Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[URI]

I finally took the time to clean up the Power Designs 2005a power supply I got a while ago. (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2379117/#msg2379117, been almost a year already  )

Before cleanup:


After cleanup:


This is the older model with an ovenised voltage reference (the big red capsule).




Interestingly all the caps are still in good shape, but the switches were a little bit crusty. So I started by cleaning everything with a lot of IPA. Then I applied some Deoxit G5 on the switch contacts with a syringe. And then I applied some Deoxit S5 (lubricant) on most of the moving parts of the switches.



The results after calibration and adjustment:

Wow, Very nice restoration!   
These PD 2005 are beautiful inside and outside. If I didn't have my HP 6114As I'd probably go for these...   

It's fun to directly dial in the voltage value into your DMM, isn't it?         

[URI]

After reviewing this thread I believe I might have caught TEA. Please review for eligibility.


Thank you,

Chris

Be welcomed, you fit in here snugly.   
Looking forward to your TE* being presented by you.   

I see you've got a HP 2804A Quartz Thermometer in your stack. Does it work and did you get it together with matching probes/cards?
I lost bidding on one several years ago that came as a complete, matching set including all accessories.


*-including your repair stack (courious...)

[bd139]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

[med6753]

It would appear that Europe is sleeping in this morning. 

Lazy wankers. 

I might remind you that we're operating on Greenwich (London) Mean Time, not Greenwich Village Grumpy Time. Anyway, shouldn't a man of your years be about ready to be tucked up with a glass of warm milk at this hour?

No, I was bright eyed and ready to face my day and causing my usual mayhem and pissing off an entire nation by mistaking the Kiwi flag for the Aussie flag. 

Edit...currently out in garage fabbing together something TE related.

[grizewald]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

DIN FTW!

You know it makes sense...

 

[Cubdriver]

For when the instructions say 'finger tight':

[tggzzz]

It's fun to directly dial in the voltage value into your DMM, isn't it?         

(On a 2020B at least...) Only accurately down to 1mV resolution. Below that you have to use the trimpot to get to ~20µV resolution.

Of course other PSUs would kill for that The 2020 is one of those things that is right

[bd139]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

DIN FTW!

You know it makes sense...

 

Yeah nice neat installations and opportunity for me to lace up cables nicely . The only problem is I'm now looking for PLCs with 4-20 loops on them  . Back in the 1980s pissing around with them is what I wanted to do with my life as it meant getting out and going to places. Well that was a failure. I'm now sitting here debugging the shit show that is keepalived, haproxy and the linux kernel's piss poor handling of socket reuse

[Specmaster]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

That looks a mean bit of kit, good price and as we all now know, not all Chinese kit is shit, I reckon that is one of the better VFM ones.

[Specmaster]

It would appear that Europe is sleeping in this morning. 

Lazy wankers. 

I might remind you that we're operating on Greenwich (London) Mean Time, not Greenwich Village Grumpy Time. Anyway, shouldn't a man of your years be about ready to be tucked up with a glass of warm milk at this hour?

No, I was bright eyed and ready to face my day and causing my usual mayhem and pissing off an entire nation by mistaking the Kiwi flag for the Aussie flag. 

Edit...currently out in garage fabbing together something TE related.

Well, in your defence, they are very similar especially at the size of the icon our forum, I have to hover the mouse over the icon myself to see which one it is.

[Kosmic]

It's fun to directly dial in the voltage value into your DMM, isn't it?         

Yes the resolution is impressive. I was worried that the resistors might have drifted but after adjustment that thing is bang-on.

[Specmaster]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

DIN FTW!

You know it makes sense...

 

Yeah nice neat installations and opportunity for me to lace up cables nicely . The only problem is I'm now looking for PLCs with 4-20 loops on them  . Back in the 1980s pissing around with them is what I wanted to do with my life as it meant getting out and going to places. Well that was a failure. I'm now sitting here debugging the shit show that is keepalived, haproxy and the linux kernel's piss poor handling of socket reuse

Yep, I automated the City of London Crematorium in Manor Park, with PLC's in the 80's  I really enjoyed that job, designed the control panel, built it, installed, wrote the software and commissioned them and then went on maintain them for a number of years afterwards as well and I can tell you the tales you hear about crematoriums are not true.

[URI]

I improved the power distribution for my rack.
I showed my new rack recently, especially a new switchable rack power distribution panel (mounted vertically) shown roughly in the middle of the following photo:


This rack power distribution panel was ~40€ with decent switches but poorly mounted and crappy IEC-outlets:


On one hand the plug-forces were all over the place from practically non-existent to extremely high. With the latter the individual IEC-outlets could be pulled nearly 0,4cm out of their mounting holes. Overall not very promising. Something had to be done.   

I ordered eight Schurter brand ones for  ~10€ without shipping, improving this panel to a 50€ one.
The following photo shows the crappiness of the original ones and the decent quality of Schurter brand one. A look at the 4,8mm fast on connectors alone reveals the difference:


The spring mounting clips of the original crappy ones are inappropriate for being mounted into a housing with 0,8mm thick walls.   


As shown on the photo the Schurter IEC outlets have a mounting clip that works with form closure -this works well even with 0.8mm thick walls being mounted in -the Schurter IEC outlets I ordered a suitable for walls up to 1mm. The wiggle-y-ness of 0.2mm is ok for me with them not coming out like the crappy ones.

Happy now. And safer. 

[URI]

It's fun to directly dial in the voltage value into your DMM, isn't it?         

Yes the resolution is impressive. I was worried that the resistors might have drifted but after adjustment that thing is bang-on.

Yes, these instruments were built to last back then.   

[Mr. Scram]

Yep, I automated the City of London Crematorium in Manor Park, with PLC's in the 80's  I really enjoyed that job, designed the control panel, built it, installed, wrote the software and commissioned them and then went on maintain them for a number of years afterwards as well and I can tell you the tales you hear about crematoriums are not true.

They don't incinerate the remains of people into ashes in crematoriums? Blimey, I have to stop believing everything I hear.

[grizewald]

Yeah nice neat installations and opportunity for me to lace up cables nicely . The only problem is I'm now looking for PLCs with 4-20 loops on them  . Back in the 1980s pissing around with them is what I wanted to do with my life as it meant getting out and going to places. Well that was a failure. I'm now sitting here debugging the shit show that is keepalived, haproxy and the linux kernel's piss poor handling of socket reuse

I have this feeling that lacing up cables is going to be the next big fashion. I'm almost inspired to give it a try with the cables from my DIN rail supplies. Lacing up 12 AWG cable should be an interesting fight.

Rather you than me with the load balancer debugging. I wish you luck.

[Specmaster]

Yep, I automated the City of London Crematorium in Manor Park, with PLC's in the 80's  I really enjoyed that job, designed the control panel, built it, installed, wrote the software and commissioned them and then went on maintain them for a number of years afterwards as well and I can tell you the tales you hear about crematoriums are not true.

They don't incinerate the remains of people into ashes in crematoriums? Blimey, I have to stop believing everything I hear.

LMAO, I was talking about the urban myths about what happens to the bodies during the cremation process and the alleged actions of staff.

[mnementh]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

DIN FTW!

You know it makes sense...

 

Yeah nice neat installations and opportunity for me to lace up cables nicely . The only problem is I'm now looking for PLCs with 4-20 loops on them  . Back in the 1980s pissing around with them is what I wanted to do with my life as it meant getting out and going to places. Well that was a failure. I'm now sitting here debugging the shit show that is keepalived, haproxy and the linux kernel's piss poor handling of socket reuse

The $$$ growth-rate of that particular rabbit-hole is exponential; just like any such fall.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000030877547.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33026452814.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32902464034.html

mnem
Perhaps I should be glad my Kung-Fu is so weak...

[PaulAm]

Just got this hp 6114a fixed.  Turned out to be very handy for another project where dialing in a mV source was very useful as a standin for some temp sensors.

Looks like it's pretty close 

[Kosmic]

Random doohickey. Found this via another thread: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894331223.html

$20 for a whole PLC. Granted it's hooky as fuck but worth a bash for less than the price of the damn programming cable for most of the larger brand commercial ones. I blame Grizewald's gratuitous usage of Meanwell DIN rail units for some ideas I've had 

DIN FTW!

You know it makes sense...

 

Yeah nice neat installations and opportunity for me to lace up cables nicely . The only problem is I'm now looking for PLCs with 4-20 loops on them  . Back in the 1980s pissing around with them is what I wanted to do with my life as it meant getting out and going to places. Well that was a failure. I'm now sitting here debugging the shit show that is keepalived, haproxy and the linux kernel's piss poor handling of socket reuse

The $$$ growth-rate of that particular rabbit-hole is exponential; just like any such fall.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000030877547.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33026452814.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32902464034.html

mnem
Perhaps I should be glad my Kung-Fu is so weak...

In the same line I was planning to order some of those: https://tinyfpga.com/

I don't need a fpga righht now but could be useful to have a small one for some projects.

[cjuried]

These are very precise, well built, units. I own the same unit, however, it is branded, Motorola.

I finally took the time to clean up the Power Designs 2005a power supply I got a while ago. (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2379117/#msg2379117, been almost a year already  )

Before cleanup:


After cleanup:


This is the older model with an ovenised voltage reference (the big red capsule).




Interestingly all the caps are still in good shape, but the switches were a little bit crusty. So I started by cleaning everything with a lot of IPA. Then I applied some Deoxit G5 on the switch contacts with a syringe. And then I applied some Deoxit S5 (lubricant) on most of the moving parts of the switches.



The results after calibration and adjustment:

[URI]

Just got this hp 6114a fixed.  Turned out to be very handy for another project where dialing in a mV source was very useful as a standin for some temp sensors.


Looks like it's pretty close 

Yes, they're fine supplies. Well specced with high accuracy for voltage and (!) current.   
You can't dial in the 1-9mV like with the PD 2005 though.   

[bd139]

Minor distraction from TE and PLC matters

Discovered that the problems with the Ender were because the extruder drive was worn out and slipping and the first layer wasn't going down properly. Spent some time putting the new aluminium one on it that I've had around for ages. Spent at least ten minutes trying to find some instructions and just worked it out in the end.



A test print was fired off and dinner arrived courtesy Charcoal Grill in Twickenham. Fuck the diet tonight. I need protein and carbs!!!!!!!!! 



And here we have it, including the ridge in the middle where the printer got disturbed by a small thing, 8 years old with legs, arms and a passion for destruction 



And we're back in business.

[Kosmic]

A test print was fired off and dinner arrived courtesy Charcoal Grill in Twickenham. Fuck the diet tonight. I need protein and carbs!!!!!!!!! 

Actually looking really good  I think I will break the lockdown tonight and order some food.

[bd139]

It was amazing. Best thing I’ve eaten all week  . Uber eats is still functioning correctly fortunately