Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[GreyWoolfe]

*Slicing bagel for my son's breakfast*

"What the...?" *Spots blood dripping on floor* "Oh, fu-u-u-ck..."

*Puts fingertip back roughly where it belongs & wraps with paper towel, then drops bagel back in the baggie & folds it under the stack of bagels with the other hand* (Hey... fresh cinnamon raisin bagels from local bakery )

"Honey, stop what you're doing & load the kids up into the car; I need you to drive me to the emergency room."

"Whaaaa....?"

And please hurry; the feeling is starting to return to my hand."

By the time we get to the ER, that entire hand is just a ball of fire; they get me processed pretty quickly and the ER doc is looking it over. She lifts the loose bit off, and of course the pain increases tenfold and my hand starts to shake & twitch.

"I'm going to need you to keep it still so I can inject it with lidocaine..." she warns, but it is literally all I can do not to snatch my hand away and sit on it... smack it against the wall, anything. The pain isn't quite as bad as the time I got blowed up and 3rd degree burns all down my other arm, but it is much more concentrated.

"I don't think I can..."

"Well, I need to numb the finger before I can stitch the bit back on."

*Cringe* "Doc... is there any medical reason not to apply the lidocaine directly to the raw meat right there? It is sterile, right...?"

"It's sterile... Umm... no, I guess there isn't."

"It won't affect the likelihood of the fingertip healing properly?"

"Not at all. But it's supposed to be injected."

"I get that... but just humor me, and drip a few drops from the needle on that raw meat and see if it helps me get a handle on the pain."

*drip... drip-drip*

I can feel the pain wash away, decreased what felt like easily 50dB as the droplets spread across the exposed flesh. In just a few seconds I'm able to hold the whole hand exactly where she wants it, perfectly still. She is able to get the needle right where it needs to be to deaden the primary nerve in the finger, and less than 5 minutes later I'm looking down at the scene above.

"Pain management." I say with a smile.

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

Back in 1989, I was working on a door and planted a wood chisel in the palm of my left hand.  Went next door to the neighbor who was a registered nurse and asked her to bandage it for me.  She said I needed to go to the emergency room.  I got her to bandage it and went back and finished what I was doing.  Ex came home, saw my bloody bandaged hand and dragged me by the ear to the car and to the ER.  The Dr pointed out the white in the cut was bone.  8 stitches to close that up. Thankfully, haven't cut myself that bad since.

[Kosmic]

*Slicing bagel for my son's breakfast*

"What the...?" *Spots blood dripping on floor* "Oh, fu-u-u-ck..."

*Puts fingertip back roughly where it belongs & wraps with paper towel, then drops bagel back in the baggie & folds it under the stack of bagels with the other hand* (Hey... fresh cinnamon raisin bagels from local bakery )

"Honey, stop what you're doing & load the kids up into the car; I need you to drive me to the emergency room."

"Whaaaa....?"

And please hurry; the feeling is starting to return to my hand."

By the time we get to the ER, that entire hand is just a ball of fire; they get me processed pretty quickly and the ER doc is looking it over. She lifts the loose bit off, and of course the pain increases tenfold and my hand starts to shake & twitch.

"I'm going to need you to keep it still so I can inject it with lidocaine..." she warns, but it is literally all I can do not to snatch my hand away and sit on it... smack it against the wall, anything. The pain isn't quite as bad as the time I got blowed up and 3rd degree burns all down my other arm, but it is much more concentrated.

"I don't think I can..."

"Well, I need to numb the finger before I can stitch the bit back on."

*Cringe* "Doc... is there any medical reason not to apply the lidocaine directly to the raw meat right there? It is sterile, right...?"

"It's sterile... Umm... no, I guess there isn't."

"It won't affect the likelihood of the fingertip healing properly?"

"Not at all. But it's supposed to be injected."

"I get that... but just humor me, and drip a few drops from the needle on that raw meat and see if it helps me get a handle on the pain."

*drip... drip-drip*

I can feel the pain wash away, decreased what felt like easily 50dB as the droplets spread across the exposed flesh. In just a few seconds I'm able to hold the whole hand exactly where she wants it, perfectly still. She is able to get the needle right where it needs to be to deaden the primary nerve in the finger, and less than 5 minutes later I'm looking down at the scene above.

"Pain management." I say with a smile.

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

Ouch!! that sucks 

[McBryce]

So you invest in a 3D printer, thinking that you're going to get to make some custom cases for your projects and maybe a few replacement parts for your vintage TE... and then your 8 year old son discovers what you have...

I'm told it'll be my turn next week.

McBryce.

There is an upside to this. SHMBO issues decrease when you buy another one to keep up with demand

Sadly SWMBO still "doesn't see the point in having one", so a second one is out of the question, even if I had the space for another.

McBryce.

Start here and continue until you succeed https://www.thingiverse.com/tag:vase 

Tried that and failed. She seemed unimpressed with a plastic vase.

SWMBOs are ok most of the time, it's just annoying that unlike TE, you can't put them up on ebay when you find one with better features.

McBryce.

And you wouldn't want to collect them like TEA items

Oh, you never know. It might be handy to have a spare one on occassions, while the other one is in for calibration

McBryce.

[med6753]

Warning, picture heavy post. Attempting to nail down the drift issue with the Fluke 8810A. First thing I did was make absolutely sure it was calibrated correctly after a 12 hour power up. Followed the manual to the letter right up to the 10VDC setting. Bypassed the 100VDC setting for now.

First pix shows the schematic for the reference. U9 is made by Motorola and has “SZA263” printed on it. Quick Google reveals it is a zener reference specifically for Fluke only and was never available commercially. It generates a +7.000V reference that is fed to the power supply.



Second pix is the power supply. That +7.000V reference is fed to U17 to set the +18V supply. The +18V in turn is powering the op amps in the reference circuit. So it's a giant feed back loop. And probably the best place to monitor for drift.



Here's the 8810A calibrated to the AD584-M 9.99691V reference at the 10V setting. Next pix is leads connected for monitoring.




The 8050A is connected to the +18V at TP7.



The 8800A is connected to the +7.000V reference at TP11.



Going to let it cook for a few hours and see what happens. Then I'll power it off for a few hours and bring it back up and see how long it takes to stabilize. As a reference point both 8800A's are stable within 20-30 minutes. I would expect this 8810A to be the same. Anything beyond that indicates a problem. 

[mnementh]

mnem
Keep it coming...

[bd139]

FM transmitter 

[mnementh]

Jeebus mnem, do we gotta hide anything sharp away ?

BTW, nice needlework !

Nah. Imagine the damage done with a blunt object.

A Chalupa is MUCH more dangerous in my hands.      Also, thanks. Doc did a good job; I can still twirl wrenches as good as ever. 

snip snip snip

"Pain management." I say with a smile.[/i]

mnem
Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

DISLIKE       I was feeling like poo so photos weren't taken of my tips.

Initially zero pain no blood flow and just some thin very clean slices of me mixed in with the diced Carrots .... 10 seconds later as I wrapped it all up was a nice puddle on the floor. I was a bit lucky with the depth of the slice not needing grafts and the square tips over the next few months sort of reformed

Blunt knives or edges in my Cafes kitchen weren't a thing for better or worse. I was too tired and careless after nearly 16 hours on my feet working so my mandolin usage errs on the cautious side even several years later.

Same here... I noticed the blood on the floor first. My wife tells this story and she's still freaked out about how calm I was... just like talking about the weather or a grocery list.  Meanwhile, she sees the rivulets of blood running down my forearm and turns white... "Are you okay...? Do I need to call a ambulance...?"

Growing up on the farm, and working as a mechanic in one form or another most of my life... I tend to be a lot more alarmed at the sight of other people's blood than my own. 

mnem

[mnementh]

My own bit of debugging for the afternoon. When I built my PC recently it had a little niggle with it. Basically it wouldn't power up first time every time. You had to turn it off and on again 3-4 times before it'd start up. Perfectly fine once it is up. So debugging time it was. Figured it'd be related to ATX startup....

Sometimes a more obvious answer could be it doesn't love something in your BIOS. Have you overclocked the CPU or are you running XMP or tweaked memory? Something couple be stopping from posting reliably or have you played with Ryzen Master or similar boosting software?

There's no speaker in this . It's all fancy UEFI shit.  It's not memory. That has been tested thoroughly with memtest86. 24 hour run. Slots are correct - have checked in motherboard manual. Have tried with one slot loaded. Does the same.

I've opened a thread here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/pc-startup-debugging/msg2769172/

My first debug would be to reset BIOS to defaults, then disable XMP. This will force the RAM to boot at JEDEC speeds. The BIOS on these boards doesn't work the same as we're used to; it actually "trains itself" to determine best "conservative performance" timings for the specific RAM installed every boot. XMP settings become the starting point for that training. On my build, I couldn't even boot with XMP enabled until I cranked the RAM VDDO up to ~1.39V.

There still SHOULD BE a speaker connector on the MB front panel header. On mine, I took a 20mm x 40mm speaker box reclaimed from an old laptop and put it right in the front of the case. First time I've been able to actually hear the beep codes in nearly a decade. 

mnem
 

[Martin.M]

found that in the bay, low cost EMG "sine is distorted" = 19,-€
OK  it`s on the way..
Hungary knows only 2 products: some bottled wine, and EMG

[mnementh]

   *Slicing bagel for my son's breakfast*

Back in 1989, I was working on a door and planted a wood chisel in the palm of my left hand.  Went next door to the neighbor who was a registered nurse and asked her to bandage it for me.  She said I needed to go to the emergency room.  I got her to bandage it and went back and finished what I was doing.  Ex came home, saw my bloody bandaged hand and dragged me by the ear to the car and to the ER.  The Dr pointed out the white in the cut was bone.  8 stitches to close that up. Thankfully, haven't cut myself that bad since.

I did one like that on my right hand as a teenager... about 3/4" from the bottom of the palm from one side through to the other with a snap-blade utility knife. Again, wrapped it up in paper towels (and duck tape ), then finished the job at hand. Tried to tough it out, but it just wouldn't stop bleeding. Went to the ER, a dozen stitches and admonishment from the doc: "If you'd contracted Tetanus from that wound, could've been life-threatening." *Stabbity with booster*

mnem

[mansaxel]

*Slicing bagel for my son's breakfast*

<snip>

Yes, I toasted and ate that bagel when I got home. For some reason, my son didn't want it. 

A bridge at the end of a lock on Canal du Midi. 27 stitches and two blobs of superglue:



I just was going to coil up some mooring line on upper deck as we were exiting the lock. WHAM.

Gluing anything with cyanoacrylate now and smelling it is a madeleine cookie back to the public hospital in Carcassonne and the nurse going "Oh la lá!" and quickly reapplying the dressing until the doctor came. Cost me all of 35€.

There was blood in dem scuppers, aye!

[SeanB]

Was installing window glass, and cut myself on the broken glass. Thought this would hurt, so went, washed with cold water, applied some antiseptic, and closed it up with some gauze and tape, then took 2 painkillers, and finished putting the glass in. Then went to Brenda, the retired RN neighbour, and, after telling me I was an idiot, and luckily had not sliced any tendons ( you could see them in there) said I should really go to the doctor and have it sewn up. then went to the hospital, not to the ER, but to visit mom, who was in there, and afterwards went to my doctor's rooms. Arrived 1PM, and walk in, and he walks out, looks at me, and asked what did I do. Show him, he told me again I was lucky, and to go to the surgical area and wait for him. 5 minutes later, he is there, pulls out the licocaine, drips it onto the area ( I have experience on local anaesthetic hurting like hell going in, so prefer to have a few surface sprays, then just under the skin, wait a minute, and go further in, then after 2 minutes you can go wild as the area is numb. That or surface application of ether or chloroform works well) and put in a half dozen dissolving stitches to close up the hand. Now have near matching wounds both sides, the other side I found a cutter blade, which did go to the bone.

[Carl_Smith]

Just ran across this on a twitter post and first thing I think if is you guys with your sharp knife incidents:
Whatched the whole video waiting for him to slice off a fingertip but it didn't happen.

[mnementh]

Looks to me like the morning after with your typical redhead. 

mnem
Still worth it.

[bd139]

That's usually on your back 

[drussell]

...

...

Ooooh, sweet!... 

An AUTOTRANSISTOR!!!

[mnementh]

I liked the dio-citor, myself... 

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

I liked the dio-citor, myself... 

mnem
 

D'ya mean the varicap? 

[mansaxel]

Looks to me like the morning after with your typical redhead. 

mnem
Still worth it.

No, I'm remembering the bridge as blue. You know which blue  . Although revisiting it on Google Earth says "rusty grey":

[nixiefreqq]

Looks to me like the morning after with your typical redhead. 

mnem
Still worth it.

No, I'm remembering the bridge as blue. You know which blue  . Although revisiting it on Google Earth says "rusty grey":

awwwwwww.  i can beat all those.

1974.  diane temple.   she broke my heart.

[Neomys Sapiens]

(Attachment Link)

found that in the bay, low cost EMG "sine is distorted" = 19,-€
OK  it`s on the way..
Hungary knows only 2 products: some bottled wine, and EMG

And poultry. Can't say much about their geese, but extrapolating from the other two they should be unfit for consumption. 

[mansaxel]

Missed out on the Philips counter in-country. Have put in a seriously low bid on another, this time an Ebay item, and it's low because it looks pretty beat-up and lacks the 1.3GHz option.  Should refrain from more TE exercises now, what with holiday season coming up and an irritating habit of work trips with expenses happening just before the credit card monthly cutoff, giving only 15 days credit. Travel expenses reimbursement is too slow for this.

But, like the 428b, this has become something personal. You all know this feeling, because you're in this thread.

On the topic of chinesium: Cheap BNC plugs also require drilling out of the center pin to fit Aircom 5. The Amphenol milspec ones don't.  Found out as I did some more short cables for the bench yesterday evening. 

Time-nuttery: Currently VPN'ed into work (local time 01:10, ie just past midnight) watching a couple engineers doing reconfig reboots on devices to make the IEEE1588 PTP transport work better over the WAN.

[URI]

Thanks mansaxel to come back to TEA after all this cutting/bleeding/hurting competition. Brrrr.   

I think I have a soft spot for TE explicitly knowing I don't have (much) place left..
I couldn't resist a HP 5359A Time Synthesizer occuring on ebay locally. Made a low offer and accepted the counter offer of 170€ delivered.
The HP 5359A powers on and is in decent shape, even comes with feet and tilt stands.   
In fact the seller doesn't know about testing the time synthesizer (was the only TE item he/she has on offer.)
Minor constraint: it's missing its original on/off switch button cap replaced by something to do the job and it's missing the cover of one potentiometer knob.


(Linked in from ebay)

This might be fun together with my upcoming Trimble Thunderbolt GPSDO tweaked with a Morion MV89A OCXO.
Missing equipment to qualify/analyse the change/improvement though...    

[URI]

Missed out on the Philips counter in-country. Have put in a seriously low bid on another, this time an Ebay item, and it's low because it looks pretty beat-up and lacks the 1.3GHz option.  Should refrain from more TE exercises now, what with holiday season coming up and an irritating habit of work trips with expenses happening just before the credit card monthly cutoff, giving only 15 days credit. Travel expenses reimbursement is too slow for this.

What's your plans for a universal counter? Do you have a checklist of properties it should have?
What about a more decent/modern one like a PM6685?
I have one here replaced by another one with GPIB.   
It has a OEM OCXO option with a little bit flaky trim pot I want to replace before it has to go.
(The trim pot seems to have a resistance-non-continuity just around the point for trimming it exactly to 10MHz.  )

[mnementh]

Ghetto-fab solution no 427c: Lift a leg, insert resistor to shift the "good spot"... 

Looks to me like the morning after with your typical redhead. 

mnem
Still worth it.

No, I'm remembering the bridge as blue. You know which blue  . Although revisiting it on Google Earth says "rusty grey":

awwwwwww.  i can beat all those.

1974.  diane temple.   she broke my heart.

Yes, but did she extract her pound of flesh along with...?

(Attachment Link)

found that in the bay, low cost EMG "sine is distorted" = 19,-€
OK  it`s on the way..
Hungary knows only 2 products: some bottled wine, and EMG

And poultry. Can't say much about their geese, but extrapolating from the other two they should be unfit for consumption.

I vaguely recall them being pretty heavy into munitions... of course that data could date back to the Cold War era, so take with a dose of salt big enough to pickle a dwagon.

mnem