Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[vk6zgo]

Hiding from the weather?

What weather ? 
21C currently and forecast of 24C. Forecast showers this arvo and 11km winds.

37C forecast today in Perth----A tad warm!

[vk6zgo]

Oh my cigarette flavour kitkat PROMs arrived from Russia about a week or two ago.



Finally got a chance to play with the ancient programmer at work in my lunchbreak this week, I took the two known good PROMs from the working 5340A & the 20 soviet PROMs with me.
Three of the soviet PROMS failed the blank check, two had code & the other was full of FFs.
The HP PROMS were then read and two copies of each created, during this process two chips refused to program with errors (making a total of five duds so far). I took pictures of the code as read in hexadecimal & verified them last night against binary code in the 5340A manual, they match perfectly , will try them in the faulty board at the weekend. 




P.S. from memory the programmer built into the 386 PC, is a variant of the UEI PC82 programmer shown here: http://matthieu.benoit.free.fr/120.htm
You might notice the built in Triniturd™ monitor has vertical deflection issues too, I suspect it's due to tired crapacitors, as it was worse when first switched on.

David

From memory, they get their 150 or so volts DC for the vertical output from an overwind on the EHT transformer---the filter cap or, more rarely, a tired rectifier diode in this circuit are likely culprits.
If the diode looks "suss", remember a replacement must be a "fast recovery" type----ordinary "garden type" diodes will get very hot, very quickly!

[vk6zgo]

I should really stop answering two & three day old postings, leading to nearly a whole page of just me! 

[mnementh]

Why stop now...? 

mnem
 

[tautech]

Hiding from the weather?

What weather ? 
21C currently and forecast of 24C. Forecast showers this arvo and 11km winds.

37C forecast today in Perth----A tad warm!

Prefect for consuming beers while on holiday over there.   
One Xmas we struck 42C and that was too warm. 30C overnights are misery.

Then we went a couple hours north and a bit inland to Calingari to see the wifes school buddy and it was 45C there !
You can stick that, and the wind was even hotter. 

[cyclin_al]

You, you ... labeller enablers ... I'll stick it to ya!
(For anyone else in the GWN, these labellers are half price this week at Staples.  Unfortunately, the label cassettes are regular price.)


A couple of days earlier, I ordered a bunch of cables.
The dozen Cat6 patch cables are for the new switch.
USB-C cables to go with SWMBO's new used cell phone.
USB-micro cables since SWMBO and the kid are always destroying them.
The BNC cables were filler to get free shipping, but I will try them out working on the RM564 and for something else to come...


EDIT:  I hope everyone on the other side of the pond weathers the storm okay!

[mansaxel]

I am pretty convinced we could have some issues with battery operation if it was considered. Power draw follows modulation, and that looks like it could be audible. Very obvious if one casually can pop in a large wiggly-meter DC current clamp instrument in the circuit.

Just out of curiosity... how much current draw are we talking here...?

Just because it won't run off a 9-volt battery doesn't mean battery power isn't a option any more.  I'm seeing now some very interesting cylindrical cells showing up at the pack-recycler shops...

No, it's not much. I've yet to pop The Expensive Chip in, but it hovers about 10-15mA, IIRC. Voltage does not vary, not with a hp 6206b driving it, of course, and the linear 1A supply I've built for Middle Boy won't budge either. Need to look over the power distribution on the board if this still an issue.

And I'm not a fan of 9V cell consumption. There is a standard power grid for stomp boxes, and you'd need an outlet for the amp anyway.

[Saskia]

need to assess storm damage. our trash can hut flew away ... don't know yet about the rest

[BU508A]

need to assess storm damage. our trash can hut flew away ... don't know yet about the rest

Sturmwichteln? 

[BU508A]

And here it is, as promised: teardown of my Rohde & Schwarz ADS dual channel arbitrary waveform generator (with option B1 - clock generator installed)

Link to the product side at R&S: ADS

Here are some specs:
- Output voltage 0 to 20V_pp, I_max = +/-100mA, 0 to 10V into 50 Ohm
- Sine 0.1 Hz to 5 MHz, Triangle 0.1 Hz to 100 kHz
- 12 bit amplitude resolution
- 64Kpoints waveform memory per channel
- 2 independent programmable channels
- Spectral purity - low distortion typ. -70dB

For more detailed information I've attached the brochure from R&S.

Okay, so let's start with the pictures.


Front and back view


The plastic of the handle is very brittle, broken foot (it was already like that, it was not due to the transport), nice attention to detail: foot folded in, foot folded out


Closer views of the backside. I like this massive heat sink. Another nice detail: massive EMC shielding everywhere.


Mains input, mains switch, very nice toroidal transformer, power supply unit with a nice copper bar


Top side overview, mainboard top side, mainboard bottom side - very nice are those testpoints for easy checking the power rail voltages


And some RF cableing, very well done (as to be expected from R&S)

Hope you've enjoyed this little teardown. I didn't want to remove the modules and take them apart, because I didn't want to touch the RF cableing (I'm not Shahriar after all  )

Thank you for watching.

[Brumby]

I should really stop answering two & three day old postings, leading to nearly a whole page of just me! 

Don't let that stop you.  We can't let the trans-Atlantic brethren have all the fun!


Besides, they're asleep when we're already into the next day, so I say Go For It!

[Robert763]

I'm not too fussed about being limited to data sheets in pdf form, what I miss are paper catalogues.

You could have no idea of what kind of connector might do the job you had on hand, sit down with something like the old Digikey catalog (sic), flip through and 20 minutes later you'd have made a decision. I went through that exercise with the on-line Digikey catalogue the other day, wasted half an hour, and decided I'd try again another day when I had a couple of hours to burn.

Also idle reading of catalogues could alert you to possibilities, parts and ideas you could mentally file away until you had a use for them. A website oriented to parametric searches does not make an interesting distraction when you're having a cup of coffee. I wonder if this kind of skill is disappearing along with others that don't fit a "digital first" world?

I have two additional issues with online catalogues. First is incorrect photos of items. In the old ctalogues they took a photo if the actual item and put it in, or no photo at all. And that ws with wet film. Now it seems to be acceptable to put any generic picture of a similar device on every listing. This is ofen worse than nothing as it can mislead. You connetor search is a particular case that suffers badly from this.
Second is searching for something you KNOW they sell but their fancy search systems won't find it.

[TERRA Operative]

So earlier I mentioned how the crystal on my Tek SG502 is faulty.

So I did what any sane person would do, I soured a Vectron 10MHz OCXO which I'll make an adapter/frequency divider board for.
I originally planned to use a standard crystal oscillator, but why use an XO when you can use an OCXO?! 

[AVGresponding]

Hiding from the weather?

What weather ? 
21C currently and forecast of 24C. Forecast showers this arvo and 11km winds.

Just don't go for a swim...

That's Aussie over in Sydney.
Pretty big shark apparently and although the poor chap swam there regularly there was big hungry shark hunting down schooling fish and he grabbed what he thought was a seal doing the same.....but it wasn't.

I expect it'll take a while for a final official version to be decided. Over here it's being reported as 4-5m, which is pretty small for a Great White isn't it, they can reach 10m?

[vk6zgo]

Hiding from the weather?

What weather ? 
21C currently and forecast of 24C. Forecast showers this arvo and 11km winds.

37C forecast today in Perth----A tad warm!

Prefect for consuming beers while on holiday over there.   
One Xmas we struck 42C and that was too warm. 30C overnights are misery.

Then we went a couple hours north and a bit inland to Calingari to see the wifes school buddy and it was 45C there !
You can stick that, and the wind was even hotter. 

One year, when i was still at TVW7, I was involved with the "Vines Classic" golf tournament.(before Melbourne stole it off us!)
 The OB van was set up in a nice, bare glaringly white, sandstone clearing.
 It was 42C the only time we checked, & felt hotter later.

One job I had was, along with a couple of others, shifting the full sized Sony Studio cameras from one pipework tower to another to
follow the players.

Sod of a job--the cameraman took the lens assembly off, handed it down, then we used a pulley to lower it down to the back of a ute, where a couple of us sat in the tray, steadying it, as we headed off to the next spot, where we reversed the procedure, then found a shrubby tree to sit under till it was time for the next move.

It actually felt cooler under the little trees!

There were several caches of bottled water, on ice, around the place, which we guzzled in large amounts.
After we finished for the day, there was free Heineken's beer, as they were a sponsor!

[Neper]

Here's a bit of audio from Eunice, last night around 8 p.m., while the local airport reported gusts around 100 km/h.

https://aporee.org/maps/?loc=55642&snd=63604

[tggzzz]

Also idle reading of catalogues could alert you to possibilities, parts and ideas you could mentally file away until you had a use for them. A website oriented to parametric searches does not make an interesting distraction when you're having a cup of coffee. I wonder if this kind of skill is disappearing along with others that don't fit a "digital first" world?

Yes, I miss browsing too; searching isn't the same. I remember reading the entire RS catalogue and finding the characteristics of different capacitors.

The same is true of small bookshops, where it is possible to scan the spines of all books on n a couple of hours.

[Robert763]

<SNIP>


Just out of curiosity... how much current draw are we talking here...?

Just because it won't run off a 9-volt battery doesn't mean battery power isn't a option any more.  I'm seeing now some very interesting cylindrical cells showing up at the pack-recycler shops...

https://batteryhookup.com/

mnem
 

That's an interesting site. How do they ship "10 pounds of mixed used Batteries" and "possibly loose cells"? Sounds like a fire waiting to happen  . It would certainly be illegal to ship it by air.

[Ice-Tea]

Also idle reading of catalogues could alert you to possibilities, parts and ideas you could mentally file away until you had a use for them. A website oriented to parametric searches does not make an interesting distraction when you're having a cup of coffee. I wonder if this kind of skill is disappearing along with others that don't fit a "digital first" world?

Yes, I miss browsing too; searching isn't the same. I remember reading the entire RS catalogue and finding the characteristics of different capacitors.

Worst offender: Phoenix Contact. They replaced excellent (free) catalogues with a stinking pile of horse shit (their website).

[mansaxel]

Also idle reading of catalogues could alert you to possibilities, parts and ideas you could mentally file away until you had a use for them. A website oriented to parametric searches does not make an interesting distraction when you're having a cup of coffee. I wonder if this kind of skill is disappearing along with others that don't fit a "digital first" world?

Yes, I miss browsing too; searching isn't the same. I remember reading the entire RS catalogue and finding the characteristics of different capacitors.

Worst offender: Phoenix Contact. They replaced excellent (free) catalogues with a stinking pile of horse shit (their website).

I still have:

Ericsson Components 1998
Elfa  (Now Distrelec), one of the last editions
SKF Main Catalogue
[hp] 1984 measurement catalog
Canford Audio 2006/2007
Schroff (from before the Pentair epoque)


I rarely refer to them, but having them is really nice. Especially for complex systems like MS-5015 connectors and similar.

[m k]

Linus likes it so much he invested $250K in the company.

mnem
*noshing on a bowl of steamed stir-fry veggies*

Modular high-volume electronics rarely work. It's even a huge challenge for high-margin stuff like T&M gear. I wouldn't sink a penny in that project.

I know time is short for most of us in here... but if you'd even skimmed the vid, you'd know that the modular ports are literally the least of the features.

I watched the video when it came out. I'm aware. I used to sell hundreds of laptop vdeo cards for the upgrade market. I'm telling you it won't surive. Just like Project Ara didn't survive.

Back in the day DEC had a different philosophy, first software and then hardware.
It lasted up to VMS 4.7 since 5.0 was not backwards compatible anymore.
The problem was bus width.

I'd say that Project Ara was too early.
Now we have USB-C and maximum CPU clock speed is pretty much here.
Maybe we are ready to try again.
But it must be without tools and survive rough handling.

Nowadays phones have that bulky camera part.
That is good, shape is regular and accepted.
With bigger gadgets space is not a problem but camera objective through the case is since I don't believe that outer legos will be accepted.

With laptop I'd start from casing and kick out that overly thin attitude.
One good starting point could be a shape of a regular butterfly hinge.
The bulky part would have battery cells and the backplane.
Wings then could be empty frames or holsters parting and opening from inner side, keyboard and pad don't need wires, induction is enough but display needs a connector that is not at the end of thin wires.

On the other hand, things are pretty long lasting, at least here.
If software makers could care we wouldn't need any hardware updates for long time, maybe so long that hardware makers wouldn't be anymore.

[m k]

snip....

BTW,
some PP stuff.
Signal generators and spectrum analyzers okay, but resistance calibrator, and then AC calibrator.
Must be a collector fight, there is still time though.
Then what's wrong with counters, everybody already have one?

Only bought one 9835 Racal counter here  , a probably knackered Huntron tracker  , Tek 453 scope, the pile of HP 180/182 scope remains, some GR cables (in a box of crap), the HP 651B oscilloscope , a test set No1 lamp foot and finally got a HP 10020A probe set (missed the one last week on ePay).
Missed out on several relisted lots that "stream" didn't complete sale on last time & "LED" won this time, bet they will get relisted again.

David

And literature, what about the literature.
(and some I don't understand even with google)

Ah yes I forgot a couple of lots, the pile of databooks that didn't sell in the last auction, thought I would take a punt on them as the description mentioned HP, which as none of the books are HP, must mean that the trio of folders have something HP in them (I had a PM that they might be HP journals).
The semiconductor data books will be useful too, kind of miss not being able to use the library at work, much prefer paper for this; than crappy unreadable scanned pdfs on the phone, or data archive websites that promise but fail to deliver. 

P.S. Other lots I forgot, were another Systron/Datapulse pulse gen type 88, the cox 303 TV related coder thingy for opening price and the HP storage normalizer, no idea if it has the card for the Spec An or Network An, but it does have the interconnect cable, think Ice Tea got the 180T SA with the matching connector on the back (went way above my bid limit), no idea if any of the 180/182 frames on the parts heap lot have this. 

David

So Cox was a TV thing, my google was all over the place.
Storage normalizer at least had hits that hit, but practicalities of unknown area are difficult, even with manual.
My spectrum analyzing have been merely spotting a transmitter around generally accepted frequency and receiver being DVB TV-dongle with usual "dipole" antenna of stripped coax adjusted with pliers.

BTW,
Maybe the monitor has a V-lin pot you can still twist a bit.
Is it special?
Flat screen would be more practical.

BTW2,
I'm sure Vince disappeared before the storm.

[AVGresponding]

Quick question (I hope), what type of crimp terminal do I need to search for here?



From a haul of test leads and grabbers I scored the other day, this one fits the HP and Tektronix grabbers, it's just a round crimp with heatshrink on the outside. The cheaper ZeroPlus and TTi grabbers all use a square DuPont type. As you can see, the Mtutoyo says an OD of 0.087" give or take.

[mnementh]

You, you ... labeller enablers ... I'll stick it to ya!
(For anyone else in the GWN, these labellers are half price this week at Staples.  Unfortunately, the label cassettes are regular price.)   

Guilty as charged. 

Yup... this was exactly the case when I bought mine... $12 for the labeler, $26 in cartridges.  Using Princess Carly's printer/ink cartridges business model, I'll wager...   

mnem

[factory]

Oh my cigarette flavour kitkat PROMs arrived from Russia about a week or two ago.


Finally got a chance to play with the ancient programmer at work in my lunchbreak this week, I took the two known good PROMs from the working 5340A & the 20 soviet PROMs with me.
Three of the soviet PROMS failed the blank check, two had code & the other was full of FFs.
The HP PROMS were then read and two copies of each created, during this process two chips refused to program with errors (making a total of five duds so far). I took pictures of the code as read in hexadecimal & verified them last night against binary code in the 5340A manual, they match perfectly , will try them in the faulty board at the weekend. 


P.S. from memory the programmer built into the 386 PC, is a variant of the UEI PC82 programmer shown here: http://matthieu.benoit.free.fr/120.htm
You might notice the built in Triniturd™ monitor has vertical deflection issues too, I suspect it's due to tired crapacitors, as it was worse when first switched on.

David

From memory, they get their 150 or so volts DC for the vertical output from an overwind on the EHT transformer---the filter cap or, more rarely, a tired rectifier diode in this circuit are likely culprits.
If the diode looks "suss", remember a replacement must be a "fast recovery" type----ordinary "garden type" diodes will get very hot, very quickly!

Would like to find out & fix it, but sadly the PC isn't mine, secondly they still don't want to sell any redundant stuff.
A few years ago we had space to pull stuff like that apart & leave it apart until parts had arrived, now we only have one bench, no storage space and a tiny amount of parts for the one product we still repair.
From memory the Trintron label was visible when I pulled out the computer PSU, for repair some years ago, it required some fresh capacitors, this corrected the text/graphic glitches from the PC. The monitor might be running from the 12V rail of the PSU, but I've never attempted to remove the monitor board.
The PC motherboard probably wants the Ni-Cd battery replacing too, before leakage eats the traces away, this has the HDD & floppy drives and programmer boards stacked on top, so not a quick job.

I just hope they change their mind, preferably before they let a clueless apprentice loose, to clear the storeroom. Which in three years of my absence, has become a complete mess, with people searching through stuff & leaving it all over the place & floor, plus calibration piling broken modern stuff in there, instead of chucking it.

David