Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Damn it I can’t keep away. TEA is like a crack addiction.

You only now noticed that? I guess it's time to re-welcome you to the thread.

[Kosmic]

Well I guess I'm officially a volt-nut now?!

Just received my second Solartron 7061 (7 1/2 digits). Got both of them pretty cheap from the same seller. They are probably old military unit since they have the special MATE CIIL GPIB firmware installed. It's a good thing that the MATE cmds are added on top of the existing GPIB cmds and not replacing them.

It's strange what people do sometime. Someone removed the shielding plate from the top and bottom cover. I guess I should be able to use a blank pcb and cut it the right size.

Next step for me is probably to build a voltage ref and start logging

[bitseeker]

Very cool. I wonder why they removed the shields? Maybe they came loose?

[mnementh]

My guess is that the unit was used as a parts mule in an earlier life.    Hopefully there aren't any other "undisclosed features" in your new baby. 


Just came in from beating my son up with a lightsaber; he's still laughing and I'm covered in mosquito bites. 


mnem
Life is good.

[Kosmic]

My guess is that the unit was used as a parts mule in an earlier life.    Hopefully there aren't any other "undisclosed features" in your new baby. 

Luckily no, it's not missing anything else. And its almost working (fail 0 volt self test). I guess it wouldn't be fun if it was working perfectly 

[med6753]

My guess is that the unit was used as a parts mule in an earlier life.    Hopefully there aren't any other "undisclosed features" in your new baby. 

Luckily no, it's not missing anything else. And its almost working (fail 0 volt self test). I guess it wouldn't be fun if it was working perfectly 

Very nice and thanks for the pron shots. Look at all those reed relays in there. It must go clicky-clack when changing ranges.

Keep us informed of your progress. And welcome to the addiction. You're in good company. 

[ruffy91]

Why did you buy a second multimeter? With only one you did know the exact voltage, now you are never sure!

[med6753]

Holy shit. Look at this. You think we are addicted? Think again. This guy has been collecting TV studio equipment since the 1960's. Apparently most of it via dumpster diving so a lot of it doesn't work. But impressive none the less. Aside from the cameras and mics you could consider those consoles "test equipment". And look at all the possible adjustments and "tweaks" for the RGB signal. I now have a better appreciation as to why the NTSC standard was nicknamed "Never Twice the Same Color".   

[bitseeker]

Wow, cool! And so nicely organized, too. Looks like a museum of all kinds of broadcasting goodness.

[SeanB]

Remember as well those early imager tubes only had a few hundred hour operational lifetime, were rather insensitive ( thus the need for 50kW of light and a 200 ton AC unit in each studio), plus also had to be warmed up for around 4 hours before they would stop drifting, and could be aligned and set up using a massive colour chart and test pattern, daily. They also would have long term drift as well as the components aged, and many were also very orientation sensitive.

The rest of the world learnt from the US adoption of the National Television Standards Committee system, mostly in how to improve the very obvious flaws inherent in the system, and how, with only a few years better design experience from the original standard, designed to be compatible with the most common original set designs so as to not make undue interference, and made a few changes that improved stability and colour rendition.

Most obvious was PAL and SECAM mostly removed the "Hue" control, as the colour was a lot more stable both over time and with distortion in the transmission chain. The most impressive improvement prior to the all digital channel was that the designers of the standards managed to fit, in the original 8MHz allocated bandwidth, both colour pictures, analogue stereo audio, digital information ( Teletext) and as well high quality digital stereo audio ( NICAM stereo, which was capable of near CD audio quality, sadly let down by the poor speakers in most sets, being the smallest and cheapest they could fit in the set that would produce sound) which was the final step.

[Cubdriver]

   Holy crap that's a lot of gear!  Very cool!

-Pat

[bitseeker]

TEA + 50 years = 

[med6753]

The rest of the world learnt from the US adoption of the National Television Standards Committee system, mostly in how to improve the very obvious flaws inherent in the system, and how, with only a few years better design experience from the original standard, designed to be compatible with the most common original set designs so as to not make undue interference, and made a few changes that improved stability and colour rendition.

Most obvious was PAL and SECAM mostly removed the "Hue" control, as the colour was a lot more stable both over time and with distortion in the transmission chain. The most impressive improvement prior to the all digital channel was that the designers of the standards managed to fit, in the original 8MHz allocated bandwidth, both colour pictures, analogue stereo audio, digital information ( Teletext) and as well high quality digital stereo audio ( NICAM stereo, which was capable of near CD audio quality, sadly let down by the poor speakers in most sets, being the smallest and cheapest they could fit in the set that would produce sound) which was the final step.

When the NTSC standard was adopted in the early 1950's it was limited by the technology available at the time. And once adopted we were stuck with lousy color until the advent of digital. It's sort of the same deal as to why we are stuck with mains voltage of 120V vs the rest of the world 240V.

[djos]

The rest of the world learnt from the US adoption of the National Television Standards Committee system, mostly in how to improve the very obvious flaws inherent in the system, and how, with only a few years better design experience from the original standard, designed to be compatible with the most common original set designs so as to not make undue interference, and made a few changes that improved stability and colour rendition.

Most obvious was PAL and SECAM mostly removed the "Hue" control, as the colour was a lot more stable both over time and with distortion in the transmission chain. The most impressive improvement prior to the all digital channel was that the designers of the standards managed to fit, in the original 8MHz allocated bandwidth, both colour pictures, analogue stereo audio, digital information ( Teletext) and as well high quality digital stereo audio ( NICAM stereo, which was capable of near CD audio quality, sadly let down by the poor speakers in most sets, being the smallest and cheapest they could fit in the set that would produce sound) which was the final step.

When the NTSC standard was adopted in the early 1950's it was limited by the technology available at the time. And once adopted we were stuck with lousy color until the advent of digital. It's sort of the same deal as to why we are stuck with mains voltage of 120V vs the rest of the world 240V.

NTSC was a perfectly well designed system for black and white TV... It only fell down a bit when colour was shoe horned into it in such a way as to remain compatible with black and white. It was really quite clever imo.

PAL was a better system because they where able to learn from the flaws in NTSC. However due to our 50hz power systems we had to suffer a 4% speed up to watch film on TV. You guys in the USA instead used 3:2 pull down and got a much nicer result (horizontal planning aside) with no audio pitch issues.

[med6753]

One of the first color TV's was the RCA CTL-100 introduced in late 1953 - early 1954. It cost nearly $6800.00 USD in today's money. Looks are deceiving. It was huge. I've seen schematics and construction details of these early sets. The power supply was a separate chassis in the bottom of the cabinet with an enormous power transformer and several 5U4 rectifier tubes to supply the B+. The main chassis consisted of close to 50 vacuum tubes. The CRT was small and round. The bezel cuts off the top and bottom to give the impression it's rectangular. Think Tek 555 dual beam scope with it's huge case and separate power supply and you get the idea of what these early sets were like. And to top it off the picture sucked. 

[djos]

Technology connections has a really good series on the history of TV and the technology developments for those interested (I rather enjoyed it).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFUGEfwEl0uWduXGcRbT7Ran

[bd139]

Haven’t had a toddy for years. No whiskey unfortunately. Just a bottle of pink plonk in the fridge. Found some hooky 30mg codeine tabs in the cupboard. That will do the job 

Was going to spend some time on the D83 seeing as I was blocked on stuff but didn’t get around to it

The Philips lab sale prices went through the roof but I did manage to secure a Fluke PM3390B for a reasonable price til they stuck commission and VAT on top, still way under the going rate though [emoji6]

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

I unfortunately forgot about that in the flurry of stuff going on here. Surcharges and VAT are nasty on these sometimes. But as you say they're still under the going rate. Hope it works out for you. Please post lots of nice pictures

Damn it I can’t keep away. TEA is like a crack addiction.

You only now noticed that? I guess it's time to re-welcome you to the thread.

This is only temporary. After weekend, things will go back to hammering the crap out of computers instead. Boo hiss.

Just picked up AWG up from DPD depot. Decided to collect it rather than wait in all day. Came with a free DMM as Telonic stuff always does.

Interesting one this time. The thing is a Brymen albeit a shit one that looks like it was trying to rip off an iPod. It apparently has CAT and UL rating and spark gaps, MOVs and protection resistors according to online sources. I will take it to bits and post photos. It is a 4000 count autoranger with capacitance, frequency and hold. Might chuck this in the car as the "car multimeter" to replace the ancient forgotten the part number Uni-T that lives out there. Someone already did reviews here so I will skip that bit: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/brymen-bm22s-and-bm27s-pocket-multimeter-review/

[Specmaster]

Haven’t had a toddy for years. No whiskey unfortunately. Just a bottle of pink plonk in the fridge. Found some hooky 30mg codeine tabs in the cupboard. That will do the job 

Was going to spend some time on the D83 seeing as I was blocked on stuff but didn’t get around to it

The Philips lab sale prices went through the roof but I did manage to secure a Fluke PM3390B for a reasonable price til they stuck commission and VAT on top, still way under the going rate though [emoji6]

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

I unfortunately forgot about that in the flurry of stuff going on here. Surcharges and VAT are nasty on these sometimes. But as you say they're still under the going rate. Hope it works out for you. Please post lots of nice pictures

Damn it I can’t keep away. TEA is like a crack addiction.

You only now noticed that? I guess it's time to re-welcome you to the thread.

This is only temporary. After weekend, things will go back to hammering the crap out of computers instead. Boo hiss.

Just picked up AWG up from DPD depot. Decided to collect it rather than wait in all day. Came with a free DMM as Telonic stuff always does.

Interesting one this time. The thing is a Brymen albeit a shit one that looks like it was trying to rip off an iPod. It apparently has CAT and UL rating and spark gaps, MOVs and protection resistors according to online sources. I will take it to bits and post photos. It is a 4000 count autoranger with capacitance, frequency and hold. Might chuck this in the car as the "car multimeter" to replace the ancient forgotten the part number Uni-T that lives out there. Someone already did reviews here so I will skip that bit: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/brymen-bm22s-and-bm27s-pocket-multimeter-review/

Cool about the AWG, post some pictures? So the meter this time around might just be a tad better than a stress reliever. Crack the sucker open and let's see what's its like. I doubt the Cat rating unless it's 300v.

Just printed the user manual for CombiScope, 297 pages. The service manual is around 600 pages, strewth. I have discovered it has back up battery, I'm hoping that's for the memory rather than the calibration data as there's no way I could calibrate that sucker [emoji50]

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

[mnementh]

My guess is that the unit was used as a parts mule in an earlier life.    Hopefully there aren't any other "undisclosed features" in your new baby. 

Luckily no, it's not missing anything else. And its almost working (fail 0 volt self test). I guess it wouldn't be fun if it was working perfectly 

Well, yes... that's what I would call an "undisclosed feature"; and a very good reason for it to have been treated as a parts mule. If the internal voltage reference/comparator isn't 100%, nothing on the unit is gonna work right.

Good luck, brother.


mnem
*Sorting chaos for fun & profit*

[mnementh]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/142282995078

Just stumbled across this while looking for other stuff... Not sure if $6 ea plus $6 shipping is overall a good price for fleaBay as I'm rarely searching for resistors of such low tolerance (I know reel end lots can occasionally be had for a steal), but DigiKey's 1/ea pricing is $US15-50 for similar from Vishay Precision. Also they're coming from the UK, so may be a boon for you of the tea & biscuits crowd. [Woops.. brain-fart; these are coming from Poland. Must've mixed this listing up with another open tab.  ]


mnem
*Back to the hoeing out the Dwagon-Cave*

[Cerebus]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/142282995078

Just stumbled across this while looking for other stuff... Not sure if $6 ea plus $6 shipping is overall a good price for fleaBay as I'm rarely searching for resistors of such low tolerance (I know reel end lots can occasionally be had for a steal), but DigiKey's 1/ea pricing is $US15-50 for similar from Vishay Precision. Also they're coming from the UK, so may be a boon for you of the tea & biscuits crowd.


mnem
*Back to the hoeing out the Dwagon-Cave*

No, not the UK, from Poland. I've used these people a few times and indeed used a few of the low values of exactly those Sfernice resistors to repair the bottom two resistors on my Vishay precision decade box. Fast, reliable and definitely selling genuine stock. I'm close enough to volt-nuttery to be able to confirm the values of high precision resistors and the ones from them were all well within specification (including tempco).

[bitseeker]

Came with a free DMM as Telonic stuff always does.

Interesting one this time. The thing is a Brymen albeit a shit one that looks like it was trying to rip off an iPod. It apparently has CAT and UL rating and spark gaps, MOVs and protection resistors according to online sources. I will take it to bits and post photos. It is a 4000 count autoranger with capacitance, frequency and hold. Might chuck this in the car as the "car multimeter" to replace the ancient forgotten the part number Uni-T that lives out there. Someone already did reviews here so I will skip that bit: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/brymen-bm22s-and-bm27s-pocket-multimeter-review/

Oh, one of those. Yeah, wasn't that keen on it when I saw it in Volt Log's roundup of pocket DMMs. But, not bad for free.

[Specmaster]

Came with a free DMM as Telonic stuff always does.

Interesting one this time. The thing is a Brymen albeit a shit one that looks like it was trying to rip off an iPod. It apparently has CAT and UL rating and spark gaps, MOVs and protection resistors according to online sources. I will take it to bits and post photos. It is a 4000 count autoranger with capacitance, frequency and hold. Might chuck this in the car as the "car multimeter" to replace the ancient forgotten the part number Uni-T that lives out there. Someone already did reviews here so I will skip that bit: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/brymen-bm22s-and-bm27s-pocket-multimeter-review/

Oh, one of those. Yeah, wasn't that keen on it when I saw it in Volt Log's roundup of pocket DMMs. But, not bad for free.

Interesting comparison and Volt Log gives the BM22s top rating and says it has all the protection that you would expect on a decent bench meter, so as long as you don't poke any high energy sources it looks to be pretty decent, especially for free 

[bd139]

Had a play with it. Not terrible and is bang on. Don’t have time to take it to bits so it has gone to the car. Clearly better than no brand cheap one but totally useless for electronics. No current measurement, no banana jacks and weighs so little it won’t stay anywhere.

I will use it for checking which fuse my Fiat ate.

[Specmaster]

bd139, I assume that the Rigol AWG you purchased was the DG1022U correct? If so did you spot the other one on Amazon that got 5 star reviews, DG1022Z?