Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Combis are hopeless for any masonry drilling outside of cinder blocks.

I assure you I can drill a perfectly sized hole with any SDS hammer drill, it's purely down to the technique, unless of course the thing is buggered and spins out of true.

I concur in all you said about DeWalt and also have a 2sp 18V brushless combo and it's a fine cordless drill, the best I've owned thus far. Light, powerful and with an excellent keyless chuck. Its speeds are a good compromise.
Only wish it had a front handle for those bigger jobs.

The modern cordless with Li batteries don't suffer from self discharge like older cordless and I certainly wouldn't be buying a convenience corded tool today on the premise that when wanting to use it a cordless one would be flat. 

The Siglent scope arrived today, in exceptionally good packaging. It's very clean, and I had a bit of a play to test the basics. I have to say, the FFT is very unintuitive to use, but works well enough given the limitations. Aside from that it's quite a decent UI, and though it has a fan it's reasonably quiet. All in all quite pleased.

SDS1202X-E have the lowest fan noise of all our compact scopes.

[bd139]

Dewalt stuff always looks like space dildos 

[mnementh]

thou art a joke cookie.

I have a cunning plan. It is so cunning that if you attached a tail you could call it a weasel ...

mnem
 

[med6753]

Woot, Amazon have been, and I must say how disappointed I am with the lead kits, they will be going back. The actual meter leads themselves are fine, come with 2 pairs of screw in tips, 2 sets of very sharp for piercing cable insulation and 2 sets of normal points, cable is very soft and flexible. It is the adaptors that let the overall package down. To use the croc clips, you have to insert the adaptor that look like they are designed to allow shrouded leads to be used on earlier meters that only took 4mm banana plugs. Into these confusing adaptors, you then have to insert the meter probes. It's the same arrangement almost for the flat spade type adaptors for use on meters like AVO's that have the screw posts, so you end up with something like a solid 200mm long rigid pole sticking out from each meter post sidewise, epic fail. All it needs is for the spades and 4mm plug adaptor to accept in the other end, the shrouded 4mm plug and you then have complete interchangeability of leads between modern DMM's and the older style. The croc clips should then designed to be pushed onto the probes, job done. How hard can it be to get a design right?

I hate it when I'm right. They looked like crap and are indeed crap. 

[Cerebus]

Ooooooh 577 curve tracer 20 miles from me. Broken. Buyer collects. Starts at £50 

But will it fit in the French POS of yours? 

Plenty of room  . 7603 for size:   

Oh my... but loaded down like that, mileage must go to complete shit. You'll have fuel it with horsefly farts or badger toots to keep above the minimum speed on the freeway. 

mnem
*dwagon poot!* here's a little octane boost for ya buddy... 

We could give him Curry Goat and he'd probably be able to fuel it himself.

[Specmaster]

Combis are hopeless for any masonry drilling outside of cinder blocks.

I assure you I can drill a perfectly sized hole with any SDS hammer drill, it's purely down to the technique, unless of course the thing is buggered and spins out of true.
<snip>

Yeah, like I said earlier, my SDS drill is mainly a demolition hammer, so rotary drilling is not particularly accurate and it does infact spin slightly off centre, but it is always with the hammer action so as you say technique is maybe very important and I find the thing just to bloody heavy to use for drilling a hole in a wall, a hole in a pathway is OK as the weight does not require me to do anything apart from keeping it upright 

My Combi, very similar to bd's is what I would call a normal domestic drill, but the one you show is a proper tradesman tool designed to do real hard work day in day out. That said my drill makes very short work out of drill through a proper red brick besides cinder blocks

I post below the photo I meant to attach to my earlier post (photo now posted there as well for others playing catch up)

[tautech]

Dewalt stuff always looks like space dildos 

Had a great run from a DeWalt 1/2" 14.4V 3sp until the NiCads died but a repack with NiMh wasn't successful as they didn't like the high current draw.

Larry Minor has a big selection of Hitachi 18V Li cordless but his 1/2" drill shit itself on Sunday drilling 52mm holes and now needs a new gearbox......thankfully replacement skins are quite cheap these days. 
My 18V brushless DeWalt finished the job !

[AVGresponding]

Dewalt stuff always looks like space dildos 

They do like their bright colours, pretty sure you could make a joke about children and brightly coloured toys...

Makita impactors are available in pretty much any colour you want, if you're prepared to ship one from Japan... I am tempted to buy a purple tool   


Oh, and just to share some useless information, the largest diameter hole I ever drilled with my combi is 210mm...

[factory]

Not sure if this is the best place to put this, but being a number of you use Ebay, thought I'd ask. Is anyone else having delays with Ebay orders via GSP from items originating in the USA? I've had nothing but a stellar experience in the past, but suddenly I have three orders that seem to be in limbo. My best guess is that Kentucky, where their distribution center is located, is experiencing record COVID-19 cases, and it may be affecting processing of items. Two of my items are being held by FedEx in Kentucky, because they couldn't even be delivered to GSP, which really makes me think there's a serious problem inside their distribution center at the moment.

I saw a couple of items I might want to bid on, but think I'll hold off until I hear that there aren't anymore issues with GSP.

Not had any issues in the last couple of months, last item with GSP arrived in Kentucky on the 24th August and got delivered by Hermes in the UK on the 31st.
Also had a couple of items sent by EbaySend (or whatever they call it now), this uses DHL in the US & Royalmail in the UK, they both arrived in the UK within 10 days of being sorted at Kentucky.

David

[bd139]

Woot, Amazon have been, and I must say how disappointed I am with the lead kits, they will be going back. The actual meter leads themselves are fine, come with 2 pairs of screw in tips, 2 sets of very sharp for piercing cable insulation and 2 sets of normal points, cable is very soft and flexible. It is the adaptors that let the overall package down. To use the croc clips, you have to insert the adaptor that look like they are designed to allow shrouded leads to be used on earlier meters that only took 4mm banana plugs. Into these confusing adaptors, you then have to insert the meter probes. It's the same arrangement almost for the flat spade type adaptors for use on meters like AVO's that have the screw posts, so you end up with something like a solid 200mm long rigid pole sticking out from each meter post sidewise, epic fail. All it needs is for the spades and 4mm plug adaptor to accept in the other end, the shrouded 4mm plug and you then have complete interchangeability of leads between modern DMM's and the older style. The croc clips should then designed to be pushed onto the probes, job done. How hard can it be to get a design right?

I hate it when I'm right. They looked like crap and are indeed crap. 

Yeah crap leads are crap leads.


An anecdote.

Once I was sitting in an EE lab at university. The lab techs had given us the inevitable cheap ass DMM and some knackered probes and an AA battery to test with it. This was an epic troll. The probes were oxidised and the bench was new and slippery. Cue a number of students shooting batteries all over the place while trying to measure the voltage by stabbing hard at the battery contacts. It was like that scene in men and black where he has to fill the form in on the weird chair.

The object of this was to see who had done this before. I had done it before. So the first thing I did was ask for some new probes. I got given a small bag containing two new probes by the lab tech. The AA battery was wedged against the front of my textbook. It rolled off anyway just to be a dick. I got the reading but it was only 50% less frustrating than the last attempt.

So after about 10 minutes of them smirking in the corner, the lab tech comes out with two Pomona minigrabbers and one AA battery box with solder tags on the end and made us share it. At that point we were enlightened as to how to approach the problem of probing things. All the 40 or so AA batteries were tested in under two minutes with no escapees.

So the thing turnd out to be that the whole problem was no one knows how to probe stuff. I rarely if ever use any DMM probes. I have two hands and they have other things to do. So it's minigrabber leads always. At the very most it's only ever ONE red probe and the reference or ground black lead is a Minigrabber.

Thus all these probe kits are mostly unnecessary.

Nice old photo - look no hands!

[bd139]

There's another TD2012B at £130 on ebay now. Same seller. Tempted 

Edit: Gah I own it. Going to need a storage unit the way I'm going 

[mnementh]

Warning - While you were reading 96 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.  

It's orificial: The dwagon has landed... In Brampton. 

The truck's been returned intact and 7 hours early at 2am; the WiFi is online and tomorrow's iced tea is brewing on the counter.

Time for me to drag my sorry carcass off to bed; myassiss dragon.

mnem
 yes dear, I'll bring some bath tissue up with me...

Hmm, on Google Earth it sure does look like a nice place to live, fingers crossed that its the last time you have to move, I hate moving, so stressful living out of boxes.

Oh gawd... we spent $400 on heavy duty stackable bins this time, as we know a lot of stuff is going to be stockpiled out in the shed and storage when the semi trailer gets here. 

Still a massive PITA right now while we figure out what is what; no matter how carefully you label, it seems you always spend at least a couple days where there are a dozen things you desperately need but simply have no idea which bin to look in.

But the important work is done; couch and TV are set up in the living room, and the boi's Numb-mind-o Switch connected and working. The kids are no longer a mile up my butt every 5 minutes... so now just a matter of popping pills and doing as little as reality will allow so my back can recover.

mnem
What is that smell? oh fuck... it's curry from the neighbors cooking dinner. all the neighbors.

[Specmaster]

@AVGresponding, regarding schools, the info I gave I got from the BBC news website, so it should be factual  seeing as they pretty much have become the official mouth piece of the government these days. I do however also accept that there will be certain councils that will defy the instructions and may even mount a challenge in the courts. I'm reasonably sure that a law firm is already looking at that now.

You have previous form for rather garbling news when you repeat it here.

Over here, schools are now directed to remove all social distancing, special cleaning, face masks are not permitted and pupils are not allowed to self-isolate either, they must still attend schools.

I looked at the BBC news website and I can't see those assertions supported. What I could see was

In England, all secondary-school pupils are being asked to take two lateral-flow tests at school - three to five days apart.
Schools are testing for Covid just before term starts and staggering the return of pupils to manage this.
...
Pupils who test positive must isolate at home for 10 days.
...
But this term, unless they test positive themselves, they will not have to self-isolate.
...
For schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, social-distancing measures have been relaxed.
In many ways, the responsibility has been handed over to head teachers to decide what common-sense measures are needed.
Depending on the layout and size of their school, some will decide to keep some of their one-way systems and crowd-control measures.
...
Face coverings are no longer routinely advised for staff or pupils in schools England and Wales, although they are still recommended in crowded spaces such as school buses.

That's all pretty much the opposite of what you said the BBC says.

Oh ye of little faith, no doubt you did this checking today when I was saying what I saw yesterday, and we all know just how much can change in a single day.

I certainly do not make a habit of garbling news when I post it here, news is a moving thing and its just possible is it not that once again there has been a "U" turn due to backlash both from other government ministers and education chiefs as well possibly from the public that might have caused the information to change.

I can't seem to get a link to the precise article I read but here is another that refers to the situation in schools, dated yesterday https://twitter.com/GoodLawProject/status/1434836963824111616?s=20, so I'm not just crying wolf for sheer hell of it. The Good Law Project have already won many landmark victories over the government and are now a real pain in their side. They are seeking further legal advice on possible action over the plans I outlined for schools. So perhaps what you discovered is the result of this threatened action against them, who knows.

Lets draw a line in the sand here before this turns a massive political free for all.

[factory]

I would like to start a new project, number 134 on my list.

I need an old portable DMM, requirements:

1) Must have a large needle display!
2) As cheap as it can be
3) possibly still easily available on the used market
4) banana 4mm input jacks
5) easy to disassemble/hack.
6) nice to have: good old feeling
7) nice to have: not a company big writing on the front

Simpson 260, Triplett 630? any other suggestions?

A DMM with a needle? That's a rare beast.
Mastech M7030?

There have been a few combined analogue & digital multimeters, I have a Gossen UVA-D*. But they don't meet the criteria: as they are not easy to find, not cheap and no service info available AFAIK. Also mains powered only, no idea if they are 230V only.

*can't find any pictures of it on my PC. 

Maybe a hp 427A would be easier to find in the US and probably not too expensive if your patient. 


David

[Specmaster]

Woot, Amazon have been, and I must say how disappointed I am with the lead kits, they will be going back. The actual meter leads themselves are fine, come with 2 pairs of screw in tips, 2 sets of very sharp for piercing cable insulation and 2 sets of normal points, cable is very soft and flexible. It is the adaptors that let the overall package down. To use the croc clips, you have to insert the adaptor that look like they are designed to allow shrouded leads to be used on earlier meters that only took 4mm banana plugs. Into these confusing adaptors, you then have to insert the meter probes. It's the same arrangement almost for the flat spade type adaptors for use on meters like AVO's that have the screw posts, so you end up with something like a solid 200mm long rigid pole sticking out from each meter post sidewise, epic fail. All it needs is for the spades and 4mm plug adaptor to accept in the other end, the shrouded 4mm plug and you then have complete interchangeability of leads between modern DMM's and the older style. The croc clips should then designed to be pushed onto the probes, job done. How hard can it be to get a design right?

I hate it when I'm right. They looked like crap and are indeed crap. 

Yeah crap leads are crap leads.


An anecdote.

Once I was sitting in an EE lab at university. The lab techs had given us the inevitable cheap ass DMM and some knackered probes and an AA battery to test with it. This was an epic troll. The probes were oxidised and the bench was new and slippery. Cue a number of students shooting batteries all over the place while trying to measure the voltage by stabbing hard at the battery contacts. It was like that scene in men and black where he has to fill the form in on the weird chair.

The object of this was to see who had done this before. I had done it before. So the first thing I did was ask for some new probes. I got given a small bag containing two new probes by the lab tech. The AA battery was wedged against the front of my textbook. It rolled off anyway just to be a dick. I got the reading but it was only 50% less frustrating than the last attempt.

So after about 10 minutes of them smirking in the corner, the lab tech comes out with two Pomona minigrabbers and one AA battery box with solder tags on the end and made us share it. At that point we were enlightened as to how to approach the problem of probing things. All the 40 or so AA batteries were tested in under two minutes with no escapees.

So the thing turnd out to be that the whole problem was no one knows how to probe stuff. I rarely if ever use any DMM probes. I have two hands and they have other things to do. So it's minigrabber leads always. At the very most it's only ever ONE red probe and the reference or ground black lead is a Minigrabber.

Thus all these probe kits are mostly unnecessary.

Nice old photo - look no hands!

I have issues with those mini grabbers, they can and do also suffer from poor contact with the DUT and I have had to on numerous occasions to detox both the connection I want to make and the grabbers in order to get a reliable enough connection that can trusted to give a decent reading. Sometimes it requires sharp probes to dig into the metal legs or contacts of the item in order to get a decent contact. I used to use glass fibre pens to remove crud from old circuit points where I needed to get a reading from, but stopped doing that due to the small breakaway fibres penetrating the skin and the possible bad effects that can cause to one's health, beside the sheer pain when a protruding strand gets snagged on something.   

[xrunner]

Thus all these probe kits are mostly unnecessary.

Nice old photo - look no hands!

Yep. Here's how I'm using the 34401A at the moment. I have grabbers plugged into the rear terminals. That keeps the front clear of clutter and allows clipping onto whatever I need to, so my hands can do other things.

I also found some hp parts I seldom see on Ebay so I nabbed 'em. They fit the 437B power meter case style (which includes other types of hp kit). It's the rear bumpers + the side carrying handle.

[bd139]

I have issues with those mini grabbers, they can and do also suffer from poor contact with the DUT and I have had to on numerous occasions to detox both the connection I want to make and the grabbers in order to get a reliable enough connection that can trusted to give a decent reading. Sometimes it requires sharp probes to dig into the metal legs or contacts of the item in order to get a decent contact. I used to use glass fibre pens to remove crud from old circuit points where I needed to get a reading from, but stopped doing that due to the small breakaway fibres penetrating the skin and the possible bad effects that can cause to one's health, beside the sheer pain when a protruding strand gets snagged on something.   

Only if you buy shit ones. The Pomona ones don't suffer from that unless you've smoked 'em (I've only smoked one pair  )

[Neper]

In my book, there are two kinds of multimeter probes: Hirschmann and the rest.

[mansaxel]

  66 mpg avg. Try that on your vehicles that side of the pond. Might get to the gas station on a tank 

_{Disclaimer: realistically 50mpg the way I drive it though} 

I get ~40 mpg in my 2-ton estate. Rear seats flipped down, it holds 1,6 cubic meters volume, and you're allowed to push half a metric ton in there. Width between wheel wells allows an EU pallet without trouble. Which is good, because I can push my large flight case in that way, as the case is built to EU truck dimension fractions and just under 120cm long. 

The EU pallet is 80 by 120 cm, and the truck inside width is 240cm; length preferably a mult of 120cm. Thus, cases SHOULD conform to 40, 60, 80, 120 centimetre measurements. Makes for nice tour bus Tetris. I was quite good at that back in the day. )

[mnementh]

Warning - While you were reading 96 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.  

It's orificial: The dwagon has landed... In Brampton. 

The truck's been returned intact and 7 hours early at 2am; the WiFi is online and tomorrow's iced tea is brewing on the counter.

Time for me to drag my sorry carcass off to bed; myassiss dragon.

mnem
 yes dear, I'll bring some bath tissue up with me...

Hold on, you drove a truck through Brampton and it's still intact?

Did you squeak by without being subjected to insurance fraud as well?

Since this guy is 6 minutes from the house and hooked me up in 10 minutes over the phone for a two-day rental on the next size larger truck when after spending 5 hours on the phone with UHaul Coprolite the only other thing supposedly available was a useless 10-footer from one of the worst "standing on line for an hour shithole full of ignorant employees" UHaul stores I've ever had the misfortune of setting foot inside (Etobicoke), I was happy to just have the truck.

Considering I knew I had to travel in a 30 foot truck for almost a hour via Major Mac each way (including the Airport/Logistics Depot region, which we are a few minutes away from), I had absolutely zero problem with paying the $20 for their concierge "everything is covered, even locking the keys in the truck" insurance.

Especially since I may have added some scratches to those already on the squid-billy mural on the side of the truck getting that monster into our tiny parking space which was encroached by a overhanging cherry tree limb, but is no longer. Honestly, there were enough there already I couldn't tell if there were any new ones. 

mnem
Cheap peace of mind, says I.

[Cerebus]

@AVGresponding, regarding schools, the info I gave I got from the BBC news website, so it should be factual  seeing as they pretty much have become the official mouth piece of the government these days. I do however also accept that there will be certain councils that will defy the instructions and may even mount a challenge in the courts. I'm reasonably sure that a law firm is already looking at that now.

You have previous form for rather garbling news when you repeat it here.

Over here, schools are now directed to remove all social distancing, special cleaning, face masks are not permitted and pupils are not allowed to self-isolate either, they must still attend schools.

I looked at the BBC news website and I can't see those assertions supported. What I could see was

In England, all secondary-school pupils are being asked to take two lateral-flow tests at school - three to five days apart.
Schools are testing for Covid just before term starts and staggering the return of pupils to manage this.
...
Pupils who test positive must isolate at home for 10 days.
...
But this term, unless they test positive themselves, they will not have to self-isolate.
...
For schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, social-distancing measures have been relaxed.
In many ways, the responsibility has been handed over to head teachers to decide what common-sense measures are needed.
Depending on the layout and size of their school, some will decide to keep some of their one-way systems and crowd-control measures.
...
Face coverings are no longer routinely advised for staff or pupils in schools England and Wales, although they are still recommended in crowded spaces such as school buses.

That's all pretty much the opposite of what you said the BBC says.

Oh ye of little faith, no doubt you did this checking today when I was saying what I saw yesterday, and we all know just how much can change in a single day.

I certainly do not make a habit of garbling news when I post it here, news is a moving thing and its just possible is it not that once again there has been a "U" turn due to backlash both from other government ministers and education chiefs as well possibly from the public that might have caused the information to change.

I can't seem to get a link to the precise article I read but here is another that refers to the situation in schools, dated yesterday https://twitter.com/GoodLawProject/status/1434836963824111616?s=20, so I'm not just crying wolf for sheer hell of it. The Good Law Project have already won many landmark victories over the government and are now a real pain in their side. They are seeking further legal advice on possible action over the plans I outlined for schools. So perhaps what you discovered is the result of this threatened action against them, who knows.

Lets draw a line in the sand here before this turns a massive political free for all.

It's not about politics as far as I'm concerned it's about accuracy. I looked because "face masks are not permitted" as you said they had said would be heinous, and I wanted to see for myself. Ditto, " directed to remove all social distancing". I found no evidence for either and corrected the record. That simple.

As to the rest, I've formed an opinion that you have a habit of garbling things and I'd be more persuaded that I'm wrong if you'd been able to go "No, it's them. Here's the link.".

[Cerebus]

I have issues with those mini grabbers, they can and do also suffer from poor contact with the DUT and I have had to on numerous occasions to detox both the connection I want to make and the grabbers in order to get a reliable enough connection that can trusted to give a decent reading. Sometimes it requires sharp probes to dig into the metal legs or contacts of the item in order to get a decent contact. I used to use glass fibre pens to remove crud from old circuit points where I needed to get a reading from, but stopped doing that due to the small breakaway fibres penetrating the skin and the possible bad effects that can cause to one's health, beside the sheer pain when a protruding strand gets snagged on something.   

My pet hate with various types of mini-grabbers is that they would be better named "mini-things that ping off the second that your back is turned". I have several types, and all off them seem to have just one size and shape of thing that they will reliably and consistently actually grab.

[mnementh]

Warning - While you were reading 96 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.  

It's orificial: The dwagon has landed... In Brampton. 

The truck's been returned intact and 7 hours early at 2am; the WiFi is online and tomorrow's iced tea is brewing on the counter.

Time for me to drag my sorry carcass off to bed; myassiss dragon.

mnem
 yes dear, I'll bring some bath tissue up with me...

Hold on, you drove a truck through Brampton and it's still intact?

Did you squeak by without being subjected to insurance fraud as well?

Sounds like a fun area. Canuck form of "the hood"? 

Naahhh... lots of Indian families in our neighborhood, so pretty conservative actually. I fear we may be the ones bringing down the property values this time.

mnem
*pops another pain cocktail*

[mnementh]

Yea I don’t need a fancy one here. I just need to hang two curtain rails and make up some Hammond boxes. Plus some room for insurance 

Have ordered a drill vice as well so I don’t lose my fingers as the Hammond boxes I need to work on aren’t particularly large. Will bolt it to my B&D workbench for proper bodgetastic job

mnem
"Don't do this at home kids."

[mnementh]

   Amazon = not available

Originator:
Github https://github.com/anotherlin/tek_tm_ext

This is a small Kicad project for a Tektronix TM500/TM5000 extender. For calibration or repair, it is convenient to be able to work on the plug-ins outside of a mainframe. In addition, the designed PCB can be fitted with extra connectors and circuitry to allow standalone operation. That is, to allow plug-ins to be powered by lab supplies, hence providing a kind of controlled environment handy for debugging/repair. Some photos can give you a better idea of what this project is about.

Heh... lookit the printing on the side of the connector. Appears one of those JAMMA cables was the card-edge connector donor; quite possibly the fellow started out trying to get by with it and decided to make up something proper.

mnem
fuck me... still another 4 pages to catch up...