Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Yeh, made an analogue meter years ago when doing my apprenticeship, company wouldn't pay for what was the standard back then, an AVO 7 so had an Taylor meter and built one up to do the testing that I needed, worked really well, it was still in use when I left the company as well.

[Specmaster]

I made an offer on that TTi TF930 in the end, seeing as it was still current model, thought I could either get it, check it, and get a wall wart for it and then either keep and sell my other one, or just simply sit on it a bit until they've got rid of all of theirs and stick it back on Ebay for profit?

[bd139]

Good stuff. Looks like a decent bit of kit. It has built in batteries (NiMh) and you can power it off USB if you want.

I’m interested in the TCXO, external ref input and USB myself. Will be good for measuring VFO drift over time without gmhaving to state at anything. Also my DG1022Z counter is total shit. I’m selling that entire unit when I see a function gen turn up cheap.

[HalFET]

I just bought a Delta Elektronica E030-1 

[Specmaster]

I just bought a Delta Elektronica E030-1 

Digital or the analogue one?

[Specmaster]

Good stuff. Looks like a decent bit of kit. It has built in batteries (NiMh) and you can power it off USB if you want.

I’m interested in the TCXO, external ref input and USB myself. Will be good for measuring VFO drift over time without gmhaving to state at anything. Also my DG1022Z counter is total shit. I’m selling that entire unit when I see a function gen turn up cheap.

They have a TTi TGP110 (10MHz) for sale as well, any good to you? I was looking at for scope calibration, but it doesn't do as much as my Heathkit calibrator does so I've taken it off my list.

You're still going for a Keysight scope later then I take it?

[HalFET]

I just bought a Delta Elektronica E030-1 

Digital or the analogue one?

Old fashioned analogue one, I have a more modern rack module one here somewhere, been meaning to put it on the fleaBay after some tear down pictures. 

[Specmaster]

I just bought a Delta Elektronica E030-1 

Digital or the analogue one?

Old fashioned analogue one, I have a more modern rack module one here somewhere, been meaning to put it on the fleaBay after some tear down pictures. 

Nice, it's probably a bit to sophisticated for my needs, I use them basically to power up equipment that would normally be powered from a wall wart or batteries like portable radios and the like so I have these which are ideal for my uses at the moment and not to expensive either, so thats a real advantage.
Left one is a switcher, a bit more rough and ready than the other which is a real heavy beast of a linear variety with noisy fans when they kick in. 
 

[URI]

I got outbid today on a Hewlett Packard 81110A Pulse/Pattern Generator for parts on ebay!   

The display looked good so I considered it a good occasion to get a replacement display for my 8110A (it's the same unobtanium CFD*).

I set my sniping limit to 357,-EUR (to be sure..) when it was at about 35,- EUR 24h before.
Today my wife and I visited my parents and I was sure to be the owner of the 81110A when we got home.
I could have won it for 163,- EUR but someone wanted to be sure also and outbid me on the last second. 

IT'S SO UGLY NOT FEELING GOOD NOW...

Have to calm down. Have a TEA or something.. Ommmm. 

Edited after having calmed down to consciousness again: OK, money saved to be spent on other test gear.** 

*-oh, it's not completely unobtanium. You can get it for about $1300,- -so it's practically unobtanium..
**-still grumpy, but improving. Tomorrow's another day. 

[HalFET]

They look very unassuming and do come with some limitations, but the overall design quality on them looked good at first glance. I got the 150SX75-75 here, does either 2x15-75V 1A or 30-150V 1A. I pulled it open after I pulled it from the trash (not kidding on this one), and it's a beauty and a joy forever to behold. They did not mess around with the heatsinking on these things, it's not quite TDK/Lambda but not bad either.


& Condolences on the pulse gen

[neo]

Rejoice, TEA! REJOICE!! The 8400A it lives! I recapped the supply, voltages dead on, still stuck so i took out the A to D sprayed a bit of contact cleaner on the card edge contacts and reinserted. Still stuck so i played with the sampling pot, success! SUCCESS!!

Pot is a bit scratchy so i'll contact clean it as well, now to the buttons, a keycap is missing so i can borrow that from the other one.

As for the sticky ones, contact cleaner and perhaps a bit of sewing machine oil if their stubborn?

Regardless, it is almost dead on it, reads 1.216 as 1.213, thats as far as i tested it.

[tggzzz]

I got outbid today on a Hewlett Packard 81110A Pulse/Pattern Generator for parts on ebay!   

TBH I've never found a good reason to have a general purpose pattern generator.

I've never cared about anything other than logic levels.
Every time I've needed to generate a pattern, the pattern has been so complex I've had to roll my own special purpose generator.

The first one was almost 40 years ago, and had astable multivibrators (controlled by pots) which clocked a 16-bit shift register.

(But I'm currently irked that a Tek 485 went for more than I was prepared to pay; looks like sniping software was used).

[Specmaster]

Rejoice, TEA! REJOICE!! The 8400A it lives! I recapped the supply, voltages dead on, still stuck so i took out the A to D sprayed a bit of contact cleaner on the card edge contacts and reinserted. Still stuck so i played with the sampling pot, success! SUCCESS!!

Pot is a bit scratchy so i'll contact clean it as well, now to the buttons, a keycap is missing so i can borrow that from the other one.

As for the sticky ones, contact cleaner and perhaps a bit of sewing machine oil if their stubborn?

Regardless, it is almost dead on it, reads 1.216 as 1.213, thats as far as i tested it.

This then I take is the latest one you got as you had already recapped the supply on the other? Its really great news though so that nixie clock now goes back to the back of the queue I guess, well done.

[cncjerry]

I got outbid today on a Hewlett Packard 81110A Pulse/Pattern Generator for parts on ebay!   

I'm sorry, but publicly stating that on this thread should be grounds for being banned.  This is the thread for people that will bid 3x the going list price for something they need to complete an even dozen.

[neo]

Rejoice, TEA! REJOICE!! The 8400A it lives! I recapped the supply, voltages dead on, still stuck so i took out the A to D sprayed a bit of contact cleaner on the card edge contacts and reinserted. Still stuck so i played with the sampling pot, success! SUCCESS!!

Pot is a bit scratchy so i'll contact clean it as well, now to the buttons, a keycap is missing so i can borrow that from the other one.

As for the sticky ones, contact cleaner and perhaps a bit of sewing machine oil if their stubborn?

Regardless, it is almost dead on it, reads 1.216 as 1.213, thats as far as i tested it.

This then I take is the latest one you got as you had already recapped the supply on the other? Its really great news though so that nixie clock now goes back to the back of the queue I guess, well done.

Yes the new one,  i still might make a clock out of the other one, no display for the seconds but it has enough left intact for hours/minutes. 

The new one is rev 3 and there is a difference between it and the old one, other than the year i mean. I can't see it but i know there is, wonder if i can use the options from the old one in this one?

[Specmaster]

I got outbid today on a Hewlett Packard 81110A Pulse/Pattern Generator for parts on ebay!   

I'm sorry, but publicly stating that on this thread should be grounds for being banned.  This is the thread for people that will bid 3x the going list price for something they need to complete an even dozen.

Nice try but no cigar, we strive to get as much test gear as we can for our many, more test gear acquired equals less landfill later so the money saved by getting a bargain means we can use that extra money you speak of to buy even more lovely test gear. Lots of us buy things we don't really have a need for just because it is test gear, so no need to chuck away more then we have to is there? 

[URI]

I got outbid today on a Hewlett Packard 81110A Pulse/Pattern Generator for parts on ebay!   

TBH I've never found a good reason to have a general purpose pattern generator.

OK, but I just looked for the CFD..   
Perhaps it would have been easy to repair -would I have been using it for parts then? No.. 

[MadTux]

OK, but I just looked for the CFD..   
Perhaps it would have been easy to repair -would I have been using it for parts then? No.. 

Doubtful, In my experience, HP packed their 8000 series pulse/pattern/function generators (afaik mostly made by HP Germany in Böblingen) full of custom unobtainium  chips. Usually, the faster the generator, the more custom chips were used and the less reliable they are. Sure, sometimes you're lucky and it's only bad caps or a smoked output stage. But the chance of getting something with bad unobtainium is significantly higher with these units. I sold all of them. Only HP pulse generator I keep is the HP 5359A. I've had bad experience with repairing HP 8082A, 8112A, 8116A, 8165A so far. BTW, how does 8110A look from the inside?

BTW2: How about this as a source for displays, just found it, don't know wether it's legit:
http://www.tzsupplies.com/keysight-agilent-hp-boards-and-i3778484/

[bd139]

Thats an analogue meter? So whats wrong with AVO's amd Simpsons, I thought that they were also rated meters?

The 427A was high impedance (10M) FET multimeter. Avos are very unreliable (it's difficult finding one that isn't wonky these days), have strange 15v batteries that don't exist. Plus you drop one and that's the end of it. Simpson were pretty good I will say, at least in the later revisions, but again still low impedance.

Edit: actually fuck it, I'm going to build an analogue meter

Several fuck-its later ... getting somewhere. Had some crap lying around. Universal meter doodah. 300mV @ ~1.5Tohm --> 100uA conversion. Spot on linearity and power supply rejection. 4.5mA consumption. Even made a PCB quickly. Went a bit overkill on the "div diodes".  Will sort out a front end divider (have done the calculations already) and an enclosure next week.

Need a "build your own test gear" thread as well now

[Specmaster]

Just to muddy the waters on the debate over the T12 952 soldering stations, the Quicko ones seem to use 4 pin systems but the demo video clearly shows all the various, calibration, sleep, shut off, boost, wake up, set-up etc working just fine, but if I do a search on Aliexp for a replacement T12 952 handle assembly as an upgrade from the normal 936 style to 9051, it shows a 8 pin plug?? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Soldering-iron-handle-FX-9501-for-soldering-staion-951-952-free-shipping/32628645931.html. 

At least by ordering it initially as a preassembled unit, we should get a working solution but for an upgrade to a more balanced handle, it might be a bit of a lottery and so more research will required I think. At least the replacement controllers are not that expensive in the grand scale of things if that is what is required for the upgrade??

[Specmaster]

Thats an analogue meter? So whats wrong with AVO's amd Simpsons, I thought that they were also rated meters?

The 427A was high impedance (10M) FET multimeter. Avos are very unreliable (it's difficult finding one that isn't wonky these days), have strange 15v batteries that don't exist. Plus you drop one and that's the end of it. Simpson were pretty good I will say, at least in the later revisions, but again still low impedance.

Edit: actually fuck it, I'm going to build an analogue meter

Several fuck-its later ... getting somewhere. Had some crap lying around. Universal meter doodah. 300mV @ ~1.5Tohm --> 100uA conversion. Spot on linearity and power supply rejection. 4.5mA consumption. Even made a PCB quickly. Went a bit overkill on the "div diodes".  Will sort out a front end divider (have done the calculations already) and an enclosure next week.

Need a "build your own test gear" thread as well now

Bloody hell, you didn't hang about on that did you, did you mean 1.5Tohm? If so then the burden voltage of that is going to almost nil? What functions and ranges are you going to endow this work of art with?

[bd139]

I'm pretty quick with the prototyping

The CA3140 has about 1.5Tohm input impedance. It'll have 10M straight voltage divider in front of it with following ranges to start with: 0.3, 1.5, 3, 15, 30, 150. I could go up to 100M but that makes it a little tetchy. Plus I will use it with a standard RF probe.

Realistically it won't hit 1.5Tohm as it has a low pass filter which is likely a little leaky but it'll get close.

I will leave half of the rotary switch unused and it might get another set of ranges based on ideas and requirements. Time will tell

[beanflying]

The first of two 

The only question now is Lan or USB to gpib

[neo]

Only one of my two Hickok 209As work, shockingly _^(not) its the older one with the vacuum tube rectifiers still in it that is nonfunctional.

[mnementh]

Just to muddy the waters on the debate over the T12 952 soldering stations, the Quicko ones seem to use 4 pin systems but the demo video clearly shows all the various, calibration, sleep, shut off, boost, wake up, set-up etc working just fine, but if I do a search on Aliexp for a replacement T12 952 handle assembly as an upgrade from the normal 936 style to 9051, it shows a 8 pin plug?? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Soldering-iron-handle-FX-9501-for-soldering-staion-951-952-free-shipping/32628645931.html. 

At least by ordering it initially as a preassembled unit, we should get a working solution but for an upgrade to a more balanced handle, it might be a bit of a lottery and so more research will required I think. At least the replacement controllers are not that expensive in the grand scale of things if that is what is required for the upgrade??

No, that handle is not for the OLED T12 controller, it is wired with an 8-pin DIN for the actual Hakko FX-951 soldering station, or more likely, as a replacement for the Singapore-made clone sold on Banggood and sometimes on AliEx. It will not have the motion sensor ball/mercury switch needed for the sleep function.

You need to specifically search for "OLED T12 Soldering" to get components for that system.

Thats an analogue meter? So whats wrong with AVO's amd Simpsons, I thought that they were also rated meters?

The 427A was high impedance (10M) FET multimeter. Avos are very unreliable (it's difficult finding one that isn't wonky these days), have strange 15v batteries that don't exist. Plus you drop one and that's the end of it. Simpson were pretty good I will say, at least in the later revisions, but again still low impedance.

Edit: actually fuck it, I'm going to build an analogue meter

Several fuck-its later ... getting somewhere. Had some crap lying around. Universal meter doodah. 300mV @ ~1.5Tohm --> 100uA conversion. Spot on linearity and power supply rejection. 4.5mA consumption. Even made a PCB quickly. Went a bit overkill on the "div diodes".  Will sort out a front end divider (have done the calculations already) and an enclosure next week.

Need a "build your own test gear" thread as well now

And here's what the other side looks like... 


mnem