Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

EE version. Yo’ mama’s so fat her necklace’s inductance is 1H.

*Chuckle*

[Specmaster]

I be glad when this snow goes, its seriously disrupting the delivery of my new TEA goodies 

[plazma]

I checked Amazon again and these DPS5015 units are still being listed at £3.99 - 9 in stock (well, there were until I bought 5 of them, now there's only 4 )

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07433NF8F/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

I ordered the last.

Received the first one. Two more on the way.

[bd139]

I be glad when this snow goes, its seriously disrupting the delivery of my new TEA goodies 

Gah tell me about it. No TEA as such but when I sold my Rigol DS1054Z and recently the DG1022Z I went a bit mental and had a very cheap spend up. It's cold out so I thought hey lets start some projects. So Aliexpress, QRP Labs and box73 got owned. I am expecting a total of 15 items now     However NOTHING has been delivered for literally days apart from £0.70's worth of voltage regulators I forgot I ordered and don't really care about them as they were a utility purchase so I am getting antsy.

Chinese new year + snow = 

Now what's even worse is I was nattering with one of the guys at work who bought a Flashforge 3d printer and now I'm looking at 3d printer setups to play with as well. It's never ending. 

[ChrisLX200]

I be glad when this snow goes, its seriously disrupting the delivery of my new TEA goodies 

Gah tell me about it. No TEA as such but when I sold my Rigol DS1054Z and recently the DG1022Z I went a bit mental and had a very cheap spend up. It's cold out so I thought hey lets start some projects. So Aliexpress, QRP Labs and box73 got owned. I am expecting a total of 15 items now     However NOTHING has been delivered for literally days apart from £0.70's worth of voltage regulators I forgot I ordered and don't really care about them as they were a utility purchase so I am getting antsy.

Chinese new year + snow = 

Now what's even worse is I was nattering with one of the guys at work who bought a Flashforge 3d printer and now I'm looking at 3d printer setups to play with as well. It's never ending. 

Idly thinking about updating my Wanhao 4S, maybe with a Zortrax M200. Twice the price but I'm not sure twice the quality..

Still waiting on delivery of a DMM I ordered from Germany, think it's snow drifts all the way from to there!

[bd139]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

[Specmaster]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

Try here
https://www.tomtop.com/p-os0187eu.html?currency=GBP&Warehouse=CN&aid=gplaukyly&mid=10000018477&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=Google+Adwords&utm_campaign=TT_PLA_YLY&utm_content=2945&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDC

[bd139]

Not a bad price! good find!

TBH a big chunk of it will probably get shot so I'm looking at throwing one together from parts as well.

Edit: Looks like you can get the A8 from Amazon delivered via Prime as well and without all the import hassle and worry and time for a premium of £30 over the base price. Also amazon warranty which is "yeah just keep it and we'll send you another £300 SSD" (!?!?!?).

[beanflying]

Lovely early Autumn morning here, bit over 18 degrees, light breeze, shorts, bare feet and a coffee or two in the shack 

Now what toy to play with next 

[Brumby]

Lovely early Autumn morning here, bit over 18 degrees, light breeze, shorts, bare feet and a coffee or two in the shack 

Now what toy to play with next 

That's Celcius.

Same here - except it's closer to 24ºC and my choice of caffeine is tea (not TEA  ).

(Went to the snow once.  It was fun - until snow got down the cuff of my gloves and created an ice bracelet.  It took me an hour or more to warm my hands back up - and it was agony.  No, they weren't "proper" gloves for snow - but it was a one-off weekend trip.)

[beanflying]

Tea the drink will kill you 

Left what I thought was 'reasonable and fair' feedback on the crappilly packaged 740B  got after considering it at length.

"Very Poor packaging resulting in broken castings. Partial refund given."

This morning I get this

"im a stay at home mom a four trying ,my very best best to keep my feedback up I would have given you a full refund and paid for return shipping, Fedex can sometime be very rough with the packages could you please consider changing to positive, this is may only Job right now and need my buyer to know that if a probem of any kind arrived I would be more then happy to remove any issue so I could still receive a positive review could you please consider changing to positive?
thanks so much!! l"

Any reply I might give might by just a little sarcastic and or do your job properly .... 

[bitseeker]

"Very Poor packaging resulting in broken castings. Partial refund given."

Note that if eBay sees (or the seller notifies them of) information about resolution in the feedback (e.g., "partial refund"), eBay will replace the entire feedback text with something to the effect of "comment removed," which makes it look like you said something really inappropriate.

Seems silly, but happened to me before. When I asked what's wrong with it, eBay said you can't say anything about how a case/purchase was resolved.

[Brumby]

If that happens, I'd try leaving a "follow-up" comment.  You only get one and it's not as easily accessible as regular feedback - but it's there.  Don't know if eBay's intervention might block it, though.

And the follow up comment would need to omit the refund bit.

[Brumby]

Tea the drink will kill you 

Left what I thought was 'reasonable and fair' feedback on the crappilly packaged 740B  got after considering it at length.

"Very Poor packaging resulting in broken castings. Partial refund given."

This morning I get this

"im a stay at home mom a four trying ,my very best best to keep my feedback up I would have given you a full refund and paid for return shipping, Fedex can sometime be very rough with the packages could you please consider changing to positive, this is may only Job right now and need my buyer to know that if a probem of any kind arrived I would be more then happy to remove any issue so I could still receive a positive review could you please consider changing to positive?
thanks so much!! l"

Any reply I might give might by just a little sarcastic and or do your job properly .... 

While her story may be true, it's not guaranteed the seller is even female.

While I might sound harsh - the fact is that feedback is there for exactly the purpose yours was given.  If she didn't want that risk, then she should have packed it better.

[bd139]

Ah eBay feedback system failing entirely there as it is designed to by eBay.

The feedback system just gives the buyer some false sense of empowerment to encourage you to purchase. There is rarely a consequence for the seller or the buyer. Really if everyone has 99%+ feedback after negotiating bad feedback away then there is no differentiation for us genuine 100% sellers who do actually pack stuff properly.

The main thing eBay cares about is there being no financial consequence for them. That’s where the buck stops. After that they wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. When you’re not on fire they’re trying to gamify everything and give you pointless mutley medals to get you to slave away because your only income is via share cropping or running a market stall in their Bartertown monopoly. They’d chuck you in the fucking thunder dome if they could make more cash out of you.

This is a Western cultural thing. No one is bad if you’re making cash. Eastern culture is to chuck bad people in the street which is why I find aliexpress a better marketplace for buyers.

[beanflying]

Not even going to bother replying to the whining message. My feedback was left as Neutral feedback btw which is better than it deserved really.

[mnementh]

I make it a policy to never give negative or neutral feedback unless I wasn't completely satisfied with the resolution. Give them the benefit of the doubt; if the refund you got made you happy, no point in pissing all over their feedback. Warn them, explain how & why it wasn't packed properly. These boat anchors need special care, and the average person is not going to have a clue how to do it properly; just assume they did the best they knew how and move on with your life.

I have 100% positive lifetime feedback since they were still called EchoBay; it's hard work and any random psycho asshole can ruin it for no other reason than they're batshit crazy. It sucks to be an upstanding seller in a sea of shit.

If you feel folks need to know that the package arrived damaged, just put down a generic comment to the effect that " Item arrived with shipping damage; vendor made it right right away."

That way folks know to look for more such feedback, and karma is satisfied.

Speaking as a sometimes seller, it is so hard to keep a clean feedback rating on that sh**hole; the whole process is geared to enable outright extortionist tactics from the buyer, and to protect them from any fallout.

Cheers,


mnem
Also, pizza.

[beanflying]

This seller didn't even send a message before or after their refund offer. Communication helps. Only when this sale had an impact on their publicly available information did they bother to do so. In the scheme of several thousand sales leaving positive feedback with a negative comment for them would be a total waste of time and not even be glanced by prospective other buyers.

The Valhalla I received yesterday has a negative feedback left for him because someone didn't get their parcel yet? Clearly that isn't fair or how it is supposed to work.

Anyone sitting at 99%+ I generally wouldn't look at their feedback. 95-99% certainly look at the negative. If it is something I really want and they have a sub 95% feedback I scrutinize positive and negative feedback in most cases they are small sellers and have been left a bastard buyer comment or two.

There is a couple of US based sellers of tech gear that have a track record of poor packaging and if it weren't for the feedback system I may have brought stuff from them.

This seller for example should be run off Ebay on a Rail covered in Tar and Feathers. 21000 sales but it seems there is a pattern.

 "Seriously? You put packing tape on the item with a label? Too lazy to wrap" "What idiot ships an item W/O BOX? This type of idiot! Item damaged, AVOID SELLER" "Not shipped in a box, covered in packing tape." "Too poor packaging. Envelopes contains a lens case and the objective. No box to" "seller charges usd 275 for shipping. poor packing, unit damaged in transit"

[mnementh]

If you were satisfied with the refund you got, what difference does it make? All a busy vendor can do after the fact is to offer you money. If it's enough to make you happy, they still deserve positive feedback; that is also part of the eBay ecology.

Sure, on a visceral level you want them to "learn their lesson" and wrap a package better next time; but expecting any more than money from a purely business exchange is pointless.


mnem
In the end, it's all just inconvenienced electrons anyways.

[mnementh]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

Try here
https://www.tomtop.com/p-os0187eu.html?currency=GBP&Warehouse=CN&aid=gplaukyly&mid=10000018477&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=Google+Adwords&utm_campaign=TT_PLA_YLY&utm_content=2945&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDC

Run, don't walk from the acrylic frame 3DP designs. They're not rigid enough, and they crack out horribly everywhere it's important. Look for flat panel aluminum versions like the Geeetech or 2020/4020 aluminum extrusion based designs like the FolgerTech. If you want something cheaper than the FolgerTech, look into the Tevo Tarantula and Black Widow. The Tarantula is a solid, simple design; and with the addition of some roller rails and bracketry, it can even do light CNC router work.

Cheers,

mnem
Verticalness is highly overrated.

[leoakirakblo]

I didn’t hold to myself, and get this big one for 50 bucks seems working fine and pretty neat [emoji18]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bd139]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

Try here
https://www.tomtop.com/p-os0187eu.html?currency=GBP&Warehouse=CN&aid=gplaukyly&mid=10000018477&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=Google+Adwords&utm_campaign=TT_PLA_YLY&utm_content=2945&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDC

Run, don't walk from the acrylic frame 3DP designs. They're not rigid enough, and they crack out horribly everywhere it's important. Look for flat panel aluminum versions like the Geeetech or 2020/4020 aluminum extrusion based designs like the FolgerTech. If you want something cheaper than the FolgerTech, look into the Tevo Tarantula and Black Widow. The Tarantula is a solid, simple design; and with the addition of some roller rails and bracketry, it can even do light CNC router work.

Cheers,

mnem
Verticalness is highly overrated.

After much research came to the same conclusion. Also auto levelling is required for my level of patience. thanks for the heads up.

Did some further research and I might scratch build one over a few months with 2020 extrusion. They’re really not that complicated.

[Specmaster]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

Try here
https://www.tomtop.com/p-os0187eu.html?currency=GBP&Warehouse=CN&aid=gplaukyly&mid=10000018477&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=Google+Adwords&utm_campaign=TT_PLA_YLY&utm_content=2945&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDC

Run, don't walk from the acrylic frame 3DP designs. They're not rigid enough, and they crack out horribly everywhere it's important. Look for flat panel aluminum versions like the Geeetech or 2020/4020 aluminum extrusion based designs like the FolgerTech. If you want something cheaper than the FolgerTech, look into the Tevo Tarantula and Black Widow. The Tarantula is a solid, simple design; and with the addition of some roller rails and bracketry, it can even do light CNC router work.

Cheers,

mnem
Verticalness is highly overrated.

After much research came to the same conclusion. Also auto levelling is required for my level of patience. thanks for the heads up.

Did some further research and I might scratch build one over a few months with 2020 extrusion. They’re really not that complicated.

Yes that sounds like a better plan, extrusions will last a lifetime, always fancied a 3D printer but struggled to justify it and the space.

[tggzzz]

... always fancied a 3D printer but struggled to justify it and the space.

As far as I can see from the local Hackspace, they are a hobby that will last a lifetime. Whether that is a good thing depends on how much you enjoy fettling.

My attitude is to use Shapeways (etc), or any of the many local "craftsmen" that are advertising they will make you things for you.

That means I can get my thing printed in whatever is most appropriate; so far I've used PLA (once), SLA, nylon and brass. Who knows what the next new material will be? I'd love to justify titanium, paper seems unlikely, so maybe a ceramic.

[bd139]

Was thinking about going for the Anet A8. You can grab it for £170. Lots of meddling and upgrades required but that's what I'm in it for.

Try here
https://www.tomtop.com/p-os0187eu.html?currency=GBP&Warehouse=CN&aid=gplaukyly&mid=10000018477&utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=Google+Adwords&utm_campaign=TT_PLA_YLY&utm_content=2945&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDC

Run, don't walk from the acrylic frame 3DP designs. They're not rigid enough, and they crack out horribly everywhere it's important. Look for flat panel aluminum versions like the Geeetech or 2020/4020 aluminum extrusion based designs like the FolgerTech. If you want something cheaper than the FolgerTech, look into the Tevo Tarantula and Black Widow. The Tarantula is a solid, simple design; and with the addition of some roller rails and bracketry, it can even do light CNC router work.

Cheers,

mnem
Verticalness is highly overrated.

After much research came to the same conclusion. Also auto levelling is required for my level of patience. thanks for the heads up.

Did some further research and I might scratch build one over a few months with 2020 extrusion. They’re really not that complicated.

Yes that sounds like a better plan, extrusions will last a lifetime, always fancied a 3D printer but struggled to justify it and the space.

I have come up with about twenty odd use cases for it so far so no justification issue. The main problem for me is also space but I managed to get rid of an entire play kitchen yesterday so there’s some extra space now

However I’ve written a project queue out and it isn’t needed just yet so I am going to shelve the idea for a few months and actually finish something.

Next project is TEA related as I need to build an SNA for filter response measurement. Basically power meter and DDS sweeper in one box.

... always fancied a 3D printer but struggled to justify it and the space.

As far as I can see from the local Hackspace, they are a hobby that will last a lifetime. Whether that is a good thing depends on how much you enjoy fettling.

My attitude is to use Shapeways (etc), or any of the many local "craftsmen" that are advertising they will make you things for you.

That means I can get my thing printed in whatever is most appropriate; so far I've used PLA (once), SLA, nylon and brass. Who knows what the next new material will be? I'd love to justify titanium, paper seems unlikely, so maybe a ceramic.

I love fettling.

Really want to print ABS parts if I’m honest. Perhaps in a few years we’ll have DMLS printers for a reasonable price.