Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[ch_scr]

I removed them with just the metcal. I wicked off the existing solder then added new leaded 60/40 and then just heated up each row quickly alternating and pulling the OCXO further off slightly each time. Not exactly scientific approach. Hot air would probably be easier.

Thanks for that nugget. I've used the trick of using 60/40 as flux* for 'orrible ROHS solder before. I went through a similar dance as you the last time I had to replace some caps on a hefty multi-layer board (G5 iMac as it happens - the operation was a success, the patient died.).

* More technically correct than our usual collective usage of the word flux in relation to soldering.

Flux ... a substance mixed with a solid to lower its melting point, used especially in soldering and brazing metals or to promote vitrification in glass or ceramics.

For operations like this a roll of chipquick comes in handy. Or look for "Sn42Bi58 solder wire" on aliexpress, if you like it cheap.

[Cerebus]

For operations like this a roll of chipquick comes in handy. Or look for "Sn42Bi58 solder wire" on aliexpress, if you like it cheap.

I've always avoided that kind of low melting point solder in the past because I'm usually doing this for repairs, and I suspect that I'd want to be a bit OCD about getting all the traces of the LMP solder off before completing the job. So I don't have any. All that said, it would be ideal for a straight de-soldering job like this, easy enough to get the pins as clean as you like once you've got it off the board. Perhaps I should have a rethink and get some in stock, if not for this time around then for next time.

[mnementh]

I think it is the right thing to listen to his arguments and form your own opinion once you have listened. He even invites anyone to not take his word for everything, but put the manufacturers own service centres and authorised repair shops and 3rd party repair shops to the test by asking them the same questions, but make sure that you actually what the truth is before asking so that you will know when you're being lied to.

That is the way to get an independent assessment - but most people these days are just too lazy or time poor to make the effort.  They will sit back and let Youtube doo thu edukatin'.  While useful, this needs a discerning approach - but all too often it is just gulped down irrespective.

Then there is the produce of spin doctors.  The "Apple Authorized Service Provider" scheme being a classic of the art of obfuscation.  From what has been described, it is just a facade with the sole purpose of Apple being able to make a claim for the benefit of those who don't understand what it actually provides - or should I say, doesn't provide.


If there is one thing that I find unacceptable is where the product manufacturer instructs the chip manufacturer to NOT sell chips to anyone else.  If I have a product with a fault I have tracked down to a particular chip and I can't buy a $5 replacement because somebody "said so" and the only options (according to the manufacturer) are an expensive repair with them or buying a new product - then I find that predatory and only worthy of condemnation.

If my gorilla hands bust it up - then who gives a toss?  It was mine to do with as I please.  If, however, I can get that $5 chip and use my hot air station to effect a repair, then I'm happy.  But I - and pretty much everyone here - are not your "average" customer ... and for those people (which, I concede, will include us on occasions) the "independent repair guy" who has at least the basic equipment, skills and experience to be more successful, has a definite place. 

What peeves me, in addition to such restrictive practices, are the garbage arguments used by manufacturers and their lobbyists for the purpose of generating FUD on those who do not have the knowledge to see them as the garbage they are.

The principle they use is really quite simple -  choke off the supply of spare parts and force people to spend more money with them than otherwise would have been possible.  Use some of that money to buy off lawmakers, and bob's your uncle...

Oh gewd laird...

So you think it's really reasonable to expect them to pay the R&D for custom silicon, then just let the contract manufacturer sell that part on the open market?

That's dumber than expecting them to order extras and keep track of them so they can be sold in single part lots when some dodo nukes the mb.

It is literally the antithesis of how a corporation thinks and works.

Much more important, IMO, will be to make the manufacturer pay up front the real world disposal cost of all this disposable tech.

That would be a much more important wake-up call. And if that happened, things like making shit repairable would suddenly actually hold some value for them, especially if it helped them amortize that disposal cost over a longer period.

Right to Repair as it's offered right now is a fucking sham that only kicks the problem down the road for the next generation to deal with. Just like recycling plastic had been for 4 decades.

mnem
*punt!*

Bullshit. For the most part we aren't talking genuine custom silicon, but just stuff that has been slightly tweaked for features, including serialisation.

Corporate think is part of the problem too.

And think of all the thrift purchases you make. Given the opportunity, corporate think would make that an impossibility. Used things? Fuck off, buy new you fucking slave, or do without. THAT is the philosophy you are hypocritically defending whilst simultaneously thrifting around it.

In the past yes. But if you look at the SoC direction then it’s everything on one IC. That IC is either BGA’ed or more likely flip chipped onto the board and that’s a functional requirement now. Realistically your position is ten years old on repair. While I’d love to have devices there are repairable, our demands for integration, performance and portability during the utility part of the lifecycle absolutely trump that. Most of the high volume SoC based systems are custom ICs because they are cheap in that volume.

That notably doesn’t apply to all devices but the majority of ones where complaints turn up. Whoever designs washing machine control boards for example is a cunt and should be shot though as there aren’t requirements in that space.

The whole problem is that a universal right to repair doesn’t cope well with both ends of the spectrum. Neither does the current situation for end of life devices. I can see the end coming now already.

Let’s bring it back closer to home. So it’s 4 years down the line and my SDS1202X-E drops dead then what do I do?

1. I’m a business customer so the 3 year warranty is gone.
2. I can’t claim under CRA2015 because that applies to consumer purchases.
3. Past trivial checking of power rails, I can’t reason about the function of the device easily.

My option is basically bounce it on eBay as broken or take it to the WEEE skip and chuck it in. Which is what happens to literally tonnes of stuff every day.

What I’m asking for is that the manufacturer’s agent gives me £126 back as it didn’t last a reasonable amount of time and then has to foot the disposal, recycling and/or refurbishment costs themselves. That means that serviceable or easy to recycle equipment becomes a design factor.

As for the second hand and thrift market, it’s a bit of a shit show really. Most of the stuff I buy is really quite old and has service information but is still a massive risk as they’re full of unobtainable ASICs and the like. But going to my list of points above, I’m buying stuff that was bounced on eBay by someone who didn’t want to stick it in the WEEE skip.

In short, right to repair makes even more unrealistic demands on society to prop up a notionally dead industry instead of improving the end user’s story. 99.9% of people really don’t give a shit about repair - they just want something that works and that’s who we need to protect here, not us screwdriver monkeys. And most people can’t afford to put the money on the table for items and end up paying monthly in some capacity or other. They need recourse rather than trailing debts.

[ mode ON]

1000x this. This is the problem in a nutshell. Right to Repair nibbles away at one tiny corner of the problem... and as it is being presented right now, it plays into the hands of corporate greed by allowing them to wash their hands of the disposal problem and fitness for purpose problem in one single line item on some random bill. Even if it were successfully passed, it would do nothing except aid and abet the bastards.

Specmaster (sorry ) SilverSolder, AVGresponding... no matter what you think, the nature of modern portable electronics makes custom silicon absolutely necessary. To build the contents of an iPwn out of generic parts would literally make it the size of a netbook computer, or larger. You simply cannot get around this. You're talking like those fanfic writers who suggest that Spock, armed with nothing more than hollow-state technology, really could have conceivably created a suitable replacement for a tricorder. And made it portable. Because we wantzz SteamPunk.

I'm not defending this corporate right-think... I'm saying that as long as we keep obsessing over our trivial little pet peeves without banding together and tackling the big steaming turd in the living room (our society's blind obeisance to the almighty corporation) we are going to continue drowning in a sea of shit.

To continue to expect the corporation do "the right thing" is an exercise in futility; the definition of insanity, etc. The viral, thoughtless consumption that is the source of this corporate right-think, which fuels that sea of shit... it will be the end of the human race, and most of life on earth.

The only way out is to take the power back from the corporation, by whatever means necessary. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they cannot be trusted with the power that the articles of incorporation grant to the individuals at the helm; that insulation from the consequence of their horrific actions has to be taken away. There was a reason that through the entire history of humanity (aside from "the raging 20s"; another period when we faced an evil almost identical to this one) that those protections were only granted to the highest levels of government... now we give those protections away to any sack of shit who can afford to hire the prerequisite army of lawyers. We all know which great steaming pile of example I'm talking aboot here.

What I'm saying... is that to expect the almighty corporation to actually "do better" is at best wishful thinking, and at worst conspiring in our own doom. The corporation is at its heart a virally consuming machine with no soul, whose entire existence is to aggregate all wealth unto itself and to protect those who direct it from the repercussions of the crimes they commit.

Until we neuter them, they will fuck us to death like the Reavers they are. Only now, we really are talking aboot the end of the world here... and we really do know better.

[ mode OFF]

mnem
we've all seen this movie before, and the script is written in blood. 

[bd139]

I've ordered the first time at JLCPCB some PCBs.
Being more exactly, I've ordered the A4gallium PCB from Big Clive.
5 PCBs of the size of an A4 paper sheet for 27 Dollars plus shipping! Whoa! 
I asked Osh-Park for a quote of the same PCBs (because I'm liking their purple colour) and they are asking more than 420 Dollars for three PCBs plus shipping! Wow. 
Went for the JLCPCB ones... 



And what is this PCB doing? Can be seen for example in this video from him: https://youtu.be/v=bI_zgZz-V40&t=61s

Now I need to source some cheap 5mm blinking LEDs and resistors ...

Ooh blinkenlights 

This is of course why JLCPCB seem to win all the business.

And even better than the pricing, well that's debatable, is that the soldermask is better quality than OSHpark and they do clean edge cuts not horrible uncontrolled panelised mousebites.

[vk6zgo]

I consider everything repairable here except for two items: Microwave oven and the Samsung 32 LCD. The Microwave for obvious reasons...HV and possible RF leakage. Bad ju-ju that I won't mess with. The Samsung. If it craps out and the fault is obviously in the PSU I will attempt repair. Anything beyond that forget it. The additional boards have no service data, can't be repaired, and are expensive to replace even if available. Into the trash it goes.   

Oh...and the Acer Laptop.....I would give it a shot. But might have to add it to the list too.

RF is a pussycat--------SMPS, on the other hand, have changed beyond recognition from the ones I used to be a "dab hand" at fixing.

Really, there isn't much to go wrong with a magnetron.

Are the filaments still OK (not O/C)?
is the filament supply present?
Is the HT present?

Everything else goes back to that bloody switchmode supply, or some horrific controller board.

I had a "National" microwave oven years ago (yeah, just before they started calling everything "Panasonic").
After a year or so, it refused duty.
They weren't so "dirt cheap" back then, so with misgivings, I opened it up.
The fault was immediately obvious------- a poor crimp on the connector which the Magnetron filament pin plugged into.

I just cleaned up the connector, cut back the wire, which had got a bit cooked, & this time, soldered the connector.
I was a bit worried about soldering it, because the filament pins  may get a bit hot in service, causing deterioration of the joint, & causing my repair to be short lived.

No, as 15 years later, the thing was still going.
I convinced myself it was a big, unwieldy old thing, maybe the magnetron heater had lost emission, etc, so retired it.
I haven't had any microwave ovens that lasted 15 years any time since.

Of course, the old National had no SMPS to go wrong---------the tube anode was fed raw 2 kv ac from the Mains transformer secondary!

[ch_scr]

I consider everything repairable here except for two items: Microwave oven and the Samsung 32 LCD. The Microwave for obvious reasons...HV and possible RF leakage. Bad ju-ju that I won't mess with. The Samsung. If it craps out and the fault is obviously in the PSU I will attempt repair. Anything beyond that forget it. The additional boards have no service data, can't be repaired, and are expensive to replace even if available. Into the trash it goes.   

Oh...and the Acer Laptop.....I would give it a shot. But might have to add it to the list too.

RF is a pussycat--------SMPS, on the other hand, have changed beyond recognition from the ones I used to be a "dab hand" at fixing.

Really, there isn't much to go wrong with a magnetron.

Are the filaments still OK (not O/C)?
is the filament supply present?
Is the HT present?

Everything else goes back to that bloody switchmode supply, or some horrific controller board.

I had a "National" microwave oven years ago (yeah, just before they started calling everything "Panasonic").
After a year or so, it refused duty.
They weren't so "dirt cheap" back then, so with misgivings, I opened it up.
The fault was immediately obvious------- a poor crimp on the connector which the Magnetron filament pin plugged into.

I just cleaned up the connector, cut back the wire, which had got a bit cooked, & this time, soldered the connector.
I was a bit worried about soldering it, because the filament pins  may get a bit hot in service, causing deterioration of the joint, & causing my repair to be short lived.

No, as 15 years later, the thing was still going.
I convinced myself it was a big, unwieldy old thing, maybe the magnetron heater had lost emission, etc, so retired it.
I haven't had any microwave ovens that lasted 15 years any time since.

Of course, the old National had no SMPS to go wrong---------the tube anode was fed raw 2 kv ac from the Mains transformer secondary!

Rest assured, most microwaves are still of the mains transformer type. It's just a lot cheap than the HV-SMPS thingy.
Also, have a look at the Texas Instruments Power Topologies Poster. Usually a stare at the PCB and then at the poster, looking for power components, will narrow it down a lot. https://www.ti.com/lit/ml/sluw001g/sluw001g.pdf

[Cerebus]

They couldn't really do much for entertainment, except harass their "underlings", get drunk, go to church, & fornicate.(Not all at the same time!)

Try telling that last bit to the Earl of Rochester! 

And there I was thinking of the 13th Duke of Wybourne 

Well, I didn't want to go there, a little too close to home, what with my reputation. 

(I just sent SWMBO for a quick trawl through the photographic evidence from my partying days, but the only photo of me in a Tux she could turn up in short order was nowhere near as dishabille as was typical and wouldn't have been representative. It would almost amount to dishonesty to present it.)

[mnementh]

Much more important, IMO, will be to make the manufacturer pay up front the real world disposal cost of all this disposable tech.

It is an appealing idea, except for two things:

• the manufacturer won't pay: the customer will. That level of indirection is problematic one way or another
• what should the disposal cost be, and when should it be paid?

Meaningless statements.

The customer ALWAYS pays for EVERYTHING.

Yes, and then the customer actually knows what he's paying for, instead of kicking it down the road for the next generation to deal with. At least an informed decision rather than just the result of being bludgeoned into an insensate fog with advertising.

Baby steps, man.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

I’ve got too many projects on the go already. I came to the conclusion that if I obtain more I will be demotivated.

I hear you. My current demotivation is having a big project staring you in the face and not being able to work it because you're a cripple, or at least feel like one. 

Amen, brutha. I have a whole list of "Spring Cleaning" type shit to do... and it just sits there, mocking me. It mocks me, and I am mocked...   

mnem

[mnementh]

Just found a klingon battle cruiser model rocket nib. Haggled it down to 15 pesos

Ooooh! I remember that one! Nice score!

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Compared to what I've found inside some Tek's that dust level there is just a base coat. 

Indeed... that's my type 531A when I got it... think I will wear gloves and a bio-hazard rated mask, whenever I get round to working on it...

The one in the middle is your 531A's previous owner...

(urrrggghhh... GnomeWeb sux ballz, but FireFlump crashes if I try to attach a pic... Yup, must be *NIX...)

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

SWMBO came through. The evidence:



My excuse, in context there ought to be high heels and a wheelchair but I'd lost the former and never had the latter.

[mansaxel]

Amen, brutha. I have a whole list of "Spring Cleaning" type shit to do... and it just sits there, mocking me. It mocks me, and I am mocked...   

The 6237b sits on the bench and says, "Why haven't you bought those 1/4" x 1 1/4" fuses yet so I can blow a new one on you?" I really should get to measuring the caps on the secondary side of it, because that's where I think I saw the flash.

I have 10A fuses in that size. It's bloody murder to put one of those in. So I won't.

[BU508A]

Thank you very much. 

Do you have the fantiest idea, how much Looney Tunes I have to watch to get THIS picture out of my head? 

 

[Cerebus]

Thank you very much. 

Do you have the fantiest idea, how much Looney Tunes I have to watch to get THIS picture out of my head? 

 

Count yourself lucky that there aren't photos of later, once the evening had got interesting. 

[bd139]

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

[BU508A]

Ungh!

*hitting the button REALLY hard*



 

[bd139]

And back to slightly less worrying things... 

Did the full calibration on the power meter and got calibration constants out of them. They now reside inside the brains of the HP35s. So two programs:

volts XEQ P -> returns absolute power in dBm (subtract C, divide by M)
volts XEQ R -> returns relative power in dBm (divide by M only)

M and C are on a sticker on the side of the unit with the date recorded. Eyeball chart done in GNUplot -> SVG -> Inkscape -> Save as PDF -> print scaled with Acrobat 

This was then used to calibrate the 40dB power tap I built ages ago which came out at 39.98dB which was pretty good!

This, with a suitable load gives a full power measurement range of 50dBm (100W) and down to -70dBm (100pW) across approximately 2-80MHz flat and up to 500MHz with some ripple (I haven't measured it as I don't have suitable kit yet).

Original article here: http://on4khg.be/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Simple-RF-Power-measurement-W7ZOI-W7PUA.pdf



One ancient project finally finished!

[Cerebus]

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

Here, some eyewash for BU508A. SWMBO at the same party. Not her best photo, but it's not terrible:

[mnementh]

Most of the time, the stuff that breaks are things like batteries, connectors, etc. etc. -  which manufacturers don't sell spares for either.  In fact, some batteries contain chips that specifically disable them and make then unrepairable...

I would say that if a big custom made chip fails, the device should probably be considered totalled...   but a battery??

That's a tough one... but I can see the need to protect one's customers from all the cheap-shit LiPos out there. Once you slap a counterfeit label over it, that battery looks just like the real thing, even tho it is a fucking fire hazard. And they are a fucking epidemic right now. Now add to that the fact you don't know what moron is going to be doing the battery swap... 

The biggest problem there... and where it all falls apart.. is that providing replacement batteries and such service is the tip of the spear penetrating the entirely realistic argument that allowing such service is an invitation to morons who are going to make the thing a death-trap.

Part of how durable an iDevice really is... is how it is sealed up. No matter how careful you are, you simply cannot disassemble it, replace something, then reassemble it and be sure it is sealed as well and maintains the structural integrity it had when new. You may not want to believe it, but that piece of Gorilla glass is actually a stressed member of the assembly; and replacing it with some cheap knockoff means that the resultant product will not be as strong as an original, sealed unit. And that WILL HAPPEN... it DOES happen every day.

The big problem from a manufacturing standpoint is that getting that kind of engineering nuance across to the average iConsumer is like trying to explain precalculus to a chimp, or global warming to a Trump-ite. They will either faze out and start thinking aboot bananas, or they will assume you are lying to them and then faze out and start thinking aboot cheezburgurrzz.

So now they're faced with either promoting and enabling battery replacement (a worthy ideal) but starting the downhill slide which leads to them defending lawsuits caused by crap knockoff parts, or standing their ground and flatly refusing to support any repairs on the grounds that it is not feasible to do it and make a product which is as safe as an original, unsullied unit.

 

Bottom line is that this is again part of the whole "nibbling away at the edges of a much bigger problem" problem. We all need to be thinking aboot the bigger part, not just replacing parts.

mnem


I don't like it. I don't agree with it. But I accept it.

[mnementh]

SWMBO came through. The evidence:

   My excuse, in context there ought to be high heels and a wheelchair but I'd lost the former and never had the latter.

Somewhere in the lost annals of Scapercon, there is video of me in a homemade D'argo costume (hint... maroon bathrobe is a core component) from a production of Scapespeare, wherein I am misquoting filked versions of the worst of Midsummer Night's Dream, all the while sharpening a Qualta blade... err trout...

As you might imagine, I'm still afraid to actually go looking for it...

mnem
My acting talents are worse than advertised, and worse than yours. I guarantee it.

[Specmaster]

I removed them with just the metcal. I wicked off the existing solder then added new leaded 60/40 and then just heated up each row quickly alternating and pulling the OCXO further off slightly each time. Not exactly scientific approach. Hot air would probably be easier.

So i paid for Saturday delivery with Telonic. It’s 15:40. No sign of delivery and I didn’t even get a dispatch note or tracking ID. But it says shipped on their tracking. Hmm. The mystery continues...

You brought a hot air gun? Well done you, A desoldering gun would have been a better bet surely?

[med6753]

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

But not by much. 

[SilverSolder]

Most of the time, the stuff that breaks are things like batteries, connectors, etc. etc. -  which manufacturers don't sell spares for either.  In fact, some batteries contain chips that specifically disable them and make then unrepairable...

I would say that if a big custom made chip fails, the device should probably be considered totalled...   but a battery??

That's a tough one... but I can see the need to protect one's customers from all the cheap-shit LiPos out there. Once you slap a counterfeit label over it, that battery looks just like the real thing, even tho it is a fucking fire hazard. And they are a fucking epidemic right now. Now add to that the fact you don't know what moron is going to be doing the battery swap... 

The biggest problem there... and where it all falls apart.. is that providing replacement batteries and such service is the tip of the spear penetrating the entirely realistic argument that allowing such service is an invitation to morons who are going to make the thing a death-trap.

Part of how durable an iDevice really is... is how it is sealed up. No matter how careful you are, you simply cannot disassemble it, replace something, then reassemble it and be sure it is sealed as well and maintains the structural integrity it had when new. You may not want to believe it, but that piece of Gorilla glass is actually a stressed member of the assembly; and replacing it with some cheap knockoff means that the resultant product will not be as strong as an original, sealed unit. And that WILL HAPPEN... it DOES happen every day.

The big problem from a manufacturing standpoint is that getting that kind of engineering nuance across to the average iConsumer is like trying to explain precalculus to a chimp, or global warming to a Trump-ite. They will either faze out and start thinking aboot bananas, or they will assume you are lying to them and then faze out and start thinking aboot cheezburgurrzz.

So now they're faced with either promoting and enabling battery replacement (a worthy ideal) but starting the downhill slide which leads to them defending lawsuits caused by crap knockoff parts, or standing their ground and flatly refusing to support any repairs on the grounds that it is not feasible to do it and make a product which is as safe as an original, unsullied unit.

 

Bottom line is that this is again part of the whole "nibbling away at the edges of a much bigger problem" problem. We all need to be thinking aboot the bigger part, not just replacing parts.

mnem


I don't agree with it. I don't like it. But I accept it.

As an example, my Samsung S5 is still alive and kicking after many years, and it is on its 6:th battery...   it is the only item that keeps wearing out in it.   If the battery had been "difficult to replace", I think the case would be a lot worse for the wear by now, just from having to melt it apart every year or two - in other words, it would have become e-waste.

I buy batteries that last longer than the originals (but makes the phone twice as thick).  This is an option that you won't have on a phone that doesn't have a replaceable battery.

I have 256GB SD card in this phone, and an FTP server on it.  Try that with a modern phone that doesn't come with an SD card slot.  (I'm about to try a 1TB SD card, I'll let you know how that goes...   assuming it works, can you even buy a modern phone with 1TB of memory? - and if you can, would your great grandchildren still be paying it off, long after you are dead?)

Basically, I don't like how manufacturers are herding us all into tidy little boxes where we are not allowed to do anything (are actively prevented from doing anything) with the devices we own, whether our objectives are to extend their life span, or enhance their capabilities in other ways.

It is still just about possible to do what you want by purchasing the right models from the right manufacturers or buying used, but the choices keep getting more limited.

Youngsters grow up in this environment never having known anything else, and just end up paying through the nose for simple things that our generation are used to buying once a decade or even less...

[ch_scr]

I might have bought a broken Keithley 2602A channel module on epay. It's not because it was cheap and I was eyeing it for months, it's uhh to better repair my K2636 channels. That's it, so I have spares and can compare. Totally not a waste of money I'm sure. This will totally not sit in a drawer for years