Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[cyclin_al]

So we are no longer Canucks in waiting; we are now US citizens only again. Even though the immigration lawyers told us we had all our LMIA stuff in order (and evidently we did), we didn't do the visitor status renewal thing correctly, and being stuck in the middle of a global pandemic was not good enough reason. We went to do the last part of the process as outlined by our lawyers; returning to the US and finalizing the LMIA at the border. However the visitor status problem borked that, and we spent 18 hours "not being detained" in the border station waiting area and our car before they told us officially to piss off back to the US.

We are at this moment regrouping just across the border in New York (no med, we're not coming to your idyllic little corner of the state), and going to visit my dad in NYC.

So short version: we're starting over. We may try the LMIA thing again depending on the results of the hearing, but by the time we get back on our feet and can think about such things, we'll probably be established somewhere close to my dad which is now my primary concern.

It was a nice, if very expensive, vacation.

mnem
*so very tired*

Is there an appeals process for this?  I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about how the pandemic has made a mess for immigration into Canada and international students coming here.

I suspect there is an appeals process.  However, what bureaucratic hoops and amount of time involved is unclear (probably unclear to everybody), along with the chances of success.
That is where the consultation with the immigration lawyer comes in along with weighing the options.

[cyclin_al]

With a little creativity I can see a set of HAM inspired shelf brackets or table legs  eBay auction: #255230237171

It looks like it could offer lots of places to hang test leads!

[beanflying]

TEA Failure - flat batteries during the early fire therapy 

Several tons and a few hours later.....

If only I had some large spuds its about time to add them to the coals but instead its time for a well earned Beer. 

[Saskia]

So we are no longer Canucks in waiting; we are now US citizens only again. Even though the immigration lawyers told us we had all our LMIA stuff in order (and evidently we did), we didn't do the visitor status renewal thing correctly, and being stuck in the middle of a global pandemic was not good enough reason. We went to do the last part of the process as outlined by our lawyers; returning to the US and finalizing the LMIA at the border. However the visitor status problem borked that, and we spent 18 hours "not being detained" in the border station waiting area and our car before they told us officially to piss off back to the US.

We are at this moment regrouping just across the border in New York (no med, we're not coming to your idyllic little corner of the state), and going to visit my dad in NYC.

So short version: we're starting over. We may try the LMIA thing again depending on the results of the hearing, but by the time we get back on our feet and can think about such things, we'll probably be established somewhere close to my dad which is now my primary concern.

It was a nice, if very expensive, vacation.

mnem
*so very tired*

Is there an appeals process for this?  I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about how the pandemic has made a mess for immigration into Canada and international students coming here.

I suspect there is an appeals process.  However, what bureaucratic hoops and amount of time involved is unclear (probably unclear to everybody), along with the chances of success.
That is where the consultation with the immigration lawyer comes in along with weighing the options.

https://irb.gc.ca/en/immigration-appeals/Pages/index.aspx

[RolandK]

A piece of paper meassured in the smd test fixture with the hp 4275a:
Note the 7x5 dot matrix displays for the units.

[BU508A]

Wireless LEDs:

[capt bullshot]

Look mum, how colourful they are. Please buy me some

Anyway, he did identify the driver components wrongly. The SO8 is just a MOSFET driving the resonant circuit, while the small 6pin SOT is some kind of an oscillator.

[Specmaster]

Wireless LEDs:

They are quite neat, now to think up some ideas of where and how they could be used effectively in a useful fashion.

[Cerebus]

A piece of paper meassured in the smd test fixture with the hp 4275a:
Note the 7x5 dot matrix displays for the units.

1.7M parallel resistance? You need to use drier paper. 

[Specmaster]

A piece of paper meassured in the smd test fixture with the hp 4275a:
Note the 7x5 dot matrix displays for the units.

1.7M parallel resistance? You need to use drier paper. 

Eh, how did you work that out?

[Robert763]

Wireless LEDs:

A plastic or wooden rule would have been a good idea 

[Robert763]

A piece of paper meassured in the smd test fixture with the hp 4275a:
Note the 7x5 dot matrix displays for the units.

1.7M parallel resistance? You need to use drier paper. 

Eh, how did you work that out?

1/Conductance 
0.565uS = 1.77 Megohms

[RolandK]

You are right, humidity from fat fingers on the paper...

[med6753]

Wireless LEDs:

A plastic or wooden rule would have been a good idea 

Super cool but I'm racking my brain trying to figure out a neat or practical use for them. Could be because I got a late start today and need more caffeine. 

I'm sure someone will come back with "here you go".   

[BU508A]

Wireless LEDs:

A plastic or wooden rule would have been a good idea 

Super cool but I'm racking my brain trying to figure out a neat or practical use for them. Could be because I got a late start today and need more caffeine. 

I'm sure someone will come back with "here you go". 

Here we go! Coffee, extra strong, for our med!

[TERRA Operative]

Those wireless LED's are commonly used in plastic models for illumination without having to run wires or optic fibres.

Beyond that........ no idea..

[Cerebus]

A piece of paper meassured in the smd test fixture with the hp 4275a:
Note the 7x5 dot matrix displays for the units.

1.7M parallel resistance? You need to use drier paper. 

Eh, how did you work that out?

1/Conductance 
0.565uS = 1.77 Megohms

Presactly so:

[Kosmic]

Got a new scope 



Still not sure why I got it, definitely pure luck. It appeared one morning on Ebay, Sold for parts not working. In the listing the seller mentioned he did not know how to test the instrument. I just sent an offer I thought was reasonable and still cheap for me. I was the second in line and couple of hours later, 8 offers were pending.

Anyway, the scope is in really good physical shape and appear to be working fine. 



The form factor is not that great though. I would have prefer something thinner.



The construction is pretty straight forward. Windows PC and power supply on the top and the acquisition board at the bottom.



The PC board is a standard Micro-ATX with AGP and PCI ports. This is really the interesting part of this scope, since it can easily be upgraded.



I already got the upgrade planned and some components 

[Kosmic]

Got a new scope 



...

Look at that, a 1GHz sine wave 



Finally I have a scope able to show me my waveform in 3D 



The spectrum analyzer function is pretty cool though. It operate like a spectrum analyzer (you set the Span or start/stop freq) and you don't have to play with Time/div and sampling rate.

[Per Hansson]

Breaking news: since the border failure of our resident dwagon he has been seen in the middle parts of Sweden where he even has a whole fortress built in his name!

[capt bullshot]

Got a new scope 

Congrats, nice catch!

[DC1MC]

Speaking of Oszi, I've managed to finally restore and up-hack a Voltcraft MSO5062B for a friend, finally, not because it was hard, but because it was slooooowwww... , the bloody OpenOCD is mostly useless with anything that is not some parallel port or obscure JTAG adapter, 1.2KiB/s !!! this is really crap.
It will be an upgrade for the friend, it even has 4ns/div  and now an interesting startup logo (I couldn't restore the flash that the gorilloid previous owner mangled beyond repair so I've got to get creative  ).
And then the cold (raped my nose AGAIN to check that is not covid  ) went bad and put me forcefully in the bed with a headache.

EDIT: In the process of restoration, some strange chino-windozian programs were mentioned (naturally, only 32-bit drivers available) there were proved useless, but I discovered that I didn't have any 32bit windoze left, also I've discovered that somewhile ago I've saved from the street a MSI all in one PC left for dead.
It cleaned up pretty nice, and after I've upgraded it to 3GiB, a 256GB SSD and replaced the crappy Intel CPU T3100 with a T9300 (that was a bit stressful, as I didn't know if the NVidia ION1 chipset and bios will support it, it did) is actually pretty snappy and after being updated with the latest mega update collection for windoze7, it now loads and install Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition and it will host my IDA Pro and other assorted windozian stuff).


Cheers,
DC1MC

[TERRA Operative]

Speaking of Tek 212 portable scopes, I just finished completely re-working, typesetting and redrawing the Operators Manual.
The original scans were just embarrassingly bad so I went ham at it and channelled my documentation days (I really gotta get InDesign reinstalled on my PC) and here it is:

https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/212


If you print it out in booklet mode in the Adobe Acrobat settings and set your printer settings to duplex, it'll print correctly on A4 paper so you can staple it into a nice little booklet.

[med6753]

Speaking of Tek 212 portable scopes, I just finished completely re-working, typesetting and redrawing the Operators Manual.
The original scans were just embarrassingly bad so I went ham at it and channelled my documentation days (I really gotta get InDesign reinstalled on my PC) and here it is:

https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/212


If you print it out in booklet mode in the Adobe Acrobat settings and set your printer settings to duplex, it'll print correctly on A4 paper so you can staple it into a nice little booklet.

Nice.  It is so much better than the current copy on the Wiki. I downloaded the military version for my use because it also contains the parts lists and schematics. 

[TERRA Operative]

Yeah, the Military one is the service manual and is just fine how it is. I ain't touching it.