needed a phone to contact my wife at Gatwick last year after I accidentally dropped my other phone in the bath  rending it useless until I could replace the sim holder and charging port. I needed a phone that same day as I was due to pick her and sister in law up from holiday.

Old phone successfully repaired and now is fitted with a PAYG card and works perfectly despite no longer supported for OS updates. 

[bd139]

The problem when you stop supporting updates for the OS (any OS) is that you end up with a quite dangerous little box in your hands. An unpatched android device is literally a personal risk. You can remotely compromise some handsets just by being close to them. And if you do get compromised you’re actually hurting others as you let android device will be a botnet node in no time at all. Any unpatched insecure device with internet access should be shredded. Look at IoT.

This should not be a personal decision of the device owner. You get an MOT for your car to protect other people, not you as an analogy.

Americans like to sue people. Class action is a quick earner. If you look on “hacker news” they certainly aren’t unusable. You get a max 20% performance loss. There’s lots of technical analysis on there past press sensationalism.

My 6s has been in the sink - they are totally water proof but it’s not advertised until the 7. win win

[glarsson]

Americans like to sue people. Class action is a quick earner.

Only for the lawyers involved. The "victims" only gets a few dollars.

[bd139]

True but they like to talk about the big victory when telling everyone about it

[bd139]

Back to TEA. Ikea purchase assembled and corner re-organised.

Respectively top to bottom: tools, parts, cables, crap. Also SWMBO was impressed with the improvement so it has actually lead to another Ikea trip next week to replace the other two boxes depicted on the left with neat drawers which currently contain stacks of paper, craft bits and self-reproducing kipple.

This has cleared about 40cm to the left of my scope and soldering iron which may turn into another pile of kit. Woohoo excuse for more TEA!

[Cubdriver]

It’s really not bullshit. It’s just not the trade off you’re used to hearing about. Someone’s cheese got moved. The battery performance trifecta. Choose your compromise: lifetime (t), capacity (Q), performance (I) Everyone bitching because Apple chose performance and everyone else chose lifetime. Q is constrained by size and technology. And incidentally you can get it fixed for free, unlike everyone else’s t limitation.

t is the thing that ruins user experiences. operational t is bad if it’s low. Latency t is bad if it’s high. Q no one gives a crap about or even understands (who knows what Watt/hours are bar us technical folk). A 50% drop in performance as a trade off is good if you start from a point of efficiency (xnu+cocoa+llvm) as this may only result in a perceptive latency increase of a few ms.

Your Tesla Model S now drives like a high end Merc C class rather than you having to call the AA out every time your Ford Focus tank gets to 25%

Case in point: Casio FX991ES PLUS calculator. Optimised for t. Battery life - fuck knows as I’ve been using it for about 2 years non stop. TI nSpire CAS. Recharge daily. Dies in the middle of something important. Useless. Casio much slower solver. Meh fine.

Case in point: Agilent OLED DMMs. Battery measured in hours/days. Keysight LCD DMMs. Battery measured in hundreds of hours of constant use, display slower. Meh fine. Lame attempt to keep it TEA related.

I charge for consultancy usually on such matters

 

Then TELL ME there's a trade off.  "This new software update is configured to slow your hardware down if the battery is worn down too much.  It does this to prevent random crashes caused by voltage sags.  Performance may be restored by the installation of a new battery."  I can then make a decision as to whether I want to install the update and take my chances with the existing battery, plan to get a new battery along with the update to extend the useful life of the device, stick with the existing software that's presumably working satisfactorily for me now, or upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware. 

Bullshit is pushing out an update with an unannounced new 'feature' that, without explanation, slows my phone to a slog.  The fact that they're now 'admitting' that this 'feature' exists going on a year after it came out tells me that they weren't entirely on the up and up, and while they might not have intended it to cause people to upgrade their phones because of it, they were probably not entirely displeased when that was the result.

You buy your Casio or TI calculator (I assume) knowing going in that it's optimized for one thing or the other.  If you made your purchase based on this, I doubt you'd be pleased if you had an update pushed out to it that, without any warning, changed the optimization to something else and hindered performance. Performance that had been entirely satisfactory to you before the update.

-Pat

[Cerebus]

Americans like to sue people. Class action is a quick earner.

I know what you mean, but they're not, in point of fact, quick. Most of the consumer class actions take several years to settle. Also they don't make money for the actual victims of whatever tort was perpetrated, the individual payouts are usually paltry, the people who get rich off them are the lawyers.

Like so many things, the fundamental idea of class actions was good - allow masses of people who made loses that of themselves weren't economic to take to court to hold a corporation to account - but in practice it's highly flawed, doesn't really achieve its original aim and contains perverse incentives (i.e. lawyers enter into them for their own enrichment with no regard to their 'clients' remuneration).

[bd139]

Then TELL ME there's a trade off.

Agreed. That's the only dick move here. They should have told people.

WRT to TI nSpire. No one chooses it. You get told by your college or school to buy one and then you realise it's a pile of shit. Satisfactory performance was never there, and to add insult to injury, updates have screwed them even harder. I don't own one myself now because it was always universally dead every time I tried to use it but my daughter has to suffer one at the moment as they just canned the old TI 8x series at her school. Updates you hope will improve that verifiably don't, if they even arrive. It's like starting at a large corporate and being given a company phone which happens to be a budget Android handset.

Satisfactory performance isn't a guarantee at purchase time. Or thereafter.

Look at Wun Hung Lo test gear.

I know what you mean, but they're not, in point of fact, quick. Most of the consumer class actions take several years to settle. Also they don't make money for the actual victims of whatever tort was perpetrated, the individual payouts are usually paltry, the people who get rich off them are the lawyers.

Quick as in least amount of implied effort by the individuals bringing the class action. I know someone who was involved in one and it took 4 years and they got $70 out of it. They were happy with that because all they had to do was file a form. The unbearable consequence is the several hours of time they spent telling me of "their own personal victory". At least they had some sense of accomplishment and moral validation out of it I suppose.

(then again they still own the piece of shit that broke)

[Specmaster]

Back to TEA. Ikea purchase assembled and corner re-organised.

Respectively top to bottom: tools, parts, cables, crap. Also SWMBO was impressed with the improvement so it has actually lead to another Ikea trip next week to replace the other two boxes depicted on the left with neat drawers which currently contain stacks of paper, craft bits and self-reproducing kipple.

This has cleared about 40cm to the left of my scope and soldering iron which may turn into another pile of kit. Woohoo excuse for more TEA!

Looking really good, you could use that extra space to put the cup of real Tea that SWMBO made for you [emoji2]

[Specmaster]

True but they like to talk about the big victory when telling everyone about it

I only raised the posting because it was on the BBC news website and I know how hotly this has been debated about did they or they didn't they cause old phones and tablets to slow down. Well today those that said no they didn't have the proof said from the official source that they did do it[emoji23]

[mnementh]

Quick jump back to the T12 portion of the thread. I didn't hit "buy" the other day when I was doing the checkout as I got distracted by the looks. This went very much in my favor as I got a $4 discount voucher this morning.

Ergo T12 DC version for £16.20  which is even more ridiculously good value for money! Hopefully I will not get a buggering from customs.

Plus I also bought 200 UV LEDs because I need to make some prototype PCBs with faster turnaround and lower cost on larger boards than OSHpark.  UV box here I come. No more 30 day turnaround. Got some photo etch resist board, developer and transparencies on the way too. Total expenditure of this project <£20 hopefully.

Just found another suitable metal case for the mains driven version that uses the same extrusions as the supplied assembled version but has an extra 20mm in length which would enable the IEC socket to be linked to the circuit board via some flexible cable, thus removing the mechanical stress from being transferred to the solder joint and also has sufficient room to all effectively bond all the case back the incoming earth terminal thus removing all matters of concern with the Quicko T12-952 assembled unit.

The existing front and back plates can be retained (ideal as the cutouts are different and the power socket is different) so it would be a quick and cheap solution to all the problems, if only the shipping was quicker.    

Sounds like you're losing out on the "cheap" part of the OLED T12 Controller ecology.

Is there any reason in the world you can't just rotate the back cover plate so the IEC socket clears the PCB instead of resting on it? Then all you have to do is fab up your GND screws and you're done.

The main realization I made a few days ago is that the main reason I buy this equipment is to repair and verify the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy... which I then use to repair and veryfiy the other equipment I buy...

I've expanded my collection based on this 'logic' more than a few times.  For instance, get a piece of HP gear.  Obtain a copy of the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook, AKA the operating and service manual).  Look at the "Recommended Test Equipment" table in the "Maintenance" section.  Go to evilBay and add new searches.  Buy more stuff.  Return to beginning and repeat, adding new items with each iteration of the loop.

-Pat

This is how I wound up with 3 2465s on/under my bench... for several of the critical service/calibration procedures, the service manual calls for a calibrated 2465.     

Back to IOS v Android earlier posting. Apple has admitted that it has deliberately slowed down older products when IOS 11 was released because it was thought that older devices with ageing batteries couldn't cope with it. They say it was "Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices," it said.

This has a huge smell of Bullshit about it, people could if after upgrading to IOS 11, problems arose due to poor battery performance, have a new battery fitted but that would not have increased sales of their new phone, I suspect it has much more to do with their sales war with Samsung then anything else.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/21/technology/apple-slows-down-old-iphones/index.html?sr=fbCNN122117apple-slows-down-old-iphones0728AMStory

It’s really not bullshit. It’s just not the trade off you’re used to hearing about. Someone’s cheese got moved. The battery performance trifecta. Choose your compromise: lifetime (t), capacity (Q), performance (I) Everyone bitching because Apple chose performance and everyone else chose lifetime. Q is constrained by size and technology. And incidentally you can get it fixed for free, unlike everyone else’s t limitation.

t is the thing that ruins user experiences. operational t is bad if it’s low. Latency t is bad if it’s high. Q no one gives a crap about or even understands (who knows what Watt/hours are bar us technical folk). A 50% drop in performance as a trade off is good if you start from a point of efficiency (xnu+cocoa+llvm) as this may only result in a perceptive latency increase of a few ms.

Your Tesla Model S now drives like a high end Merc C class rather than you having to call the AA out every time your Ford Focus tank gets to 25%

Case in point: Casio FX991ES PLUS calculator. Optimised for t. Battery life - fuck knows as I’ve been using it for about 2 years non stop. TI nSpire CAS. Recharge daily. Dies in the middle of something important. Useless. Casio much slower solver. Meh fine.

Case in point: Agilent OLED DMMs. Battery measured in hours/days. Keysight LCD DMMs. Battery measured in hundreds of hours of constant use, display slower. Meh fine. Lame attempt to keep it TEA related.

I charge for consultancy usually on such matters

 

Then TELL ME there's a trade off.  "This new software update is configured to slow your hardware down if the battery is worn down too much.  It does this to prevent random crashes caused by voltage sags.  Performance may be restored by the installation of a new battery."  I can then make a decision as to whether I want to install the update and take my chances with the existing battery, plan to get a new battery along with the update to extend the useful life of the device, stick with the existing software that's presumably working satisfactorily for me now, or upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware. 

Bullshit is pushing out an update with an unannounced new 'feature' that, without explanation, slows my phone to a slog.  The fact that they're now 'admitting' that this 'feature' exists going on a year after it came out tells me that they weren't entirely on the up and up, and while they might not have intended it to cause people to upgrade their phones because of it, they were probably not entirely displeased when that was the result.

You buy your Casio or TI calculator (I assume) knowing going in that it's optimized for one thing or the other.  If you made your purchase based on this, I doubt you'd be pleased if you had an update pushed out to it that, without any warning, changed the optimization to something else and hindered performance. Performance that had been entirely satisfactory to you before the update.

-Pat

They DO tell you. Every upgrade of iOS I've ever seen has the same "This upgrade may make older devices run slower." disclaimer. And it's really NOT rocket surgery; EVERY OS released since the dawn of bits needs newer, more powerful hardware to run on. The difference is Apple took a proactive approach to keep from having another "exploding iPwn battery debacle".

Smeesh. I sure wouldn't want to be in their shoes... fix a problem or not, everybody is going to be up their butts screaming about imagined evil intent. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." applies here; there's enough horror out there without freaking MAKING IT UP.

Here's something you need to understand about LiPo batteries: they are LIVESTOCK, just like bread and vegetables.

From the day they are manufactured, their chemical makeup starts to deteriorate and the IR of the cell begins to increase, even when being used with optimal charging/battery maintenance processes (which Apple has been on the cutting edge of since the first flaming battery debacle) it is pretty much a statistical certainty that the battery in a 2-year-old iPwn is going to be operating at a given percent LESS maximum current draw AND total mAH capacity than a new one, OR WORSE. If a user keeps a phone on a charger or runs it dead and leaves it in a drawer for months, either way that battery will SUFFER even more than one that is used normally.

Add to that the fact that due to hardware technology and the inexorable march of software development, the real usable life of ANY smartphone is about 2 years; the buttons and ports get worn and full of human "bathtub ring" type muck and pocket crud, and the ever-increasing processor demand of applets running EVERYWHERE on the internet means you need more processor, RAM and storage for a phone to work acceptably.

Really, for a smartphone, a design life of 2 years is pushing it; I just replaced an android phone with quad-core processor and 1.5 GB RAM with another that has a 2x as fast quad-core 64-bit processor and 3GB of RAM. Using it, it feels just like every other phone I've owned when it was new, while my old phone felt slow and cramped even after a complete wipe/reinstall. It was an 11 months old Samsung.

There's a good argument for non-user-replaceable batteries. The battery in my new phone (a semi-permanent bare lipo) is a 4.4V/3.85V Nominal HV cell approx 120% as large as the one in my previous phone, yet has 150% as much capacity. There is a HUGE variation in the quality of LiPo batteries available to the public right now; the cheap batteries on fleaBay are just that: CHEAP BATTERIES. A manufacturer has no QC over those aftermarket batteries, whether they have proper protection or BMS PCBs installed, or even if they are anywhere near advertised dimensions or capacity or even nominal voltage.

Making the battery "non-replaceable" means the manufacturer doesn't have to pay oodles of support agents to listen to every ignorant dumbass whining about poor performance in their year-old phone which was actually caused by the cheap-ass battery they bought off fleaBay that voltage-sags every time the processor hits more than 70% load. And they don't have to worry about arguing with said dumbass and paying to ship the phone back unfixed because of said POS battery.

It's the same argument they have against making their portables so the USB connection supports "Host" mode; as soon as you do that, you have every idiot and his brother whining about poor performance/short battery life from their iPud that is actually caused by the USB back massager and/or coffee-cup-warmer they plug into it every day.

IMO, particularly for a brand selling an "upscale" product experience, these are valid and important arguments.


Merry Christmas!


mnem
*Waiting by the chimney with a shotgun across my knees glee*

[Specmaster]

Sounds like you're losing out on the "cheap" part of the OLED T12 Controller ecology.
Is there any reason in the world you can't just rotate the back cover plate so the IEC socket clears the PCB instead of resting on it? Then all you have to do is fab up your GND screws and you're done.

Merry Christmas!

mnem
*Waiting by the chimney with a shotgun across my knees glee*

Actually, yes there is a problem, may be able to work around it though, so its possibly a good idea to rotate the back plate by 180 degrees. Currently the only thing that holds the PCB in place is the "bonding" to the IEC socket, remove this and the PCB is free to slide along the channels that it is located within to keep its clearance from the top and bottom of the casing, I'll strip it down later and take another look and see if its possible to mount a nylon screw / mounting pillar to prevent this from happening and report back in the interests of others tempted to go down this route with the T12, which I actively encourage, it is a far better soldering iron then many are used to using.

A quick note on the 2 year theory of a smartphone, I beat there are not that many people willing or able to shell out vast amounts of money (especially sim free) for flagship phones every 2 years. Not everyone needs or requires all the features and bells and whistles that they offer, I for one don't really use but a fraction of what my phone is capable of. I reckon that there a lot people out there who get these iconic phones because it is the latest fashionable thing to have and a lot of "one up man-ship" going on, hence why there is a thriving secondhand market for these phones several years after they were launched. I also still happen to have 2 HTC smartphones that are still capable of delivering acceptable performance some 10 or 12 years since they were launched and in real terms as far as the user is concerned is that some of the newer apps may not work because they have been designed around the latest versions of Android and also the same is also going to be true for IOS users if they resisted the OS updates. Even "sealed in" batteries can be replaced by the handy person or indeed many phone shops offer this service anyway. All it takes is a dedicated set of tools which there are many on the market and a set of instructions which again there any many of these and even video tutorials on YouTube on how to do this.