Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

I used those all the time when I was working on the Bristol buses during my apprenticeship. Many items on buses used to be wired like that for maximum safety. I haven't seen any of those recently though, are they still used?

Go to any racing circuit or aerodrome maintenance shop and you'll find a pair and a bale of lockwire. You probably won't find them in a bus garage shop anymore as they seem to have moved to lockwashers with plastic indicators, certainly for wheels and I've seen a few on a bus engine too. In motor racing lockwashers have always been acceptable too, but people didn't like them because scrutineers could miss them, fail a vehicle, and then have to be dragged back after an appeal to have the lockwasher pointed out - it's difficult to miss a string of lockwire.

Hmm, I'll have to look around a bit more next time I'm in the Aircraft hangar at North Weald helping out with the war birds or working on the old Massey tractor then. I certainly don't recall spotting any wire locking in evidance, or the reels of wire.

[Robert763]

I used those all the time when I was working on the Bristol buses during my apprenticeship. Many items on buses used to be wired like that for maximum safety. I haven't seen any of those recently though, are they still used?

Go to any racing circuit or aerodrome maintenance shop and you'll find a pair and a bale of lockwire. You probably won't find them in a bus garage shop anymore as they seem to have moved to lockwashers with plastic indicators, certainly for wheels and I've seen a few on a bus engine too. In motor racing lockwashers have always been acceptable too, but people didn't like them because scrutineers could miss them, fail a vehicle, and then have to be dragged back after an appeal to have the lockwasher pointed out - it's difficult to miss a string of lockwire.

Hmm, I'll have to look around a bit more next time I'm in the Aircraft hangar at North Weald helping out with the war birds or working on the old Massey tractor then. I certainly don't recall spotting any wire locking in evidance, or the reels of wire.

Warbirds are typically covered with wirelocking. Pipe couplings, controls rod / wire fittings and tensioners, electrical connectors. Even some structural fasteners.

[BU508A]

Fun to watch: Marius Hornberger did some improvements on his CNC router machine.

[Vince]

... 54645D ...

I have this exact model and it is my go-to 'scope. You can even play Tetris on it 

Dear Judge, I plead guilty ...      Dunno who was first, HPAK or /me   My sin dates 2003, ballpark

Tetris? Asteroids!   https://youtu.be/hvfiwaboLK0

https://youtu.be/1uvKQ5nbClo   Honey Badger FTW!!! 

mnem
That reminds me... I really need to get that GPIB module cleaned up and installed; I might have Tetris too, then...

Oh... so not all scopes were shipped with the same egg then, there were several of them ?! ... and you can change it via GPIB cool......
How nice from HP.  Well I guess they didn't "allow" for that... but some bloke must have reverse engineered it I guess... he found the memory space where the egg was stored and we can use generic memory access GPIB routines to read that region of emory space to pull the egg, then write another egg to the same place... Hmmm need a GPIB module as well then... Can't wait to see what egg will be in my scope...

Nope. Those eastereggs were all from the HP engineering Dept; you can see the credits at the end of the games and right there in my Honey Badger graphic. They realized there was free space in the ROM of the scope and the GPIB adapters, and they had approval from the company to produce them.

It was still at least somewhat "Bill & Dave's HP" back then buddy.

mnem
*toddles off to do something constructive*

OHHHH........ OK. Looks like there is some misunderstanding here from both sides ! 

I mean... I never meant to say that these extra eggs were coded / created by HPAK nerds. What I meant was that it looks like there are  2 or 3 eggs (or whatever) but I assumed HP at the factory would ship scopes with any one of those eggs, randomly, so the end user would get one of the 3 (if there are 3 in total, whatever). Like, I don't know, HP decided that Week #1 they would flash egg #1 into the scopes/motherboard F/W, then Week #2 they would ship the scopes with egg #2, then Week #3  with egg #3 then go back to egg #1 and cycle like that....

So I thought that HPAK users today would use GPIB to pull the F/W from their scope, figure out where in memory the egg resides, pull it, upload it to their favorite HPAK forum/server, then every one with an HP scope could go download the eggs he does not have in his scope, and reflash his F/W via GPIB to overwrite his egg with another one ?

Like, say your scope came with Tetris, but you would like to have Asteroid. So you go to the HPAK forum, you download the binary blob for Asteroid, and flash that into your scope via GPIB. over writing your Tetris egg.

But... from what you say, do you mean that it's not like that at all... looks like you mean GPIB is not used as a means to flash a new egg into the scope F/W, no sounds like you mean the GPIB module ITSELF contains a ROM that contains an egg ? So if you plug that GPIB module, the scope can either, using different magic key sequences, either display the scopes's own egg, or go get the one that's stored inside the GPIB module ?? Is that it ? Do I get that right now or ?? 

I guess there are other modules available than just GPIB... does each type of module contain its own egg ? Or was GPIB the only module that had one ?

These 546xx scopes look like a lot of fun... can't wait to receive mine and play with it !!! 

[25 CPS]

I stopped by a clearance place that had these Fluke laser distance measurers listed for sale on the way to football practice yesterday afternoon and picked one up:



This should be fun to play with.  I'm going to take it outside and do some measurements in the back yard later once the sun's set and it'll be easier to see the marker dot.

[mnementh]

mnem
Only 40 degrees more... errr, less...

Well, actually more like 1.5 days I think, but whatevs. Proper "deep-freeze" territory is 0° to -30° Funkentstört; so officially there, but just. It's been pretty humid, so I'm just gonna keep the door closed for another day and see... 



Aaaand... typical Windoze Install: Default driver package for latest build support 15-year-old USB CDROM and Apple Mouse, but not internal SATA-6 SATA III CDROM and touchpad. On a 4-year-old laptop that came with Win10.

mnem

[Vince]

SATA 6 ?!   

Boy I stopped at SATA 2 when I built my computer 15 years ago, things have been marching on I see, need to catch up !

[25 CPS]

I was checking some stuff online about that football game online and what shows up on Facebook?  That Agilent U1253B I never heard back about.  I know it's the same ad that I replied to since it has a "Message Again" button that pops up the chat with the two messages I sent previously that are still unacknowledged.  I'm a bit puzzled why the ad vanished and couldn't be found and has since resurfaced.  I've never sold anything on Facebook Marketplace so I don't know if you can temporarily suspend a listing from being active and then reinstate it later.

"Message Again"  It wouldn't be much effort to type something and hit send but I'm not even sure I'm going to bother.

Edit:  If that guy wanted money for that meter, he could've had cash in hand from me a week ago.  Truthfully, ever since it became clear my messages were vanishing into nowhere, I have been thinking about ordering the U1253B package from Transcat since that'd come with a warranty, current calibration, fresh OLED display, plus the carry case etc.

[Cubdriver]

New hardware mangulatin' instruments have all arrived:





-Pat

[bd139]

Ah-ha. Mine have arrived too courtesy Amazon. Very happy 



Absolutely bog standard generic pliers but aren't made out of "bendium" like the Clarke ones are or "snapium" like the Piergiacomis are 

[mnementh]

Nothin in the cabinet. See sketch from pole piig to drier. If neutral fails ALL the house (phase A) loads will return via the link in the dryer (and the dryer cord) even if the dryer is not in use. No fuse protection either

Your diagram doesn't exactly represent real-world conditions; this is more like reality. We'll ignore the CBs at the panel for the sake of this example, which may or may not trip, particularly if GFCI.

There is no GND at the cabinet unless it's brought there within the power cord. The dryer sits on plastic feet, on a non-conductive floor, etc. This is a house, not a airplane. 

That path to GND through the cabinet does not exist unless you happen to jam the dryer up against a grounded metal electrical box or pipes, as I said earlier.

This means the condition you describe can really only exist if:

A) you have the NEUTRAL wire fail at the MAINS in the CB box
and
B) a 4-wire plug is used
and
C) the thin green/yellow PG jumper is left connected in between.

Which part C we've repeatedly stated wasn't done, and we all know is wrong.

The path from to the GND/NEUTRAL bus in the CB panel circled in green here does not exist UNLESS the 4-wire cord is used; with the 3-wire cord, your Neutral and "GND" are the same leg.

For it to matter with a 3-wire cord, you'd have to improperly wire with the NEUTRAL wire at the cabinet and leave the thin green/yellow PG jumper to the NEUTRAL bus in the terminal strip, as I stated before.

mnem
*nuking a SSD with Win10 for fun & profit*

[mnementh]

SATA 6 ?!   

Boy I stopped at SATA 2 when I built my computer 15 years ago, things have been marching on I see, need to catch up !

Naaahhh... Sorry, bad PC repair depot slang...     SATA-6 was shorthand for SATA-6GB/s; I guess that's officially SATA III, but not all SATA III drives or controllers can actually DO 6GB/s due to compatibility issues between controllers, cabling, sunspots, the whims of Intel... 

So we generally said SATA-6 only when we knew it was "a SATA-6GB/s drive installed where it can actually do 6GB/s". When you're deciding whether to image a roomful of PCs via PXe boot over the network or via a handful of USB HDDs or by "sistering a second drive in the box", it makes a big difference.

EDIT after looking again: Which only applies to the SSD in this case, not the CDROM, even though it is on the same SATA-III interface and...  I guess I was looking at the SSD when I typed than and just had a total brain-fart.

mnem
D'oh!

[Robert763]

Nothin in the cabinet. See sketch from pole piig to drier. If neutral fails ALL the house (phase A) loads will return via the link in the dryer (and the dryer cord) even if the dryer is not in use. No fuse protection either

Your diagram doesn't exactly represent real-world conditions; this is more like reality. We'll ignore the CBs at the panel for the sake of this example, which may or may not trip, particularly if GFCI.

There is no GND at the cabinet unless it's brought there within the power cord. The dryer sits on plastic feet, on a non-conductive floor, etc. This is a house, not a airplane. 

That path to GND through the cabinet does not exist unless you happen to jam the dryer up against a grounded metal electrical box or pipes, as I said earlier.

This means the condition you describe can really only exist if:

A) you have the NEUTRAL wire fail at the MAINS in the CB box
and
B) a 4-wire plug is used
and
C) the thin green/yellow PG jumper is left connected in between.

Which part C we've repeatedly stated wasn't done, and we all know is wrong.

The path from to the GND/NEUTRAL bus in the CB panel circled in green here does not exist UNLESS the 4-wire cord is used; with the 3-wire cord, your Neutral and "GND" are the same leg.

For it to matter with a 3-wire cord, you'd have to improperly wire with the NEUTRAL wire at the cabinet and leave the thin green/yellow PG jumper to the NEUTRAL bus in the terminal strip, as I stated before.

mnem
*nuking a SSD with Win10 for fun & profit*

  I'm illustrating the conditions with a 4 wire cord AND the "Earth" * and Neutral linked at the dryer, an INCORRECT condition
There MUST be a connection between Neutral and "Earth" either at the power pole transformer / substation or where the power enters the building otherwise the "Earth" is useless.

Why do you always twist things around. I was not even questioning anything ANYONE had said 
I conly made the observation becase it is not immediately obvious that with an errant connection between the house neutral and earth in the drier a neutral fault will overload the link and dryer cord.
GFCI /RCD is irrelevant because the incorrect connection of neutral and ground will trip it


* "Earth" means the Protective ground conductor, Green , Green/Yellow wire and the metalwork of the dryer. It may or may not be connected to an actual conductor stuck in the earth somewhere

[mansaxel]

When you're deciding whether to image a roomful of PCs via PXe boot over the network or via a handful of USB HDDs, it makes a big difference.

Ahhh, PXE boot. Combine it with IEEE 802.1x, "authentication before everything else", for a cross-department clusterfuck of Proportions. We're currently trying to get that to work at work. Very involved.

[mnementh]

Nothin in the cabinet. See sketch from pole piig to drier. If neutral fails ALL the house (phase A) loads will return via the link in the dryer (and the dryer cord) even if the dryer is not in use. No fuse protection either

Your diagram doesn't exactly represent real-world conditions; this is more like reality. We'll ignore the CBs at the panel for the sake of this example, which may or may not trip, particularly if GFCI.

There is no GND at the cabinet unless it's brought there within the power cord. The dryer sits on plastic feet, on a non-conductive floor, etc. This is a house, not a airplane. 

That path to GND through the cabinet does not exist unless you happen to jam the dryer up against a grounded metal electrical box or pipes, as I said earlier.

This means the condition you describe can really only exist if:

A) you have the NEUTRAL wire fail at the MAINS in the CB box
and
B) a 4-wire plug is used
and
C) the thin green/yellow PG jumper is left connected in between.

Which part C we've repeatedly stated wasn't done, and we all know is wrong.

The path from to the GND/NEUTRAL bus in the CB panel circled in green here does not exist UNLESS the 4-wire cord is used; with the 3-wire cord, your Neutral and "GND" are the same leg.

For it to matter with a 3-wire cord, you'd have to improperly wire with the NEUTRAL wire at the cabinet and leave the thin green/yellow PG jumper to the NEUTRAL bus in the terminal strip, as I stated before.

mnem
*nuking a SSD with Win10 for fun & profit*

  I'm illustrating the conditions with a 4 wire cord AND the "Earth" * and Neutral linked at the dryer, an INCORRECT condition
There MUST be a connection between Neutral and "Earth" either at the power pole transformer / substation or where the power enters the building otherwise the "Earth" is useless.

Why do you always twist things around. I was not even questioning anything ANYONE had said 
I conly made the observation becase it is not immediately obvious that with an errant connection between the house neutral and earth in the drier a neutral fault will overload the link and dryer cord.
GFCI /RCD is irrelevant because the incorrect connection of neutral and ground will trip it


* "Earth" means the Protective ground conductor, Green , Green/Yellow wire and the metalwork of the dryer. It may or may not be connected to an actual conductor stuck in the earth somewhere

Robert, you jumped into an existing conversation where both 3-wire and 4-wire cord installation were being discussed. You did not specify which you were talking about, nor does your diagram state any such thing clearly.

Yet when I try to clarify, and completely non-confrontationally explain what we were talking about vs what you were talking about, you take offense.

Dood... seriously. Nothing I said deserved that level of response.

mnem
*toddles off to do something... else*

[25 CPS]

Nothin in the cabinet. See sketch from pole piig to drier. If neutral fails ALL the house (phase A) loads will return via the link in the dryer (and the dryer cord) even if the dryer is not in use. No fuse protection either

Your diagram doesn't exactly represent real-world conditions; this is more like reality. We'll ignore the CBs at the panel for the sake of this example, which may or may not trip, particularly if GFCI.

There is no GND at the cabinet unless it's brought there within the power cord. The dryer sits on plastic feet, on a non-conductive floor, etc. This is a house, not a airplane. 

That path to GND through the cabinet does not exist unless you happen to jam the dryer up against a grounded metal electrical box or pipes, as I said earlier.

This means the condition you describe can really only exist if:

A) you have the NEUTRAL wire fail at the MAINS in the CB box
and
B) a 4-wire plug is used
and
C) the thin green/yellow PG jumper is left connected in between.

Which part C we've repeatedly stated wasn't done, and we all know is wrong.

The path from to the GND/NEUTRAL bus in the CB panel circled in green here does not exist UNLESS the 4-wire cord is used; with the 3-wire cord, your Neutral and "GND" are the same leg.

For it to matter with a 3-wire cord, you'd have to improperly wire with the NEUTRAL wire at the cabinet and leave the thin green/yellow PG jumper to the NEUTRAL bus in the terminal strip, as I stated before.

mnem
*nuking a SSD with Win10 for fun & profit*

This is one of the places the code requirements between Canada and US differ.  Here, dryer cords are all four wire.

One of my American friends showed me a three wire dryer socket in the house next door that was being renovated to be rented out and that's the first time I'd ever seen one.   Eeeee.

[25 CPS]

Truthfully, ever since it became clear my messages were vanishing into nowhere, I have been thinking about ordering the U1253B package from Transcat since that'd come with a warranty, current calibration, fresh OLED display, plus the carry case etc.

Order placed.  I also ordered a bunch of miscellaneous things I needed that weren't enough to get above the free shipping threshold so that took care of all that.

"Message Again"  It wouldn't be much effort to type something and hit send but I'm not even sure I'm going to bother.

Now I'm tempted to hit the "Message Again" button and send a note saying I bought a new U1253B since he didn't get back to me.

Agilent isn't the current brand name and even then Keysight isn't as widely known as Fluke, and he's got the listed the U1253B at what I'd consider a fairly reasonable price for what it is, but that means it's priced well above the cheap DMMs people flip all the time.  Have fun shifting it.  Could've had cash in hand a week ago.

[mnementh]

This is one of the places the code requirements between Canada and US differ.  Here, dryer cords are all four wire.

One of my American friends showed me a three wire dryer socket in the house next door that was being renovated to be rented out and that's the first time I'd ever seen one.   Eeeee.

Yes, but just like the US, existing 3-wire split-single-phase 240-ish volt outlet installations are evidently "grandfathered", and you are not expected to change it unless renovations to that part of the structure are being done to ready it for rental. That is pretty much the same in the US.

Two of the places we leased had reasonably new washer/dryer with a 3-wire cord; one had gas dryer.

Oh, and evidently you can rent the property out before the electrical inspection is done, too... one of the places we looked at was a duplex with a 3rd space made in the basement. The owner warned us we'd have to let the inspectors have access to the basement in a couple months to check the wiring... 

mnem
 

[Robert763]

Nothin in the cabinet. See sketch from pole piig to drier. If neutral fails ALL the house (phase A) loads will return via the link in the dryer (and the dryer cord) even if the dryer is not in use. No fuse protection either

Your diagram doesn't exactly represent real-world conditions; this is more like reality. We'll ignore the CBs at the panel for the sake of this example, which may or may not trip, particularly if GFCI.

There is no GND at the cabinet unless it's brought there within the power cord. The dryer sits on plastic feet, on a non-conductive floor, etc. This is a house, not a airplane. 

That path to GND through the cabinet does not exist unless you happen to jam the dryer up against a grounded metal electrical box or pipes, as I said earlier.

This means the condition you describe can really only exist if:

A) you have the NEUTRAL wire fail at the MAINS in the CB box
and
B) a 4-wire plug is used
and
C) the thin green/yellow PG jumper is left connected in between.

Which part C we've repeatedly stated wasn't done, and we all know is wrong.

The path from to the GND/NEUTRAL bus in the CB panel circled in green here does not exist UNLESS the 4-wire cord is used; with the 3-wire cord, your Neutral and "GND" are the same leg.

For it to matter with a 3-wire cord, you'd have to improperly wire with the NEUTRAL wire at the cabinet and leave the thin green/yellow PG jumper to the NEUTRAL bus in the terminal strip, as I stated before.

mnem
*nuking a SSD with Win10 for fun & profit*

  I'm illustrating the conditions with a 4 wire cord AND the "Earth" * and Neutral linked at the dryer, an INCORRECT condition
There MUST be a connection between Neutral and "Earth" either at the power pole transformer / substation or where the power enters the building otherwise the "Earth" is useless.

Why do you always twist things around. I was not even questioning anything ANYONE had said 
I conly made the observation becase it is not immediately obvious that with an errant connection between the house neutral and earth in the drier a neutral fault will overload the link and dryer cord.
GFCI /RCD is irrelevant because the incorrect connection of neutral and ground will trip it


* "Earth" means the Protective ground conductor, Green , Green/Yellow wire and the metalwork of the dryer. It may or may not be connected to an actual conductor stuck in the earth somewhere

Robert, you jumped into an existing conversation where both 3-wire and 4-wire cord installation were being discussed. You did not specify which you were talking about, nor does your diagram state any such thing clearly.

Yet when I try to clarify, and completely non-confrontationally explain what we were talking about vs what you were talking about, you take offense.

Dood... seriously. Nothing I said deserved that level of response.

mnem
*toddles off to do something... else*

1/The sketch shows 4 wires going to the dryer
2/ The described fault can only happen if the earth and neutral are connected at the dryer so it must be a 4 wire cord
3/ the same issue applies for any equipment if you connect the neutral and protective conductor including 3 wire 110V or european style 240V 3 wire.

How much detail did I have to give? 

[mnementh]

When you're deciding whether to image a roomful of PCs via PXe boot over the network or via a handful of USB HDDs, it makes a big difference.

Ahhh, PXE boot. Combine it with IEEE 802.1x, "authentication before everything else", for a cross-department clusterfuck of Proportions. We're currently trying to get that to work at work. Very involved.

Yeah, back at the ISD we had problems with AD/RADIUS and the relevant security policy not updating automatically, so being out-of-date; any laptop that sat off for more than a month or so, and some that were in daily use would either have to be re-imaged or if we were lucky, could force them to update policy by attempting to login over a wired connection. Evidently this was still a AD/RADIUS thing as recently as a few years ago; I helped some friends of my wife get back on by advising that they try connecting via hardline and it worked, and restored their ability to connect via Wi-Fi. 

mnem
Or a old RADIUS deployment that was never updated in all these years...

[mrjoda]

I brought home some crazy shit Kepco BOP 50-8M.  An four quadrant 50V 8A (bipolar power amplifier) PSU from old times. Such a simple device with a such of variability. Unfortunetaly, programming edge connectors are missing so I have to find a adequate replacement and wire it according to manual.

[mansaxel]

This is one of the places the code requirements between Canada and US differ.  Here, dryer cords are all four wire.

One of my American friends showed me a three wire dryer socket in the house next door that was being renovated to be rented out and that's the first time I'd ever seen one.   Eeeee.

In Yoorp, a dryer can have 3, 4 or 5 wires. Most have 3. Mine is connected with a simple CEE 7/7 plug. Commercial models usually are 4- or 5-wire, where the 4-wire variant can be Delta-coupled  3-phase or 2 out of 3 phases plus N and PE. 5-wire of course is 3 phases plus N and PE.

Being slightly obsessed with phase balancing, I of course prefer Delta loads. Such beautiful.

[bd139]

I just plug my dryer in the wall 

[mansaxel]

When you're deciding whether to image a roomful of PCs via PXe boot over the network or via a handful of USB HDDs, it makes a big difference.

Ahhh, PXE boot. Combine it with IEEE 802.1x, "authentication before everything else", for a cross-department clusterfuck of Proportions. We're currently trying to get that to work at work. Very involved.

Yeah, back at the ISD we had problems with AD/RADIUS and the relevant security policy not updating automatically, so being out-of-date; any laptop that sat off for more than a month or so, and some that were in daily use would either have to be re-imaged or if we were lucky, could force them to update policy by attempting to login over a wired connection. Evidently this was still a AD/RADIUS thing as recently as a few years ago; I helped some friends of my wife get back on by advising that they try connecting via hardline and it worked, and restored their ability to connect via Wi-Fi. 

mnem
Or a old RADIUS deployment that was never updated in all these years...

It is X.509 certificates that expire that are the problem, together with a baseline check of patch levels; if you don't have all those, you'll not be allowed in. To keep a machine current, you need to have a running dialogue with its support systems. That can be done more or less robustly. It's rumoured that a F-35 will have to phone home to Texas every so often or it'll be hard to get off the ground. Another example is 70s warbirds that are more complicated to keep flying because their maintenance support systems were online as opposed to paper trails of earlier planes: I know that the SAAB 37 Viggen can fly at airshows only because people restored backups and made the old systems operative again.

The current unpleasantness in Eastern Europe has had similar consequences on aircraft under maintenance blockade. That's a clusterfuck of Proportions.

[Vince]

I brought home some crazy shit Kepco BOP 50-8M.  An four quadrant 50V 8A (bipolar power amplifier) PSU from old times. Such a simple device with a such of variability. Unfortunetaly, programming edge connectors are missing so I have to find a adequate replacement and wire it according to manual.

Sorry but as always here, unless we can see it, it simply does not exist !