Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Did you at least get a worthwhile explosion?

Nope. I watched the current creep up and waited. I usually let stuff blow up because you can see where the smoke is coming from or feel it when it's hot then. Chip was a little warm.

Getting back to TEA, ebay is bleeding dead at the moment, anxious for new toys I can't believe it but I'm even looking at 3.5 digit bench meters  , I need one of those don't I, I mean I don't any bench meters less than 4.5 and I have stacks of handhelds at 3.5....how many meters does a person require FFS?

I mostly run my 3478A in 3.5 digit mode if I'm honest. And the other meter on the bench today is an 8010A. For perhaps 90% of the tasks it's fine. Why not the 87V? Well it's there somewhere, under a pile of crap at the moment (I am mid build on something!). Big advantage of the bench meters is they're quite hard to lose

[0culus]

I'm doing some thorough tests of each synthesizer band in the 8664A...so far I think electrically the unit is sound. 

[0culus]

Did you at least get a worthwhile explosion?

Nope. I watched the current creep up and waited. I usually let stuff blow up because you can see where the smoke is coming from or feel it when it's hot then. Chip was a little warm.

Getting back to TEA, ebay is bleeding dead at the moment, anxious for new toys I can't believe it but I'm even looking at 3.5 digit bench meters  , I need one of those don't I, I mean I don't any bench meters less than 4.5 and I have stacks of handhelds at 3.5....how many meters does a person require FFS?

I mostly run my 3478A in 3.5 digit mode if I'm honest. And the other meter on the bench today is an 8010A. For perhaps 90% of the tasks it's fine. Why not the 87V? Well it's there somewhere, under a pile of crap at the moment (I am mid build on something!). Big advantage of the bench meters is they're quite hard to lose

Awww, no electroboom moment. 

I usually run my 3455A in 5.5 digit mode. It sweeps faster than 6.5 digit mode.

[mnementh]

Yes, but in the end... it's still beer. 

To quench a thirst, I'll take a good fresh-made iced tea over beer anytime. If I want alcohol, there are dozens of kinds I prefer over beer, and over most wines.

[EDIT] Wine snobbery I can sortof grok... there's literally millennia of history there. But beer snobbery...? Gimme a fucking break.  [/EDIT]

I drink iced tea about 99% of the time... but the occasional beer with friends is still a joy (maybe 1 or at most 2 per week).  And if it's "snobbery" to want a beer that actually has some flavor to it instead of the horse p!$$ that the major breweries turn out - so be it.  In my group, we call dreck like Miller and Bud "making love in a canoe" because it's f*ing close to water.   

No, that's just having SOME minimum standards.     When I drank beer with my friends, it was purely social activity and my list of "tolerable" brews started with import Heinekin and went up from there. Old Swill and Pud weren't even on my RADAR.

When beer started giving me raging headaches even after just a couple, I decided it wasn't worth drinking something I NEVER LIKED the taste of just to be sociable, and started drinking soda or iced tea unless I felt like getting intoxicated; wherein I started drinking brandy or vodka and never looked back.

No, beer snobbery is all this "artisan beer" and microbrewery bullshit.  Fucking amateurs thinking they're somehow better than aunt Fanny and her bathtub wine; most of 'em are no better than mountain-william rotgut & eyeball remover. 

@tggzzz: Beer may have been around for 7 millenia... but being around for a long time is NOT the same thing as "having history". 

mnem
Everybody needs something to believe in; I believe I'm going to make myself a big pan of BACON-N-N!!!

[bd139]

You lot and your beer. Here's how to make something bloody amazing:

1. Go to the supermarket and buy a hell of a lot of shitty bottom grade sugar packed apple juice.
2. Take it home and boil it for about 30 minutes to get rid of all of the preservatives.
3. Dump about 500g more sugar in every 4L of it and stir until dissolved.
4. Get a couple of big 2L coke bottles then clean it out properly.
5. Fill them to the top and let it cool to about 28 degrees C (you can work that out in farenwongles or whatever they are)
6. Stuff a sachet of normal instant bread yeast in each one.
7. Poke a hole in the lid for the gas to escape.
8. Get a condom and poke a hole in it. Don't use it by accident here. Cable tie it around the top of the bottle. This is your air lock.
9. Leave it until it stops fizzing (takes about 2-3 weeks).
10. PARTY TIME.

This is what I used to do as a teenager. If it tastes like ass then I suggest you use it to clean the toilet or as paint stripper.

Edit: to note - condoms were terribly expensive for teenagers but we found out you could just go and ask for them at the local sexual health clinic and they'd give you a load. Little did they know we were just using them to get smashed down the local park 

[VK5RC]

Like the recipe, not sure if I want to drink beer that has been through a condom! (just kidding).
I do enjoy a small  ice cold lager, but have been enjoying some of the low carb ciders. Its been too hot for a good South Australian red (shiraz) here recently, we hit an all time record of 46.7C a couple of weeks ago, again I don't what that is in "farenwongles" my latest favorite unit of measurement.
Still awaiting a bl***y back up battery! FFS!
@beanflying has got me thinking - I haven't had a really good dark wholemeal bread in years - best with a little sliver of lemon skin and a anchovy and a G&T. (reminds me we are getting a whole bunch of 'artisan' gin distillers here - a bit of wank factor - but some nice gins in there as well)
Rob

[mnementh]

There is plenty of fakery in Cafes and Restaurants. Fairly much everything I was selling was prepped or baked from scratch by my Chef or me and a few of the staff.

The exception was Croissants I and fairly much every 'Bakery' in Australia buys frozen by the hundred then thaws/proves and Bakes. I have made them but they are another level of time up again from Danishes. We sourced a very good Butter based one but most are oil base with no flavour and of course 1/2 the cost. There is maybe 3 or 4 Bakers in Adelaide for example scratch making while the rest are doing the frozen thing.

Plenty also pass off frozen par bake bread   or do the Coles/Safeway thing and buy in dough and claim it as their own.

Packing my Agilent Multimeters up for a $1k AUpeso trip to Keysight 

Hey, I grew up on par-baked frozen & pre-proofed refrigerated breads & rolls... there's nothing wrong with 'em in principle. My own Grandma Kate, an accomplished baker of considerable renown in Burlington NJ and surrounds, gave up on bread and biscuits when Betty Crocker & Pillsbury got close enough to her own scratch recipe that grandpa couldn't tell the difference, other than they were all the same size & shape. 

My mother refused to buy pre-sliced grocery store bread until well into her 50s; even then she wouldn't eat it unless it was toasted & buttered to bring out some kind of grain flavor. I even have a weakness for Pillsbury "Flaky Layers" Grands biscuits... as long as they're toasted. 

Yes, fresh-proofed and baked is undeniably better... especially if done by someone who has a recipe they're proud of (and said recipe isn't blarrff); but for the "housewife" (you know... that poor creature married to the house) of old doing it because it's expected, such things WERE heaven-sent. You know, when they were actually produced locally in small bakeries that employed actual people; before they were made in 6 factories across the country and shipped out with a higher percentage of phosphates and guar gum than actual grain. 

mnem

[Specmaster]

Getting back to TEA, ebay is bleeding dead at the moment, anxious for new toys I can't believe it but I'm even looking at 3.5 digit bench meters  , I need one of those don't I, I mean I don't any bench meters less than 4.5 and I have stacks of handhelds at 3.5....how many meters does a person require FFS?

I mostly run my 3478A in 3.5 digit mode if I'm honest. And the other meter on the bench today is an 8010A. For perhaps 90% of the tasks it's fine. Why not the 87V? Well it's there somewhere, under a pile of crap at the moment (I am mid build on something!). Big advantage of the bench meters is they're quite hard to lose

Totally agree they are bigger and so hard to lose, but I can't use that excuse, after all I have 5 large bench meters, do I really need to add a sixth 

Edit, still talking of food here has made me hungry, so I'm going to do myself a nice hot cross bun to munch while I put the cats to bed for the night in the kitchen.

[bd139]

Ooh hot cross buns. Added to tomorrow’s shopping list now 

[med6753]

Started on the tant replacement on the 475A. First the main interface board, then the vertical board. I still have to order more for the trigger board. It's going to be a long and involved process but it's going to be a prudent hedge to hold back Murphy.

And here's the start of the pile. Many more to go. That one that looks like an aluminum cap is indeed a 47uf/35V "wet" tantalum. That guy is on the primary of the high voltage oscillator and has a reputation for ruining your day. The 465 uses 2 - 22uf's in parallel rather than this cap. The 465B and 475A use this bad boy. All can be replaced with a modern 47uf/35V beaded tant. 

I am watching with interest, since this is on my to do list. I've actually become so paranoid about s--t blowing up in my favorite scope, that I have taken out of rotation until I take care of it.    How many tants do you estimate you will have to replace?

Probably somewhere between 25 to 30 by the time I'm done. These scopes probably have close to 50 of those little bastards. They range in value from 1uf to 47uf. So I'm prioritizing what I'm going to change. The 1uf and 2.2uf are most likely staying in place for now. They seem to cause fewer issues. But anything 4.7 uf and up is definitely on the radar. But I do have the some 1uf and 2.2uf on hand just in case.

But if you do decide to test Murphy and NOT do a mass replace at LEAST replace the 47uf/35V on the primary side of the HV oscillator.     

[mnementh]

You lot and your beer. Here's how to make something bloody amazing:

1. Go to the supermarket and buy a hell of a lot of shitty bottom grade sugar packed apple juice.
(SNIP)
9. Leave it until it stops fizzing (takes about 2-3 weeks).
10. PARTY TIME.

This is what I used to do as a teenager. If it tastes like ass then I suggest you use it to clean the toilet or as paint stripper.

Oh, now them there's fightin' words... you don't fuck with cider where I come from; it's apple orchard country.    *

Every fall there were dozens of roadside stands full of cider (hard, soft, light, dark & chunky), as well as apple, cherry & peach pies, cobblers and raisin breads. You could stop by a dozen on the way home from church, and by the time you got home you'd be belly full of warm pies & breads, and pretty well schnockered. Just in time for the feetsball game with uncle Frank. If you didn't fall asleep on the big comfy couch. Even the wee beasties often got a few sips of the hard stuff; grandmother would corral us all in the kitchen with oatmeal-raisin cookies as big as our heads so we didn't sing too loud and get an earful from grandpa cuz he couldn't hear the game. 

mnem
*Actually, Aunt Fanny would be proud. 

[med6753]

You lot and your beer. Here's how to make something bloody amazing:

1. Go to the supermarket and buy a hell of a lot of shitty bottom grade sugar packed apple juice.
2. Take it home and boil it for about 30 minutes to get rid of all of the preservatives.
3. Dump about 500g more sugar in every 4L of it and stir until dissolved.
4. Get a couple of big 2L coke bottles then clean it out properly.
5. Fill them to the top and let it cool to about 28 degrees C (you can work that out in farenwongles or whatever they are)
6. Stuff a sachet of normal instant bread yeast in each one.
7. Poke a hole in the lid for the gas to escape.
8. Get a condom and poke a hole in it. Don't use it by accident here. Cable tie it around the top of the bottle. This is your air lock.
9. Leave it until it stops fizzing (takes about 2-3 weeks).
10. PARTY TIME.

This is what I used to do as a teenager. If it tastes like ass then I suggest you use it to clean the toilet or as paint stripper.

Edit: to note - condoms were terribly expensive for teenagers but we found out you could just go and ask for them at the local sexual health clinic and they'd give you a load. Little did they know we were just using them to get smashed down the local park 

Make sure you don't use a lubricated condom or it WILL definitely taste like ass.   

[med6753]

Ooh hot cross buns. Added to tomorrow’s shopping list now 

I'm gonna put all you guys on ignore if you don't quit talking about bread.  I can't have any and I'm jealous. 

Bacon....YES. Bread.....NO 

[mnementh]

Started on the tant replacement on the 475A. First the main interface board, then the vertical board. I still have to order more for the trigger board. It's going to be a long and involved process but it's going to be a prudent hedge to hold back Murphy.

And here's the start of the pile. Many more to go. That one that looks like an aluminum cap is indeed a 47uf/35V "wet" tantalum. That guy is on the primary of the high voltage oscillator and has a reputation for ruining your day. The 465 uses 2 - 22uf's in parallel rather than this cap. The 465B and 475A use this bad boy. All can be replaced with a modern 47uf/35V beaded tant. 

I am watching with interest, since this is on my to do list. I've actually become so paranoid about s--t blowing up in my favorite scope, that I have taken out of rotation until I take care of it.    How many tants do you estimate you will have to replace?

Probably somewhere between 25 to 30 by the time I'm done. These scopes probably have close to 50 of those little bastards. They range in value from 1uf to 47uf. So I'm prioritizing what I'm going to change. The 1uf and 2.2uf are most likely staying in place for now. They seem to cause fewer issues. But anything 4.7 uf and up is definitely on the radar. But I do have the some 1uf and 2.2uf on hand just in case.

But if you do decide to test Murphy and NOT do a mass replace at LEAST replace the 47uf/35V on the primary side of the HV oscillator.

Do you do an ESR test on the smaller value ones to decide whether they're suspect, or just visual inspection and the old "touch your iron to the PCB under/around the cap & smell for burning electrolyte" trick?

mnem
*Learning mode*

[med6753]

Do you do an ESR test on the smaller value ones to decide whether they're suspect, or just visual inspection and the old "touch your iron to the PCB under/around the cap & smell for burning electrolyte" trick?

mnem
*Learning mode*

Just visual and is it easy to get to. Because I'm NOT pulling boards to do these replacements. Strictly from the top side which can be done on these double sided boards. 

[mnementh]

Ooh hot cross buns. Added to tomorrow’s shopping list now 

I'm gonna put all you guys on ignore if you don't quit talking about bread.  I can't have any and I'm jealous. 

Bacon....YES. Bread.....NO 

*Looks up guiltily from his plate of buttered cornbread & bacon*    "Mmmnnnrfllfllfllmmmmphhhh...?!?"

mnem
Trigger words...?

[Kosmic]

And the beauty shot.

Nice stack 

[tautech]

Ooh hot cross buns. Added to tomorrow’s shopping list now 

Demolished a couple of 12 slabs of them last week. 

[mnementh]

Do you do an ESR test on the smaller value ones to decide whether they're suspect, or just visual inspection and the old "touch your iron to the PCB under/around the cap & smell for burning electrolyte" trick?

mnem
*Learning mode*

Just visual and is it easy to get to. Because I'm NOT pulling boards to do these replacements. Strictly from the top side which can be done on these double sided boards.

Okay... so mostly looking for grey/blue crusties on legs & traces or evidence of bloat/cracking as is usual for a first inspection then. Just ID-ing and not taking any chances on ANY tant 4.7 uff or bigger. Gotcha. 

mnem
*Advanced de-fuckerizing class*

[bd139]

On tants, some of them are pretty reliable in the Tek scopes. Ones to watch out for are:

1. Blue rectangular ones. Those nearly always go short. They always seem to use these for HT transformer primary decoupling. They go short and blow the HT fuse.
2. Big bold striped ones. Some are suspect. Buggers to find as they don't go totally short so you cant trace them with an ohmmeter.
3. Tubular wet tantalum. Usually Sprague 150D. Occasionally one will just explode just to make your day shitty.

The solid orange and solid blue ones are pretty reliable but that does correlate with mnem as they are usually 1uF or 2.2uF

[tautech]

On tants, some of them are pretty reliable in the Tek scopes. Ones to watch out for are:

1. Blue rectangular ones. Those nearly always go short. They always seem to use these for HT transformer primary decoupling. They go short and blow the HT fuse.
2. Big bold striped ones. Some are suspect. Buggers to find as they don't go totally short so you cant trace them with an ohmmeter.
3. Tubular wet tantalum. Usually Sprague 150D. Occasionally one will just explode just to make your day shitty.

The solid orange and solid blue ones are pretty reliable.

As I understand it those that are subjected to anywhere near their voltage rating at most at risk of frying.
Like the 15V rated ones used on the 12V rail. 

In general I find tants pretty reliable providing they're sufficiently down rated to like 2/3rds of their rating.

[med6753]

The solid orange and solid blue ones are pretty reliable but that does correlate with mnem as they are usually 1uF or 2.2uF

And who am I, chopped liver??? 

[Kosmic]

Oh kiss my arse.  Nothing like a COLD beer on a hot day. 

+1 for the cold beer 

[mnementh]

On tants, some of them are pretty reliable in the Tek scopes. Ones to watch out for are:

1. Blue rectangular ones. Those nearly always go short. They always seem to use these for HT transformer primary decoupling. They go short and blow the HT fuse.
2. Big bold striped ones. Some are suspect. Buggers to find as they don't go totally short so you cant trace them with an ohmmeter.
3. Tubular wet tantalum. Usually Sprague 150D. Occasionally one will just explode just to make your day shitty.

The solid orange and solid blue ones are pretty reliable.

As I understand it those that are subjected to anywhere near their voltage rating at most at risk of frying.
Like the 15V rated ones used on the 12V rail. 

In general I find tants pretty reliable providing they're sufficiently down rated to like 2/3rds of their rating.

That does sortof make sense; since at the time, they were brand-new tech and likely the correlation between high-ripple/low-ESR and the resultant self-heating/premature heat-death wasn't as well understood as it is now. If they had under-rated voltage/selected for larger voltage overhead as aggressively as we do nowadays (when permitted by the bean-counters), these would probably NOT be Public Enemy No 1 as they are in here. 

Of course, the same can be said of cheap electrolytic caps since the 80s as well. 

The solid orange and solid blue ones are pretty reliable but that does correlate with, mnem, as they are usually 1uF or 2.2uF.

And who am I, chopped liver??? 

There... does that make you feel better? 

mnem
*un-collated*

[beanflying]

Oh kiss my arse.  Nothing like a COLD beer on a hot day. 

+1 for the cold beer 

Absolutely 

Go to sleep for a few hours and this thread goes to Warm and anti Beer sentiments. Warm to Hot climates need a cold beer and lukewarm to cold climates need tepid Beer.    And Like American Cheese most mainstream USA Beers are FAKE too. Coloured Fizzy Alcopops