Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Marco Reps tests the Cetus 2 (3D-Printer):

[Vince]

So, just out of curiosity, I dug my old P-Touch out of the drawer unit in the garage; haven't touched it since I packed it in the trailer over 2 years ago. Didn't let it warm up from the cold nor nuthin'; just popped some batteries in it and put the boots to it. Will it work...?


One thing I do prefer about this PT-80 is the keys; they're individual membrane keys separated by hard plastic bezel rather than a contiguous membrane matrix keypad like the ones above. They have a well-defined detent feel and each key doesn't feel "connected" to the rest of the keypad as those tend to feel. I also prefer the landscape orientation of the body, but that might just be due to familiarity.

mnem
 

Cool.... actually  that store I talked about also has one like yours. didn't talk about it but it did catch my eye... 35 Euros, only 5  Euros more than the " handheld " P-touch.

https://www.bureau-vallee.fr/titreuse-brother-pt-d210-153204.html

Looks like the same machine just with a slightly different form factor. Like you what I like is the larger K/B with spacing between all the keys... my big fingers don't play nice on keys that are contiguous and/or too close to each other. it's a recipe for disaster.

[Zucca]

Marco Reps tests the Cetus 2 (3D-Printer):

Love that guy, anyway I love Marlin too. I let the Cetus be delivered and tested for all the others for two years.
To me it seems too unstable, too new technology.

[Vince]

SORTING CAPS

Wow, took me only 4 or 5 hours to sort that 1.2+ kg of caps.

In the end it all does fit in that drawer unit. I even have some space left : one of the 3 big drawers + the mega huge / full width one at the very bottom.... which is just as fine because I have 4 big boxed of scrap boards to dismantle, most modern SMPS stuff, so lots of caps to come ! 

Dwagon it's not for prototyping, it's more for fixing people's stuff on the cheap, because buying even just a few caps to fix the PSU in a TV or whatever, at the local electronics shop, spend 2+ hours driving there and back, queuing, wasting petrol and car wear/maintenance... HOPING it would fix the problem... and even if it does, owner of the gear will give me 5 bucks if I am lucky... no, I am losing money !
It can only be doable if I have crappy old caps to fix  their stuff, 100% free, no shipping/traveling, no nothing... 100% free components because salvaged and available immediately on hand. Anything just won't do.

Recently when I fixed these two 22" monitors .. was tired caps on the PSU.. I was glad to have my crappy old caps ! They were plenty good enough to bring back the monitors to life, hence confirming the diagnosis. Then, I was now 100% sure that the caps would fix the problem, so since I decided I wanted to keep these monitors for myself, and use them... of course I was more than happy IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, to spent a few Euros at Farnel to get nice brand new quality caps, and pay shipping.

But as I said this sorting was just a first pass at tidying things up. This led me to scrap all caps below 1uF since they are so tiny and can easily be replaced with film caps...
In a second pass, I think I will do as you said and scrap lots of them... not all, but most of them.

the bulk of the caps are hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of tiny caps in the 1uF to 100uF range. Several actually overflowed ! Had to trim the excess and scrap it, so as to manage to get the drawer to close !     As for the 47uF ones.. I had so many of them I could fill TWO drawers full of them ! 
I will never use that many (I am not very productive....), and since they were all salvaged 30 years ago when I was a teen, from gear obviously 10 or 20 years old than that... so this hundreds of tiny caps are.. 40/50 years old.

So since I don't need so many of them, and since very small caps like these cost bugger all, and since I have only so many different values between 1uF and 100uF... I think I will soon scrap all of them, and buy new ones instead. I will keep only the big ones because these cost a lot of money...I have a drawer dedicated to big cap wqith low value/ high voltage rating. Another drawer for the 400/450V ones for SMPS... as you said sorted by type ;-) so I can get easily find what I want.

The old big values ones I also want to keep, even the crusty ones... because sometimes you just want to make big sparks for fun, it's therapeutic, without risking mega expensive brand new quality caps !!! 
I need "old crap" that I can torture carelessly and set on fire or reverse bias to make them go bang, if so I decide !!! 

To each their own of course, but as of now, that's how I think I will go about my electrolytic caps !

Can't wait to go pick up a label  printer on Monday and start making all these drawer look pretty and talkative...

BTW I used my Chinese component tester, spent 30 minutes checking each and every of my x75 or so 470uF caps and... believe it or not only a handful were bad... and not even BAD... just a bit too much out of spec, but absolutely nothing delirious either ESR or capacitance-wise. I was stunned...

[Neomys Sapiens]

I need "old crap" that I can torture carelessly and set on fire or reverse bias to make them go bang, if so I decide !!! 

I have a bag of overage electrolytics ready at the window sill in the company lab. In combination with the sizeable variac standing there, they provide immediate relief from loud birds in the summer!

[Vince]

I knew at least SOMEONE here would understand me !!   

[Zucca]

I have a bag of overage electrolytics ready at the window sill in the company lab. In combination with the sizeable variac standing there, they provide immediate relief from loud birds in the summer!

I heard RIFA keeps humans away.

[Vince]

I have a Brother H110, has been working pretty well. Even sticked some labels outside and they are still doing great after 2 years.



I never used it with battery though. I bought a 5$ 9V 1A power supply. You just need to switch polarity since Brother put the + on the outside conductor.

Sounds like a plan, will probably do that ! 

I assume Brother reversed the polarity as a planned obsolescence thing, hoping people would fry their printer and buy a new one ?! 
.. this means that I don't need to ask if they added some diode to protect the electronics against reversed polarity.. of course there is no protection, that would defeat their intent ! 

Maybe I am a bad mouth... will take mine apart once I buy it on Monday, and look on the circuit board to see what they have done.. or not done.

I could also power it from my lab supply to see for myself just how much current it draws when printing, to confirm or deny that it's too much of a current for a Li-on battery to handle, hence they chose to use non-rechargeable batteries instead...

[Kosmic]

I have a Brother H110, has been working pretty well. Even sticked some labels outside and they are still doing great after 2 years.



I never used it with battery though. I bought a 5$ 9V 1A power supply. You just need to switch polarity since Brother put the + on the outside conductor.

Sounds like a plan, will probably do that ! 

I assume Brother reversed the polarity as a planned obsolescence thing, hoping people would fry their printer and buy a new one ?! 
.. this means that I don't need to ask if they added some diode to protect the electronics against reversed polarity.. of course there is no protection, that would defeat their intent ! 

Maybe I am a bad mouth... will take mine apart once I buy it on Monday, and look on the circuit board to see what they have done.. or not done.

I could also power it from my lab supply to see for myself just how much current it draws when printing, to confirm or deny that it's too much of a current for a Li-on battery to handle, hence they chose to use non-rechargeable batteries instead...

Yes the input is protected there is probably a diode in there. I didn't notice the polarity at first 

They probably did that so normal supplies wouldn't work. Brother is asking something like 50$ for their supply.

[Kosmic]

The Signal Path has a new video on the HP 3400b

[Saskia]

I got a dymo labelling printer for very cheap from my fav distributor ... takes everything from miniature labels to A4 Leitz Binder backs. also have various brother and dymo strip labelers. need to find them, bring them all and in the darkness bind them. will need them anyway to catalog my stuff.

in other News the Megger PAT 2/2 arrived. came with an HV probe which suffered from grip detachment. need to find a way to fix the broken screw posts so that I can bring it back to life. 75€ seems like a very decent price for a clean unit.

the N6700B got here. missing filler panels, the product CDs, the power cable, and the digital channel breakout terminal. call to keysight: do you have those parts?
answer: you will need .... ... ..., these cost bla ... but without VAT ID we cannot sell you anything, because the HQ decided to do B2B only due to consumer protection laws in Europe. go to our distributors who will sell you the parts or manage repairs. ...

bummer.
contacted datatec. they have me in their customer database, so I should be fine
 if push comes to shove I'll need to open a repair business ... need to talk to my employer.
The N6700b boots. some filler panels are on their way.
@ice-tea do you have spare modules ? I may show some interest ...

Pinball repair ... phoned my buddy in Rhein Main. The one that has all my stuff in storage. He'll rush me spares, they should be here Wednesday. That being the case I can postpone the tedious trace repair and can get the pin back to work.
the display of the flintstones pin died. need to debug the signal path. yay, I can finally utilize the M in the MSO.

picked up an asteroids arcade yesterday. photos will follow ...

[TERRA Operative]

I'm bleaching out the yellow from the buttons on the HP5335A at the moment. They were rather yellowed, more than the rest of my gear.
Seems 6% H2O2 is a bit difficult to come across in Japan, probably due to typical 'save everyone from themselves' regulations, but I found some in the end.

Just got the button caps in the good stuff on my hotplate at 50 degrees, apparently heat works well and UV isn't strictly needed. My results are so far looking good after a few hours, the yellowing is definitely fading.

Next, I'll try the front panel from the 5 1/4" floppy drive I just picked up.

[duckduck]

New acquisition:

Klein Tools ET600 Digital Insulation Resistance Tester

With all this talk of Portable Appliance Testers and such I had to get one of these. Saskia's was just the latest. I get all kinds of ancient and merely old electrical things and it would be nice to have some confidence, before I use them or release them back into the wild, that they are not electrical hazards. I looked at Megger but their brand is too well known to end up selling for cheap (for the models that I'd be interested in). I looked at the Fluke 1507 and Fluke 1503. I found an affordable 1503 on ebay but I know that I wouldn't ever be happy with it because it's not a 1507. I started looking at other brands until I saw the video for the Klein ET600. This video has what I'm willing to bet is the "best" sound track of any TE advertisement ever made. 



I found an ET600 on ebay for USD99 w/ free delivery and snapped it up. The screen has a few minor scratches from the leads but it appears otherwise completely new and unused. It came with new batteries installed. The supplied probes were still twist-tie wrapped and still had the banana plug covers. It's powered by 6xAA batteries and I haven't got that many NiMHs that are not already in service. Time to order some more. When the ET600 is switched to VAC measurement mode, it displays the battery voltage (see picture). How excellent is that? The batteries are accessed by unscrewing a single screw that screws into a brass insert. Also in there is an easily accessible ceramic fuse. The meter is very solid and the switch has very tactile and audible detents. The orange rubber is not removable, it's overmolded TPE. The backlight is very good. The ET600 is ETL/Intertek rated for 600V CAT IV and 1000V CAT III. Looks like they spot-welded the wire to each alligator clip. I haven't seen that before but it seems like a good way to assemble them. I tried to scrape one weld apart with a flat-head screwdriver and it didn't budge.

This is another piece of TE that is fun to play with around the house, keeping in mind that it seems entirely possible to kill yourself with it shock the hell out of yourself. I tested the toaster up to 1000V. My wife was unimpressed.

Megger has a nice guide to electrical insulation testing that is available as a PDF here: https://us.megger.com/promotion/vf/social-media/stitch-in-time-instant-download Any email address and country will take you straight to the download link - I am asdf@asdf.com from Antarctica.

Label printer:

I use a Brother PT-D210 with knock-off labels that are <50% of the price of the OEM ones. It takes a 9V wall wart or 6xAAA NiMH batteries. I put off buying a label printer for years because I am a tightwad but I could not imagine life without it now, if only for labeling switches/dials/inputs/outputs on my filled project enclosures.

EDIT:

9V, center negative is what all of the guitar stomp-boxes use. None of the cool kids would be caught dead using the OEM wall wart that came with a stomp box. The high-end pedals don't even bother including one. Of course I have about infinity-billion of those power supplies lying around in the man-cave like turtles on logs in the pond.

EDIT EDIT:

Was it the same wanketers that made the ad that named this thing a (D)igital (I)nsulation (R)esistance (T)ester?

EDIT^3:

Added picture of back of label printer showing that it's cool with "Ni-MH" batteries as Brother calls them.

EDIT^4:

I put 6xAA LSD NiMH in the ET600 and it seems to work fine. When I press the "TEST" button during an insulation test, the "low battery" icon shows, but goes away immediately thereafter.

[Vince]

Label printer:

I use a Brother PT-D210 with knock-off labels that are <50% of the price of the OEM ones. It takes a 9V wall wart or 6xAAA NiMH batteries. I put off buying a label printer for years because I am a tightwad but I could not imagine life without it now, if only for use in labeling switches/dials/inputs/outputs on my filled project enclosures.

Oh OK ! IT DOES work with rechargeable batteries in the end ! When the specs said " AAA " I assumed it meant "normal" AAA, not rechargeable.
OK so if it takes rechargeable batteries then that's much, much better...

PT-D210 that's exactly the model I showed earlier !
Except yours has cool colours, same as Kosmic's one.. but the D210 I see on sale here on that French website as you saw, is all black ! With fake carbon fiber bits to boot ! 

Would much prefer to have yours ! Will see if I can find one for sale elsewhere....

[Cubdriver]

I got the Tek 547 powered up today.  It's reasonably clean inside (Nixie started by giving it a cat scan when I took the side covers off, and no, it was not plugged in at this point.)


I brought it up slowly while monitoring current draw and didn't see anything too alarming, so played about for a few moments and got traces on the screen:


I then started looking at it with a thermal camera and saw some parts in the 'A' trigger section on the upper deck that seemed to be getting hotter than I thought they should be, so quickly shut it down for the time being so as not to smoke anything.  I need to check power rails and filtration, and figure out what's what before going further.  The good news is it at least came to life, so I figure that's a good start, and given how damp the place it'd been stored was, I wasn't expecting much.






(unfortunately the thermal camera's ability to fuse the visible and IR images is not so good at extreme close range due to parallax, so this leaves a bit to be desired.)


If my quickie attempts to trace the parts is correct, the really hot part at the center of the thermal images (the temps are in degrees F) is R233, the 10k resistor just above and to the right of Q234 on the schematic.  Doesn't seem to me that it should be getting anywhere near that hot.  Anywho - the misadventure begins...

-Pat

[Robert763]

The Signal Path has a new video on the HP 3400b

<SNIP>

I'm not that impressed. Using all ready built modules even for a unity gain op-amp buffer.  And why display dBm for three impedances at the same time? The input can only be across one impedance at a time so two redings are meaningless  Having the ability to set or select the impedance would make more sense.
Just because its easy to do in code does not make it a good idea.
And finally when did anyone see a 3400B for sale at a sensible price?

[tautech]

If my quickie attempts to trace the parts is correct, the really hot part at the center of the thermal images (the temps are in degrees F) is R233, the 10k resistor just above and to the right of Q234 on the schematic.  Doesn't seem to me that it should be getting anywhere near that hot.  Anywho - the misadventure begins...

Dud D245 zener ?
Had this in older stuff before......

[Robert763]

I'm bleaching out the yellow from the buttons on the HP5335A at the moment. They were rather yellowed, more than the rest of my gear.
Seems 6% H2O2 is a bit difficult to come across in Japan, probably due to typical 'save everyone from themselves' regulations, but I found some in the end.

Just got the button caps in the good stuff on my hotplate at 50 degrees, apparently heat works well and UV isn't strictly needed. My results are so far looking good after a few hours, the yellowing is definitely fading.

Next, I'll try the front panel from the 5 1/4" floppy drive I just picked up.

H₂O₂ restrictions are about saving people from terrorists

[Cubdriver]

If my quickie attempts to trace the parts is correct, the really hot part at the center of the thermal images (the temps are in degrees F) is R233, the 10k resistor just above and to the right of Q234 on the schematic.  Doesn't seem to me that it should be getting anywhere near that hot.  Anywho - the misadventure begins...

Dud D245 zener ?
Had this in older stuff before......

I think D245 is a tunnel diode - note the little wings on the symbol point the same way.  Regardless, I'll find and check it.

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

The Signal Path has a new video on the HP 3400b

<SNIP>

I'm not that impressed. Using all ready built modules even for a unity gain op-amp buffer.  And why display dBm for three impedances at the same time? The input can only be across one impedance at a time so two redings are meaningless  Having the ability to set or select the impedance would make more sense.
Just because its easy to do in code does not make it a good idea.
And finally when did anyone see a 3400B for sale at a sensible price?

You can rest assured that if you did in the past, you damned well won't won't ever again now that Shahriar has spoken about it.

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Starting in the mid 80s things improved radically. Out went the stuffy old concept of food...

Methinks this applies to large parts of Western Europe and has been helped a lot by holidays abroad teaching us about other cuisines as well as the arrival of foreign workers bringing their cooking with them. Suddenly, there were Italian, Spanish, Greek, Balkan, Indian and Turkish restaurants and takeaways and the indigenous population (i.e. us) discovered all the delicious things to be had there. This, in turn, influenced our own cooking and made for much more variety on our tables.

I can't speak for other parts of Europe.

I expect there are other factors as well, e.g. containerisation and air transport leading to better food availability, a new generation not having the WW2 mentality of restricted diets, more mobility as cars became ubiquitous, and I expect I could think of others.

[Vince]

I got the Tek 547 powered up today.  It's reasonably clean inside (Nixie started by giving it a cat scan when I took the side covers off, and no, it was not plugged in at this point.)

I then started looking at it with a thermal camera and saw some parts in the 'A' trigger section on the upper deck that seemed to be getting hotter than I thought they should be, so quickly shut it down for the time being so as not to smoke anything.  I need to check power rails and filtration, and figure out what's what before going further.  The good news is it at least came to life, so I figure that's a good start, and given how damp the place it'd been stored was, I wasn't expecting much.


If my quickie attempts to trace the parts is correct, the really hot part at the center of the thermal images (the temps are in degrees F) is R233, the 10k resistor just above and to the right of Q234 on the schematic.  Doesn't seem to me that it should be getting anywhere near that hot.  Anywho - the misadventure begins...

-Pat

You said it... the scope works just fine ! 

Maybe you are looking for problems that don't exist : put the covers back on so the cooling fan can do its job, and the temps will get to what they should be !   

 

I am staying tuned regardless, just in case there is indeed some problem I could learn something from.... because I too will have 547's to fix at some point, so need all the knowledge I can get !

So get cracking, troubleshoot and report !

[tautech]

If my quickie attempts to trace the parts is correct, the really hot part at the center of the thermal images (the temps are in degrees F) is R233, the 10k resistor just above and to the right of Q234 on the schematic.  Doesn't seem to me that it should be getting anywhere near that hot.  Anywho - the misadventure begins...

Dud D245 zener ?
Had this in older stuff before......

I think D245 is a tunnel diode - note the little wings on the symbol point the same way.  Regardless, I'll find and check it.

-Pat

Oh so it is, never met one face to face. This stuff unobtainium ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_diode#:~:text=A%20tunnel%20diode%20or%20Esaki,quantum%20mechanical%20effect%20called%20tunneling.&text=Tunnel%20diodes%20have%20a%20heavily,nm%20(100%20%C3%85)%20wide.

[TERRA Operative]

I'm bleaching out the yellow from the buttons on the HP5335A at the moment. They were rather yellowed, more than the rest of my gear.
Seems 6% H2O2 is a bit difficult to come across in Japan, probably due to typical 'save everyone from themselves' regulations, but I found some in the end.

Just got the button caps in the good stuff on my hotplate at 50 degrees, apparently heat works well and UV isn't strictly needed. My results are so far looking good after a few hours, the yellowing is definitely fading.

Next, I'll try the front panel from the 5 1/4" floppy drive I just picked up.

H₂O₂ restrictions are about saving people from terrorists

All those extremist hairdressers with bleached blonde hair.

[TERRA Operative]

I claim success on the H₂O₂ treatment.

The 5335A at the top is done, the 3325A at the bottom is untouched. The 5335A had noticeably worse yellowing than the 3325A too.

Now to either source a new front display window, or figure out how to apply white text to red perspex to DIY one myself...