Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

Interesting repair job, well done Vince. Did you think about putting some hot glue on the end of that strip to bond the wire in place and remove most of the vibration getting to the solder pads? 

Yep I thought of it.. but didn't do it. Just nowhere near enough space to allow for that. Pictures are taken with the macro lens touching the LED strip, makes things look nice and big, easy to work on. In the flesh it's tiny and adding a hot glue blob would have just made one huge blob walling the tip of the LED strip, and would have prevented me from putting the strip back into the metal frame. Without a blob it's a tight fit as it is, took two attempts to manage to squeeze it all back together properly. With a blog of glue to deal with on top of that... it would have been simply impossible.

Maybe if one could do micro surgery with hot glue ? A tiny minuscule amount that you can control super precisely, that leaves no mess... maybe. But I don't have equipment to do that nor do I know of one in existence... PLus, hot glue if used in tiny blobs, just doesn't stick that well I find. You need a "critical mass" for it to its job, well I find ?!

[Ice-Tea]

The plot thickens.. I had a 'virgin' 199C. Used it only with an original charger. The battery was dead, obviously, installed a new one. Worked fine. Concerning a concern from someone: the sense resistor value was spot on, so no chemical degradation or something... I then "refreshed" the battery. Worked fine, battery guage showed "full" afterwards.

I then had run down completely (untill it turned off). Had 3.5h+, so that's not too bad.

Plugged the charger back in in order not to send out the device with a depleted battery. This morning, the battery was hot (some 40C according to the NTC). Device still turned on, showed battery not full.

That was also the last time it turned on. The sense resistor is still fine, but it doesn't turn on with either battery or adapter.

Bleh.  Can't sell them like this. Will need to dig a lot deeper.

[Cerebus]

Maybe if one could do micro surgery with hot glue ? A tiny minuscule amount that you can control super precisely, that leaves no mess... maybe. But I don't have equipment to do that nor do I know of one in existence... PLus, hot glue if used in tiny blobs, just doesn't stick that well I find. You need a "critical mass" for it to its job, well I find ?!

Yeah, "hot glue" and "leaves no mess" don't belong in the same paragraph. 

[Saskia]

Heads up for all German members...

The German Institute for Broadcast Technology (IRT) in Munich is being disbanded which in itself is a shame and a sin but there's nothing we can do about it. They're currently auctioning off all of its assets, mostly office furniture and computer/network equipment but also various electronics and TE. The list includes things like Rohde & Schwarz ADS with a starting bid of 200 euros, HP Universal Counter, Modell 5314 A, various decoders, encoders and analyzers, a Tektronixs (sic!) 2430 scope starting at 50 euros, Weller WECP 20, 3D printers, Rohde 6 Schwarz FSQ8, CMW500, Tektronix TDS 724A, Audio Precision System One +DSP, Rhode & Schwarz SAF... over 1800 items.

https://www.reich-bayern.de/de/objekte/au-116/liquidationsversteigerung_der_irt_institut_fuer_rundfunktechnik_gmbh_teil_2_-_ha?Lstatus=1

Do note: +18% fee, +19% VAT, no shipping, bidder collects.

they have a lot of interesting Equipment but with the taxes and fees it gets  expensive

placed a couple of bids ...

Anyone near Munich and able to pick up some stuff for me ?

[nfmax]

Just diagnosed a dead woofer in one of the Rogers LS4a speakers in my dining room. I bought these second hand 25 years ago.

We had Rogers speakers all over the place at BFBS Cologne, in the late 70's. Mostly driven by Quad power amps. I had a pair of LS3/5a in the O/B van. Fond memories...

The LS4a's are not a BBC design. But I do drive them from a Quad 405-2 power amp

Just fitted the replacement eBay woofer, and they sound good again! There's nothing more satisfying than a good mend 

[Specmaster]

Todays really stupid postal charges on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294459893718, £145.20 by UPS from Virginia to the UK, for a Fluke 87 

[McBryce]

Heads up for all German members...

The German Institute for Broadcast Technology (IRT) in Munich is being disbanded which in itself is a shame and a sin but there's nothing we can do about it. They're currently auctioning off all of its assets, mostly office furniture and computer/network equipment but also various electronics and TE. The list includes things like Rohde & Schwarz ADS with a starting bid of 200 euros, HP Universal Counter, Modell 5314 A, various decoders, encoders and analyzers, a Tektronixs (sic!) 2430 scope starting at 50 euros, Weller WECP 20, 3D printers, Rohde 6 Schwarz FSQ8, CMW500, Tektronix TDS 724A, Audio Precision System One +DSP, Rhode & Schwarz SAF... over 1800 items.

https://www.reich-bayern.de/de/objekte/au-116/liquidationsversteigerung_der_irt_institut_fuer_rundfunktechnik_gmbh_teil_2_-_ha?Lstatus=1

Do note: +18% fee, +19% VAT, no shipping, bidder collects.

they have a lot of interesting Equipment but with the taxes and fees it gets  expensive

placed a couple of bids ...

Anyone near Munich and able to pick up some stuff for me ?

I was there yesterday, but flew back to Cologne, so TE transportation wasn't an option.

McBryce.

P.s. Bloody hell, I was only away for a week and come back to three weeks worth of posts to read!!

[Vince]

[..]with 3.3V reg and 1.25VCore reg both within 500mV of nominal.

Your definition of "acceptable" is pretty loose to me ! No wonder it caught fire ! 

Thanks for the picture though, electronics definitely is a fun hobby !! 

I remember 15 years ago I was working a crap job testing computer parts returned from the filtered service techs. We would get palettes full every day of various computer parts. I was the one dedicated to testing all the desktop motherboard. 2 or 3 models were famous for, when they came with a "No Power" tag to have 90% of chances to melt/blow a small IC just like you did. When I wanted some fun I used to triage the boards to cherry pick such boards. Would light them up and just stare at the IC smoking, then glowing red then bursting into flames, so cool !!!

Unfortunately for some reason I was the only one finding this funny. Colleagues around me (testing the other types of computer parts), even though 10 or 20 meters behind me, somehow could smell the very first fumes, even before it actually caught fire, and complain violently about it, saying it stunk big time, didn't like the smell of burnt plastic apparently !

So after a bit, I had to limit my fun... I would do it less often.. then when they would complain I would just say "sorry I was not quick enough to unplug it ! " ... 

[Vince]

P.s. Bloody hell, I was only away for a week and come back to three weeks worth of posts to read!!

Don't complain, it could be way worse !  Traffic Is quite manageable of late, due to BD (Hi BD !) being out there but too busy to post, along with Dwagon now behaving. Keep it at Dwagon, you're doing well, the modest human being that I am is proud of you, I knew you could do it. 

[Cerebus]

[..]with 3.3V reg and 1.25VCore reg both within 500mV of nominal.

Your definition of "acceptable" is pretty loose to me ! No wonder it caught fire ! 

I hadn't spotted that, what with skimming the post to get to the gory pictures. That's 15% and 40% out respectively. Did the man perhaps mean 500uV, or 5mV, or even 50mV and have a brainstorm writing it down?

[Specmaster]

P.s. Bloody hell, I was only away for a week and come back to three weeks worth of posts to read!!

Don't complain, it could be way worse !  Traffic Is quite manageable of late, due to BD (Hi BD !) being out there but too busy to post, along with Dwagon now behaving. Keep it at Dwagon, you're doing well, the modest human being that I am is proud of you, I knew you could do it. 

Don't speak too loudly, there is always another person who likes to think that they have the definitive answer to everything and has to have the last word in any dispute 

[mansaxel]

The LS4a's are not a BBC design. But I do drive them from a Quad 405-2 power amp

...

Just fitted the replacement eBay woofer, and they sound good again! There's nothing more satisfying than a good mend 

I have Turbosound TXD-60s in my kitchen, driven from a Quad 303 amp. The Quads are wonderful workhorses.

[mnementh]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Not a squeak ! Normally pops into Discord for a chat but didn't even do that so I'm guessing he may have found some new redhead bd140 to use all his spare time. 

I'll pop him mail and see if he's still sucking air.

Nailed it ! ^^^ 
Yep BD seems great but time poor.

Shhhh... I think that's a large part of why bd isn't in here lately; he knows he can't lay off the batshit crazy redhead jokes, and he doesn't wanna spoil it when she magically appears looking over his shoulder unnoticed for Ifni knows how long, as they always do...

mnem
It's worse than you think: they they have the ability to see through your eyes... 

[mnementh]

In addition this is required Winter gear. Integrated snow brush/ice scraper. Carry in car at all times and will prevent your gloves from getting wet/icy. I assume they sell these in the UK but perhaps they are incompatible with right hand drive. 

       BWAHAHAHA!!!

I was just aboot to mention that... One of the first things I bought when we came up here was a oversized snow scraper with a telescoping handle; the Rav4 has a huge windshield.

While a manly-man may feel a fool using anything but a credit card to scrape his windshield (I too have been guilty of this tomfoolery), anybody living in the GWN wouldn't be caught dead without a decent snow scraper, and in some cases a small bag of road salt and a little shovel for emergencies.

I don't carry those, but I do keep a squeegee for the side windows on SWMBO's mini-behemoth.

mnem

[AVGresponding]

Apparently, it is illegal to drive with snow on the roof of your car as it could slide down and block your vision.

It is not illegal per se, at least not in the UK; the rule states that drivers must "remove all snow that might fall off into the path of other road users" (rule 229), but you'd only likely face prosecution if it actually did cause an accident. The only actual direct legal offence is if it obscures your reg plate.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/driving-in-adverse-weather-conditions-226-to-237

This is why:

[mnementh]

[..]with 3.3V reg and 1.25VCore reg both within 500mV 50mV of nominal.

Your definition of "acceptable" is pretty loose to me ! No wonder it caught fire ! 

I hadn't spotted that, what with skimming the post to get to the gory pictures. That's 15% and 40% out respectively. Did the man perhaps mean 500uV, or 5mV, or even 50mV and have a brainstorm writing it down?

Naaahh... just one too many zeros and didn't catch it; now fixed. Half a volt on the Vcc is squiddoo on these processors; but Vcore that's a whole 'nuther story.

Still has nothing to do with that part which that lit up like a cigarette; that is inline with the main 12V rail feeding the inverter & 3.3V regulator and should be something like a P-junction FET, but has a few too many individual circuits for that, so thinking some form of supervisor IC.    Maybe for sleep mode; some of these picture frames use the IR as a crude proximity sensor so it turns on when somebody gets close.

mnem
*currently using the MacPro of Doom*

[Brumby]

The closest we get to ice and snow around here is hail - and even that is not particularly frequent out my way.

Having said that, we did get a doozy yesterday.  Ended up with 6" against the front door step.  It was all gone within an hour.

[mnementh]

I bit the bullet a week ago and ordered a 5-pack of these. My use case is various small consumers in the machine room, like fiber converter, SIP ATA boxes, and environment monitor Raspberry π. I have a 24V battery backed supply, called "Main Bus B" (of course) that I'm thinking of supplying these from, and to do that I need switching buck converters.

Don't tell mnem, he'll predict all kinds of electronic Ragnarok from using these...

I'm mostly concerned with the EMI/RFI problems they'll cause.  Trying to think of a sensible mounting option for them, that'll let me transport and fuse Main Bus B to them, isolate the RFI wasps and hornets from the rest of the world, making the loads switchable, and poking a suitable Zener Diode in after them to keep the voltses in check.

I have to confess I forgot to check the output on the ones I bought for switching noise   

These little MP1584EN-based switchers are noisy AF, but pretty damned good otherwise; I keep a few on hand, as I treat them like Lego building blocks. They will handle a 15-20V drop at 2A all day long if you stick the the PCB to a large metal mass with some silicone thermal pad. Big plus, they aren't known to fail Vin-Vout short-circuit.

Noise is sawtooth with lots of weeee-rid harmonics.  I usually put a 220-470uF electrolytic right across Vin, and a 470-1000uF right across Vout. Tames them pretty well for non-critical applications. Tin-box and/or remote location also helps a fair bit with what noise you'll see at the destination; they are also a wee little radio station broadcasting at ~1MHz. 


mnem
Datasheet attached below for those who care. 

[mnementh]

One minute of silence for mnem who instead to cut the power he shot a pic for us.
You have all my respect.

Yeah, well... I figured I'd better step up my nice smoky death game since bd139 is AWOL. 
 
Took some doin', but I smoked the same unit twice!   

mnem
Got a ways to go before I catch up to med and that 547, tho... 

[med6753]

Apparently, it is illegal to drive with snow on the roof of your car as it could slide down and block your vision.

It is not illegal per se, at least not in the UK; the rule states that drivers must "remove all snow that might fall off into the path of other road users" (rule 229), but you'd only likely face prosecution if it actually did cause an accident. The only actual direct legal offence is if it obscures your reg plate.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/driving-in-adverse-weather-conditions-226-to-237

This is why:

Yes, that is definitely a hazard here when lazy asses don't properly clean off their vehicles. New Jersey is the one state that I know of that has very firm and enforceable laws concerning cleaning ALL snow/ice from your vehicle. You will get stopped and ticketed. 

[med6753]

One minute of silence for mnem who instead to cut the power he shot a pic for us.
You have all my respect.

Yeah, well... I figured I'd better step up my nice smoky death game since bd139 is AWOL. 
 
Took some doin', but I smoked the same unit twice!   

mnem
Got a ways to go before I catch up to med and that 547, tho... 

True, but at least I could identify what parts smoked. 

[mnementh]

The plot thickens.. I had a 'virgin' 199C. Used it only with an original charger. The battery was dead, obviously, installed a new one. Worked fine. Concerning a concern from someone: the sense resistor value was spot on, so no chemical degradation or something... I then "refreshed" the battery. Worked fine, battery guage showed "full" afterwards.

I then had run down completely (untill it turned off). Had 3.5h+, so that's not too bad.

Plugged the charger back in in order not to send out the device with a depleted battery. This morning, the battery was hot (some 40C according to the NTC). Device still turned on, showed battery not full.

That was also the last time it turned on. The sense resistor is still fine, but it doesn't turn on with either battery or adapter.

Bleh.  Can't sell them like this. Will need to dig a lot deeper.

That sucks. Lots of money in the balance with in even a dozen of those bad boys out of inventory. I wish I were a bit closer and could take a crack at one, just for fun.

Dumb question... have you tried a new replacement battery from Fluke? Maybe they have some form of doomsday countdown timer in the supervisor IC like some laptop batteries were alleged to have back in the day. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Just diagnosed a dead woofer in one of the Rogers LS4a speakers in my dining room. I bought these second hand 25 years ago.

We had Rogers speakers all over the place at BFBS Cologne, in the late 70's. Mostly driven by Quad power amps. I had a pair of LS3/5a in the O/B van. Fond memories...

The LS4a's are not a BBC design. But I do drive them from a Quad 405-2 power amp

Just fitted the replacement eBay woofer, and they sound good again! There's nothing more satisfying than a good mend 

Time for comparative sweep testing. Hope you have a good mic. 

mnem
Or, you could dust off and nuke them from orbit... just to be sure.

[Robert763]

There's always some knob-head that has to spoil it for everyone else.

The only person I've ever seen doing PAT properly other than myself, was the instructor that taught me... most can't even be bothered to do the visual part properly!

I'll probably buy a flash probe, they aren't horribly expensive, and I prefer a properly insulated one rather than one I can cobble together with HT wire and corona dope.

The earth bond is easy enough, looks to be a standard XLR connector, probably with a 3-core flex with all the conductors in parallel to the croc clip.
Since the maximum current it'll see is 32A (2x 16A on the 110V) I'm comfortable with a 1.0mm² (hell, even 0.75mm² would suffice) flex for this, preferably black rubber insulated. I recently bought some big-assed copper crocs on offer at Rapid, Mueller 40A ones, to fit the boots they sent me in error, and that I got to keep for free once they sent me the correct ones...

Looking through the manual for the Supernova Elite, the specifications state that the earth bond test uses the four wire measurement at 4A, 16A or 25A, probably only needs two wires in the earth bond lead.

Forgot to mention the "new technique" one of the cowboy cow-PAT companies used, it consisted of plugging everything into the bench sockets & the tester into another socket, he then did whatever test gave a quickest pass and gave everything in sight the final sticker test (even the battery operated Beckman 350 DMM), he said this technique saved him a lot of time. 

Unfortunately two out of three companies work have outsourced PAT to (since they stopped in-house testing) have been completely useless, the one company that seemed to be competent, actually brought & used the earth lead, checked fuses and did all the visual checks.  They must have been slightly more expensive, or took too long, as they weren't invited back the next year. 

David

A company I prevously worked for made equipment that was sold all over the world. Most had IEC power inlets. We used a Seward Supernova or two for production testing. However for some reason the senior manaement decided we could not do our own PAT  So they emplyed a contractor. He came in over the weekend. Amonst otherthings the passed a diecast box withe a IEC inelt but nothing else, not even earth connection, that was on my bench.  They had been told not to go into the R&D section. They alss took all the safety (T earth pin) plugs off the high power lasers. these were only supposed to be plugged ito the door interlocked outlets.
In production they took all the new and bagged IEC leads in stores and tested them. For the EU North American and Austrailian leads they cut the plugs off and fitted 13A ones 
His tester was a battery powered one with no high current earth or flash capability. He didn't get paid........

[mnementh]

Car stereo update.      I just hope it will last a few months.... crossing fingers... 

Tired 

While that looks likely a cold solder joint, given the total LED wattage and density on a tiny strip of FR4, it is entirely possible it desoldered itself just from that heat generated by the LEDs, especially if one of the close ones is semi-short on the verge of failing. Or worse, heat generated at the connection by too-small wire used; this seems to be endemic to anything of cheap/China-direct manufacture. I do hope you resoldered both wires; that red one looks pretty suspect to me as well.     

Good pics, BTW! That helps us a LOT when we kibbutz on other people's stuff!

Good luck!

mnem
*tssssssst....*