Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[nfmax]

[/i][/color] we did for much too little money as a youth!!!

mnem
And yet, having learnt those lessons by the skin of our teeth and by example of those who did not live to tell the tale... we still went ahead and had children.

Not all of us. SWMBO and I decided on a dog. We can always borrow  child for a wile if we need confirmation we were right.

We tried both.  Kid has been mostly well-behaved all week.  The dog Hell-hound has been a PITA.

Earlier this week, the dog went through the chain-link fence.
(Note: need to redo the photo.  Glare obscures the gaping hole.)


EDIT:  Chain-link is 9 AWG vinyl coated steel.  Currently waiting for quotes for 120 feet of 6 AWG chain-link.  That is going to blow the TEA budget for a long time...

I was looking at a 850g piece of entrecôte (snip)

I was looking at a full BBQ chicken sitting on the back burner of the stove.  Looked away to answer the kid on something.  Looked back and there was no more chicken.
Chicken was taken away from the dog with great difficulty (no reward for bad behaviour).
Had leftover spaghetti for supper...

Yeah, that is a problem with dogs, should have got a cat.

A good friend of mine relates how, when she was a girl, one day Snowball came whizzing in through the catflap triumphantly bearing a pork chop. Hot. With gravy...

Naturally, a Siamese

[ch_scr]

Oh no...... all of a sudden my computer just shut down... out of the blue ! 
I press the Power button... nithin happens. Press again... powers up, HHD spins up.... but nothing more, blakc screen, frozen...
Press the Reset button... starts up.... but BVIOS freezes midway. Press Reset button again.... phew,  it boots properly.

Did the same thing a week or two ago.... for the past few years it did similar stuff but only after a grid power cut, not on its own....

Computer is 15+ years old now, planned on replacing it within 6 months at best, 9 or 12 maybe.

Now wondering if it will get that far..crossing fingers.

Why it it decides to worsen just when I am jobless with zero money to put into a new computer ?
Maybe I could replace the PSU but... that would be wasted money since I will replace the computer so soon and would not be able to reuse the PSU on a modern machine. Plus PSU so probably obsolete and I can't even buy a new on anyway....
Plus, who said it's the PSU ? Maybe it's the mother board... can't replace that, obsolete too.

I am screwed. Will just have to cross fingers that it holds up a few more months.

Might start doing regular backups... have two identical HDD on the machine, 500GB spinning Samsung drives. Using only one, other is for backup...
Can't use external backup as machine has no fast I/O ports, just old USB.

If I disappear all of a sudden you will know what happened... please send your donations to Iamscrewed@TEA.fr so I can buy a new computer. 

Better give Saskia your real adress, she probably has something newer than your PC in the scrap bin / swept up from under the bench 

[Cerebus]

We all have different points at which we consider something "clean" or "dirty".

That's exactly where I came into this, in reference to "Why don't people clean gear before selling it?", a vendor's "It's fine." is someone else's "That needs a good scrub.". But, there's "different strokes for different folks" and then there's "Yew, gross" or "time to call out an environmental health officer". That meter falls into the "Yew, gross" category.

I do wonder at your motivations for defending the pig-pen meter.  Perhaps it's something from your past?

[Saskia]

@Vince

in case you need a replacement:
I have a Ryzen 5 3600 w/ 16 GB mem and 500 GB SSD with a decent Corsair RM550x PSU sitting here. Small tower case, Gigabyte uATX B450 mainboard. Could throw in a GTX 550 graphics board that you could swap out later, or an RTX 2060. Alas, not for free.
You would be looking at 450 - 500 for the system with the GTX 550.

CPU, SSD, mainboard are new.

shipping to France would be possible.
Just let me know ...

[Saskia]

We all have different points at which we consider something "clean" or "dirty".

That's exactly where I came into this, in reference to "Why don't people clean gear before selling it?", a vendor's "It's fine." is someone else's "That needs a good scrub.". But, there's "different strokes for different folks" and then there's "Yew, gross" or "time to call out an environmental health officer". That meter falls into the "Yew, gross" category.

I do wonder at your motivations for defending the pig-pen meter.  Perhaps it's something from your past?

[med6753]

Lady Cop safely delivered home and just got back from the 4 hour round trip.

I got one thing to say about grubby TE....

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"  

And I need all the help I can get. 

(OK, that was 2 things).   

[Cerebus]

Heh! Now imagine what it's like washing a fence-punching puppy. (I suspect he just calls the fire department out. Well, he does if he's got any sense.)

[AVGresponding]

We all have different points at which we consider something "clean" or "dirty".

That's exactly where I came into this, in reference to "Why don't people clean gear before selling it?", a vendor's "It's fine." is someone else's "That needs a good scrub.". But, there's "different strokes for different folks" and then there's "Yew, gross" or "time to call out an environmental health officer". That meter falls into the "Yew, gross" category.

I do wonder at your motivations for defending the pig-pen meter.  Perhaps it's something from your past?

By your standards. By mine, it needs a light clean, but is a ways from gross.

My motivations are simple; I feel no need to enforce my world view on others, in part or whole.

Your free psychoanalysis is correctly priced.

[johnh]

[/i][/color] we did for much too little money as a youth!!!

mnem
And yet, having learnt those lessons by the skin of our teeth and by example of those who did not live to tell the tale... we still went ahead and had children.

Not all of us. SWMBO and I decided on a dog. We can always borrow  child for a wile if we need confirmation we were right.

We tried both.  Kid has been mostly well-behaved all week.  The dog Hell-hound has been a PITA.

Earlier this week, the dog went through the chain-link fence.
(Note: need to redo the photo.  Glare obscures the gaping hole.)


EDIT:  Chain-link is 9 AWG vinyl coated steel.  Currently waiting for quotes for 120 feet of 6 AWG chain-link.  That is going to blow the TEA budget for a long time...

I was looking at a 850g piece of entrecôte (snip)

I was looking at a full BBQ chicken sitting on the back burner of the stove.  Looked away to answer the kid on something.  Looked back and there was no more chicken.
Chicken was taken away from the dog with great difficulty (no reward for bad behaviour).
Had leftover spaghetti for supper...

Yeah, that is a problem with dogs, should have got a cat.

A good friend of mine relates how, when she was a girl, one day Snowball came whizzing in through the catflap triumphantly bearing a pork chop. Hot. With gravy...

Naturally, a Siamese

We had a chocolate tonkinese,  who came back inside with a lamb chop one day and another time with the head of small teddy bear

[mnementh]

*peeks in on the thread* 

Ummmm... I think I'm gonna go Trick-or-Treating with the kids...

mnem


"nuthin' to see here folks... just your average middle-aged dragon out for a walk with the family..."

[Specmaster]

*peeks in on the thread* 

Ummmm... I think I'm gonna go Trick-or-Treating with the kids...

mnem


"nuthin' to see here folks... just your average middle-aged dragon out for a walk with the family..."

Chicken 

[cyclin_al]

We all have different points at which we consider something "clean" or "dirty".

That's exactly where I came into this, in reference to "Why don't people clean gear before selling it?", a vendor's "It's fine." is someone else's "That needs a good scrub.". But, there's "different strokes for different folks" and then there's "Yew, gross" or "time to call out an environmental health officer". That meter falls into the "Yew, gross" category.

I do wonder at your motivations for defending the pig-pen meter.  Perhaps it's something from your past?

Ah, the old lie down in the corner and turn up the gravity to maximum trick ....
that looked positively easy in that video.

We did that not long ago at 4am, after the dog encountered a skunk sneaking into the dog pen.
Maybe the behaviour is retaliation for that bath?

EDIT:  Tonight, it is the kid that needs the bath.   
The Mud Monsters program this afternoon was introduction to orienterring and a bunch of fun halloween challenges.  One orienteering checkpoint was at the top of the steepest ski hill (nordic, not alpine).  There was a pile of pumpkins there, and a target at the bottom.  I think he was supposed to roll a pumpkin at the target, not himself...   
He did win the muddy shoe award, by quite some margin 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Oltronix update:

Have been to work for a small operation in broadcast control networking, took the opportunity to schlep the PSU home.

Initial observations and preliminary analysis:

• The Rifa Madness had Oltronix in a firm grip. Not only the usual X2 firecracker, but also DC smoothers, a major battery of them.
• The pots for the two 0-30V outputs run nice and smooth. But there's no output. One O/P is 0V, the other -0,4V and won't leave CC mode. Naïve guess is blown O/P transistors, but they're not checked yet.
• The 0-6V output had a jammed pot, which turned out to be the display counter. It has been improved by lubrication after deliberate opening up and reassembly. Not good yet, but better. And the output is 100mV below indication, but that's most likely a result of opening the connection between multiturn pot and display.
• The power switch has some yucky contamination on the solder joints. Will try cleaning and reflowing. It still works.

This is much more of a project than my earlier forays into bench PSU land with the -hp- ones. The only docs I have found are at Radiomuseum, so if I can get them out I'll post them without such limitations as are employed there..

Absolutely not necessary to torture yourself at 'radiomuseum'!

[Vince]

@Vince

in case you need a replacement:
I have a Ryzen 5 3600 w/ 16 GB mem and 500 GB SSD with a decent Corsair RM550x PSU sitting here. Small tower case, Gigabyte uATX B450 mainboard. Could throw in a GTX 550 graphics board that you could swap out later, or an RTX 2060. Alas, not for free.
You would be looking at 450 - 500 for the system with the GTX 550.

CPU, SSD, mainboard are new.

shipping to France would be possible.
Just let me know ...

Thanks !
... I was just joking of course... will just make do with what I have and cross fingers it holds up.

500 Euros is more than I planned to spend on the entire new system ! 

I will keep my old 17" Samsung Monitor and 15 year old Cherry K/B that I love. Computer case I have a (well, 3 of them in fact) old Tower  IBM Aptiva that I would like to rework (proprietary case, ATX was not yet widespread...) to accept a uATX M/B. Need to take measurements to see what dimension M/B would fit. Need mid-range CPU that takes little power/small fan/quiet, an on-board graphics will be just fine as I don't do fancy modern 3D gaming.  Then 32GB of RAM, a 500 SSD, and that should do it ! Ah yeah, a PSU too, but a low power one so hopefully cheap.
Most important is quantity of RAM.32GB minimum and hopefully with room for 64GB later as S/W requirements keep growing over the next 10 years.

Will enquire on here when the time comes, about particular products...

[xrunner]

One of my PCs (Ryzen 3 3200G CPU) got the message that Windoze 11 is ready to be installed. I got an itchy trigger finger, but I didn't do it ...

Yet.

[mnementh]

*peeks in on the thread* 

Ummmm... I think I'm gonna go Trick-or-Treating with the kids...

mnem


"nuthin' to see here folks... just your average middle-aged dragon out for a walk with the family..."

Chicken 

Bawk-Bawk-Buh-kawk!!! 

Just exercising a little discretion for a change... and picking my battles. 

I know there's no way I'm gonna come out ahead in the "I'm not afraid tuh get muh hands dirty" vs "A clean tool is a happy tool" argument... I'm guilty of all the worst excesses of both camps.

I'm payin' for makin' my escape... just checked my route on GMaps, and I walked 2.2 kliks tonight. That's aboot twice my longest walk since the move, and my back is tellin' me aboot it. 

But if I'm lucky, maybe all that walking will yield some break from all this chronic constipation endemic to hard keto... I had to take a day off today just so I could load up on shredded wheat and salads and corn to get a bit of a cleanse happening.

mnem
*currently bribing my son to make me a everything bagel & cream cheese*

[mnementh]

One of my PCs (Ryzen 3 3200G CPU) got the message that Windoze 11 is ready to be installed. I got an itchy trigger finger, but I didn't do it ...

Yet.

Hey, as long as you have a spare PC... go ahead, be brave. 

  mnem
   
because I can.

[Specmaster]

@Vince

in case you need a replacement:
I have a Ryzen 5 3600 w/ 16 GB mem and 500 GB SSD with a decent Corsair RM550x PSU sitting here. Small tower case, Gigabyte uATX B450 mainboard. Could throw in a GTX 550 graphics board that you could swap out later, or an RTX 2060. Alas, not for free.
You would be looking at 450 - 500 for the system with the GTX 550.

CPU, SSD, mainboard are new.

shipping to France would be possible.
Just let me know ...

Thanks !
... I was just joking of course... will just make do with what I have and cross fingers it holds up.

500 Euros is more than I planned to spend on the entire new system ! 

I will keep my old 17" Samsung Monitor and 15 year old Cherry K/B that I love. Computer case I have a (well, 3 of them in fact) old Tower  IBM Aptiva that I would like to rework (proprietary case, ATX was not yet widespread...) to accept a uATX M/B. Need to take measurements to see what dimension M/B would fit. Need mid-range CPU that takes little power/small fan/quiet, an on-board graphics will be just fine as I don't do fancy modern 3D gaming.  Then 32GB of RAM, a 500 SSD, and that should do it ! Ah yeah, a PSU too, but a low power one so hopefully cheap.
Most important is quantity of RAM.32GB minimum and hopefully with room for 64GB later as S/W requirements keep growing over the next 10 years.

Will enquire on here when the time comes, about particular products...

Question is what OS are you running, and what will you be running after the upgrade?

[0culus]

As far as dirty tools go, I will say that I keep separate hand tools for use in the lab. I don't mix tools for wrenching on vehicles and stuff with tools for the lab.

Also the cleanest tools I ever saw was the special segregated set at a Porsche dealer's service department for working on the Taycan. Got to have a chat with the mechanic who is trained to work on that car. It's quite something. They have the full set of insulated (and *very* clean tools) as well as the full arc flash hazard protection get up.

[mansaxel]

Absolutely not necessary to torture yourself at 'radiomuseum'!

Thanks!  Mine is a B 603 D/S (2x 0-30V, 1x 0-7V) but I can see the similarities. This will help.

[AVGresponding]

@Vince

in case you need a replacement:
I have a Ryzen 5 3600 w/ 16 GB mem and 500 GB SSD with a decent Corsair RM550x PSU sitting here. Small tower case, Gigabyte uATX B450 mainboard. Could throw in a GTX 550 graphics board that you could swap out later, or an RTX 2060. Alas, not for free.
You would be looking at 450 - 500 for the system with the GTX 550.

CPU, SSD, mainboard are new.

shipping to France would be possible.
Just let me know ...

Thanks !
... I was just joking of course... will just make do with what I have and cross fingers it holds up.

500 Euros is more than I planned to spend on the entire new system ! 

I will keep my old 17" Samsung Monitor and 15 year old Cherry K/B that I love. Computer case I have a (well, 3 of them in fact) old Tower  IBM Aptiva that I would like to rework (proprietary case, ATX was not yet widespread...) to accept a uATX M/B. Need to take measurements to see what dimension M/B would fit. Need mid-range CPU that takes little power/small fan/quiet, an on-board graphics will be just fine as I don't do fancy modern 3D gaming.  Then 32GB of RAM, a 500 SSD, and that should do it ! Ah yeah, a PSU too, but a low power one so hopefully cheap.
Most important is quantity of RAM.32GB minimum and hopefully with room for 64GB later as S/W requirements keep growing over the next 10 years.

Will enquire on here when the time comes, about particular products...

Question is what OS are you running, and what will you be running after the upgrade?

Judging by that picture, it's running Microsoft DOS 3.1!   

@Vince, good for you, waste is wasteful, no need to throw away a perfectly good case.

[Saskia]

@Vince the price I quoted was for a complete PC with a Ryzen 3600. I could throw in an additional 16 GB if needed.
I am sorry, components are not cheap.
I

[capt bullshot]

@captn Bullshot: the fishnchips is from Hooksiel which is near Rüstersiel to the East, Harlesiel / Carolinensiel /Neuharlingersiel to the West. Greetsiel is nearer to Norden.

Yes, we have a lot of *siel up here.

Yes, I've been at most of these (from Greetsiel to Horumersiel) and half of the islands, but afair I never been at Hooksiel - so the place just looked similar to something I've seen.
Hooksiel is within bicycle range from Carolinensiel (our favourite holiday place in Ostfriesland), so maybe I'll pay it a visit somewhen.

[Saskia]

Enjoy. Btw it's not Ostfriesland, but Wangerland. just smartassing ...
Wangerland is the county between Friesland and Ostfriesland ...

[PA0PBZ]

Judging by that picture, it's running Microsoft DOS 3.1!   

The sticker says Windows 95.