Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Quick update to my Keithley TRIAX cable, which I've ordered in the US.
There was a fail of the USPS which resulted in sending it back to the seller,
because USPS wasn't able to find Germany/my hometown in the USA. 

The seller told me, that they had brought it back to the post-office for re-shipping.
I checked today the tracking and there was some progress.     After around
twelve days they managed to find an airport from whom my cable can be delivered to good ol' Germany.
What I do not understand is: checking the tracking in ebay gives me more data than checking it directly with USPS.
Has ebay some kind of direct access to the USPS tracking system?

This is what I see in ebay:


And this is directly from the tracking website at USPS:


 
Not sure, how reliable or trustworthy this is ... 

[mnementh]

As for planes they don’t bother me now.  You get used to it after a bit 

What about the stinking Kerosine?

You can hide the smell with kerocosine. 

Naah, I think a shifting phase of pi instead of pi/2 is much more efficient. 

Oh, fuck me. Math humor...  You sick, sick bastards...

*launches counterstrike*

mnem
   https://xkcd.com/2295/

[BU508A]

This one is especially for you mnem but you have to read it out loud. 

Q: Why is there a gap between 8 and 10?

A: Because 7 8 9.

 

[Vince]

............ haven't checked TEA for over 2 weeks now I think.. busy working on the house as always.

Started work on my first CAD design since my last project 15 years ago... this time I decided to give Kicad a go, since it seems to be mature enough nowadys, and not much else on Linux anyway.

My distro was a bit old, just a bit, (X)Ubuntu 16.04, Kicad v4 something. I was advised to upgrade to the latest Kicad version... so tonight I just took the risk to upgrade Ubuntu to the latest stable release, 21.04, 3 months old, comes with Kicad v5.1.9 .... now it loads the old Kicad project files about OK but schematics complains about symbol library don't know what it wants... then when I start PCBNew, it starts by asking if I want to enable 3D acceleration.. I thought you must be kidding why do you need 3D acceleration for the little that you do ! I said yes anyway.... and now instead of accelerating, it's been SLOWED DOWN to a CRAWL compared to the old Ubuntu/kicad setup !  panning the board with the mouse now yields about one single frame/redraw per second, woohoo !!!     ... not to mention that the 3D viewer now displays GARBAGE !

Oh, and as far as Firefox goes, it declared it was incompatible with itself ! Said sorry it's too risky to reuse the old bookmarks/address bar history and saved passwords.... please create a new profile !

I didn't get to force it to even TRY, no it said either you create a new blank profile right now, or I don't start at all !!  THANKS FIREFOX !!

GIMME A SHOT GUN, I am heading to Mozilla's HQ !!!   


As for Kicad, I guess it must be some kind of bloody Nvidia driver problem again.... need to look into that.
As for the library thing problem thing of a bob that I don't understand... since my schematic is so simple/quick to do, I think it's best to just redo the project all over again...

NEVER UPDATE YOUR LINUX SYSTEM........................ NEVER !!!!   

EDIT : ran PCB New again, it asked me again about 3D acceleration... said no this time. now panning is smooth, but 3D viewer is still highly unresponsive... but maybe that's because it displays garbage... So,  if it shows garbage with and withOUT 3D enabled... that means the problem has nothing to do with Nvidia drivers, and more to do with it being buggy and that it just does not work at all... GREAT !   NEVER UPGRADE ... NE - VER !!!   


So I missed about 75 pages or so, literally... did Med fix his 547 ? Or still too weak post op to dare handling it ?

[Cerebus]

OK, after a few hours playing with the HP 53132A and a few hours letting it log phase data I popped the top off and started investigating that option 012 board properly.

Pulled the option board out to the side of the case where it would be probe accessible and plugged it back into the mainframe and powered the whole thing up.

The 1st commandment: "Thou shalt test voltages."

+12V rail - check. -12V rail - check. +5V rail - Oh, 0.6V. Take a look, take a very suspicious sideways look at that tant on the 5V rail. Power off, meter to continuity mode. Hmm, this doesn't look great. It's not shorted, but equally there ought to be more than 1177 ohms across it. There are 4 other tants on the board and they all measure open circuit, so in theory they're good.

Off to get the hot air out and pull that bastard.

[mnementh]

This one is especially for you mnem but you have to read it out loud. 

Q: Why is there a gap between 8 and 10?

A: Because 7 8 9.

 

*groooooaaaannnnn* That one's so old you had to chip off a kilo of coprolites just to post it...

mnem

[mnementh]

OK, after a few hours playing with the HP 53132A and a few hours letting it log phase data I popped the top off and started investigating that option 012 board properly.

Pulled the option board out to the side of the case where it would be probe accessible and plugged it back into the mainframe and powered the whole thing up.

The 1st commandment: "Thou shalt test voltages."

+12V rail - check. -12V rail - check. +5V rail - Oh, 0.6V. Take a look, take a very suspicious sideways look at that tant on the 5V rail. Power off, meter to continuity mode. Hmm, this doesn't look great. It's not shorted, but equally there ought to be more than 1177 ohms across it. There are 4 other tants on the board and they all measure open circuit, so in theory they're good.

Off to get the hot air out and pull that bastard.

Break a leg (off yer tweezer), ya miserable ol' reprobate. 

mnem

[Cerebus]

Well, that just shows you how colour prejudice, in this case for orange buggers with brown stripes, can mislead you. Le Tant tests fine out of circuit. I'll put a new one in anyway - partly out of principle and partly because some fool didn't notice that it was a wave soldered board and rather over cooked things not having noticed the little dots of glue that were holding said Tant in place well after the solder had melted.

Back to the drawing board, I'd assumed that the 5V rail from the mainframe was good and perhaps that was a mistake. That, of course, is much harder to test - probing at the header next to ground, +12V and -12V pins. One slip and bye, bye  magic smoke.

[med6753]

............ haven't checked TEA for over 2 weeks now I think.. busy working on the house as always.

....snip

So I missed about 75 pages or so, literally... did Med fix his 547 ? Or still too weak post op to dare handling it ?

Go back to page 3809 and start reading.

[duckduck]

[...]
There was a fail of the USPS which resulted in sending it back to the seller,
because USPS wasn't able to find Germany/my hometown in the USA. 
[...]

One of my childhood friends was from Germany but had moved to the US. His father wrote the boy's grandmother, who lived in in Austria, a letter and dropped it in the mail in the US. It was returned to him "no such address" with stamps on it from the Australian postal service. Some USPS employees are unbelievably helpful and some are caricatures of the worst stereotypes of government employees.

EDIT:

Components that I ordered from Digi-Key that were sent via USPS are noted by USPS as "Delivered to mailbox" and there is no sign of them for over a day now. Quack! I was really looking forward to being able to finish my 12AX7 test jig this weekend. I've already opened a case with USPS. This is awful because USPS marking this "delivered" is going to make it difficult for me to get very far with Digi-Key. In my favor, I have years of history of ordering from them and it seems unlikely that I would try to scam them out of USD20 worth of jellybean resistors and capacitors.

[med6753]

[...]
There was a fail of the USPS which resulted in sending it back to the seller,
because USPS wasn't able to find Germany/my hometown in the USA. 
[...]

One of my childhood friends was from Germany but had moved to the US. His father wrote the boy's grandmother, who lived in in Austria, a letter and dropped it in the mail in the US. It was returned to him "no such address" with stamps on it from the Australian postal service. Some USPS employees are unbelievably helpful and some are caricatures of the worst stereotypes of government employees.

Some personal USPS FUBARS...

Once had a package tracked "Out for delivery" in California. I am in New York. 

It once took a package 2 weeks to go 120 miles, all within New York State. 

I've had packages drop dead in a distribution centers and not move for 3 days or more. 

Once or twice a package arrived at my local PO in plenty of time to make delivery that day but actually were delivered next day. 

Once had a package returned to sender because it had the right address but wrong zip code. Doesn't a real person look at the package if the automatic tracking sez  . I guess not. 

The personnel at my local PO are at least friendly but they never have any answers. Their favorite line is "I'm sorry" 

I'll stop now. USPS sucks donkey dick.     

[Vince]

............ haven't checked TEA for over 2 weeks now I think.. busy working on the house as always.

....snip

So I missed about 75 pages or so, literally... did Med fix his 547 ? Or still too weak post op to dare handling it ?

Go back to page 3809 and start reading.

That's only 3 pages back, much better than 75 ... OK will do ! 

[Cerebus]

Back to the 53132A.

Tested +5V rail from the mainframe - all good. Just for the hell of it, put OCXO back on the option board without the capacitor. Power on, self-test OK, "UNCALIBRATED".

Whoot!

Perhaps the Tant tested OK out of circuit because it needed a good roasting to show it the error or its ways. Perhaps I accidentally fixed a dry joint somewhere else while I was removing it with hot air. Either way I now have a working option 012 OCXO (the fanciest you can have on this model out of a range of 4 options) I wasn't expecting to have at all. Just doubled the value of the meter!!!!

Off to order new Tants and read the calibration procedure.

[Brumby]

A few weeks ago I was in Bunnings (yes, I know I spend far too much time there - so sue me) and they had some Kincrome items on clearance.  When I saw these, I just had to grab them....

They are all 10mm - in ¹/₄", ³/₈" and ¹/₂" drive.

Showed them to my friend and she cracked up.

6 and 12 point in all drive sizes and short reach and long reach ?
If so good lad, well done.

All single hex (6 point) - but I've rarely had a situation where that is a real problem.  If I really need to go to an angle 30º off from where I've landed, I just pull the socket off the drive shaft and spin it 90º.  I know this can get tedious if you have restricted space and need several 30º movements, but I just get philosophical about it and think of all the time I would waste if I drop the bolt down the guts of where I'm working.

Ummm.... you mention the ever elusive 1/2-in socket,

I didn't, actually.  I mentioned 1/2-in DRIVE.

yet in the same breath tell us how you passed on a rail of 13mm the same assortment as your 10mm? You do realize that 13mm is a few thou larger than 1/2-in, so will work on both in nearly every situation?

It's when you try to use 1/2-in in place of a 13mm that you inevitably find yerself deep in a hole and fucked for the right size.

I have other sockets - from cheap chinesium to branded and a couple in between.  I have a few 13mm and they are not nearly as frequently required as 10mm - plus I can find one fairly quickly (usually).

My branded set has AF as well as metric - including ¹/₂" - but the number of times I've used that over the last 5 years I could count on one hand.

We iz metric and have been for a while now.  My car is a 1989 Ford and I don't think I've encountered any imperial buts or nolts.

[Vince]

............ haven't checked TEA for over 2 weeks now I think.. busy working on the house as always.

....snip

So I missed about 75 pages or so, literally... did Med fix his 547 ? Or still too weak post op to dare handling it ?

Go back to page 3809 and start reading.

OK, looking good for the 547, diagnosis made, great !!! 
Well, hoping a modern replacement can be figured out for these old Germanium trannies though... if not get used ones from somewhere, somehow... you live in Tek land so best place to get old Tek parts...
Hell for now we don't even know for sure if these transistors are bad, only a suspicion... but could be some dipole around them, with some luck...crossing fingers !

[Cubdriver]

Quick update to my Keithley TRIAX cable, which I've ordered in the US.
There was a fail of the USPS which resulted in sending it back to the seller,
because USPS wasn't able to find Germany/my hometown in the USA. 

The seller told me, that they had brought it back to the post-office for re-shipping.
I checked today the tracking and there was some progress.     After around
twelve days they managed to find an airport from whom my cable can be delivered to good ol' Germany.
What I do not understand is: checking the tracking in ebay gives me more data than checking it directly with USPS.
Has ebay some kind of direct access to the USPS tracking system?

This is what I see in ebay:


And this is directly from the tracking website at USPS:


 
Not sure, how reliable or trustworthy this is ... 

I'm dealing with something similar, except mine got tantalizingly close before its wave-off.  Finally found a 3490A remote cable that fits some of my old HP meters.  In Greece.  It got here remarkably fast, and showed out for delivery on Monday.  When it wasn't in the mailbox Monday evening (but two other packages were), I checked the tracking.  It showed a delivery exception for 'Vacant'.   

Went to the PO early Tuesday afternoon at lunch time.  Was told that the address was buggered up and that it was being returned to sender.  Once again,    Dug a little deeper and they said from what they could see, the house number was AFTER the street name rather than before - 'Main St. 250' instead of '250 Main St.'  Can we do anything to recover it?  "No, it's already been sent out." Mind you, this is about 26 hours after it 'couldn't be delivered'.  Sure, NOW they decide to be fast and efficient.    Had to go back a bit later to drop off some outgoing mail, so I decided to ask again; spoke to a different person that time.  He suggested that I call the postmaster in the morning and gave me her number; said perhaps she could do something.  I did so, and she said she'd e-mail down the line and try to get it back, but who knows if it will work.  By Tuesday evening it had reached the Springfield, MA sorting center, and at 10:30 Wednesday morning it arrived at the international distribution center in Jamaica Plains, NY.  It currently still shows as being there more 24 hours later, but I've no idea how long they take to turn things around so there's no indication yet as to whether it will head back across the ocean or back up to MA.  If it turns out that the only error on the address was the location of the street number, I'm going to be sorely tempted to smack my mail carrier upside the head, as if that's all it was  there's no excuse not to figure out the mistake.   

Fingers crossed that it turns around and comes back.

I've been spoiled, because my local PO is usually really good.   

-Pat

[tautech]

A few weeks ago I was in Bunnings (yes, I know I spend far too much time there - so sue me) and they had some Kincrome items on clearance.  When I saw these, I just had to grab them....

They are all 10mm - in ¹/₄", ³/₈" and ¹/₂" drive.

Showed them to my friend and she cracked up.

6 and 12 point in all drive sizes and short reach and long reach ?
If so good lad, well done.

All single hex (6 point) - but I've rarely had a situation where that is a real problem.  If I really need to go to an angle 30º off from where I've landed, I just pull the socket off the drive shaft and spin it 90º.  I know this can get tedious if you have restricted space and need several 30º movements, but I just get philosophical about it and think of all the time I would waste if I drop the bolt down the guts of where I'm working.

Ok so the joy awaits you or call her Murphy if you like of 12pt nuts.....not common indeed but waiting to place a cease on proceedings until you have 12pt sockets in at least the common sizes.

[Robert763]

Nope. That’s actually under Heathrow approach just over the road from me 

As for HDR weather we do have it occasionally. Usually it’s grayscale though 

Heathrow approach... Ouch!



I lived in a Frankfurt Airport approach zone myself (the airport was ~20 km away) and I couldn't stand the airplanes flying in 500m altitude over my head from 5am till 10pm. The people in the proximity of the airport live in constant acoustic harassment but the prices for real estate are very high as if nothing happened!

It’s not unusual for dead frozen immigrants to land in peoples gardens around here.

https://news.sky.com/story/stowaway-found-dead-in-garden-after-falling-from-plane-near-heathrow-11752788

As for planes they don’t bother me now.  You get used to it after a bit 

Pffftt....you wanna live in a noisy airport approach? My maternal grandparents lived in Howard Beach, Queens in the approach path to JFK which was about a half mile away. This was in the 1960's so it was during the transition from props to jets. DC-6/7's, Connies, with the occasional 707. Came over the house so low it shook and the TV with the rabbit ears antenna would break into vertical roll. All day long, every 2 minutes. It wasn't until the late 1970's that JFK changed their approach patterns in response to all the noise complaints.

Nah used to have Concorde here as shown in this video 

https://youtu.be/i1ShTUVIzCI

Aka cruise missile with seats 

In my village we have a couple of people who complain about the occasional warbird doing aerobatics. nothing like a couple of Merlins on a saturday morning. Then there is the noise from the prop on a Harvard (T6 Texan)......

[Robert763]

A few weeks ago I was in Bunnings (yes, I know I spend far too much time there - so sue me) and they had some Kincrome items on clearance.  When I saw these, I just had to grab them....

They are all 10mm - in ¹/₄", ³/₈" and ¹/₂" drive.

Showed them to my friend and she cracked up.

6 and 12 point in all drive sizes and short reach and long reach ?
If so good lad, well done.

All single hex (6 point) - but I've rarely had a situation where that is a real problem.  If I really need to go to an angle 30º off from where I've landed, I just pull the socket off the drive shaft and spin it 90º.  I know this can get tedious if you have restricted space and need several 30º movements, but I just get philosophical about it and think of all the time I would waste if I drop the bolt down the guts of where I'm working.

Ok so the joy awaits you or call her Murphy if you like of 12pt nuts.....not common indeed but waiting to place a cease on proceedings until you have 12pt sockets in at least the common sizes.

He's obviously not working on jet engines if no 12 point sockets 

[med6753]

In my village we have a couple of people who complain about the occasional warbird doing aerobatics. nothing like a couple of Merlins on a saturday morning. Then there is the noise from the prop on a Harvard (T6 Texan)......

I could listen to Merlins all day long. Totally sweet.  The radial in the T-6, not so much.

And this. Very unique sound. The Allison V-12 exhaust routed through a turbocharger acts like a muffler. Almost sounds like a jet.



 

[Andrew_Debbie]

Quick update to my Keithley TRIAX cable, which I've ordered in the US.
There was a fail of the USPS which resulted in sending it back to the seller,

Not sure, how reliable or trustworthy this is ... 

The Trump administration deliberately sabotaged the USPS.    Mr. Trump appointed a postmaster general who had a vested interest in making the postal service slow and unreliable.


and he is still at it:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/07/20/controversial-usps-plan-to-slow-the-mail-slammed-by-postal-regulator/?sh=180b4bf7601d

despite being under investigation...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/03/louis-dejoy-postmaster-general-doj-investigating-political-fundraising

[mansaxel]

I'm watching code compile.  There's this software suite I've built a lot of my own IT infra on, which uses a string like "CPUarch_OS_Release" as an integral part in both building and running the system. My preferred server OS is supported, somewhat, but to run new code (HEAD et c) one needs to push things into the tree, where said string is used in file names for header files and as variable names in said header. It also is needed in the invocation to Autoconf.

Compiling is much easier if one formats the string (esp. wrt. placement of "_") correctly. 

I'd been staring at this problem and postponing it for some time now.

Now, I at least have a kernel module that won't load, which is a big step forward from not compiling at all. 

Edit: Module loads.

Code: [Select]

root@freebsd12-openafs:/usr/local/src/openafs # kldstat
Id Refs Address                Size Name
 1   17 0xffffffff80200000  227ae98 kernel
 2    1 0xffffffff82a12000     2698 intpm.ko
 3    1 0xffffffff82a15000      b40 smbus.ko
 4    1 0xffffffff82a16000     1860 uhid.ko
 5    1 0xffffffff82a18000     1a40 wmt.ko
 6    1 0xffffffff82a1a000      acf mac_ntpd.ko
 7    1 0xffffffff82a1b000   28aa30 libafs.ko

The key to it all was CFLAGS = -DVIMAGE.

[Specmaster]

Nope. That’s actually under Heathrow approach just over the road from me 

As for HDR weather we do have it occasionally. Usually it’s grayscale though 

Heathrow approach... Ouch!



I lived in a Frankfurt Airport approach zone myself (the airport was ~20 km away) and I couldn't stand the airplanes flying in 500m altitude over my head from 5am till 10pm. The people in the proximity of the airport live in constant acoustic harassment but the prices for real estate are very high as if nothing happened!

It’s not unusual for dead frozen immigrants to land in peoples gardens around here.

https://news.sky.com/story/stowaway-found-dead-in-garden-after-falling-from-plane-near-heathrow-11752788

As for planes they don’t bother me now.  You get used to it after a bit 

Pffftt....you wanna live in a noisy airport approach? My maternal grandparents lived in Howard Beach, Queens in the approach path to JFK which was about a half mile away. This was in the 1960's so it was during the transition from props to jets. DC-6/7's, Connies, with the occasional 707. Came over the house so low it shook and the TV with the rabbit ears antenna would break into vertical roll. All day long, every 2 minutes. It wasn't until the late 1970's that JFK changed their approach patterns in response to all the noise complaints.

Nah used to have Concorde here as shown in this video 

https://youtu.be/i1ShTUVIzCI

Aka cruise missile with seats 

You also forgot to mention the famous Heathrow Minute which because of the high demand for flights in and out of Heathrow they are no longer to keep to the minimum recommended separation times between planes of 1 minute to allow planes to safely clear the runway before another lands. This Heathrow Minute is actually just 45 seconds at peak times. Many times while I was working on Terminal 5 in its construction phase I heard and witnessed a few aborted landings in order to avoid the previous plane who had not departed the runway in time   

[tautech]

Nope. That’s actually under Heathrow approach just over the road from me 

As for HDR weather we do have it occasionally. Usually it’s grayscale though 

Heathrow approach... Ouch!



I lived in a Frankfurt Airport approach zone myself (the airport was ~20 km away) and I couldn't stand the airplanes flying in 500m altitude over my head from 5am till 10pm. The people in the proximity of the airport live in constant acoustic harassment but the prices for real estate are very high as if nothing happened!

It’s not unusual for dead frozen immigrants to land in peoples gardens around here.

https://news.sky.com/story/stowaway-found-dead-in-garden-after-falling-from-plane-near-heathrow-11752788

As for planes they don’t bother me now.  You get used to it after a bit 

Pffftt....you wanna live in a noisy airport approach? My maternal grandparents lived in Howard Beach, Queens in the approach path to JFK which was about a half mile away. This was in the 1960's so it was during the transition from props to jets. DC-6/7's, Connies, with the occasional 707. Came over the house so low it shook and the TV with the rabbit ears antenna would break into vertical roll. All day long, every 2 minutes. It wasn't until the late 1970's that JFK changed their approach patterns in response to all the noise complaints.

Nah used to have Concorde here as shown in this video 

https://youtu.be/i1ShTUVIzCI

Aka cruise missile with seats 

You also forgot to mention the famous Heathrow Minute which because of the high demand for flights in and out of Heathrow they are no longer to keep to the minimum recommended separation times between planes of 1 minute to allow planes to safely clear the runway before another lands. This Heathrow Minute is actually just 45 seconds at peak times. Many times while I was working on Terminal 5 in its construction phase I heard and witnessed a few aborted landings in order to avoid the previous plane who had not departed the runway in time   

While collisions are of course a risk the unseen risk of wash is higher especially when a smaller aircraft follows a much larger one in for landing.
Some years back the daughter while still doing her training took us out for an almost full day trip in a Cessna where we did several touch and go's and one full stop for lunch and refueling.
Later in the day and passing the last airport on the way back to base we were to follow a jet onto the runway by what seemed like a considerable distance (mile or 2) yet we had to abort the touch and go due to excessive turbulence. She did warn us we mightn't have sufficient separation and possibly need to abort or ride it out so at least we were warned. 
All in all it was one of those very memorable birthdays. 

[Specmaster]

In my village we have a couple of people who complain about the occasional warbird doing aerobatics. nothing like a couple of Merlins on a saturday morning. Then there is the noise from the prop on a Harvard (T6 Texan)......

I could listen to Merlins all day long. Totally sweet.  The radial in the T-6, not so much.

And this. Very unique sound. The Allison V-12 exhaust routed through a turbocharger acts like a muffler. Almost sounds like a jet.



 

Thats a nice sound, as for Merlins, I agree, over at my local airfield I'm spoiled now as there are most weekends in the summer at least 2 spitfires giving joy flights in exchange for loads of dosh. Plus of course then there is the Hangar 11 collection consisting of 2 further spitfires and a Mustang P51, all of which are fitted with Merlin engines, so the sounds of those sweet engines can often be heard there and also over my house as we are on their flight path.