Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Carl_Smith]

Surely the dwagon has backup charcoal.

[bitseeker]

So what do you do when you’re supposed to be home recovering from a cold? You go to your local used TE shop off course!



Found a good looking HP 53310a (kj7e you're entirely responsible for this  ). Was a bargain since it fail to power up. The fuse is fine so there is something wrong in the power supply. Overall in good physical shape. Came with the rackmount cage and Option 1 (extra mem) and 30 (input C at 2.5Ghz).

So the brown juice coming out of the back of the case tell me it’s going to be an easy fix.

Great find, Kosmic! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for one, also (thanks, kj7e). I missed a fully loaded one that went for $10 plus shipping!

[Kosmic]

Great find, Kosmic! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for one, also (thanks, kj7e). I missed a fully loaded one that went for $10 plus shipping!

Wooaa 10$!! painful.

I missed the listing, the seller was probably not shipping to Canada.

[VK5RC]

Great find, Kosmic! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for one, also (thanks, kj7e). I missed a fully loaded one that went for $10 plus shipping!

Wooaa 10$!! painful.

I missed the listing, the seller was probably not shipping to Canada.

Even if they ship to Australia, typically it is at least $100 shipping , so never really a bargain here.

[Kosmic]

Great find, Kosmic! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for one, also (thanks, kj7e). I missed a fully loaded one that went for $10 plus shipping!

Wooaa 10$!! painful.

I missed the listing, the seller was probably not shipping to Canada.

Even if they ship to Australia, typically it is at least $100 shipping , so never really a bargain here.

Well 110$ would have still been a good price

[kj7e]

So what do you do when you’re supposed to be home recovering from a cold? You go to your local used TE shop off course!



Found a good looking HP 53310a (kj7e you're entirely responsible for this  ). Was a bargain since it fail to power up. The fuse is fine so there is something wrong in the power supply. Overall in good physical shape. Came with the rackmount cage and Option 1 (extra mem) and 30 (input C at 2.5Ghz).

So the brown juice coming out of the back of the case tell me it’s going to be an easy fix.

I posted a BOM to recap the power supply here;
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/hp-53310a-power-supply-troubles/msg2365593/#msg2365593

[worsthorse]

ONE OF US. ONE OF US!

What would be a good choice? Should have at least 225MHz B/W and would prefer LED readout. Not liking the HP's with the LCD's.

5334B with channel C and OCXO. Silent, 50 ohm termination, does everything.

Cheap option: Looks like they frequently get sold as spares repair showing “no osc” but the external oscillator is switched in on the back 

Paid $80 equivalent for mine. Adding channel C myself for around $20 and external OCXO for $20 in parts.

I would stay away from the A version. It has a battery in it which leaks.

Am I guessing correctly that a 5334B that is displaying NO OSC on power up and is supposed to have the OXCO installed has had the OXCO removed? If so, does anyone know if it will run on an external oscillator anyway?

[mnementh]

This one little piece... the PDB... weighs twice as much as the last FPV/AP quad I built, and that's all-up flying weight. 

35g including battery?    Pictures please!

I'm having fun debugging this little monster at the moment and it weighs 199g together with the 650mA/h 4S battery strapped underneath or 130g dry. At 199g all-up, it hovers at 25% throttle, so there's plenty of power there for high-speed FPV acrobatics. It's also good for line of sight flight as the outline makes it easy to maintain orientation. I doubt if I could go much lighter than 200g and still have good performance.

      (I put the 18650 there for scale and it weighs 45g.)

I have a Rotor-X Atom 122 which was 130g all-up and performance was OK with 3" carbon fibre propellers. The tiny 1105 motors I had on the Atom are shot though, so it's awaiting a rebuild. The 35g you are talking about is only 10g more than the featherweight H8 mini, so it would be interesting to see what you did with such a minimal all-up weight.

      https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2903684   

Actually less than 30.  The 34.5g version had a different AKK 25mW AIO that also recorded 720P/30FPS video; it was a bit of a pig though, even with SilverWare.     And how I put the FPV cam on a diet is here: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2882097

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!  Just ran out of propane... at 19:30 on the 4th of July.

mnem
 

What were you thinking! Spare tyre (tire for the 'muricans) in the car, spare fuses for test equipment, and NO spare 9kg of bbq fuel! WTF!  Actually - I just realised that' the dragon' should be able to fix that straight away!

};=)~~~~<

Surely the dwagon has backup charcoal.

Thanks for all the chuckles, my friends...    I needed them.

To my surprise my local gas station actually has a propane exchange, so aside from paying a $10 premium for "two blocks away service" on a holiday, it was relatively painless.
Got the steaks, dogs & burgers all cooked & fed the family, if a little late and a bit overheated from extended playtime in the Tejas suck. 

mnem
*back to sorting-ily hell*

[bitseeker]

Surely the dwagon has backup charcoal.

Thanks for all the chuckles, my friends...    I needed them.

To my surprise my local gas station actually has a propane exchange, so aside from paying a $10 premium for "two blocks away service" on a holiday, it was relatively painless. Got the steaks, dogs & burgers all cooked & fed the family, if a little late and a bit overheated from extended playtime in the Tejas suck. 

mnem
*back to sorting-ily hell*

A $10 surcharge is a good deal for "two blocks away on the national holiday that is the opening day of BBQ season."

Saturday will be my BBQ and chillin' in the pool day (but I did have some tasty ribs for lunch).

[mnementh]

I heartily concur!

mnem
*looking forward to two days of NOT COOKING ANYTHING thanks to leftovers*

[mnementh]

Surely the dwagon has backup charcoal.

Now that I think of it, that jibe isn't far from the truth; I had a flareup in one corner, and a few burgers got extra-crispy. Just finishing one off now to buffer a handful of pain pills; the charcoal is good for my flame. 

mnem
"That's muh story, ann' ahmm stickin' tewitt."

[0culus]

So what do you do when you’re supposed to be home recovering from a cold? You go to your local used TE shop off course!



Found a good looking HP 53310a (kj7e you're entirely responsible for this  ). Was a bargain since it fail to power up. The fuse is fine so there is something wrong in the power supply. Overall in good physical shape. Came with the rackmount cage and Option 1 (extra mem) and 30 (input C at 2.5Ghz).

So the brown juice coming out of the back of the case tell me it’s going to be an easy fix.

Great find, Kosmic! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for one, also (thanks, kj7e). I missed a fully loaded one that went for $10 plus shipping!

And I just pulled the trigger on a second one for myself, this time with channel C and the RF comms stuff. Looks like I'll probably have to recap the power supply, but otherwise appears to be in great shape. Also have another set of SRAMs if it doesn't have deep memory installed. 

[Cubdriver]

ONE OF US. ONE OF US!

What would be a good choice? Should have at least 225MHz B/W and would prefer LED readout. Not liking the HP's with the LCD's.

What's with the desire for glowing sand?   

HP 5327A, B or C - 550MHz with proper ionized gas display.  (B version most capable, C least)

The bottom one:


 

-Pat

[bd139]

ONE OF US. ONE OF US!

What would be a good choice? Should have at least 225MHz B/W and would prefer LED readout. Not liking the HP's with the LCD's.

5334B with channel C and OCXO. Silent, 50 ohm termination, does everything.

Cheap option: Looks like they frequently get sold as spares repair showing “no osc” but the external oscillator is switched in on the back 

Paid $80 equivalent for mine. Adding channel C myself for around $20 and external OCXO for $20 in parts.

I would stay away from the A version. It has a battery in it which leaks.

Am I guessing correctly that a 5334B that is displaying NO OSC on power up and is supposed to have the OXCO installed has had the OXCO removed? If so, does anyone know if it will run on an external oscillator anyway?

How it works:

1. There’s in int/ext switch on the back
2. If it’s set to ext it takes a reference 10Mhz input. It will display no osc.
3. If it’s set to int and there’s no OCXO installed it will work with the default crystal osc
4. If it’s set to int and there’s an OCXO installed it will work with the OCXO

Probability order of cool outcome:

High: someone knocked the switch to ext and doesn’t know that.
Medium: OCXO has been pillaged and internal crystal one not fitted (not sure if they don’t fit that)
Low: OCXO installed and is dead

Mine came with ext switched on and showed no osc. The switch is a protruding toggle switch so it’s really easy to knock.

I’d probably take a risk on a no osc one with an 010 option installed marked as used. If it’s not installed you can claim it as not as described.

[med6753]

You guys are trying to sell me on HUGE counters meant to be rack mounted. I don't have the room for them or the racks.  I was cruising Ebay and something like a 5384A would meet my needs perfectly. Yea it's LCD rather than LED but I'm willing to compromise on that.
I stuck a few and others on my watch list. Not going to pull the trigger on anything now. Going to wait until I return from vacation on the 15th. 
 

[bd139]

Look at 5316A. Does the same stuff as an HP 5334B but much smaller.

[med6753]

Look at 5316A. Does the same stuff as an HP 5334B but much smaller.

Yea, that looks promising. 

[Ero-Shan]

Here's an Rb standard connected to three different counters, a couple that aren't all that common. External timebase on all three is GPS.

Sheer beauty!

I bid once on a similar Philips counter, as I really like them, but (as usual), didn't get it. My CC (counter collection) is sorely missing such a thing. 

[bd139]

Look at 5316A. Does the same stuff as an HP 5334B but much smaller.

Yea, that looks promising. 

Sorry got a couple of minutes more to reply now. To note - things to watch out for on the 5316A's ...:

1. LED segments go pop. Look for ones showing the 8888888 self test. you can replace them worst case relatively cheaply
2. Some come with OCXO. If not you can get third party ones. There are loads of retro-fit projects out there.
3. Make sure you buy one with channel C option if you need more than 100MHz as you can't retro fit it.
4. Doesn't do math / amplitude or rise time measurements.
5. There's a portable version, the 5315A which has a battery option but loses external ref, HPIB and is cheap and plastic cased. These are pretty good to be honest (I had one!) but the thing has three old lead acid cylindrical batteries in it which are probably crusted up or leaked by now which is a risk. You can remove the entire battery option though! They don't stack well like the 5316A does.
6. The channel C is fused. Be prepared to find a fuse for it!
7. There's a 5314A version. AVOID. It's a different unit entirely and crap.

[Ero-Shan]

Curious about how other DIY equipment might look from up close, I decided to bid on a Nixie counter. The least it would give me were spare parts.

Hammer finish is a bit strange on a counter housing IMO, but maybe the original builder had it laying around ... Coming to think of it, in my early days I also used hammer finish steel cases - because I had some.

The rectangular cut-out for the display is done extremely well, wonder how it was made. The unlabeled switch on the upper right was obviously added later.


The innards are also rather nice. At least they were in the beginning.


The counter does work (at least in the 50 MHz mode). But this one's really meant as a parts mule.

[bd139]

that's pretty nice. Looks like it might have been a kit with a custom enclosure. We had a hammer finish phase here in the UK around then - lots of people thought it was stylish. For me, blue spray on hammer finish was used on everything I had bodged 

[BU508A]

The rectangular cut-out for the display is done extremely well, wonder how it was made. arts mule.

I would assume it was stamped.

[Ero-Shan]

The rectangular cut-out for the display is done extremely well, wonder how it was made. arts mule.

I would assume it was stamped.

I thought of that, but hobbyists usually don't have that equipment. Reading all the 'Electronics World' from the fifties and sixties I understand that it was not so rare then to build your chassis yourself, and there were also ads for 'Greenlee punches' (I assume we mean the same thing). They are perfect for tube sockets or D shaped holes. But this size?

[Specmaster]

Look at 5316A. Does the same stuff as an HP 5334B but much smaller.

Yea, that looks promising. 

Or... you could get one of these (assuming they are available in the USA, other wise get one shipped), yes it is an LCD but it is specced to be accurate to 1ppm, goes up to 3GHz, has a USB port for connection to a PC and also has a ext ref in BNC (no monkeys clacker required) so you provide a 10MHz external ref signal to it if you required. It is small and lightweight runs off a wall wart, or internal rechargeable battery and if connected to a PC draws its power from the PC so is ideal for use as  portable devices to boot. What's not to like?

[Ero-Shan]

When I notified our little community about my acquisition of a Tek 475, I forgot to mention that it came with two 6105 probes:


They had some contact problems - the connectors on the cable ends needed some cleaning - but apart from being somewhat screwed up they seem to be working nicely.

The pouch also contained this:


and 2 folders regarding Unisys' OCR readers. It seems to me this scope was used in their repair.

Two and a half of the hind feet were knackered during shipping, but the seller can only partly be blamed for that, as all of them are rather brittle.


Even though it doesn't have a DM44 attached, a little over 100 € is acceptable, methinks (way below 1 €/MHz).