Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Hmmm. Not my thing, but it's rare to see this sort of thing pop up on Yahoo Auctions..
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k1036023907


Just won this though, a Tek P6401 Logic Probe
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w1035072937


I'll poke away at the Tek P6247 1GHz differential probe I recently won later to test it and try to get it tweaked into spec (if needed).
Tonight I've been having a go at the cheap HP 355C step attenuator, seems someone has had a go at it before and replaced a BNC and I also found a resistor cracked. On top of that, I measured the resistances to find almost all are waayy out of spec, so new resistors will be eventually ordered.

That Type 585A looks like it came from the factory yesterday. If it were here I'd be very tempted but I have no room (Yea, right  ).

[mnementh]

Ah, a decent ad just popped up here, when I search for "frequency meters ", albeit in French.      

At those prices, buy now, ask questions later. Seriously. You will regret not doing so for years and years, just like I regret letting that $200 Lilliput scope from Arrow slip by. (Old war story )

As for your component storage via little envelopes... Before I started using plastic shoe boxes as they are more stackable, I used trading card boxes and dividers between crack baggies the same way as you're using your little box. The insides of the box are usually approx 65-70mm by 100-110mm amd they're cheap, like $3-5 each at the local card shop. You'll probably want the ones where the orientation is vertical; for some reason those aren't as common now as they used to be and you have to get two-row boxes to get that:



mnem
*sort-ily*

[Saskia]

Back............
Bit of a shit fishing trip with the first day of the 4 day comp cancelled due to inclement weather......blowing like hell !
Still, it was nice to spend time with the cuz and his mates at the premier NZ game fishing location of Russell and their wonderful 100 year old clubrooms.
Once out on the briny I still managed to keep my reputation of #1 berley layer despite the so called magic anti-seasick pills administered but a double dose on the second day had the desired effect. 

But despite our best efforts including copious quantities of ground bait from yours truly we didn't place in this years comp other than a couple of minor individual prizes, last marlin caught and tagged in the comp and best other species with a measly 8.5kg Albacore landed on 37kg tackle by tautech ! 

Pretty flash boat the cuz owns, 51ft with stabilizers powered by 2 thirsty 1000hp CAT's.
A couple of pics for your enjoyment.

this looks like sushi ....

[Robert763]

Just won this HP linear power supply --> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393906153348

1812A....  serial number.      +6V 1A  and +/- 18V 200mA.   The 18V supplies have adjustable tracking.   

I'll post again after it arrives.

I very nearly bid that up for you....

[Andrew_Debbie]

I've been working on a few design exercises that might be useful for TE.   - They are all 50x100 or 100x100mm with common screw hole locations.  There is a matching set of 50x100 and 100x100 blank plates, which serve as a cheap alternative to a case.  (boards go on standoffs, screw into plates...)

The first is a flexible buck-boost -> linear supply.   I built it as 5V and 3.3V but other voltages are possible by changing a couple of parts.      Had to order the LTC3130 and the inductor from the manufacturers.   Been ages since I soldered anything this small.





It works.





 

[Cerebus]

... is to grab the stag by the antlers (Swedish proverb for Doing It Right) ...

English idiom: "[to] Grab the Bull by the horns". To undertake a difficult or unpleasant task by taking immediate action, or the first [difficult] step. It has the implication that once the first step is taken the rest must follow, sometimes with bad consequences if one does not see the task through to completion. Also has the implication that it is the opposite of procrastinating around a difficult or unpleasant task.

[mnementh]

In Other News...

      

Went on a little road trip widda boi this morning; picked up some grillification found on CraigsList. Looks quite promising; mostly stainless and porcelain/cast iron. SS burners and cast iron/porcelain grates all in good shape; I may replace those crusty/rusty side panels and add the side burner kit depending on what they cost.   

Fella sold it to me for $50; it was replaced by SWMBO when WAF dropped to negative numbers after a fireball/lost eyebrows incident due to faulty igniters. 

I might not miss my old Broil-King after I have this one fixxored up.

mnem

[Specmaster]

In Other News...

      

Went on a little road trip widda boi this morning; picked up some grillification found on CraigsList. Looks quite promising; mostly stainless and porcelain/cast iron. SS burners and cast iron/porcelain grates all in good shape; I may replace those crusty/rusty side panels and add the side burner kit depending on what they cost.   

Fella sold it to me for $50; it was replaced by SWMBO when WAF dropped to negative numbers after a fireball/lost eyebrows incident due to faulty igniters. 

I might not miss my old Broil-King after I have this one fixxored up.

mnem

Now thats what I call a grill 

[Cerebus]

Fella sold it to me for $50; it was replaced by SWMBO when WAF dropped to negative numbers after a fireball/lost eyebrows incident due to faulty igniters. 

I'm imagining a combination of



with this

[mnementh]

Everything in my breakfast tacos is on my Hard Keto diet. The tortillas are lo-carb/hi-fiber, 4 grams net each. 1 gram for the heavy cream, 2 grams for the eggs. I still have 4-9 grams left for the rest of the day. 780 calories total, of 1500 daily.

Have you considered not using the heavy cream?

I prefer sour cream, creme fraiche, or plain yogurt, all of which have more taste so you can use less.

Context dear boy, you're advocating using those in coffee. That registers somewhere between "Yuck!" and "Die, coffee adulterating philistine!". Mind you, so does adding cream to coffee in my book, but that's a matter of taste, whereas putting yogurt in it would fit more into the category of "terminal lack of taste".

In that case add yak butter and salt, as per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_tea

Yakko butt...? 

Okay, if you say so...      

mnem
butt why...?   

[ch_scr]

I've been working on a few design exercises that might be useful for TE.   - They are all 50x100 or 100x100mm with common screw hole locations.  There is a matching set of 50x100 and 100x100 blank plates, which serve as a cheap alternative to a case.  (boards go on standoffs, screw into plates...)

The first is a flexible buck-boost -> linear supply.   I built it as 5V and 3.3V but other voltages are possible by changing a couple of parts.      Had to order the LTC3130 and the inductor from the manufacturers.   Been ages since I soldered anything this small.

It works.

That is quite a beautiful thing you built there! 

[Vince]

Ah, a decent ad just popped up here, when I search for "frequency meters ", albeit in French.      

At those prices, buy now, ask questions later. Seriously. You will regret not doing so for years and years, just like I regret letting that $200 Lilliput scope from Arrow slip by. (Old war story )

Nah... been thinking about it overnight... and looked at the service manual.
I think I have managed to come to my senses, for a change.
This counter is expensive for what it offers : a bulky, heavy, low spec low feature a DEFECTIVE counter... for 75 EUros + 7 for shipping and fees, so about 100 bucks.
My current daily driver, good old NIxie counter is better in every way and is already paid for.

- Faster : 160MHz vs 100MHz (RACAL has no RF inpuit, not populated).
- Data output (printer/recorder connector), RACAL does not, GPIB is not installed.
- It works, RACAL is clearly defective, a seller is covering his ass.

RACAL is STILL not sold, which means by now, that nobody wnats it, so even if I managed to fix it, for free, I still could not sell it, never mind make any decent profit on it.

So that means I would have to buy it out of sheer love for its industrial design, only, and nothing else... and I just don't like it that much, especially not when I my wallet is running drier and drier every months, it's pure folly.

I would have bought 4 years ago, when I was initially searching for decent broken pieces of TE under 100 Euros to equip my lab.
4 years later I am past this stage. Now if I buy old  stuff it's purely for sex appeal, like my old Nixie TE typically, or the glowing Tek scopes... and even then, the lack of funds and storage space make me more and more critical of what I bug and at what price. It's not open bar anymore so to speak. I have become choosy.
I am trying to become rational. I can't justify buying XXX old defective low/average spec counter, for 75/100 Euros, and then at the same time say I don't have 400/500 to spend on what I really want, a more modern VFD HP compact counter, whatever the model number I can never remember it.  Don't have 500 for it ? Yeah but then why did you spend 750 on half a dozen old lesser counters that you don't even use ?  See ? At some point I have to act rationally or I will forever stack up old stuff and never have the more modern gear I aspire too.

I now think twice before buying, weigh the pros and cons...

This particular counter doesn't fit anywhere in my plan. Not old enough to be bought on industrial design alone, yet not modern enough to offer a compelling performance or feature improvement over my current gear. It's "in between". It's not cheap enough either to be bought in the " at that price what the hell " category either. 100 bucks might be cheap for a dragon in the USA, it's not here. It's quite a bit of money here for the average joe like me.. especially when jobless and almost broke with only 600 Euros left in the bank as of this morning.

Nah. The Tek 575 tube curve tracer yes, it was worth the financial effort and long drive. But not this counter.

Sue me.

Of course if someone wants it I can help...

As for your component storage via little envelopes... Before I started using plastic shoe boxes as they are more stackable, I used trading card boxes and dividers between crack baggies the same way as you're using your little box. The insides of the box are usually approx 65-70mm by 100-110mm amd they're cheap, like $3-5 each at the local card shop. You'll probably want the ones where the orientation is vertical; for some reason those aren't as common now as they used to be and you have to get two-row boxes to get that:



mnem
*sort-ily*

Hmmm yes, a dedicated box would be cool for sure ! Too old in this day and age to be available off the shelves in physical store I would imagine, but maybe there is a seller somewhere on EBay or amazon who still sells these things...

[mnementh]

Mnem, because of my diabetes, my coffee has Truvia and unsweetened almond milk in it.  I have grown to quite like it.   I put the leftover coffee into a large glass, adulterate it and let it chill in the fridge overnight.  I will do what I need to get off my meds in the next 6 months, already had my Metformin reduced by half in the past 3 months and my A1c is 5.1.

As of a couple months before we left Canada, I'm still not diabetic; I'd done a week of morning/bedtime glucose and well normal. Of course I know that even if I'm not diabetic yet, at my weight and age I am on the waiting list; hence jumping back on the hard keto as it is the only diet I've ever been able to stay on long enough to actually lose an appreciable amount of weight.

At this point, losing the weight has to be priority one... I can deal with the other problems once I'm not staring down a very short and miserable existence of dialysis and congestive heart failure incursions.

I've tried almond milk and quite frankly, I'd rather give up coffee. I believe I'm allergic; it gives me cramps. I've been considering Stevia, but have been hesitant since a similarly bad experience with Agave. *blerk* That stuff is for people who don't like sweets in the first place. 

mnem
 

[Vince]

I've been working on a few design exercises that might be useful for TE.   - They are all 50x100 or 100x100mm with common screw hole locations.  There is a matching set of 50x100 and 100x100 blank plates, which serve as a cheap alternative to a case.  (boards go on standoffs, screw into plates...)

The first is a flexible buck-boost -> linear supply.   I built it as 5V and 3.3V but other voltages are possible by changing a couple of parts.      Had to order the LTC3130 and the inductor from the manufacturers.   Been ages since I soldered anything this small.

It works.

That is quite a beautiful thing you built there! 

A very sexy girly thing as well, with this big pink stick...

[mnementh]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

The recent marlin is here. They have split out the premade configurations into it's own thing over here.
Edit: I've only compiled firmware in the Arduino software, but adding support for 32bit boards might be a bit convoluted or at least has been in the past. I guess that's why they do it with platform.io? Not 100% sure on "the path of least resistance" TBH, have not looked into the 32bit side of things recently.

Recent versions of Marlin are 32-bit and no longer use ArduIDE, but PlatformIO. As I said earlier; not at all comfortable with that, so haven't fucked around with my CR-6SE yet.

I will look into Klipper; that resonance tuning would be a godsend on my floopy old Tornado.

mnem
 

[ch_scr]

I've been working on a few design exercises that might be useful for TE.   - They are all 50x100 or 100x100mm with common screw hole locations.  There is a matching set of 50x100 and 100x100 blank plates, which serve as a cheap alternative to a case.  (boards go on standoffs, screw into plates...)

The first is a flexible buck-boost -> linear supply.   I built it as 5V and 3.3V but other voltages are possible by changing a couple of parts.      Had to order the LTC3130 and the inductor from the manufacturers.   Been ages since I soldered anything this small.

It works.

That is quite a beautiful thing you built there! 

A very sexy girly thing as well, with this big pink stick...

Come on, they come in all shapes and sizes! ...and colours, I guess 

[mnementh]

Fella sold it to me for $50; it was replaced by SWMBO when WAF dropped to negative numbers after a fireball/lost eyebrows incident due to faulty igniters. 

I'm imagining a combination of       with this   

LOL... there may be a grain of truth in that; evidently the incident happened to SWMBO herself, not the hubby.

mnem
*has fond memories of several coed college nekkid barbeques* Hey... flaunt it while you still got it. 

[Cerebus]

Because who doesn't like seeing explosive demolition:





I apologise for including GBnews content, a channel that is the televisual equivalent of the Daily Facist Mail, but in my defence they on this occasion have the best footage. They probably aired it by mistake, believing it was footage of some Brave British sappers destroying a Jerry bridge. (For them there's no cognitive dissonance between treating Germany like an enemy and, like their spiritual forebears the Daily Mail, giving tacit approval to the modern equivalents of Oswald Mosley and the AfD.)

[mnementh]

At those prices, buy now, ask questions later. Seriously. You will regret not doing so for years and years, just like I regret letting that $200 Lilliput scope from Arrow slip by. (Old war story )

Nah... been thinking about it overnight... and looked at the service manual. I think I have managed to come to my senses, for a change...

Honestly, I was suggesting you should lay down a deal for both; they were from the same seller, right? I read that the meter now shows as sale pending or whatever... too bad. That was a good enough deal even the cheap-arse dwagon woulda jumped.

As for your component storage via little envelopes... Before I started using plastic shoe boxes as they are more stackable, I used trading card boxes and dividers between crack baggies the same way as you're using your little box. The insides of the box are usually approx 65-70mm by 100-110mm amd they're cheap, like $3-5 each at the local card shop...

Hmmm yes, a dedicated box would be cool for sure ! Too old in this day and age to be available off the shelves in physical store I would imagine, but maybe there is a seller somewhere on EBay or amazon who still sells these things...

LOL... hardly. CCGs like YuGiOh! and Pokemon are huge business everywhere they have chiddlers and teens. I have no doubt there are comic book and card shops near to you, even if your little corner of civilization actually is as benighted as you paint it to be.

Hell, I might even get back into Pokemon widda boi here... it's a nice low-stress alternative to twiddling game controllers so I can spend time with him while he still wants to hang widda old man.

mnem
*tzzzzzzt*

[Zucca]

I just found out about Klipper as alternative to Marlin.
Looks good.

Interestingly enough, almost all the "Speedboatracers" (Print a benchy in the shortest time) use klipper -
because they implement a lot of very advanced software features. Relevant on the speed front is "Resonance compensation"
aka "Input shaper" where they filter the frequencys of the printer mechanical resonance from the motor movement inputs
They have other stuff too, like a pretty good delta printer "autocalibration". Originally came in contact with them as the only way
to get my delta printing with the original atmega board, turns out it was too slow to calculate all the basic delta movement stuff on its own. That problem took a loooooong while to figure out. Figuring out my prints came out mirrored because the motors were connected x - y - z in anticlockwise instead of clockwise direction (in a delta they all sit in the base) was easy in comparison 

Hey mnem and ch_scr and all the 3DP gang jump here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/3d-printing/marlin-vs-klipper/
to discuss.
the more I investigate about Klipper the more I am drooling. The concept is so easy and ingenious at the same time it is hard to believe.

[Zucca]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

New rabbit hole, new frustration... Installed VSCode, Platformio, lots of libraries, downloaded Marlin 2.0.9 and.... Compiling the software even without changing anything results in a failed compile with multiple errors that all mean nothing to me Tried the bugfix version, same result with different errors.

McBryce.

Good, since from your past posts you can master Linux, why do not go straight to Klipper?
I am sure you have an old pc or a terrible raspi to attach to your printer.

[Andrew_Debbie]

Come on, they come in all shapes and sizes! ...and colours, I guess 

 The "LiitoKala" cell is a fake.

[tautech]

Back............
Bit of a shit fishing trip with the first day of the 4 day comp cancelled due to inclement weather......blowing like hell !
Still, it was nice to spend time with the cuz and his mates at the premier NZ game fishing location of Russell and their wonderful 100 year old clubrooms.
Once out on the briny I still managed to keep my reputation of #1 berley layer despite the so called magic anti-seasick pills administered but a double dose on the second day had the desired effect. 

But despite our best efforts including copious quantities of ground bait from yours truly we didn't place in this years comp other than a couple of minor individual prizes, last marlin caught and tagged in the comp and best other species with a measly 8.5kg Albacore landed on 37kg tackle by tautech ! 

Pretty flash boat the cuz owns, 51ft with stabilizers powered by 2 thirsty 1000hp CAT's.
A couple of pics for your enjoyment.

this looks like sushi ....

My first thoughts too however following conversations with our very experienced game fishing deckie revealed Albacore are white fleshed not clear like most other fish species. 
So it was gifted to the skipper for bait for his lobster pots as it had spent a day on ice before we returned to the club weigh station for official weighing so to be eligible for a prize.....apparently we had 7.5kg to beat we had heard over the radio.
2nd time tautech has taken away the best other species at this comp and although 8.5kg is puny at least it's a proper game fish and not some damn shark....yes they also qualify. 

Last time was a decent catch and certainly was consumed and large enough to be spread around for others to enjoy.

[Zucca]

Come on, they come in all shapes and sizes! ...and colours, I guess 

 The "LiitoKala" cell is a fake.

All the people who put those batteries on the market will burn in a liion failed cell fire for eternity.

[med6753]

More tant hunting on the 7B92 plug-in. This time on the Trigger boards. Maybe get lucky again. Alas, not in the cards this time. They all appear to be OK. It's apparent I'll need a 7000 series plug-in extender if I want to have any decent shot at fixing this plug-in. But that's low priority right now. This plug-in will stay in the repair queue.