Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[capt bullshot]

Can you clarify on this point:

** The drives of an electric vehicle should be as close to the driven elements (wheels, tracks) as possible, and separate for any of those**

I'm guessing you meant "separate from any of those" and that's just a slip of the pen/keyboard? And which "those" do you mean?

Are you saying that there are some fundamental reasons for keeping the motor and wheel separate?

My reason for asking is that I always imagined that the most satisfactory EV wheel/motor would be a PMSM with a tyre wrapped around the rotor, and the stator at the wheel hub with one at each corner. It might need some clever-ish bearings if you wanted avoid spokes (to keep metal and eddy currents away from the coils), some magic to minimise or overcome issues with unsprung mass and lots of poles and/or a lot of vector current drive capability to be usable at parking speed but it just seems so quintessentially neat and simple.

For hub motors, that have significant torque a low rpm, you'd want the so called "Torque Motors". To my knowledge, their stators and rotors are rather bulky and heavy, so a higher rpm motor and a gearbox indeed is the better way.

[Cerebus]

Inmy case as I said the TO-220 replacement is wayyyyyyyyy larger than the original D-PAK.

So I guess it was not DPAK then... maybe a miniature derivative of it.... I call "DPAK" anything sitting flat on the PCB, with 3 terminals one of which is the thermal pad... didn't realize there were variants of it, oh well...  Don't know how to call it then ?! " Mini D-PAK " ?! 

Here you go, courtesy of five minutes work in KiCad:



There are oodles of variations on these, with different suffixes, and there are many other different packages, but these are arguably the commonest SMD transistor packages, with a horizontal 2-lead TO-220 for scale.

[mnementh]

Yeah, that was my fault, C. I had a brain-fart and mixed up DPAK with D2PAK. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Today's epic fail, yesterday I ordered some C type batteries from Amazon, they were on prime, I needed them today so I ordered them and got a confirmation email telling me that they would be with today by 10PM.

This morning I got an email from the Royal Mail, informing me that they had a parcel for me and that it would be delivered today. I wasn't expecting anything by post, so I went on a hunt and discovered that it was in fact those batteries because the tracking info gave the game away, they offloaded the delivery to them. Now I was concerned as because of the severity of Covid over here, we have a massive amount of postmen in my city off, either suffering with Covid or self-isolating that we for the last 3 weeks have been reduced from 2 deliveries a day to just 1 a week, that was yesterday, so now it seems I have to wait till next Thursday to get my batteries, I can't even collect them from delivery office as they have closed because of Covid. Thats the state of our once great country because our leaders have the white flag being waved over England and letting Covid run riot 

Yeah, I'm finding it appears that batteries are one of those things that Amazon has taken off their Next-Day service; at least the store brand and most cheap-oid breeds unless they pay for "Sponsored" or other premium listings. Only those and the name brand now receive Next-Day service; the rest come via whatever postal service you have. The fun part with that this side of the pond is if your delivery comes up too late in the evening, they'll mark it "Delivered" and then make "best effort" attempt to deliver it next day with the early parcel run. 

"Best effort", as you might imagine, seems to have a very ummm... fluid definition. 

mnem
"Why yes, we can find our asses with both hands." *tries* "No, wait; we can't." ~USPS Post-Trump

[capt bullshot]

I also have serious doubts abut relying on regenerative braking will be sufficient because it relies on having a load connected to the motor to generate that braking effect, now what would happen if by any chance that load were to be disconnected, due to a number of possibilities, loose connection, fractured connection etc, all braking would be lost.  For that reason, I think that disc brakes would still be required, but they would in effect be used in the main for emergency braking and also for the final coming to a rest where you require being rather than where the car and other external forces such as a nudge from another vehicle, gravity, wind etc decide where you're going to actually stop.

My current ICE car has regenerative braking on it, and while it's not aggressive, it is noticeable, and I can in many instances rely on it to drop my speed, if I'm given plenty of time to react correctly, it cannot bring me to a complete standstill, I still require brakes for that last bit. But in reality that does not happen very often as you simply are not given that luxury of having the road to yourself. There is always going to be interplay with others, be it in the form of pedestrians, animals, other road users etc to prevent the effective use of regenerative braking alone.

Being able to brake is a serious issue with all kinds of vehicles. So for any reasonable safety assesment, you'd need a redundant way to brake, as regenerative and active braking can't fulfil this safety requirement in a reasonable way. Ask me how I know (disclaimer: I never worked for automotive, but for industrial drives, and made a safety assessment for "motor braking" in robotic applications). It's quite difficult to fulfll safety requirements for safe braking considering all the faults an electrical system can have. So you'd always want a secondary (mechanical) brake that is able to stop the vehicle at an emergency situation.

Next issue is maximum braking deceleration. Synchronous motor mechanical torque is proportional to motor current at the electrical side, completely independent of rotational speed and direction. For economical reasons there's an upper limit for the motor current, set by inverter and motor design. You'd set this limit to your wanted acceleration performance of the car. For emergency braking, you'd want a significantly higher torque limit, that would at least require a more expensive inverter design (as in larger IGBTs) and most probably additional resistors to dissipate the braking energy as the battery has a max. charging current limit, too. In total, this most probably would be more expensive than just the additional mechanical brakes.

And yes, of course, technically the inverter can decelarate and "hold" the motor at zero rpm infinitely at nominal torque (equal to max. acceleration torque). But this would require measures to cope with constantly high current, accelerating is "pulse load" at least for the thermal mass of the motor components (not so for the inverter, the typical IGBTs thermal mass is just good for some µs to ms ballpark values).

[McBryce]

I also have serious doubts abut relying on regenerative braking will be sufficient because it relies on having a load connected to the motor to generate that braking effect, now what would happen if by any chance that load were to be disconnected, due to a number of possibilities, loose connection, fractured connection etc, all braking would be lost.  For that reason, I think that disc brakes would still be required, but they would in effect be used in the main for emergency braking and also for the final coming to a rest where you require being rather than where the car and other external forces such as a nudge from another vehicle, gravity, wind etc decide where you're going to actually stop.

My current ICE car has regenerative braking on it, and while it's not aggressive, it is noticeable, and I can in many instances rely on it to drop my speed, if I'm given plenty of time to react correctly, it cannot bring me to a complete standstill, I still require brakes for that last bit. But in reality that does not happen very often as you simply are not given that luxury of having the road to yourself. There is always going to be interplay with others, be it in the form of pedestrians, animals, other road users etc to prevent the effective use of regenerative braking alone.

Being able to brake is a serious issue with all kinds of vehicles. So for any reasonable safety assesment, you'd need a redundant way to brake, as regenerative and active braking can't fulfil this safety requirement in a reasonable way. Ask me how I know (disclaimer: I never worked for automotive, but for industrial drives, and made a safety assessment for "motor braking" in robotic applications). It's quite difficult to fulfll safety requirements for safe braking considering all the faults an electrical system can have. So you'd always want a secondary (mechanical) brake that is able to stop the vehicle at an emergency situation.

Next issue is maximum braking deceleration. Synchronous motor mechanical torque is proportional to motor current at the electrical side, completely independent of rotational speed and direction. For economical reasons there's an upper limit for the motor current, set by inverter and motor design. You'd set this limit to your wanted acceleration performance of the car. For emergency braking, you'd want a significantly higher torque limit, that would at least require a more expensive inverter design (as in larger IGBTs) and most probably additional resistors to dissipate the braking energy as the battery has a max. charging current limit, too. In total, this most probably would be more expensive than just the additional mechanical brakes.

And yes, of course, technically the inverter can decelarate and "hold" the motor at zero rpm infinitely at nominal torque (equal to max. acceleration torque). But this would require measures to cope with constantly high current, accelerating is "pulse load" at least for the thermal mass of the motor components (to to the inverter, the typical IGBTs thermal mass is just good for some µs to ms ballpark values).

All that, plus the fact that regen braking stops working if the power source is removed, so the safety guys will never accept a system that doesn't work on pure mechanics (at least in the automotive world).

McBryce. 

[med6753]

As promised. Here is the redesign of the Type 1A4 internal PSU utilizing LM317T/LM337T regulators. Those few components replace all 7 of the transistors and supporting circuitry.

A legitimate question is where are the protection diodes for the regulators? In applications such as this (internal supply, fixed voltage) I don't feel they are needed. There's a very slim chance of a short circuit serious enough to cause an issue. And if you look at many commercial designs they support that view point. If it were a bench supply with a very real threat of a serious short then I would install them.

Tomorrow I'll be calibrating the plug-in.



   

[capt bullshot]

All that, plus the fact that regen braking stops working if the power source is removed, so the safety guys will never accept a system that doesn't work on pure mechanics (at least in the automotive world).

Yes, to some extent. You'd still be able to use the kinetic energy as the power source for your control electronics, and as a last resort you might consider to short the motor terminals in some kind of failsafe way. Both is possible, the first one
(using the mechanical energy as emergency power) is common in some specialized industrial applications (e.g. magnetic bearings for high speed turbo pumps), the latter one might stall the vehicles wheels which is considered very dangerous. Especially stalling one wheel (for direct drive per wheel model) due to some electrical failure is very dangerous, and you'd need at least a single failure tolerant system to prevent the wheel from stalling in case the drive inverter fails short. To my knowledge, this is done by one additional power stage within the inverter that has to carry the full motor current and that is able to electrically open the motor stator windings star point node in case the main inverter power stage fails.

[tautech]

Waitaminnit... he's a landshark. Guess he has to have some way of breathing air... supergills maybe?

   This is a landshark, who happens to be in a punt....

Gorgeous pup. Had me going  over "in a punt" tho; thought it was some weird slang like "taking a punt" or calling someone "a punter". Then I realized a punt is just what we rebels across the pond usually call a marsh boat or skiff. 

mnem
Doyt!

Gorgeous to some however my experience with any of that breed is they've still got too much wolf in them and around here they normally get ventilated for their wolf behavior.
Sure I guess there are some nice ones however all the ones we've come across....not !

[Vince]

Inmy case as I said the TO-220 replacement is wayyyyyyyyy larger than the original D-PAK.

So I guess it was not DPAK then... maybe a miniature derivative of it.... I call "DPAK" anything sitting flat on the PCB, with 3 terminals one of which is the thermal pad... didn't realize there were variants of it, oh well...  Don't know how to call it then ?! " Mini D-PAK " ?! 

Here you go, courtesy of five minutes work in KiCad:

There are oodles of variations on these, with different suffixes, and there are many other different packages, but these are arguably the commonest SMD transistor packages, with a horizontal 2-lead TO-220 for scale.

Looks neat, thanks for taking the time Cerebus   

[Vince]

Luckily the guy who gave me the VCR and this TV, also gave me their respective original remotes !

Do yourself a favor tho, and keep your eyes peeled for one of those Harmony remotes with the touchscreen. If you find one for $30 or less in functional condition, jump on it. If you tinker on any kind of consumer electronics, they are TE no less important than a meter or scope. You can't troubleshoot something if you can't control it properly, and you rarely get the original remote with curb-scores or Thrift items.

mnem
 

I despise consumer electronics in general, bar the odd old CD player or old stereo amp. But that's simple stuff.

As for more modern stuff with "secret" / advanced trickery available from a remote... that's more than I can care about.
If the appliance has  H/W problem I am OK to give it a try especially if I can have schematics for it. But it's the problem is more a S/W thing then I really can't be arsed to research it, I find it too painful and uninteresting to be worth my time.
Same goes for TE as well... I just don't like S/W problems, they are a pain. IT's like a modern car that works perfectly mechanically but some of the numerous electronic gizmos in it decides to stop th car form working, and you have to find what gizmo it is and why it is up set. No.. not for me. I love old cars because when they stop working they have a good reason, a valid reason... like, the G/B broke, a head gasket,  a piston going through the bonnet, what have you... but something real and serious. Having a car bricked for a silly S/W reason like a smartphone or tablet, no... no no no ... that's not acceptable to me and I will not by such crap for as long a I can have a choice. 

For me to bother with S/W in an appliance, it would have to be some thing that being to me personally, that I really need, that I really care for A LOT. Other wise it's either scrap, or tell the "customer" / frien of a friend of a friend "sorry not reparable, do you want it back or can I keep to salvage parts ?? ".

But well... never say never I guess. I will keep your suggestion in mind.

Oh, now I come to think of it, someone recently gave me a brand new programmable remote, but not sure it's as capable / similar to what you describe. Let me go get it to see what it exactly... OK found it, see picture below. It's got a little graphical LCD screen. It's made by " Logitech ", model name is " Harmony 700 ".  Never used it, no opportunity to do so. Plus I can't be bothered to ge through the learning curve, not worth my time.  I don't know what it can do not what to do in order to get it to do what it can do...I just have it sitting here that's all 
Looking on the interweb, looks like it was bloody expensive new, somehow.

As for consumer electronics, not even an hour ago, got some more stuff to fix ! 

A friend paid an impromptu visit and brought me this piece of crap of a sound system, a mini system, all in one. Has a radio receiver + a 5 CD changer. Just powered it up. Comes to life and all, no error code to see, seems fine at first, but there is zero sound coming out of it, not even a humming sound, zero. Same with radio or CD player, nada. I can hear a relay click though.... maybe it's the output relay on the power amp... let's hope it's just a dodgy relay, that would be cool.   It's a JVC UX-S59.  Believe it or not Google found me a service manual for this crap !  With beautiful vector/scalable schematics and board views, I am in heaven.

And this thing is not that old, manual is dated 2005 ! So if a multi-billion company like JVC can make a proper service manual available.. what excuse do Tektronix or HP for not doing it ? Bastards....



EDIT : Oh, "Harmony", that's what you suggested... and that's what I have ! So nothing to buy then, I already have one ! brand new, already here ! 
I see there is a user manual for it on-line... so at least if I ever can be arsed to use it one day, I know I have the manual to tell me how to use it...

EDIT #2 : Sound system fixed itself it appears ! I poped the covers to start working on it, powered it up and hey, I DO have sound now !    so my best guess is, it was indeed the amplifier output relay that was faulty, after getting some "exercise" it fixed itself.  However unit does how a problem with the CD part of things... CD player as such works fine, it play"ed the first CD just fine... but don't you dare asking the changer mechanism to load any other disc... it tries for half a dozen times in a row, then gives up and throws and " ERROR 13 "no the LCD screen.... sadly the service manual does not contain any info on troubleshooting and error codes... just schematics and board views. Oh well... will try to google it you never know. Will pull the changer from the unit so I can have a closer look at it...

EDIT #3 : Nope, this JVC is a piece of shit. Took it apart completely, NOT meant to be serviced... no no no... all the boards are entangled with one another, and cables all over the place.. it's a rubix cube. You can't access any board without taking everything apart hence not in a working state anymore... your typical cheap compact/monolithic design, . It's a piece of junk. Then put it all back together so I can power it up again... only to see it was doing all sorts of crazy shit. There are a million and one electrolytic caps in this thing.. and it's 15 years old. No, not wasting my time on this piece of junk ! Will call my friend tomorrow to tell him unit will be sent to Vince's home recycling center. Will be more useful as parts than as a sound system, that's for sure....

[Vince]

Here is the final Boonton button finishing test.

The finished 3D (meaning additional finishing after the print) printed button is on the left, original right. The last pic has the finished button left, original Boonton button middle, unfinished (except for the dot) 3D printed button at the right. The finishing of the 3D printed button involved sanding and priming (3 times), then final painting with Tamiya X-1 black gloss model paint. The white dot was applied with a toothpick using Tamiya XF-2 flat white.

Honestly, when I set up the two buttons for pics I left the room to do some things. When I came back I forgot how I set them up. I could not tell which was which until I got up very close. I do not think a person without prior knowledge would be able to distinguish the finished button from the originals when all are installed and the bezel in place - especially if they didn't even know a button had been replaced.

Heck, even if you don't want to go to all the trouble I did, just a few quick touches with a very fine sandpaper on all sides & painting once would make a great improvement.

So I hope this shows that you can do a whole lot more to the 3D printed object after it is removed from the printer, especially if you want a "museum quality" replacement part.

That's not too bad, it's passable, I will give it a thumbs up 

See how huge an improvement just a bit of TLC made to the "raw" 3D print ?? Was worth it eh ?! 

The colour and finish is a great match 

Only thing I see could be improved are some of the edges of the concave / top part of the button. Some edges look too rounded. Corresponding edges on the original button look a bit sharper don't you think ?
White dot hard to say, no close-enough shot to judge really. However looks like the diameter of the dot issue, has been solved, no blatant diameter difference anymore, so well done here as well.

However I disagree strongly with the argument of "the average joe could not spot the difference ". ! 
The average Joe could not tell his arse from a hole in the ground, so his taste and ability to appreciate and assess craftsmanship is not exactly relevant to the "restorer" 

The only valid assessment is that of the intended user / owner : does this button make YOU happy when you look at the instrument and play with it ? If it does... it's good enough.
I understand though that you will give this unit to someone else, which I anticipate does not have a very sharp eye or experience in the matter ? but again you are judge of that, you know him.. so if you feel it's gonna be good enough for him... then it is ! 

Now here is hoping I can restore my old Tek scopes to a satisfactory standard... luckily I have no less than 6 examples of my little type 317 scope. Only one is restored, the other 5 are for parts or.... guinea pigs to experiment with restoration techniques !     So I will " train " on them and once I am happy with the result, I will apply to the Tek scopes that I do intend to restore.

[mnementh]

All that, plus the fact that regen braking stops working if the power source is removed, so the safety guys will never accept a system that doesn't work on pure mechanics (at least in the automotive world).

Yes, to some extent. You'd still be able to use the kinetic energy as the power source for your control electronics, and as a last resort you might consider to short the motor terminals in some kind of failsafe way. Both is possible, the first one (using the mechanical energy as emergency power) is common in some specialized industrial applications (e.g. magnetic bearings for high speed turbo pumps), the latter one might stall the vehicles wheels which is considered very dangerous. Especially stalling one wheel (for direct drive per wheel model) due to some electrical failure is very dangerous, and you'd need at least a single failure tolerant system to prevent the wheel from stalling in case the drive inverter fails short. To my knowledge, this is done by one additional power stage within the inverter that has to carry the full motor current and that is able to electrically open the motor stator windings star point node in case the main inverter power stage fails.

The emergency fault problems you've described are just the tip of the iceberg for "one motor per wheel" designs in real life. At low speeds things generally behave... but at anything approaching highway speeds, this will require real-time active mixing of the motor ESCs similar to that used in a flight controller.

This is something I have first-hand experience with trying to build large-scale AWD stadium trucks. It seems a magical solution; you can use smaller motors & wires, eliminate all the crazy chassis concerns of working around driveshafts and center gearbox, and you can put most of the weight at the corners of the chassis where it helps you not flip over on a oval track, plus you can fine-tune your roll characteristics by moving the battery anywhere on a flat plate chassis. Real-world... it's fine at "bashing" speeds. Anything approaching real racing speeds, on-road or off, and tiny differences in how the ESC/motors respond get amplified, and it just gets squirrely as hell. Now imagine multiplying that by heavy hub motors with a huge increase in unsprung weight.

Until we come up with direct-drive motor assemblies with total added mass somewhat similar to that of a CV axle that can produce 10s of KW continuously against a 22 inch wheel/tire, it just seems a non-starter to me for consumer vehicles; particularly this latest generation of consumers that apparently needs for a computer in the car to limit wheel slip by killing the throttle. 

The place I see OMPW having value would be places where we're already using hydraulic motors: off-road vehicles and commercial service vehicles like big ZTR mowers where being able to turn within the vehicle's own footprint are a real necessity. Turning that stuff all-electric and charged off-grid could actually do the world some good.

mnem
 

[DH7DN]

A while ago they were discussion about the electric system and people were wondering why north America was setup with 110V and a second phase to get 220V.

Spoiler: Of course it's because of Edison

Kathy Loves Physics & History YouTube Channel is EPIC. Thanks for sharing 

[Robert763]

I also have serious doubts abut relying on regenerative braking will be sufficient because it relies on having a load connected to the motor to generate that braking effect, now what would happen if by any chance that load were to be disconnected, due to a number of possibilities, loose connection, fractured connection etc, all braking would be lost.  For that reason, I think that disc brakes would still be required, but they would in effect be used in the main for emergency braking and also for the final coming to a rest where you require being rather than where the car and other external forces such as a nudge from another vehicle, gravity, wind etc decide where you're going to actually stop.

My current ICE car has regenerative braking on it, and while it's not aggressive, it is noticeable, and I can in many instances rely on it to drop my speed, if I'm given plenty of time to react correctly, it cannot bring me to a complete standstill, I still require brakes for that last bit. But in reality that does not happen very often as you simply are not given that luxury of having the road to yourself. There is always going to be interplay with others, be it in the form of pedestrians, animals, other road users etc to prevent the effective use of regenerative braking alone.

Being able to brake is a serious issue with all kinds of vehicles. So for any reasonable safety assesment, you'd need a redundant way to brake, as regenerative and active braking can't fulfil this safety requirement in a reasonable way. Ask me how I know (disclaimer: I never worked for automotive, but for industrial drives, and made a safety assessment for "motor braking" in robotic applications). It's quite difficult to fulfll safety requirements for safe braking considering all the faults an electrical system can have. So you'd always want a secondary (mechanical) brake that is able to stop the vehicle at an emergency situation.

Next issue is maximum braking deceleration. Synchronous motor mechanical torque is proportional to motor current at the electrical side, completely independent of rotational speed and direction. For economical reasons there's an upper limit for the motor current, set by inverter and motor design. You'd set this limit to your wanted acceleration performance of the car. For emergency braking, you'd want a significantly higher torque limit, that would at least require a more expensive inverter design (as in larger IGBTs) and most probably additional resistors to dissipate the braking energy as the battery has a max. charging current limit, too. In total, this most probably would be more expensive than just the additional mechanical brakes.

And yes, of course, technically the inverter can decelarate and "hold" the motor at zero rpm infinitely at nominal torque (equal to max. acceleration torque). But this would require measures to cope with constantly high current, accelerating is "pulse load" at least for the thermal mass of the motor components (to to the inverter, the typical IGBTs thermal mass is just good for some µs to ms ballpark values).

All that, plus the fact that regen braking stops working if the power source is removed, so the safety guys will never accept a system that doesn't work on pure mechanics (at least in the automotive world).

McBryce.

Not true. You don't need a power source to get regenerative braking. By definition it is producing electrical power not using it. Get a DC motor and try spinning the shaft. Then short the windings and try spinning it again. That resistance is dynamic breaking. Of course, as discussed earlier it does not work if the motor is not turning so is innefective when stationary or at low speeds. That is when DC injection braking is needed. Injection braking does of course consume power. This defeats the object so you still need friction brakes or a transmission lock.

[mnementh]

Oh, "Harmony", that's what you suggested... and that's what I have ! So nothing to buy then, I already have one ! brand new, already here ! 
I see there is a user manual for it on-line... so at least if I ever can be arsed to use it one day, I know I have the manual to tell me how to use it...

The 700 is a bit newer than mine; but it still works the same. Main difference is it uses AA rechargeables and doesn't have a charging cradle.

And as it is newer, it uses the MyHarmony app whereas the One still works better with the older Logitech app. You'll have to create an account with MyHarmony, which may be a deal-breaker for you; it is simple email registration with no request for CC info, and in over a decade of use I have never been locked out or gotten a bit of spam from them.

Once you get over that hurdle, using the app is beyond easy; instead of looking up on a chart and having to try a dozen different codes, you enter brand and model number; the app will even give suggested models/corrections if what you typed isn't in the database, which they have everything. They even had codes for a brand-new Atyme Chinesium 4K TV, and the One is over 10 years old.

Cheers,

mnem
Do I need a Universal Remote for my Universal Counter...? 

[Saskia]

Just arrived with the last full tractor / trailer at the new house. I will have to ask Thor to mjölnirate Murphy's balls.
Today was hand over date for the old appartment (a company appartment). I took the bloody Volvo to pick up our medical documentation from our (now ex) gp and on the way back, directly at intersection A60/A61 the red engine light came on with a coolant low, turn off engine immediately error. I let the car roll to the side of the road and parked near one of those emergency call booths. Called for emergency road side assistance. They told me to get out of the car and hunker down behind the guard rail.  As I thought picking up the stuff from the gp was a rather easy task I did not bring a jacket. And was forced to hunker down for about 30 minutes in the freezing wind/rain/snow. Eff my life. Furthermore, time was running out, I needed to clean out the bloody place and there was still stuff to do.
I mobilized some help, and roadside assistance emerged. They diagnosed the issue to a broken thermostat and told me to have it checked out asap. I did find a mechanic who was willing to take on the task and I dropped off the car.
Having lost about 2 hours in the process I hurried back to the appartment and we started bringing down all trash and the remaining items, throwing the trash onto the truck and the items onto the trailer. I took the trash to resyk, got back to the appartment and could actually manage to clean it out by hand over time.
The landlord rep came and said that he was not prepared for this-
I asked him if he was trying to pull a fast one on me as I had phoned them 3 times to make sure that this was the final handover..
He went back to his office, got the protocol form and then started filling in the stuff (such as gas meter, electricity meter, water meter) etc. And accepted the flat in its condition.
Since all  my stuff was already out of the flat and sitting in the stair case we continued loading.
Phone rang: the mechanic called to tell me that he had fixed the issue and I could pick up the car if I was sufficiently fast, he gave me 15 minutes to get to him.
Picked up the car, finalized the trailer and drove 500 km. Just arrived. Unloading will have to wait, I am sooooooooo tired.
Unloading tomorrow, drive back to return the tractor: Sunday
Return Trailer: Monday
Drive back up north: Monday.

[xrunner]

That's not too bad, it's passable, I will give it a thumbs up 

See how huge an improvement just a bit of TLC made to the "raw" 3D print ?? Was worth it eh ?! 

The colour and finish is a great match 

Thanks Vince!

Only thing I see could be improved are some of the edges of the concave / top part of the button. Some edges look too rounded. Corresponding edges on the original button look a bit sharper don't you think ?

Sure it isn't a perfect copy, but we have to have realistic expectations. At some point it's going to be diminishing returns. But I think it's good enough to pass muster with most people now.

White dot hard to say, no close-enough shot to judge really. However looks like the diameter of the dot issue, has been solved, no blatant diameter difference anymore, so well done here as well.

I cleaned it up with a drill bit and put in a drop of paint with a toothpick.

However I disagree strongly with the argument of "the average joe could not spot the difference ". ! 
The average Joe could not tell his arsed from a hole in the ground, so his taste and ability to appreciate and assess craftsmanship is not exactly relevant to the "restorer" 

The only valid assessment is that of the intended user / owner : does this button make YOU happy when you look at the instrument and play with it ? If it does... it's good enough.
I understand though that you will give this unit to someone else, which I anticipate does not have a very sharp eye or experience in the matter ? but again you are judge of that, you know him.. so if you feel it's gonna be good enough for him... then it is ! 

Oh he'd be happy just putting a clump of duct tape on the shaft and calling it a day.  Most of the people I would show this to are very nice people (hams) but they can't restore anything. That's why they aren't the ones to tell me if something is good or not. Like I said, the guy I'm giving this too was blown away that I even designed a new knob and printed it in black - for him that was beyond what anyone else would do. There is no other "electronic hobbyist" around here that I know of either. So I depend on the members here to give pass or fail grades.

Now here is hoping I can restore my old Tek scope to a satisfactory standard... luckily I have no less than 6 example of my little type 317 scope. Only one is restored, the other 5 are for parts or.... guinea pigs to experiments with restoration techniques !     So I will " train " on, them, and once I am happy with the result, I will apply to the Tek scopes that I do intend to restore.

I'm sure we'll all be eager to examine your craftsmanship as well. 

[mansaxel]

and there is similar carnage in the guest bedroom...

alt-codes work here: alt-225 = ß    alt-230 = µ   alt-234 = Ω   alt-236 = ∞   alt-248 = °   alt-0216 = Ø

With a Real Computer (or as close as we people who still have Intel CPU's in our macs can manage) and a proper keymap, Alt-codes are not necessary.

ß µ Ω ∞ ° Ø

Technically, you of course still need to press "alt", but there is no code typing, it's, on this mapping,

s, y, w, 5, shift+the-button-left-of-1-which-is-marked-§-and-°, and, le grande Finale: shift-ö. Because ø is ö in Denmark and Norway, so a Scandinavian keyboard needs it, in the Nordic brotherhood tradition.

Historical tidbit: In the late 1940's, there was some effort in getting a defense alliance going in the Nordics. It was given up, partially because Finland could not be in -- they'd lost the war by being beaten by the Soviets, and were held to a "Peace and Friendship agreement" made up by Stalin and Molotov, so could not take part -- but more so by Norway and Denmark trusting the USA / UK team a bit more. We're still friends, and we don't need passports, even if Norway is not in the EU.

Finland were, in the early 90s, quick to notice that as the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, the agreement could not possibly be valid, and declared themselves unbound by it, which was followed by a new agreement with Russia.

[mansaxel]

Beautiful creature, when I had a dog, there is no way on earth that she would have been in a punt, she would have been in the river, she really was a dog fish.

That looks like a canal. And while "wet dog" smells horrible, "wet dog from bathing in the canal" has all chances of smelling worse than horrible. For staying dry, I say "Good dog!".

[mansaxel]

Sort of reminds you of Y2K, don't it? That turned out to be a little mouse fart into a hurricane. 

Simply because the scare was large enough. A lot of people worked long hours to find and fix problems, and because they did, and because even the very definition of dim-wit, the MBA turned manager, realised there was significant risk in deferring the problem to reactive rather than proactive, there was enough push in the industry to fix the problems in time.

I declare Y2K a success, not a "mouse fart into a hurricane", because that is how good engineering in computing looks. It simply works.

I was also VERY heavily involved in Y2K remediation and MOST of what we found turned into a non-issue. I also spent my New Years at work for over 24 hours just in case something went south. There was nary a whimper.

FOAF who at the time did finance IT said that the IBM System 360 codebase (as in applications written for it) was pretty easy to clean up. The real challenge was the IBM 1401 code that the System 360 could run in emulation using special microcode, so successfully that there still were applications doing just that, in the late 90s. Not bad for a computer model introduced 1959.  (the 1400 series has an architecture all to itself, with variable word length and stuff. ) Now, the System 360 itself has comfortably surpassed that, what with being introduced in 1966 and still The Mainframe. 55 years and counting.

Visiting the CHM in Mountain View is very high on my bucket list, because they have a running (between faults, that is) 1400 installation.

[Cerebus]

That's not too bad, it's passable, I will give it a thumbs up 

See how huge an improvement just a bit of TLC made to the "raw" 3D print ?? Was worth it eh ?! 

The colour and finish is a great match 

Thanks Vince!

Only thing I see could be improved are some of the edges of the concave / top part of the button. Some edges look too rounded. Corresponding edges on the original button look a bit sharper don't you think ?

Sure it isn't a perfect copy, but we have to have realistic expectations. At some point it's going to be diminishing returns. But I think it's good enough to pass muster with most people now.

OK, I'm going to make you want to kick me in the balls. Maybe. In my defence, I wasn't paying more than peripheral interest to this. You made me realise that I hadn't said how I would have done this if I had a single button, or a very few, to copy when you used the phrase "perfect copy".
So:

How I would have done it.

• Found or made a container about 1cm bigger all around than the button in question.
• Taken the existing button, stuck it to the bottom of said container with some plasticine.
• Treated everything with a suitable mould release.
• Filled the container with an addition cure RTV silicone rubber, probably one with a platinum based catalyst (low shrinkage).
• Let it cure, pull the button out and put it back where it belongs.
• Treated the newly made silicone mould with some mould release.
• Tinted some epoxy resin to match the button, mixed it up, ideally degassed it, and poured it into the new mould.
• Let it cure.
• Pull out the "perfect copy" of the existing button and put a dot of white paint on it.
• Drill/file/hack/marmalize the back until it would fit on where it was supposed to.
• Fit the replacement button.
• Repeat from 6  above if I needed more copies.

It sounds involved if itemised like that, but I'd have the whole job done with perhaps 2 hours active involvement plus the time for curing of RTV or epoxy.

You would get a "perfect" copy, including any scratches, dents, etc. that were in the original.

If you had lots to make, and the effort was worth it, you could make a 2 part mould that copied the back of the part as well to avoid having to hack it to fit. That's more involved, requires a bit of (possibly not immediately obvious) technique to make, register and contain a 2 part mould, and ideally some vacuum equipment to pull resin into and through a closed mould. Still quite do-able as a kitchen table top operation though.

[mansaxel]

They diagnosed the issue to a broken thermostat and told me to have it checked out asap.

I've had that exact failure too. On same  model car.

[Vince]

Oh, "Harmony", that's what you suggested... and that's what I have ! So nothing to buy then, I already have one ! brand new, already here ! 
I see there is a user manual for it on-line... so at least if I ever can be arsed to use it one day, I know I have the manual to tell me how to use it...

The 700 is a bit newer than mine; but it still works the same. Main difference is it uses AA rechargeables and doesn't have a charging cradle.

And as it is newer, it uses the MyHarmony app whereas the One still works better with the older Logitech app. You'll have to create an account with MyHarmony, which may be a deal-breaker for you; it is simple email registration with no request for CC info, and in over a decade of use I have never been locked out or gotten a bit of spam from them.

Once you get over that hurdle, using the app is beyond easy; instead of looking up on a chart and having to try a dozen different codes, you enter brand and model number; the app will even give suggested models/corrections if what you typed isn't in the database, which they have everything. They even had codes for a brand-new Atyme Chinesium 4K TV, and the One is over 10 years old.

Cheers,

mnem
Do I need a Universal Remote for my Universal Counter...? 

Oh yeah if it requires to create an account / register, that's abusive... it's a freaking remote control, it has no business knowing anything about me. Gotta draw the line somewhere. I am tired of this register for anything shit. Too much is too much 

I would of course consider it if it could provide such a tremendous added value / benfeit to me that I would be willing to compromise.... but I do'nt give a toss about consurmer electronics that neeeds a remote control to be fixed, so it's unlikely to ever happen...

That beinf said... there IS a long standing project of mine where this remote could potentially help me a lot... I am fond od the late '904s Becker car stereo, "Mexico Pro" series, have a couple, kinda collect them. They have an infra-red sensor so tehy can be controlled in the car using a little remote (there is no wired remote capability at the rear of the unit). THe remote contro thus exists, it is documented in the user manual. However I have never, ever, ever... ever seen a BEkcer radio that came with this remote, nor have I ever, ever seen a remote for sale on its own.

So my project is to run a wire trhough the back of the stereo and tap the IR sensor to simulate an IR remote. Then I could design a little adpater board to interface the existing / OEM steering wheel mounted remote control, to the Becker. But for that, I need to know the protocol used by the stereo, IR wave length used, device address and type etc...  I could make my own little programmable remote with a littel micro, and experiment until I reverse- engineer everything... would be a fun little sub-project in its own right.. but should that fail, would be good to have a plan B. So this Harmony thing and its database that has everything as you say, could save my bacon.

Yes, for this... I would consider registering (and delete my account as soo as I am done of course....).
However I seem to remember I did check their on-line database a couple years ago when I was given this remote, and I did not find this particular stereo in their database... nor ANY car stereo for that matter, IIR ?!.....      So definitely not as useful/complete as one might hope... 

[xrunner]

OK, I'm going to make you want to kick me in the balls.

Naw not me. 

Maybe. In my defence, I wasn't paying more than peripheral interest to this. You made me realise that I hadn't said how I would have done this if I had a single button, or a very few, to copy when you used the phrase "perfect copy".
So:

{see above post for process}

It sounds involved if itemised like that, but I'd have the whole job done with perhaps 2 hours active involvement plus the time for curing of RTV or epoxy.

Oh my ... no way could I do that in two hours. Sure but I should have said "... using 3D printing". Yes there are other ways as well. I'm trying to show how 3D printing can get people there.

You would get a "perfect" copy, including any scratches, dents, etc. that were in the original.

Right and the original button isn't perfect ... or is it? What do we mean by "perfect" now? Is a perfect button one with no flaws, or do we mean a "perfect reproduction" of an original that has wear and tear? I can put wear and tear on the reproduction I suppose - or just make all the buttons new again. Interesting choice.